BATHYBIUS. 109 



which they are imbedded represent masses of protoplasm ! " 

 One of the masses of this deep-sea " urschleim " may be 

 regarded as a new form of the simplest animated beings 

 (Moner), and Huxley proposes to call it Bathybius. The 

 "Distolithi and the Cyatholithi" some of which resemble 

 the " granules," are said to bear the same relation to the 

 protoplasm of Bathybius as the spicula of sponges do to the 

 soft parts of those animals. It must, however, be borne in 

 mind that the spicula of sponges are imbedded in a matrix, 

 which is formed by and contains, besides the spicula^ small 

 masses of living or germinal matter (bioplasm), which have 

 been ignored. Nevertheless it is a fact, that the matrix is 

 produced and the form of the spicula determined by these 

 little particles of living matter. As in other cases, the 

 matrix, which is lifeless, and the living matter, have together 

 been called " protoplasm." 



Bathybius was wanted to fill up the gap between the 

 non-living and the living, and Bathybius became fact and 

 law. " Bathybius " is " a vast sheet of living matter, envelop- 

 ing the whole earth beneath the seas (!)." It is composed of 

 molecules whose organizing tendencies will be rendered 

 clear after the lapse of several thousand years in the Fauna 

 and Flora of that period of which the unscientific now living 

 cannot form the remotest conception.* It is surely a 



* The idea of the existence of huge continuous masses of living 

 matter of enormous extent, is most fanciful and improbable. It appears 

 to be opposed to well ascertained facts. So far from living matter 

 growing to form very large collections, it divides in almost all known 

 instances before it reaches the diameter even of ^_ o f an inch. I 

 think that the phenomena essential to living matter are only possible in 

 minute masses separated from another, so that each may be supplied 

 upon its circumference with nutrient materials. See " Of Life." 



