Dr. G. C. Wallich on the Coccosphcre. 343 



spheres. But any one who carefully studies lii.s remarks 

 must, 1 think, conelude that, on the whole, he was disposed to 

 give " Bathyhius^^ the benefit of tlie doubt, and to regard the 

 coccospheres as subsidiary productions due to " the coales- 

 cence " of the '^ coccoliths^^ — a view, which then, as now, I 

 venture most respectfully to contest. For although the 

 supreme interest that centred in the " coccoliths " has waned 

 since they ceased to constitute the bones of Bathyhius^ we must 

 not forget the important part already played by them in the 

 construction of certain rocks, and which they still continue to 

 play in the construction of certain oceanic deposits. I may be 

 pardoned therefore for seeking to redeem the coccosphere- 

 question from the chaos into which it has drifted, and for 

 suggesting that had the fact indicated by me in a paper " On 

 the Polycystina " (read at the lioyal Microscopical Society in 

 1865), namely that I " had met with coccospheres as free 

 floating organisms in tropical seas" in 1857, been recognized 

 as I think il ought. Sir Wyville Thomson would have abstained, 

 in 1872 *, from casting unmerited doubts on my view re- 

 garding the true relation of the " coccoliths " to the cocco- 

 sphereSj and, in 1874, from adopting and publishing that view 

 as a new and original observation made on board the ' Chal- 

 lenger ' f. 



From first to last in my published writings on tlie subject, 

 I have never made the statement so persistently attributed to 

 me (and which involves a contradiction of the opinion really 

 entertained and expressed by me), namely that "sometimes 

 the coccoliths are found aggregated into spheroids " (see ' Lay 

 Sermons,' " On a Piece of Chalk," by Prof, Huxley, 5th edit. 

 1874, p. 186) I, but have invariably adhered to the opinions 



• " Sometimes the ' Coccoliths ' are found aggregated on the surface 

 of small transparent balls, and these, which seemed at first to have something 

 to do with the production of the * coccoliths,' Dr. Wallich has called 

 * coccospheres.' " (Sir Wyville Thomson, ' The Depths of the Sea,' 1872, 

 p. 413.) 



t " I need only say that I believe otir observations have placed it 

 beyond a doubt that the ' coccoliths ' are the separated elements of a 

 peculiar calcareou.s annature which covers certain spherical bodies (the 

 'coccospheres' of Dr. Wallich)." (Sir W. Thomgon, ' Proceedings lluy. 

 Soc' vol. xxiv. N... ir>4, Nov. 1874, p. 38.) 



X See also ' The Microscope.' 5th edit. 187o, p. 404, wliore Dr. Car- 

 penter speaks of '* the larger spherical a(/(/ref/afions tiri^t observed by Dr. 

 Wallich, and designated by him as coccospheres ; " and at p. ■ii^^i, " The 

 coccospheres are made up }>;/ the arfcjregation of bodies resfuibling cyatho- 

 liths." As (in the ' Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera, 18C2, 

 pp. 46-7) Dr. Carpenter quoted almost in ejctenso both the description 

 and figures of " coccoliths ' and coccospheres given by me in ' The Auuals ' 

 of July 1801, it is difficult to see how he could so completely have mis- 

 understood what I both described and figured. 



24* 



