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integration of the rocks this was oxidized and converted into 

 sulphate. This was carried in solution in the same waters in 

 which the deposits accumulated. Here some of it was captured 

 by the carbon of contemporaneous plant remains and converted 

 into pyrite or marcasite. There was only sufficient carbonaceous 

 material however, to capture a small amount of the sulphate in 

 the waters, and the surplus sulphate remained in solution in 

 connection with the deposits. Whenever these are exposed to the 

 oxygen of the air the surplus sulphate is oxidized and converted 

 into limonite. The limonite may also have been formed from 

 the sulphate by organic oxygen in connection with the plant 

 remains. Concretions of clay ironstones enclosing plant remains 

 may have been formed in this way." 



After the field study some of the party went to the home of 

 Robert Hagelstein, Honorary Curator of Myxomycetes of the 

 New York Botanical Garden, in Mineola, to see his wonderful 

 collections of Myxomycetes (Slime Moulds) and diatoms. Mr. 

 Hagelstein is an international authority on both these forms 

 of low orders of life so extremely beautiful in microscopic de- 

 tails. He has tens of thousands of specimens, some collected 

 nearby on Long Island ; others received from many parts of the 

 world, arranged in admirable order, in the attic of his home. He 

 has numerous correspondents who exchange specimens and ask 

 his identifications. One collector, who sent specimens for his 

 opinion, was no less a personage than the Emperor of Japan, 

 who found them in the Imperial Gardens in Tokio. Mr. Hagel- 

 stein has a unique and valuable library on myxomycetes, and 

 also on diatoms, and a formidable battery of microscopic ap- 

 paratus for their study. His enthusiasm for these minute but 

 exquisitely beautiful beings, is infectious; when I become more 

 satisfactorily acquainted with lichens, I think I shall have to 

 take up myxomycetes, which are often associated with the 

 former. While hunting for lichens later in the summer, in a dark 

 ravine on the Appalachian Trail on the east foot of High Point, 

 on Kittatiny Mountain, Susses County, N. J. I found- a very 

 beautiful slime mould, Diachaea splendens, a dense aggregation 

 of tiny white-stemmed, iridescent blue-topped stalks, each 

 about 2 or 3 millimetres high, which Mr. Hagelstein was pleased 

 to receive, as he had not obtained it hitherto from this region. 



R. H. Torrey 



