Bihliographical Notices, 245 



false notes in the music of the spheres if they coukl heai' it ; but 

 gentlemen of this amiable turn would probably inform Mr. Whitaker 

 that his whole book was got up on a wrong principle, and over- 

 whelm him with a recapitulation of what they regard as errors of 

 omission and commission of the most formidable nature. Par 

 from us be any such uncharitableness. To us the ' Geological 

 Record,' as it stands, seems to be a work for which all naturalists 

 are laid under a debt of gratitude to the editor and his collahorateurs ; 

 and in the few lines of criticism in Avhich we have indulged upon 

 one of its departments, we have been animated solelj^ by the desire 

 to see it rendered even still more useful diu-ing that long career 

 which we sincerely hope lies before it. 



Deep-sea Researches on the Bioloc/j/ of Globigerina. 

 By G. C. Wallich, M.D. 8vo. London : J. Van Voorst, 1876. 



In this pamphlet Dr. Wallich discusses in considerable detail the 

 known facts in the life-historjr of the Qlohigerhuv and the inferences 

 that have been founded upon them. He describes the various ob- 

 servations that have been made of the occurrence of these minute ' 

 Foraminifera at great depths in the ocean, where their shells are 

 now forming, in certain places, a chalk-like deposit of great extent^ — 

 a circumstance which gives them a remarkable interest from a 

 geological point of view. Quite recently the observations made by the 

 naturalists of the 'Challenger' expedition have added considerably 

 to this interest by leading them to the conclusion that not only 

 limestones but ferruginous clays have been produced by these little 

 creatures, which they suppose to be pelagic animals, living only in 

 the superficial strata of the water, and sinking to the bottom after 

 death, where their shells produce calcareous deposits at certain 

 depths, whilst at greater depths the carbonate of lime forming the 

 shells is dissolved before they reach the bottom, leaving only the 

 small percentage of oxide of iron and alumina contained in them 

 to form a deposit of red clay. That there are many difficulties con- 

 nected with this view no one can deny ; and Dr. Carpenter has 

 endeavoured to get over these by a theory of his own, according 

 to which the Olohigerinai actually live and breed at the bottom, but 

 pass a portion of their lives at the surface of the ocean. 



From the time of his researches in the ' Bulldog ' in 1860, which 

 first really demonstrated the occurrence of living organisms at great 

 depths in the sea. Dr. Wallich has always maintained that the 

 Olohigerince forming the well-known " ooze " of the Atlantic sea- 

 bed lived on the spots where they and their remains are found ; 

 but whilst he is no doubt much pleased at having Dr. Carpenter for 

 once on his side, he does not by any means adopt that gentleman's 

 opinions as to the whole history of Globigerina'. Unlike Dr. Caqjen- 

 ter, ho maintains that the spined Olohigerince found abundantly at the 

 surface of tropical seas have nothing whatever to do with those 

 that form the deposits at the bottom ; and it seems to us that the 

 arguments adduced by him go very far towards proving, if, indeed. 



