198 Prof. W. King on Oceanic Sediments, and 
XXVIL.— Oceanic Sediments, and their Relation to Geological 
Formations. By Professor WILLIAM Kina, Sc.D. &c. 
Tue valuable “preliminary reports” by Professor Wyville 
Thomson, M.D. &c., in parts 154 & 156 of the ‘ Proceedings ’ 
of the Royal Society, demand the special attention of geolo- 
gists, as making known some important facts elucidating the 
sedimentary or depositional phenomena of the ocean in past 
periods of our globe. 
When my Notices * were published on the various objects 
obtained by the soundings of H.M.S. ‘ Porcupine,’ during her 
Atlantic-Telegraph Survey Expedition off the west coast of 
Treland, in 1862, the belief was gaining ground that the cal- 
careous ooze occurring at great depths in the ocean is formed 
of the testaceous débris of Foraminifera that habitually live 
on its bottom. Ehrenberg, finding sarcode in the foraminifer- 
shells brought up from the bed of the subarctic Atlantic by 
Colonel Schaffner, appears to have been the first to give a 
decided expression to this view; though it had previously 
found favour with Professor Bailey, and was forcibly advo- 
cated afterwards by Wallich. The discoveries of Huxley, 
Berryman, and others strongly tended in the same direc- 
tion. Influenced by these authorities, and taking various 
matters into consideration, I was induced to express the belief 
that the floor of the deep Atlantic is crowded with living 
Globigerine and Orbuline. Subsequently, in 1869, Doctors 
W. B. Carpenter and Wyville Thomson formed and expressed 
a very strong opinion on the same side. However, the re- 
searches lately made by the latter have led him to renounce 
this opinion, and to contend, like Major Owen and Dr. 
Gwyn Jeffreys, that the ooze-forming organisms inhabit the 
superficial stratum of the ocean, from the surface to about 
100 fathoms in depth. I should have readily subscribed to 
the same view, but for certain facts which appear to oppose 
it. There are no unequivocal instances of living examples 
of the organisms referred to having been found in mid- 
ocean at the surface t. Major Owen’s accounts (also appa- 
rently Lieut. Palmer’s, which I have not been able to con- 
sult) have been accepted as proving that Globigerina and 
Orbulina are inhabitants of the superficial stratum, rising and 
* See ‘Nautical Magazine,’ December 1862; and ‘ Fraser’s Magazine,’ 
October 1863. 
+ The cases cited of Miiller and Hickel having taken live specimens 
of Globigerina and Orbulina in the tow-net must be eliminated, as they 
belong to shallow depths not far from land, where the creatures may not 
only live at the bottom, but may occasionally rise to the surface, or be 
brought up through adhering to pieces of seaweed that have got detached 
from the bottom. 
