CARPENTFE. ON FORAMINIFEEA . 197 



to very different habitats in brackish and in salt water ; in the several 

 zones of shallow, deep, and abyssal seas ; and under every climate, from 

 the poles to the equator. In arranging our synoptical tables of the Me- 

 diterranean Phizopoda, recent and fossil, and in comparing their nume- 

 rous specific and varietal forms one with another, we have not confined 

 ourselves to our collections from this region, but have necessarily made 

 comparisons of forms from almost every part of the globe ; from the 

 Arctic and the Tropic Seas; from the temperate zones of both hemi- 

 spheres; and from shallow, as well as deep sea-beds. Geologically, also, 

 we have reviewed the Foraminifera in their manifold aspects, as pre- 

 sented by the ancient Faunas of the Tertiary, Cretaceous, Oolitic, 

 Liassic, Triassic, Permian, and Carboniferous times; finding, to our 

 astonishment, that scarcely any of the species of Foraminifera met with 

 in the Secondary Hocks have become extinct ; all, indeed, that we have 

 yet seen have their counterparts in the recent Mediterranean deposits. 

 This is still more clearly found to be the case with regard to the Chalk 

 of Maestricht and the Tertiaries"*- 1 . And the same excellent observers, 

 in summing up their description of the Foraminifera of the blue clay 

 met with in the alabaster pits at Chellaston, near Derby, belonging to 

 the Upper Triassic series, thus express themselves: — "Having thus 

 pointed out that, judging from these specimens obtained at Chellaston, 

 the minute Nodosarhm and other Foraminifera of the Triassic period 

 have continued to exist through the intermediate ages to the present 

 day, without losing any of their essentially specific features, we will 

 observe that the JVbdosarue are present in rocks of still greater age than 

 the Trias, — namely, the Permian and Carboniferous, and probably even 

 the lower Silurian. Nodosarice and Dentalina abound in seme of the 

 Permian limestones of Durham and the Wetterau, in company with Tex- 

 tiilarice. Nodosaria occurs also in the Carboniferous limestone of Ire- 

 land, according to M' Coy; and the green sand of the lower Silurian 

 series, near St. Petersburg, has yielded to Ehrenberg casts of chambers 

 something like those of Dentalina, together with unmistakeable casts of 

 Testularian and Eotalian shells. We may remark, too, that the Fusu- 

 lina of the Russian, North American, and Arctic Mountain-limestone 

 carries back the pedigree of the Nonionina group to the Palaeozoic pe- 

 riods; and that it is accompanied with other Foraminifera of known 

 types, amongst which Nummulina is not absent. This last-named type 

 has rare representatives in the Lias and Oolite ; it acquired great po- 

 tency in the Tertiary seas, and is not extinct now. Altogether we have 

 here some remarkable instances of the persistency of life-types among 

 the lower animals. Though the specific relations of the Palaeozoic Fo- 

 raminifera require further elucidation, we feel certain that the six ge- 

 nera, represented in this Upper Triassic clay of Chellaston by about 



* " On the Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediterranean, compared with that of the Ita- 

 lian and some other Tertiary Deposits," in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological So- 

 ciety for August, 18G0, p. 294. 



