1868. | Biology. 529 
sponge which Dr. Bowerbank described as a new species, thinking 
that the specimens were perfect ; but this year Mr. Jeffreys had 
dredged up great spherical sponges with these little tubes standing 
out from them, and they were thus seen to be quite different to 
what was at first supposed. The spherical sponges were bigger than 
one’s fist, and when opened were found to be filled with jelly-like 
sarcode, which could be poured out. This was quite an unprece- 
dented structure, and, in fact, was only paralleled by the great 
hollow sponges found in the chalk formation. Mr. Norman called 
this new sponge Oceanapia, or Sea Turnip. In another paper, Mr. 
Norman described a sponge which had been thought by the Scandi- 
navian naturalist, Lovén, to be like the celebrated Glass-rope Sponge 
of Japan. Mr. Norman, however, showed that there was an essential 
difference in their structure, and described some other sponges which 
had an eaternal resemblance of form only to Lovén’s supposed 
boreal Hyalonema. 
“On some Organisms living at a Depth of 15,000 feet in the 
North Atlantic,” was the title of a paper read by Professor Huxley. 
In 1859, specimens of the deep-sea soundings, obtained by Captain 
Drayton in the North Atlantic, had been submitted to Professor 
Huxley for examination, and he had then reported to the Govern- 
ment on the microscopic organisms contained therein. Besides the 
Foraminifers (Globigerinz), he had discovered little bodies which 
he called Coccoliths. Mr. Sorby had since discovered these little 
Coccoliths in the chalk, together with the Globigerin, which made 
it so much like the Atlantic mud. In 1862, Dr. Wallich rede- 
scribed the Atlantic Coccoliths, and also bodies which he called 
Coccospheres, and from the breaking up of which he believed the 
Coccoliths to arise. Professor Huxley had now re-examined his 
specimens with a much better object-glass than he used previously, 
namely a -!,th of Ross, and he had some new statements to make as 
to the Coccoliths. They have nothing to do with the Coccospheres. 
In the slimy ooze, which is dredged up from the Atlantic, soft 
gelatinous masses about the ;1,,th of an inch long oceur, in which 
are scattered small masses of granules, and in which also are 
disposed little oval bodies of carbonate of lime, —3,,th of an inch 
long at most. These last are the Coccoliths ; they are of two sorts, 
one more complex than the other. The gelatinous mass is con- 
sidered by Professor Huxley to be formed by the running together 
of a number of separate organisms, each represented by a mass of 
granules, and haying, when alive, its own pseudopodia. The Cocco- 
liths are to these animals what the Spiculee of Radiolaria, or Sponges, 
are to them. Professor Huxley could not say whether this or- 
ganism was animal or vegetable. In answer to some remarks by 
Dr. Hughes Bennett, he stated that the facts recorded above do 
not confirm in the least the doctrine of Heterogenesis,—he wished 
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