344 ANNUAL KECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



by the United States steamship Fortune^ that they pass in- 

 sensibly into each other; certainly they are nowise to be dis- 

 tinguished in form. Mo7ithly 31icroscop. Jour.^ Feb.^ 18V6. 



EECLAMATION BY DR. CARPENTER. 



In consequence of the publication by Dr. Bessels, in the 

 Jenaische Zeitschrift (vol. ix.), of a description of the animal 

 and test of Astrorhiza as a new genus, Dr. Carpenter pub- 

 lishes an extract from a paper " On the Ehizopodal Fauna of 

 the Deep Sea," presented to the Royal Society June 17, 1869, 

 in which he describes this genus, which w^as first constituted 

 by Dr. Sandahl in 1847, and has subsequently been considered 

 as new by Bessels under the name Haeckelina. Quarterly 

 Journal of Microscopical Science, 3Iay^ 1876. 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY OX DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS. 



In a speech at the dinner lately given to the Challenger's 

 staff, Mr. Huxley stated that the large areas of the sea-bot- 

 tom covered with a kind of chalk, shells of minute creatures, 

 have been proved beyond question remains of organisms 

 which live at the surface, and not at the bottom in fact, all 

 livins: within one hundred fathoms of the surface. This con- 

 elusion is somewhat too sweeping. There is not the least 

 doubt of the existence of living foraminifer^e at much great- 

 er depths ; though indeed there may be myriads of free 

 swimming forms, whose " cast-off clothes," as Mr. Huxley 

 terms them, may aid in making the deposit. At vast depths 

 from 3000 to 4000 fathoms the red clay is full of polycys- 

 tinal minute sponges, and organisms with silicious skeletons. 

 And even from some of these depths, Avhere the abundance 

 of carbonic acid in solution dissolves the carbonate of lime, 

 some foraminiferal forms, w^ith sandy tests, are living. The 

 origin of this red clay rich in iron and with nodules of man- 

 ganese is difficult to be explained. So marked is the char- 

 acter, that one after a little practice can almost judge of the 

 depth by the color of the sounding. Many of the soundings 

 of the Tuscarora, and some of them from very great depths, 

 consisted entirely of diatom ooze, and the same was ob- 

 served in the soundings of the Challenger. In the speech 

 alluded to, Mr. Huxley suggests that the red clay may be 

 decomposed pumice-stone, vomited out by volcanoes, or pos- 



