284 Dwellers of the Sea and Shore 



ancient sea, piling so high that some in the lower layers 

 were squeezed into a shapeless mass; then by some later 

 convulsion they were lifted out of the water high into 

 the air. 



The numbers which float in the sea are utterly incon- 

 ceivable. The only proper estimate we can make of 

 them is not to count them but to weigh them. It Is 

 supposed that these minute (!reatures are as abundant 

 six hundred feet below the surface as they are at the 

 top; therefore, taking this as an index, it has been 

 shown that within this depth alone, every square mile 

 of the ocean contains upward of sixteen tons of their 

 skeletons. And this is to say nothing of the countless 

 other forms which have no shells. 



In some of these creatures, the foraminifers, the 

 skeletal structure is composed of lime; in others it is 

 formed of silica, a transparent, glasslike substance as 

 hard as flint. The latter type is peculiar to the radio- 

 larians, without a doubt the prettiest of all protozoans. 

 The almost endless variety of forms is a constant source 

 of pleasure to the collecting microscopist, for in no 

 other group of minute organisms does beauty so con- 

 sistently prevail. Many are globular and perforated, 

 and the soft body substance of the animal can be seen 

 streaming through these apertures for food. Some are 

 like fairy baskets formed of the most delicate lattice- 

 work; some perforated spherical forms bristle with 

 long, slender, flinty spines; and some others still have 

 a crystallike sphere within an outer lacelike covering of 

 glass, resembling those curious balls of jade, carved by 

 the Chinese, wherein one graceful creation contains 

 another still more lovely. 



