BED OF THE ATLANTIC. 11 



Thousands of these particles which appear under the microscope, are perfect 

 organisms, formed by no other means than vitality itself; others, fragments 

 of the same, either calcareous (composed of carbonate of lime collected by the 

 animals themselves from ocean water) or silicious deposits from marine plants. 



All these Foraminiferse were taken off the bottom (2000 fathoms), where it 

 is supposed they lived and carried on their industrious and extensive work of 

 chalk making (similar to the Polypii, the builders of those mighty coral walls 

 and reefs) below water, independently of all those elements necessary for life 

 above water. 



It appears also not improbable that they live at different depths in the ocean 

 held in suspension, swimming, or otherwise moving, and for which the 

 numerous pseudopodial arms of the Foraminiferae appear well adapted. 



It is not very long since it was supposed that many isolated dangers and 

 irregularities such as mud-banks, volcanic islands, rocks, and other vigias of 

 vast extent were dotted over the Atlantic Ocean. From these soundings 

 (with others of former years) may be gathered a pretty correct and general 

 idea of the arrangement of the Atlantic plateau. 



From the west coast of the British Isles France and Spain to the east of 

 North America and Newfoundland from Greenland in the north, to the Azores 

 in the south may now be considered a comparatively level bed of chalk 

 formation, caused by countless thousands of these invisible creatures (some here 

 illustrated) before the world was. To what depth we cannot very accurately 

 say, nor can we well imagine the rate of accumulation ; slowly and imper- 

 ceptibly, no doubt. But this vast level plain, of upwards of 60,000 square 

 miles, has scarcely an undulation (with the exception of those banks produced 

 by the soil brought from the north by icebergs and deposited on the Newfound- 

 land banks), and on whose bed safely and softly reposing, bathed also by the 

 warm waters of the Gulf Stream, are our telegraphic cables, conveying our 

 thoughts and wishes in an instant from the Old to the New World. 



B 2 



