16 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
at Second street and Bunker Hill avenue, another on Flower 
street, between Second and Fourth streets. In fact, there is 
searcely an outcrop, or a street cutting, in this city, that does 
not show some diatomaceous earth. The forms, however, of 
Los Angeles diatoms are not rare or remarkable. <A large 
Coscinodiscus is extremely common. 
The most extensive deposits in this locality is at Redondo 
Beach, about two miles from the city. Tere, the entire bluff, 
about eighty feet high, and at least a quarter of a mile 
on the sea front, is composed of diatomaceous earth. As a 
similar deposit crops out five miles back from the sea in all 
probability they are continuous. Here the earth is of all 
conditionss and colors, soft, friable, in loose, thin layers; white, 
compact yellows, brown almost black. Like all the Coast 
bluffs, this place shows a surface of pinnacles, abrupt fronts, 
huge masses that have loosened and slid part way down and 
debris of all sizes at the base, but all here is of unmixed dia- 
tomaceous earth. Throughout this deposit there are flinty 
masses looking like petrified wood, which are supposed to be 
metamorphic diatom remains. It is called Diatomite. Speci- 
mens from Redondo have been distributed all over the world, 
and the locality is famous for richness in forms and number 
of specimens. Unhke chalk or clay, which it somewhat re- 
sembles, this earth is of extremely hight weight. 
The compact varieties float. At Redondo sometimes rounded 
pieces from the size of a marble to lumps a foot across, are 
strewn on the beach for a mile or more, where they have been 
-washed ashore after floating and being rolled about by the 
waves. It is possible that the famous “‘floating find’’ of a 
number of years ago that was caught by fishermen off Santa 
Monica, was a bit of flotsam from the Redondo quarry. ‘This 
plece was unique in number of species, and is one of the most 
famous lumps of the world. Its resting place before it began 
its voyage is unknown and regrettable. and is as fondly sought 
as a “‘lost mine.’’ 
Their Beauty Under the Microscope. 
Diatoms have been used for a long time as “‘tests’’ of the 
power of objectives, because of the variety and symmetry of 
their designs and the great range of size. 
One cannot consider diatoms without admiring the skill of 
miseropists, who mount them; and it is a question of which 
excites the most admiration, the marvelous beauty of these 
plants, or the rare dexterity of the scientists. Indeed, the 
compositions of E. Thum, of Leipsic, are so surprisingly won, 
aerful that they are called the ‘“Oh my!’’ shdes. The diatoms 
