Marine Muds and Nodules 157 



s himself to the case of marine muds. At page 256, after 

 noticing that it is due to the milling action of the gizzards of 

 worms that the supply of exceedingly finely divided mineral 

 matter, which is removed from the surface of every field by 

 -hower of rain, is constantly renewed, he adds in a note: 

 "This conclusion reminds me of the vast amount of extremely 

 fine chalky mud which is formed within the lagoons of many 

 atolls, where the sea is tranquil and waves cannot triturate 

 the blocks of coral. The mud must, so I believe, be attributed 

 to the innumerable annelids and other animals which burrow 

 into the dead coral, and to the fishes, Holothurians, etc., which 

 browse on the living corals." Darwin further gives an approxi- 

 mate numerical result or estimate of the work of earthworms 

 which is interesting. At page 258 he says: "Nor should we 

 forget, in considering the power which worms exert in triturating 

 particles of rock, that there is good evidence that on each acre 

 of land which is sufficiently damp and not too sandy, gravelly, 

 or rocky for worms to inhabit, a weight of more than 10 tons 

 of earth annually passes through their bodies and is brought 

 to the surface." 



But this does not exhaust the mysterious efficacy of 

 mechanical comminution when pushed to a high power. 



The activity of the gizzard in the ground-fauna of both sea 

 and land in supporting life by promoting chemical action 

 between the materials passed through it, which otherwise are 

 vards each other, is an example in Nature which was 

 unconsciously imitated in Art by one of the greatest discoveries 

 in the history of Medicine, namely that of the Dynamization 

 of drugs by triturati-m, due to Samuel Hahnemann. 



Taking the Aurum Solubile of the alchemists as his finger- 

 post, he showed that metaN and >thT insoluble substances, by 

 tritnration to a certain degree of fineness, become soluble in 

 r. alcohol and other neutr.il h<|u 



The practical n--ult "I tin -TV N th.it alcoholic 



1- in th MM millionth and higher 

 \e beenofficin.d in homoeopathic i> M for the 



hundred years. 



