2 
* 
_ Fossil and. Recent Infusoria. 371 
Art. XXI. 1 Nineties i respecting Fossil and Recent poe! 
soria made to the British Association at Netboustia:: By Prof. 
EBnrnsene.* 
‘To the Editors of the Apnais of Notieal | History. 
entlemen,—Y ou will much oblige me by. inserting ‘the sub- 
joined notice, which has been occasioned by the erroneous report 
in the Atheneum of the statement made by me at the late Meet- 
ing of the British Association in Neweastle, in the section of 
botany and zodlogy, which statements, So far as I can recollect, 
were to the following import : 
For the purpose of physiological inquiries I have occupied my- 
self with the investigation of microscopic organized beings, not 
only in. Europe, but also upon several voyages for several years 
in other quarters of the globe. he results of my _ observations 
had been hitherto scattered in” ‘single memoirs, published in the 
Acts of the Royal Academy of Berlin: Within these few weeks, 
however, my large work on this subject has been completed,t 
which consists of a thick folio volume of text and 64 folio copper 
plates, in which I have endeavored to bring together the whole 
of our present knowledge of microscopic beings, with their his- 
tory in as complete a state as possible, _ This book, which I had 
the pleasure of laying before the section, is not (a8 stated) the 
first volume of a work, but complete and entire in itself, and is 
now in the booksellers’ hands. It contains drawings of all the 
722 species observed by me up to 1835. It is however merely a 
first essay on this highly interesting and at present inexhaustible 
subject. I then in a few words directed the attention of the sec- 
tion to thé importance of the observation of microscopic beings, asa 
highly influential zodlogico-botanical subject, and exhibited earths 
which were entirely formed of the shields of some Infusoria. I 
mentioned the eatable infusorial earth from Lillhaggsjén in Swe- 
den, from Finland, and from Kliecken near Dessau, where they 
occur in great natural layers; I stated that thé greatest layer 
* From the Annals of Natural Hetery, No. 3, p. 121, Lon 
Uber Infusionsthierchen, mit einem Atlas von vier und oa Ku adie 
Von Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg. 
