SECT. ii. CO CCOSPHERES. 5 1 



their long spiny arms to fifty fathoms of the rope that 

 had been lying on the surface of the sea-bed while the 

 machine was being drawn up, and to that part of the 

 rope alone. They continued to move their limbs ener- 

 getically for more than a quarter of an hour after they 

 were out of the water. They certainly had not been 

 entangled in the line while swimming, because star- 

 fishes are invariably creeping animals. The deposit on 

 which they had rested at the bottom of the ocean con- 

 tained ninety-five per cent, of Globigerinse. Abundance 

 of these minute Foraminifera were found in the sto- 

 machs of the starfish ; which seemed to prove not only 

 that the starfish were caught on their natural feeding 

 ground, but that their food was living organisms whose 

 normal abode is the surface of the bed of the deep 

 ocean. 



Dr. Wallich also discovered in the ooze brought up 

 from a depth of nearly two miles and a quarter a num- 

 ber of small bodies from T 5 g- to ^ of an inch in length 

 and about a line in breadth. They consisted of equal 

 globes arranged in a straight line like the Nodosaria, or 

 built up, each lying on part of the one below it, and in- 

 creasing in size from the uppermost about j^Vo" to the 

 undermost about -^-^ of an inch in diameter. Both of 

 these forms, called coccospheres, consisted of sarcode 

 enclosed in a calcareous deposit ; and were studded at 

 nearly regular distances by minute round or oval bodies 

 concave below, and with an aperture on their convex 

 surface sometimes single, sometimes double. These 

 coccospheres were also found free in the ooze, and had\ 

 been seen previously by Capt. Dayman. They have/ 

 likewise been seen as free organisms living on the 

 surface of the ocean. 



The ooze in the bed of the Atlantic ocean, as well 

 as of the Mediterranean and Adriatic contains fifty per 

 cent, of Globigerinse ; they exist in the Red Sea, in the 



E 2 



