196 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



Dr. Giinther observed that Capt. Kellett's observations 

 in the North and West Pacific agreed with the more recent 

 observations made with the latest improved appliances. 



Nov. 26th, 247th meeting. The substance of Professor 

 Wyville Thomson's paper on some observations made by 

 the Challenger, to be read this evening to the Royal Society, 1 

 was given by Professor Huxley. It showed that the 

 Globigerina ooze the modern representative of the chalk- 

 extended to a depth of about 2250 fathoms, and then gave 

 place to red clay. The organisms, which are the chief 

 constituents of this ooze, live near the surface, and their 

 dead shells are constantly falling to the bottom, where they 

 lie in various stages of decay ; the red clay, composed of 

 alumina silicate and red oxide of iron, being their insoluble 

 residue. 



In a conversation which followed, some members attributed 

 the removal of the carbonate of lime to free carbonic acid 

 in the sea-water, and thought that the red clay, instead of 

 being due to the disintegration of older rocks, might have 

 been formed simultaneously with the ooze. A discussion 

 followed on these subjects, and especially on the solvent 

 power of sea-water and the presence of free carbonic acid 

 at great depths in association with ice-cold water derived 

 from the melting of polar ice. 



Dec. I7th, 248th meeting. Dr. Carpenter, who was absent 

 from the last meeting, expressed dissent from some of 

 Professor Thomson's conclusions. The latter had indeed 

 proved the young thin-shelled globigerinas to float at the 

 surface, but their shells, in growing older, as Dr. Wallich 

 and himself had shown, became so much thicker that they 

 sink to the bottom, where they continue to live. Only those 

 who have studied sections of the shells can appreciate this 

 thickening. That the globigerinas, which he and Dr. Wallich 

 had collected, were alive, was shown by the exact conformity 

 of their sarcode with that of other foraminifera. Water, 

 which they had obtained from immediately above the 

 bottom, was quite turbid from the number of young 



1 Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. xxii. page 423. 



