38 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



rapidity of motion with joy, and slowness with pain 

 — moves forward, and so the process is again and 

 again repeated. Marvel of marvels in this world of 

 wonders, that a globule of jelly, destitute of any 

 external integument, should thus put forth such 

 attenuated filaments, the atoms of which not only 

 cohere, but serve the double office of organs of loco- 

 motion and of cables mooring it to its anchorage ! 

 Yet so it is ; and the factor in this wonder is that 

 mystery of mysteries — that principle which we call 

 life, the secret of which we are ever striving to pene- 

 trate, but which we, living in an age of electricity and 

 steam, seem as far off from doing as were the sages 

 who a hundred generations agone strove to fathom 

 its profound depths. 



Unendowed with the complex organisations of 

 animals higher in the scale than themselves, these 

 tiny things of beauty yet perform the varied functions 

 of life efficiently, exercising a most important influence 

 in Nature's economy. 



When the naturalist contemplates the labours of 



Fig 23. — Discorbina globularis {Rosalina varians, Schultze), 

 after Carpenter. 



these inconspicuous organisms, he is overwhelmed 

 with a feeling of wonder that, in the far past, they 

 should have contributed more than any other animated 

 creature to the formation of the solid crust of the 

 earth. In deep abysses of the ocean they still con- 

 stitute almost the only material of its oozy bed, and 

 possibly — nay, may it not be said probably ? — they 

 are yet building up, beneath the waters, continents 

 for the habitation of future generations. 



"Whole ranges of mountains in various parts of the 

 world, are composed of these tiny creatures, and vast 

 dejiosits of them, spreading in the aggregate over 

 many thousands of square miles, have been traced in 

 Hindostan, Egypt, the Holy Land, and Arabia. 

 These minute organisms constitute the mass of that 

 pure white substance which has given — so it is said — 

 its name of Albion (Alba, white) to Britain's happy 

 land ; and how inconceivably vast these hosts, when it 

 is remembered that this formation alone once ex- 

 tended in a north-westerly and south-easterly direction 

 fram Ireland to the Crimea— a distance of upwards 



of 1 100 miles ; its breadth from the south of Sweden 

 to the south of Bordeaux being (allowing for breaks 

 caused by denudation) about 840 miles ; its thickness 

 is this country averaging from 600 to 800 feet. 



Imagine, if you can, reader, the myriads whose 

 remains compose a single cubic foot of chalk, then 

 endeavour to form some conception of the myriads of 

 myriads that compose Soo cubic feet — and then — 

 But there the thought is overwhelming, " in midway 

 flight even imagination tires." 



Those who desire to examine and preserve these 

 beautiful objects need experience no difficulty in ob- 

 taining them, as they abound in the waters of the 

 ocean in every part of the globe, existing in the 

 greatest profusion in the seas of the warmest regions 

 of the earth. They may be found in great abundance 

 on the English coast, in the ooze of oyster beds, in 



Fig. 24. — Beautiful specimen, probably a Rotalia, viewed as 

 a transparent object (X 35). 



the roots of the Laminaria, and on the zoophyte - 

 clothed rocks, and frequently occur in vast numbers 

 in the sand of the sea shore. I have sometimes col- 

 lected myriads of Miliola from the hollows of ripple- 

 marked sand in the neighbourhood of Margate — and 

 these, with one or two of the nautiloid forms, are 

 extremely abundant at Ventor, I.W., and other 

 places, occurring mostly in the sand found about the 

 roots of Laminaria. Although numerically abundant, 

 the variety of forms found on the English coast is not 

 great, and the microscopist will do well to search 

 diligently the surface of uncleaned foreign shells and 

 seaweed. But his very mine of foraminiferous wealth 

 exists in the sand which occurs in the sponge of 

 commerce ; a single pound of this will yield him vast 

 numbers of the most beautiful forms. They may be 

 separated from the sand by repeated washings, but it 

 is only by the exercise of almost mfinite patience that 

 they can be entirely freed from it and particles of 

 foreign matter. This once accomplished they may be 

 passed through fine meshed sieves of wire or muslin^ 



