M. Humboldt on a Discovery of Living Infusoria. 153 
afford a new proof in favour of Karsten’s opinion that graphite 
is to be regarded as the metal of carbon. According to the 
experiments of Professor Wohler on this foliated Graphite, it 
can scarcely be burnt by means of oxygen gas, although the 
diamond itself is consumed in this way ; and it does not of it- 
self continue in the least to burn in the gas. It appears to 
leave no ashes.* 
A Notice by Humboldt regarding Ehrenberg’s Discovery of 
Living Infusoria in Beds in and around Berlin.t 
M. pe Humzorpr lately presented to the French Academy 
of Sciences, on the part of M. Ehrenberg, Member of the 
Academy of Berlin, and corresponding member of the In- 
stitute, specimens of the turfy and argillaceous bed which, - 
at the depth of twenty feet below the pavement of the city 
of Berlin, was found filled with infusoria still in a living 
state, and having their ovaries perfectly preserved. The 
marks of this subterranean life are observable eight feet be- 
low the bottom of the Sprée. Since M. Ehrenberg pointed out, 
in 1836, immense masses of fossil infusoria, and the siliceous 
and calcareous envelops of microseopic animals in particular 
geological formations of very recent date, then in chalk, in the 
oolitic limestone of Cracow, and even in the more ancient 
(transition) limestones of Russia, he has ascertained that or- 
ganic agents are still so active in mud taken from rivers and 
harbours, that, for example, of a mass of 2.592,000 cubic fect, 
taken in 1839, and 1.728,000 cubic feet taken in 1840 from 
the harbour of Swinemiinde, on the shores of the Baltic, the 
one-half, or at least the one-third, was composed of microsco- 
pic organisms. The landes or heaths of Luneburg contain a 
bed of fossil infusoria twenty-eight feet thick. In the strata 
found at Berlin, extending to twenty, and in some localities 
(in the form of a funnel), even to sixty feet in depth, a great 
number of Gallionellze are met with, having their cells filled 
* From “ Studien des Gittingischen Vereins,”? 1841, 
+ Similar beds occur near Kdinburgh, as on Arthur’s Seat.—Eprr. 
