124 M. Grand'Emy on Calamites and Asterojjhyllites. 



The answer seems to be sufficiently simple : nearly all the 

 animals (practically all the animals, for the small number of 

 higher forms feed upon these) belong to one subkingdom, the 

 Protozoa^ whose distinctive character is that they have no 

 special organs of nutrition, but that they absorb nourishment 

 through the whole surface of their jelly-like bodies. Most of 

 these animals secrete exquisitely formed skeletons, sometimes 

 of lime, sometimes of silica. There is no doubt that they ex- 

 tract both of these substances from the sea-water, although 

 silica often exists there in quantity so small as to elude detec- 

 tion by chemical tests. All sea-water contains a certain quan- 

 tity of organic matter in solution. Its sources are obvious. 

 All rivers contain a large quantity ; every shore is surrounded 

 by a fringe which averages about a mile in width of olive and 

 red sea-weeds ; in the middle of the Atlantic there is a marine 

 meadow, the Sargasso Sea, extending over three millions of 

 square miles ; the sea is full of animals which are constantly 

 dying and decaying ; and the water of the Gulf-stream espe- 

 cially courses round coasts where the supply of organic matter 

 is enormous. It is therefore quite intelligible that a world of 

 animals should live in these dark abysses ; but it is a neces- 

 sary condition that they should chiefly belong to a class capa- 

 ble of being supported by absorption, through the surface, of 

 matter in solution, developing but little heat, and incurring a 

 very small amount of waste by any manifestation of vital ac- 

 tivity. According to this view, it seems highly probable that 

 at all periods of the earth's history some form of the Protozoa, 

 Rhizopods, Sponges, or both, predominated greatly over all 

 other forms of animal life in the depths of the warmer regions 

 of the sea — whether spreading, compact, and reef-like, as the 

 Laurentian and Palaeozoic Eozoon^ or in the form of myriads 

 of separate organisms, as the Glohigerinoi and Ventriculites of 

 the chalk. The Phizopods, like the Corals of a shallower 

 zone, form huge accumulations of carbonate of lime ; and it is 

 probably to their agency that we must refer most of those 

 great bands of limestone which have resisted time and change, 

 and which come in here and there with their rich imbedded 

 lettering, to mark, like milestones, the progress of the passing 

 ages. 



XIV. — Observations on the Calamites and Aster ojphyllites. 

 By M. Grand'Euey*. 



Calamites. — The Calamites were regarded by the older 

 naturalists as reeds, and owed their name to that sujiposition. 



* Translated by W. S. Dallas, F.L.S., from the 'Comptes Rendus 

 March 22, 1869, tome Ixviii. pp. 705-709. 



