STILL FOUND IN A LIVING STATE. 333 
able to pursue more accurate observations on the microscopic 
oceanic forms which may concur in the formation of the chalk. 
A fortunate combination of circumstances enabled me to reach 
the nearest sea, the Baltic, although at the same time that which 
is the poorest in organisms. To examine my native chalk cliffs 
of Riigen, and to become acquainted with the actually existing 
animals of the sea there and in Wismar, was my design. I have 
accomplished both, but not at the same spot. From Rigen I 
brought with me a rich assortment of the organisms just visible 
to the naked eye, forming the chalk there, which recently have 
been so industriously collected and described by Fr. v. Hagenow. 
At Wismar I have obtained new explanations with regard to a 
series of organisms of the flints of the chalk which there cover 
the beach*; but at none of these points did I find abundant 
living marine organisms, and materials for the object of my in- 
quiries. This determined me to make an excursion from Wis- 
mar to Kiel, the harbour of which, full of microscopic life, was 
already favourably known to me from the investigation of lu- 
Minous animalcules; and here, indeed, my expectations were 
fulfilled and surpassed. Two whole evenings did the luminosity 
of the sea and microscopic investigations delight and employ me 
till late in the night. Dr. Michaelis, the second discoverer and 
first establisher of the luminosity of Infusoria, and Dr. Behn, 
the accomplished anatomist, accompanied me, and kindly aided 
me by their local knowledge. It was again evident that all the 
splendid light of the sea proceeded from Infusoria; and among 
their numberless forms, several of which had never yet been 
seen, I suddenly descried a light of a different kind, which, 
although of itself small and dim, far more excited my joy than 
the real light. It was what I was seeking, and scarcely any 
longer hoped to find. It was one of the most characteristic of 
those siliceous loricated animalcules which I was acquainted 
with from the chalk marls of Sicily, and which had already been 
represented on pl. iv. of my last academical lecture on the chalk. 
It was the actually still living Dictyocha Speculum, precisely the 
most remarkable of all the siliceous shells from the white marls 
of the chalk of Caltanisetta, expressly confirmed by Friedrich 
Hoffmann. Prof. Behn saw it in the living state in my posses- 
sion, and I brought it away with me dried and well preserved. 
* Some notices of this have been published in the Reports of the Academy, 
October, 1839, p. 157, which, together with the notices on the natural flannel 
of Sabor, will be communicated in greater detail at some other opportunity. 
