"However great this addition to the number of facts serving to elucidate the natural history of these most interesting organisms may have been, the same cannot, unfortunately, be said regarding our knowledge of their organic development and general economy. This lamentable condition of things must be attributed to the too natural desire which observers entertain to associate their name with the discovery of a new form, to which end, consequently, the majority devote themselves. And an additional reason may be found in the difficulties which are met with in the investigation of the mode of development of organisms of such astonishing minuteness, which renders it almost a matter of chance when we are able to observe the various phases of the organic life of the Diatomacae. Whence arises the necessity of examining with the utmost attention everything that is presented in the field of the microscope, and especially in the case of living diatoms, which should be daily observed at all seasons to enable us to watch all the epochs of their development."