a new Genus of Foraminifera. 335 
science. But it was given to the celebrated M. Dujardin to 
discover the simplicity of the organization of these animalcules, 
and to demonstrate that they are only formed of a fleshy mass 
resulting from the coalescence of numerous filaments, anc 
filling a calcareous shell, through the pores of which the fila- 
ments pass, performing the office of locomotive organs. By 
reason of the great simplicity of their structure, they were 
placed amongst the lowest of the zoological series, near the 
Zoophytes. | 
_ “De Férussac would not bow to the clear and well-proven 
discovery of Dujardin, but adhered to the former belief. Not 
so D’Orbigny, who, struck by the clear light of the newer 
views, gave up his opinion to adopt them, and, devoting in- 
ereased attention to the Foraminifera still living in the sand of 
our seas, as well as to those which have left their shells in 
the rocks formed from marine deposit, established a methodical 
classification which is still followed, and compiled many in- 
teresting and valuable treatises, amongst which are numbered 
those in which he gives his observations on the Foraminifera 
‘of the Canary Islands and of South America, of the fossils of 
the white Chalk of Paris and of the Tertiary basin of Vienna, 
together with other valuable memoirs. 
_ “Numerous other zoologists have continued the investigation 
of this class of Radiata, amongst them Deshayes and Michelotti, 
and more recently Reuss, Czjzek, and Costa, who, pushing 
forward in an unlimited field, have by- their researches added 
many new facts to the interesting science of minute life, 
“Whilst zoologists by their researches have settled the posi- 
tion of these Radiates, they have not been of one accord as to 
the name to be assigned to them; and science has been re- 
tarded by the useless differences that have thereby arisen. 
Thus Blainville called them Bryozoaires; Dujardin, Rhizostomes 
or Simplectoméres ; Deshayes, Polypodes; Michelotti, Rhizo- 
podi-FKoraminifert ; Menke, Trematophores ; and, finally, 
D’Orbigny used the term Foraminiferes, which denomination 
has been adopted by modern writers. 
“Although animals of this class are endowed with extreme 
minuteness, they are equally remarkable for the immense mul- 
tiplication of individuals, so that a handful of our sea-sand may 
contain several thousands of specimens; and not only do they 
manifest themselves in such large numbers in the present 
geological period, but they must have existed to even greater 
extent in the Tertiary epoch, to have formed the numerous rocks 
and extensive strata which in certain places are built up of 
their fossil shells. And though not a few writers have de- 
scribed the Foraminifera of particular beds, if we consider how 
