MICRO-ORGANISMS 



ing things are still at their proper busi- 

 ness the world over, for the bases of the 

 high walls of ice which the sea washes 

 around the great Antarctic continent are 

 brown with them. 



But for pure antiquity and unmitigated 

 conservatism in keeping to old ways, those 

 living things called Foraminifera take the 

 palm. But for them geology would be 

 only a physical science, such as a professor 

 of it would find now on the dry, lifeless 

 Moon. The foraminifera, instead of 

 choosing flint to clothe themselves withal, 

 have taken for that purpose the carbonate 

 of lime which abounds in sea water, with 

 the result that a great part of the crust 

 of the globe has been constructed by them 

 in the form of massive strata of lime- 

 stone, chalk cliffs and deposits, great both 

 in thickness and in extent. It is doubtful 

 indeed if there be any limestone which does 

 not owe its origin to these organisms, be- 

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