SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



253 



present few or many of these granular substances 

 in the protoplasmic mass, it becomes more trans- 

 parent or hyaline, or darker and more granular in 

 appearance, and on this account it has been deemed 

 advisable to distinguish the kinds of protoplasm, as 



;m, or hyaloplasm, and endoflasm, or granular 

 plasm. The ectoplasm has been considered as a 

 peripheral layer, and is a specially differentiated 

 organ of cell-structure, endowed with special 

 functions, and there apparently exists considerable 

 truth in this assumption from an experiment per- 

 formed by Hertwig on some ripe eggs of Rana 



.'.ria. He carefully pierced with a glass 

 needle the eggs which had entered the oviduct, and 

 were surrounded with a gelatinous coating, the 

 puncture not being visible, nor the yolk matter 

 able to exude. Sometime after fertilization 

 had taken place, yolk matter began to exude 



through the puncture, and to form a ridge between 

 the membrane of the egg and the yolk. This 

 welling out was caused by the act of fertilization, 

 for the entrance of the spermatozoon has the 

 property of stimulating the surface layer to con- 

 tract energetically. Hence the piercing must have 

 caused a wound in the peripheral layer, which had 

 not time to heal before the fertilization took place, 

 and through which the yolk only pressed out after 

 the contraction caused by fertilization had set up. 

 A considerable time having ensued between the 

 piercing of the eggs and the act of fertilization, the 

 experiment apparently demonstrates that the 

 peripheral layer possesses a structure differing 

 somewhat from the rest of the cell contents, and 

 also that it possesses properties peculiar to 

 itself (so). 



(To be continued.) 



FOSSIL BACILLARIA IN NEW JERSEY. 



By Arthur M. Edwards, M.D. 



A S it led to my studying and so finding the true 

 •*^ origin of freshwater layers of Diatomaceae, 

 I may herein set forth the finding of fossil remains 

 of bacillaria in New Jersey, U.S. It will also 

 tend to show how those atomics came about, also 

 how and when their beginning became. I will 

 therefore state just how I recognized and lived 

 almost upon one of those layers which I had for 

 years been gathering from different quarters of 

 the globe. 



It was in 1S90 that I discovered this deposit 

 about four miles from Newark, in New Jersey, 

 where there was then in construction a railroad, a 

 branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, that was to 

 run from Plainfield to Jersey City, to connect the 

 main road with New York. At this point it was 

 laid across two lakes, one unnamed, the other 

 Weequahick Lake. This is an old Indian name 

 for a small lake at the head of Bound Creek, 

 which separates Essex from Union County in New 

 Jersey. Weequahick Lake is in the longest 

 diameter, the south-west, about three quarters of 

 a mile long, by one quarter of a mile broad 

 It has high gravel hills around it, except at 

 one entrance, where it empties by Bound Creek 

 Into Newark I'.ay, and »o Into New York Harbour. 

 It is marshy in some places, very shallow, with 

 open water at the head and in the centre The 

 coast of New Jersey is sinking, and eventually the 

 brackish water will 6 the lake from the 



north-west, but the coast has previously been 

 down once at least, and salt-water and diatoms, or 

 bacillaria. as they are more properly Called, have 

 flowed in. I'art of the embankment of the railroad 

 sank and crowded up the bottom of the lake, 



forming a ridge six or seven feet high along the 

 road bed. This I found to be made up of two 

 layers, the lowest consisting of freshwater 

 bacillaria with shells of mollusca. The uppermost 

 bed was made up of the same salt water mud 

 found in the meadows between Newark and Jersey 

 City, and contained salt-water bacillaria. Beneath 

 them all was the gravel of the glacial moraine 

 which prevails here. This does not contain any 

 bacillaria, and is composed of coarse gravel with 

 boulders interspersed. The freshwater strata in 

 this locality were at least eight feet thick, and 

 made up of the usual fluviatile forms. Upon this 

 was a layer of freshwater mollusca. Then came a 

 mixture of freshwater and salt-water forms ; and 

 above all the layer of salt-water types. On the 

 top, now forming, were freshwater forms which 

 are now living. 



From the examination of this and other strata in 

 New Jersey, I have come to the conclusion that 

 the land was first covered with ice, and as this 

 receded, streams were formed of icy water which 

 brought down clay. In this icy water bacillaria 

 multiplied and formed the infusorial earth of the 

 older microscopists. In certain places depressions 

 were formed in the gravel, in which the clay 

 accumulated, and these are known in New Jersey 

 as "kettle holes" In Massachusetts they are 

 known as " dungeons," being often several miles 

 across, and are very common ; but they were only 

 on the edge of the ice. So we can know where 

 the edge of the ice came, by noticing where the 

 "kettle holes" and lakelets exist now. There 



' imy .ni'i I'liy.i- 



oloKy.' M..iv.ir (London, 1893.) p. ij. 



