196 



THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS LESSONS. 



planet. I may remind you, while the subject of forami- 

 nifera, corals, and sponges which, remember, are among 

 the first known forms of animal life upon our earth 

 is fresh upon your mind, that only a few years ago 

 it was reported from Berlin that a Dr. 0. Hahn had 

 discovered, with the aid of his microscope, the presence 

 of organic remains in the stones which dart into the 



% 



Interior of sponge channels. The arrows indicate the direction of the 

 current. 



terrestrial atmosphere from stellar space. From museums 

 in Tubingen and in Vienna, he procured more than six 

 hundred chips of meteorites of the choanite class, dis- 

 covering in them a quantity of organic remains, prince 

 pally belonging to the most ancient form of porous 

 corallines, the genus of fossil zoophytes denominated 

 Favosites. Dr. Hahn discovered about fifty kinds of 



