58 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



A suggestion which may naturally enough present itself 

 is, that these curious bodies are the result of some process of 

 aggregation which has taken place in the carbonate of lime; 

 that, just as in winter, the rime on our windows simulates the 



. 5 most delicate and elegantly arborescent foliage proving 

 that the mere mineral water may, under certain conditions, 

 assume the outward form of organic bodies so this mineral 

 substance, carbonate of lime, hidden away in the bowels of 

 the earth, has taken the shape of these chambered bodies. 



jo I am not raising a merely fanciful and unreal objection. 

 Very learned men, in former days, have even entertained the 

 notion that all the formed things found in rocks are of this 

 nature; and if no such conception is at present held to be 

 admissible, it is because long and varied experience has now 



15 shown that mineral matter never does assume the form and 

 structure we find in fossils. If any one were to try to persuade 

 you that an oyster-shell (which is also chiefly composed of 

 carbonate of lime) had crystallized out of sea-water, I sup- 

 pose you would laugh at the absurdity. Your laughter 



20 would be justified by the fact that all experience tends to 

 show that oyster-shells are formed by the agency of oysters, 

 and in no other way. And if there were no better reasons, 

 we should be justified, on like grounds, in believing that 

 Globigerina is not the product of anything but vital activity. 



25 Happily, however, better evidence in proof of the organic 

 nature of the Globigerince than that of analogy is forthcom- 

 ing. It so happens that calcareous skeletons, exactly similar 

 to the Globigerina of the chalk, are being formed, at the 

 present moment, by minute living creatures, which flourish 



30 in multitudes, literally more numerous than the sands of the 

 seashore, over a large extent of that part of the earth's surface 

 which is covered by the ocean. 



The history of the discovery of these living Globigerincz, 

 and of the part which they play in rock building, is singular 



