84 Selections from Huxley 



in the higher animals, we call organs, is capable of feed- 

 ing, growing, and multiplying; of separating from the 

 ocean the small proportion of carbonate of lime which is 

 dissolved in sea-water; and of building up that substance 

 5 into a skeleton for itself, according to a pattern which 

 can be imitated by no other known agency. 



The notion that animals can live and flourish in the 

 sea, at the vast depths from which apparently living 

 Globtgeritue have been brought up, does not agree very 



10 well with our usual conceptions respecting the conditions 

 of animal life; and it is not so absolutely impossible as 

 it might at first sight appear to be, that the Globigeriiue 

 of the Atlantic sea-bottom do not live and die where they 

 are found. 



15 As I have mentioned, the soundings from the great 

 Atlantic plain are almost entirely made up of Globi- 

 gerinez, with the granules which have been mentioned, 

 and some few other calcareous shells; but a small per- 

 centage of the chalky mud perhaps at most some five 



20 per cent, of it is of a different nature, and consists of 

 shells and skeletons composed of silex, or pure flint. These 

 silicious bodies belong partly to the lowly vegetable or- 

 ganisms which are called Diatomacea, and partly to the 

 minute, and extremely simple, animals, termed Radiolaria. 



25 It is quite certain that these creatures do not live at the 

 bottom of the ocean, but at its surface where they may 

 be obtained in prodigious numbers by the use of a properly 

 constructed net. Hence it follows that these silicious 

 organisms, though they are not heavier than the lightest 



30 dust, must have fallen, in some cases through fifteen thou- 

 sand feet of water, before they reached their final resting- 

 place on the ocean floor. And, considering how large a 

 surface these bodies expose in proportion to their weight, it 

 is probable that they occupy a great length of time 



