58 POPULAE ILLUSTEATIONS OF 



existing in the present seas. It has been found at Portsmouth and 

 Scarborough, and is considered by Dr. Williamson identical with 

 fossil shells found in the Tertiary formations which were deposited 

 in the tropical seas, inhabited by "the gavial, sea-serpents, and 

 gigantic sharks." 



The history of the Foraminifera is a part of that of the earth. I 

 have in this paper endeavoured to show how intimately the study of 

 .animal life is connected with those higher generalisations upon which 

 the science of geology is founded. How much is our interest 

 heightened in that drop of water under the microscope, and that 

 Protean lump of unsymmetrical sarcode called the Amoeba, when we 

 associate them with the physical architecture of the world, and the 

 forethought and design of that world's Creator ! 



CHAPTEE VI. 

 THE EADIOLAEIA. 



FEW people who have not made science a study ever heard of the 

 Eadiolaria. Many even among the learned know little about a group 

 of animals of which we have only recently known anything at all ; 

 and yet we find them placed by Kolliker higher in the scale of being 

 than the creatures which form the shells of the Foraminifera. This 

 exaltation does not arise, as it well might, from the exquisite beauty 

 of their form, but rather that in the Eadiolaria there is, for the first 

 time, a departure from the unicellular character of the organism. 

 The Gregarinidae, the Infusoria, and the Ehizopoda, properly so 

 called, all consist, in their mature form, of single cells. They are 

 Protozoons simple, as in the Infusoria, or compound, as in the 

 Orbitolites among the Foraminifera. 



It is true that, as Kolliker remarks, originally all the Ehizopoda 

 are formed by a union of many cells, and yet each mature individual 

 contains its cellular nucleus only. 



On the other hand, the Eadiolaria consist always, and without 

 exception, distinctly of a great number of cells, or Protozoons, and 

 so they lead us a step upwards in the scale of living things. 

 Kolliker fortifies his opinion by other reasons. 



For our knowledge of the Eadiolaria we are, in reality, indebted 

 to Professor Huxley. Ehrenberg, it is true, was first in the field, 



