74 PAPERS, ETC. 



to require the most powerful microscopes for their develope- 

 ment; and they have also proved to us that sucli beings 

 have exlsted in much earlier times, and that their skeletons 

 have added more to the crust of the earth, than those of 

 animals of a greatei' size and higher Organization. In the 

 tertiary beds, and the chalk, they have for some time been 

 known to aboucd. So inconceivably minute are some of 

 them, that in an article, which is called Tripoli powder, 

 used by servants for polishing plate, and which is wholly 

 composed of shells of these creatnres, as many as forty 

 thousand millions are congregated in the space of a cubic 

 inch; and they form beds of considerable thickness and 

 extent. When those monuments which have so long with- 

 stood the levelling band of time, the Pyramids of Egypt, 

 were erected, they were probably intended as memorials of 

 their designer's glory; but in their erection more than this 

 was done, for they are monuments displaying the wonder- 

 ful works of Providence. The stone of which they are buUt 

 is an aggregation of the remains of creatures once endowed 

 with life. It is a limestone, composed of the Nummulite., a 

 small shell belonging to the fämily Foraminifera. On the 

 microscopic shells of this class, from the tertiary basin of 

 Vienna, a work has been edited by D'Aubigny, for the 

 Austrian Government. He mentions the occurrence of 

 several species in the Oolites and Lias, and they are also 

 ßtated to have been found by Mr. Phillips, in the Limestone 

 of Cannington Park, near Bridgwater. If so, this would 

 be the oldest bed in which they have been found. For 

 some years I have been occupied in forming a series from 

 the Lias, and with considerable success. It now consista 

 of many thousands of specimens, amongst which fifty new 

 species have been determined ; but their description is a 

 work yet to be done. Owing to their size, this is not to 



