134 |^ag Sermons, (gssags, aitir Jjklmfos. [ix. 



imaginable description. It is, in fact, a mere particle 

 of living jelly, without defined parts of any kind 

 without a mouth, nerves, muscles, or distinct organs, 

 and only manifesting its vitality to ordinary observation 

 by thrusting out and retracting from all parts of its 

 surface, long filamentous processes, which serve for arms 

 and legs. Yet this amorphous particle, devoid of every- 

 thing which, in the higher animals, we call organs, is 

 capable of feeding, growing, and multiplying; of sepa- 

 rating from the ocean the small proportion of carbonate 

 of lime which is dissolved in sea water; and of 

 building up that substance 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 

 Globigerince have been brought up, does not agree very 

 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 Globigerince 

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

 they are found. 



As I have mentioned, the soundings from the great 

 Atlantic plain are almost entirely made up of Globi- 

 gerince, 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 

 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 

 organisms which are called Diatomacece, and partly to 

 the minute, and extremely simple, animals, termed 

 Radiolaria. It is quite 1 certain that these creatures 

 do not live at the bottom of the ocean, but at its 

 surface where they may be obtained in prodigious 



