THE ANNALS 



AN'D 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



No. 103. AUGUST 1845. 



VII. — Notes of a Microscopical Examination of the Chalk and 

 Flint of the South-east of England ; with remarks on the Ani- 

 malculites of certain Tertiary and Modern Deposits. By Gideon 

 Algernon Mantell, Esq., LL.D.^ F.li.S.* 



The founders of this Society could scarcely have imagined that 

 the structure and economy of those minute forms of animal ex- 

 istence which are invisible to the unassisted eye, would become a 

 legitimate subject of geological investigation ; and that the du- 

 rable coverings or cases of these miniatures of life would be found 

 preserved in a fossil state, and in such inconceivable numbers, as 

 to constitute not only a large proportion of many rocks, but the 

 entire mass of certain deposits of great thickness and extent : 

 still less could they have surmised that the soft perishable bodies 

 of animalcules of this kind would be preserved by mineralization, 

 and be found entombed, like flies in amber, in the flint nodules 

 of which our roads are so largely constructed. 



When the attention of geologists was first directed, a few years 

 since, to this most interesting department of palaeontology, by 

 the surprising discoveries and startling deductions of that emi- 

 nent philosopher, M. Ehrenberg, several observers in this coun- 

 try entered upon the investigation with much alacrity, to satisfy 

 themselves of the correctness of the marvellous statements of the 

 Prussian naturalist ; but this inexhaustible and most inviting field 

 of inquiry has not been followed up with the zeal and assiduity 

 which might have been anticipated, from the facility of the ex- 

 amination, and the important results which could not fail to be 

 obtained by any competent and patient observer. 



With the exception of the able "Memoir on the Siliceous 

 Bodies of the Chalk, Greensands and Oolites,^^ by Mr. Bowerbank, 

 and which is published in the sixth vol. of the Geological Trans-, 

 actions, — a memoir to which I shall hereafter have occasion to 

 refer, — no express communication on this subject has, I believe, 



* Read before the Geological Society of London, May 14th, 1845, 



Ann, ^ Mag. N. Hist. Vol.xyi. G 



