NUMMULITES, ; 381 
The amazing variety of form of the Foraminifera is no less 
remarkable than the elegance of their delicately chiselled shells, 
and may well be called immense, as no less than 2,400 living 
and fossil species have already been distinguished by naturalists, 
and a far greater number is probably still nameless and 
vnknown. Though generally so minute that the diameter of 
Various forms of Foraminifera. 
a. Lugena striata. a’. Nodosaria rugosa. b. Marginulina raphanus. 
6’, Longitudinal section of shell of ditto. c. Polystomella crispa, with its pseudopodia protruded. 
d. Nummulites lenticularis, shown in horizontal section. e. Cassidulina levigata. 
J. Textularia globulosa. g. Milivlina seminulum. g’. Animal of Miliolina removed from its shell. 
the pores through which they protrude their filaments usually 
only ranges from 55455 to +5455 of an inch yet the diminutive 
world of the Foraminifera has also its giants, particularly 
among the fossil species, such as the Nummulites, which occur 
in such prodigious numbers in the limestone of the Egyptian 
pyramids, and whose flattened lenticular coin-like forms | d) 
attain the comparatively gigantic diameter of several inches. 
Thus the material with which the proud Pharaohs of the Nile 
constructed their colossal tombs was originally piled up at the 
bottom of the sea by countless generations of shell-cased 
Protozoa. . 
The Foraminifera are among the oldest inhabitants of our 
globe,* and as the present ocean contains them in countless 
* The Eozoon canadense, the oldest of kuown organic remains, found in the 
Upper Laurentian series, which preceded the Cambrian formation, is a Foraminifer, 
Millions of years must have passed since it first felt and moved. 
