228 TEAR-BOOK OF PACTS. 



from the waves or the arenaceous rocks in which they are found ; 

 and hence there is no necessity for either an acid or silicious secretion. 

 That the foot was the boring apparatus, and not the valves, he 

 proved from a specimen of a Pholas hole in shale, where the pedal 

 depression of the animal was distinctly seen. 



He also exhibited a piece of glass bored to the depth of 1 50 of 

 an inch, by means of the point of the finger and emery alone. 



ANIMAL LIFE AT VAST DEPTHS IN THE BEA. 



Dr. G. C. Wallich, attached as naturalist to the Bulldog, 

 equipped for the survey of the projected North Atlantic Telegraph 

 route between Great Britain and America, has made a number of 

 soundings, his main object being to determine the Depths to which 

 Animal Life extends in the Sea, together with the limits and con- 

 ditions essential to its maintenance. 



As a general result, it may be stated that life exists in the sea 

 at depths far exceeding those hitherto supposed to circumscribe it. 

 The foraminifera are now proved to live at vast depths ; they are 

 minute animals, of one of the most simply organized families of the 

 animal kingdom ; and their calcareous shells constitute a large per- 

 centage of the oozy deposit brought up by soundings in the mid- 

 Atlantic and elsewhere. Of these animals, the globigerina? form a 

 genus, and the point to be determined was, whether they were 

 alive when first disturbed ; for they could hardly be expected to 

 show signs of life after the lapse of nearly an hour, during which 

 time they had been brought from their normal medium, the pressure 

 of which is estimated by tons, to an abnormal medium (the surface), 

 in which the pressure is estimated by pounds. Direct evidence 

 was wanting, owing to the bad weather ; but after a laborious and 

 continued examination of foraminifera, obtained from depths vary- 

 ing from 50 to nearly 2000 fathoms — that is, from 300 feet to nearly 

 two miles and a half below the surface of the sea — the inferences 

 are in favour of their vitality at the greatest depth- as well as in 

 shallow waters. Yet the number of specimens of globigerina? taken 

 from the deep oozy soundings in which the mass is extremely tena- 

 cious, showing the cell-contents entire, and in an apparently vital 

 state, is small as compared with the much larger proportion in 

 which the colls present no such character. 



By far the most interesting discovery was made in sounding not 

 quite midway between Cape Farewell and lloekhall, in 1260 

 fathoms. While the sounding-apparatus brought up an ample speci- 

 men of coarse, gritty-looking matter, consisting of about 95 per 

 cent, of clean shells of globigerina>, at the same time a number of 

 starfishes, belonging t>> the genus ophioooma, came up, adhering t<> 



the lowest 50 fathoms of the deep sea line, which must have rested 

 <m the bottom for a few minutes, so as to allow the starfishes to 

 attach themselves to it. These continued to move about energeti- 

 eaUy fer a quarter of an hour after they reached the surface. One 



very perfect specimen, which had fixed itself near t he extreme end 

 of the line, and was still convulsively grasping it with its long 



