THE 
EDINBURGH NEW 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 
On the Foraminifera of America and of the Canary Islands. 
Acre pv’ Ornieny, celebrated for his travels in South Ame- 
rica, has lately published three long essays on the imperfectly 
known class of the Foraminifera. One appeared in the Histoire 
Physique, Politique, et Naturelle, de [Ile de Cuba, par M. Ra- 
mon de la Sagra; a second in the Histoire Naturelle des Iles 
Canaries, par MM. P. Barker-Webb et Sabin Berthelot ; and the 
third in the Voyage dans | Amérique Méridionale, par M. Al- 
cide @ Orbigny. As these memoirs, so highly important for 
this class of animals, are contained in very expensive works, 
and are therefore the less accessible to the public, some ex- 
tracts from them may not be without interest for our readers. 
Every thing in nature which escapes the naked eye, not 
only remains unknown to the great mass of the people, but 
even unnoticed for centuries by those who anxiously en- 
deayour to investigate the beauties of creation. How many 
myriads of beings are still unknown to us! How many years 
must yet elapse ere we acquire an adequate idea of the extent 
of zoology ! 
If the enormous size of the largest animals of our globe 
lead us to contemplate the omnipotence of the Creator,—if the 
regularity of their forms, the adaptation and perfection of 
their organs, the richness of their whole structure, prove to 
us their wonderful completeness,—so, our understanding is not 
the less astonished when we descend to those hardly notice- 
able beings, whose number counterbalances their infinite mi- 
nuteness, so that by their multiplicity they perform without 
VOL. XXXII. NO. LXU1.—sanuary 1842. A 
