162 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [ix. 



&quot; coccospheres.&quot; So far as we knew, these bodies, the nature of 

 which is extremely puzzling and problematical, were peculiar to 

 the Atlantic soundings. 



But, a few years ago, Mr. Sorby, in making a careful examina 

 tion of the chalk by means of thin sections and otherwise, 

 observed, as Ehrenberg had done before him, that much of its 

 granular basis possesses a definite form. Comparing these 

 formed particles with those in the Atlantic soundings, he found 

 the two to be identical ; and thus proved that the chalk, like the 

 surroundings, contains these mysterious coccoliths and cocco 

 spheres. Here was a further and a most interesting confirmation, 

 from internal evidence, of the essential identity of the chalk with 

 modern deep-sea mud. Globigerince, coccoliths, and coccospheres 

 are found as the chief constituents of both, and testify to the 

 general similarity of the conditions under which both have been 

 formed. 1 



The evidence furnished by the hewing, facing, and super 

 position of the stones of the Pyramids, that these structures 

 were built by men, has no greater weight than the evidence that 

 the chalk was built by Globigerince ; and the belief that those 

 ancient pyramid-builders were terrestrial and air-breathing 

 creatures like ourselves, is not better based than the conviction 

 that the chalk-makers lived in the sea. 



But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by men is 

 not only grounded on the internal evidence afforded by these 

 structures, but gathers strength from multitudinous collateral 

 proofs, and is clinched by the total absence of any reason for a 

 contrary belief ; so the evidence drawn from the Globigerince that 

 the chalk is an ancient sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable 

 independent lines of evidence ; and our belief in the truth of 

 the conclusion to which all positive testimony tends, receives the 

 like negative justification from the fact that no other hypothesis 

 has a shadow of foundation. 



1 I have recently traced out the development of the &quot; coccoliths &quot; from a 

 diameter of ^^jth of an inch up to their largest size (which is about 

 T^sth), and no longer doubt that they are produced by independent 

 organisms, which, like the Globigerince, live and die at the bottom of the sea. 



