26 MICROSCOPICAL OBJECTS FOUND 



circumference, some of them passing through the 

 thick skin or rind. In the latter are bundles of 

 shorter spicula, and in the interstices between 

 these arc sparingly scattered minute stellate sili- 

 ceous bodies of great beauty, resembling in form 

 the bossed iron balls hung by a chain to the war 

 club used in the early ages. Examples of at 

 least two species (figs. 40, 41) occur in some 

 specimens of the Levant mud, one of them (fig. 

 40) being rather abundant. Analogous forms 

 have been found by Dr. Bailey in the siliceous 

 Infusorial deposits of Bermuda and Pittsburg. 

 Stellate spicula occur in some species of the 

 genus Grantia and in Mr, Bowcrbank's new 

 sponge Pachyraatisma Johnstoniana. 



I have also found a considerable number of 

 small siliceous balls, which belong to some species 

 of Geodia.* In this, as in Tetheia, we find 

 long radiating spicula, but with the external 

 extremity often divided into three recurved 



* Dr. Johnson refers to the Cydonium Mulleri of Fleming, 

 under the head Geodia Zetlandica, including it among the 

 Sponges. — Hist, of British Sponges, p. 195; and again in 

 his History of British Zoophytes, speaking of it as one of the 

 Alcyonidse. Are these distinct objects? 



