6 MICROSCOPICAL OBJECTS FOUND 



40,000,000 would only occupy the space of a 

 cubic inch ; and in 1838 he stated to the Royal 

 Academy of Sciences of Berlin, that the common 

 white Chalk, in many localities, contained vast 

 numbers of siliceous Infusoria, of five or six 

 species, as well as Polythalamia, — microscopic 

 chambered shells, then generally considered to be 

 minute Cephalopoda. In 1837 our countryman, 

 Mr. Lonsdale, found that the English Chalk con- 

 tained many of these microscopic Polythalamia.* 

 Similar forms were also detected by the above 

 observers, and by the Rev. J. B. Reade, in flints 

 and analogous siliceous structures.f These facts 

 led many to the conclusion, that Chalk and Chalk 

 flints, if not all calcareous deposits, had been 

 formed, not so much by the broken atoms -of the 

 larger organisms, as by the accumulated remains 

 of siliceous Infusoria and calcareous Foraminifera. 

 This view seems to be held by Ehrenberg, 

 who, to account for the presence of what appear 

 to be inorganic atoms, remarks, that " The minute 

 inorganic calcareous particles, produced by the 

 disintegration of the microscopic organisms, are 

 united by a peculiar crystalloid process, which 



* Lyell's Principles of Geology, p. 56. 



t Annals of Natural History. Vol. xi. p. 194. 



