204 PROF. HUXLEY, ON SOME ORGANISMS FROM GREAT 



and on the Boring Powers of minute Annelids at great 

 depths in the Sea." In this paper Dr. Wallich figures the 

 coccoliths and the coccospheres, and suggests that the cocco- 

 liths are identical with certain bodies which had been ob- 

 served by Mr. Sorby, F.R.S., in chalk. 



The ' Annals' for September of the same year (1861) con- 

 tains a very important paper by the last-named writer, " On 

 the Organic Origin of the so-called ' Crystalloids' of the 

 Chalk," from which I must quote several passages. Mr. 

 Sorby thus commences his remarks : 



" The appearance of Dr. Wallich's interesting paper pub- 

 lished in this magazine (vol. viii, p. 52), in which he alludes 

 to my having found in chalk objects similar to coccoliths, 

 induces me to give an account of my researches on the sub- 

 ject. I do not claim the discovery of such bodies in the 

 chalk, but to have been the first to point out (1) that they 

 are not the result of crystalline action ; (2) that they are 

 identical with the objects described as coccoliths by Professor 

 Huxley ; and (3) that these arc not single separate indivi- 

 duals, but portions of larger cells." 



In respect of the statement which I have numbered (1), 

 Mr. Sorby observes : 



" By examining the fine granular matter of loose, uncon- 

 solidated chalk in water, and causing the ovoid bodies to 

 turn round, I found that they are not flat discs, as described 

 and figured by Ehrenberg, but, as shown in the oblique side 

 view (fig. 5), concave on one side, and convex on the other, 

 and indeed of precisely such a form as would result from 

 cutting out oval watch-glasses from a moderately thick, hol- 

 loAv glass sphere, whose diameter was a few times greater 

 than their own. This is a shajje so entirely unlike anything 

 due to crystalline, or any other force, acting independently of 

 organization — so different to that of such round bodies, 

 formed of minute radiating crystals, as can be made artifi- 

 cially, and do really occur in some natural deposits — and 

 pointed so clearly to their having been derived from small 

 hollow spheres, that I felt persuaded that such was their 

 origin." 



Mr. Sorby then states that, having received some speci- 

 mens of Atlantic mud from me, he at once perceived the 

 identity of the ovoid bodies of the chalk with the structures 

 which I had called coccoliths, and found that, as he had j^re- 

 dicted several years before, " the ovoid bodies were really 

 derived from small lioUow s]iheres, on Avhich they occur, 

 separated from each other at definite intervals." 



The coccospheres themselves, Mr. Sorby tliinks, may be 



