THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



tides of human craftsmanship, some the shells of 

 snails, of the nautilus, all so very small, however, 

 as to be distinguishable only under the micro- 

 scope, but all inscribed with the mystic charac- 

 ters of life. Once more they are the chambered 

 houses, boats and balancing apparatus of primi- 

 tive one-celled animals. These tiny animal houses 

 are not built of silica this time. This chalk is 

 a lime-stone. In order to form it the animals 

 must secrete lime. We know such little lime- 

 makers today. They tumble about in Innumer- 

 able swarms in the same water column of the 

 ocean where the radiolaria swim. We call them 

 foraminifera. Through a process, still in many 

 ways puzzling they draw the lime out of the 

 sea-water and force it into the beautiful art 

 forms of their little houses. From these moving 

 swarms a ceaseless rain of dead empty lime 

 houses falls into the peaceful refuge of the sea- 

 depths, heaping themselves ever higher. So tiny 

 is each individual that there are fifty thousand 

 shells in one gram of this sand. This continuous 

 rain has covered eighty million square miles of 

 the ocean bottom with foraminlferal ooze. Fur- 

 ther eighty-two million square miles would be 

 covered with the same sort of lime blanket if it 

 were not for the fact that it is so deep that the 

 free carbonic acid gas concentrated by the water 

 pressure dissolves the lime shells like sugar in 

 coffee and thereby dissipates the lime. In this 

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