258 Professor Elirenberg on the Fossil Animals 



alive even in the short time during which the inquiry has 

 been proceeding. 



3. The principal number of species, and the great mass of 

 individuals of these recent forms, are microscopic infusoria 

 with siliceous shells, and Polythalamia with calcareous shells, 

 scarcely or not at all perceptible to the naked eye, which 

 nevertheless form so incalculably great a volume of the solid 

 portion of the earth, that the few species asserted to be still 

 living, from other groups of animals of higher organization, 

 even if they were all decidedly identical, bear not the slightest 

 comparison with the number and mass. 



4, The microscopic organisms are, it is true, far inferior 

 in individual energy to lions and elephants ; but in their 

 united influences they appear far more important than all 

 those animals. 



5. The fifty-seven recent species of the chalk in Europe, 

 Africa, and Asia, do not live solely or principally in southern 

 latitudes, as has been shewn with respect to the recent larger 

 forms of the so-called Eocene formation, but have been ob- 

 served living both in those and in northern latitudes. These 

 recent species are not rare nor isolated, but fill, in incalculable 

 numbers, the seas of northern Europe, and are not wanting on 

 .the tropical coasts of the American ocean. 



6, The idea that the temperature and constitution of 

 the atmosphere and oceans were essentially different at the 

 period of the chalk formation, and adverse to the organized 

 beings at present existing, naturally acquired more probability 

 and weight, the more decidedly diff"erent all the creatures of 

 that period were from those of the present time ; but loses 

 more and more in importance the less the chalk proves to be 

 a chemical precipitate, and the more numerous the forms 

 agreeing with those of the present day become by renewed 

 inquiry. Nay, there is not the least doubt that the perfectly 

 ascertained identity of a single species of the present day 

 with one of those of the chalk, renders doubtful the neces- 

 sai'y transformation of all the others subsequently to the 

 formation of the chalk rocks ; how much more so when 

 these are numerous, and such as form masses ! The size ap- 

 pears to be of no importance, as the small organisms have 



