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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
THE MINUTE LIFE OF THE SEA. 
The most abundant (of this minute plant life of the sea) are 
probably the diatoms which form an isolated group of very curious 
little one-cell algae. Each cell is enclosed in a little flinty case 
very strangely ornamented by artificial-looking dots and lines. 
Some are circular, others rectangular, some are torpedo-shaped, 
whilst others are quite indescribable without illustrations. 
These diatoms are as important to the harvest of the sea as the 
grasses are to man and his domestic animals, for it is upon diatoms 
that those minute animals feed who themselves supply cuttle- 
fishes, ordinary fishes, and whales with daily nourishment. 
There seems to be two crops of diatoms in most parts of the. 
world, one in spring and the other in late summer, but on this 
very essential point our information is by no means clear. 
In Southern Newfoundland, at depths of 5,000 to 6,000 
metres (2,500 to 3,280 fathoms,) there are extraordinary quant- 
ities of the dead shells of a circular form (Coscinodiscus radiatus). 
This is the place where the cold Labrador current mingles with 
the warm water of the Gulf Stream, and the consequence is a 
continual massacre of the diatoms which sink to the depths and 
are there forming the mud or clay of the bottom. 
Such diatoms, even if they do escape the codfish, have not 
necessarily wasted their lives. Each minute cell contains a drop 
of oil, and such oil-drops accumulating in the muddy deposits 
may become infinitely valuable stores of petroleum. 
“Chocolate creams” and “wax” candles made from them may 
be very useful and agreeable after a few more geological aeons. 
— Botany of To-day. 
