ix.] ON A PIECE OF CHALK. 187 



Atlantic soundings, lie found the two to be identical ; 

 and thus proved that the chalk, like the soundings, 

 contains these mysterious coccoliths and coccosphcres. 

 Here was a further and a most interesting confirmation, 

 from internal evidence, of the essential identity of the 

 chalk with modern deep-sea mud. Glohigcrincv, cocco- 

 liths, and coccosphcres are found as the chief constituents 

 of both, and testify to the general similarity of the con- 

 ditions under which both have been formed. 1 



The evidence furnished by the hewing, facing, and 

 superposition of the stones of the Pyramids, that these 

 structures were built by men, has no greater weight 

 than the evidence that the chalk was built by Globi- 

 gerincv ; and the belief that those ancient pyramid- 

 builders were terrestrial and air-breathing creatures like 

 ourselves, is it not better based than the conviction that 

 the chalk-makers lived in the sea. 



But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by 

 men is not only grounded on the internal evidence 

 afforded by these structures, but gathers strength from 

 multitudinous collateral proofs, and is clinched by the 

 total absence of any reason for a contrary belief ; so the 

 evidence drawn from the Globerigince that the chalk is 

 an ancient sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable inde- 

 pendent lines of evidence ; and our belief in the truth 

 of the conclusion to which all positive testimony tends, 

 receives the like negative justification from the fact that 

 no other hypothesis has a shadow of foundation. 



It may be worth while briefly to consider a few of 

 these collateral proofs that the chalk was deposited at 

 the bottom of the sea. 



1 I have recently traced out the development of the " coccoliths " from a 

 diameter of ^^th of an inch up to their largest size (which is about j 3*70 th), 

 and no longer doubt that they are produced by independent organisms, which, 

 like the Globiqcrincc, live and die at the bottom of the sea. 



