2-2 



Philip : Into'esfing Diatoms i)i Wharfedale. 



the dry bed of what had once been a mountaui torrent of some- 

 considerable size. It sides were rounded by water action, and 

 in places hollowed rocks showed vestiges of pot-hole formation. 

 Possibly in winter there may be some water in it still, as there 

 were not many plants g-rowingf in the very bottom ; but rag- 

 wort, toadflax, thistles and grass covered the sides, so the 

 days of its strength must be long past. Winding our way up 

 its picturesque serpentine course, we emerged at last in an 

 upland valley, remote and wild, with nothing but bare hills all 

 round us, and no sign of man or man's handiwork anywhere in- 

 sight, except only a tank for watering the sheep. And here we 

 found all that was left of the once mighty spring that had 

 excavated the deep cutting through which we had passed, fallea 

 from its high estate and equal only to providing sufficient water 

 to fill a sheep tank. Observing on the sides of the tank some 

 brownish-coloured lumps of jelly, I bottled two or three of 

 them, to find, when I got home and placed my booty under the 

 microscope, that this gathering contained some interesting 

 rarities. First, Amphora Norinanii Rab., found by the Hull; 

 naturalist, George Norman, on the walls of an orchid house in 

 1853, and since then unrecorded in Yorkshire. Dr. Van Heurck's 

 collaborateur, M. Delogne, found it in a similar situation in the 

 Botanic Gardens at Brussels. But that it is not confined to* 

 such semi-tropical conditions I have proof in another slide 

 of Mr. Norman's, of a gathering from Cambuslang Bridge, near 

 Glasgow. This slide* is dated 1857, four years after the 

 original discovery. iVnd here it was in Wharfedale ! 



Second, and very plentiful, Cymhella microcephala Grun.,. 

 presumably a new record for the West Riding, as it does 

 not appear in West's 'Alga Flora,' though I found it myself 

 some years ago in drippings from cliffs at Flamborough, in the 

 East Riding. 



Thirdly, Cymhella leptoceras Grun., a strikingly beautiful 

 form which I had never seen before, and which seems to- 

 be a new record for Yorkshire. 



The bulk of the gathering consisted of the above forms along 

 with the common Achnayithes linearis W. Sm. In addition) 

 to these there were present in small numbers the following : — 

 Achnanthes lanceolata Breb., Meridian circulare Ag., Naviciila 

 viridula Kutz, Nitzschia denticula Grun., Pijinularia borealis 

 Ehr., Synedra acus (Kutz) Grun., Synedra pulchella Kutz, 

 Synedra ulna var. longissima. 



* In the Hull Museum. 



Naturalist, 



