FORAMINIFERA. 37y 
Plancus counted 6000 in an ounce of sand from the Adriatic, 
and d’Orbigny reckoned no less than 3,849,000 in a pound of 
sand from the Antilles. Along the whole Atlantic coast of the 
United States, the plummet constantly brings up masses of fo- 
raminiferous shells from a depth of ninety fathoms, so that the 
vast extent of ocean-bottom, which itself forms but a small part 
of the domains they occupy, is literally covered with their 
eXuvle. 
Thus their numbers surpass all human conception, nor can 
any other series of beings be compared to them in this respect ; 
not even the minute crusta- 
ceans which colour thousands 
of square miles on the surface 
of the sea, and, according to 
Scoresby, form almost exclu- 
sively the food of the huge 
Greenland whale; nor the in- 
fusory animals of the fresh- 
water, whose shields compose 
the Bilin slate quarries in 
Bohemia; for these are limited 
in their distribution, whereas 
the Foraminifera occur in all 
parts of the world. 
The resemblance of the Fo- 
raminifera to the nautili and ammonites at first led natura- 
lists to suppose that they formed part of the same class, which 
in a long course 
of centuries had 
dwindled down in 
less congenial seas 
to almost invisible 
dimensions; but a 
closer investiga- 
tion proved them 
to belong to a 
much lower order 
Ameceba. 
Amoeba, 
of beings, near- showing the extemporaneous feet formed by evanescent projections 
of the general plastic mass of the animal. 
ly related to the 
Ameebee, which likewise occur all over the ocean. Other animals 
