Nature of the so-called " Bathybius."' 323 



has afforded him a remarkable confirmation of the conclusion 

 he announced at the recent Meeting of the British Association, 

 that the coccoliths and coccospheres are imbedded in a living 

 expanse of protoplasmic substance, to which they bear the same 

 relation as the spicules of Sponges or of Radiolaria do to the soft 

 parts of those animals. Thus it would seem that the whole mass 

 of this mud is penetrated by a living organism of a type even 

 lower, because less definite, than that of Sponges and Rhizo- 

 pods." And they add that, to whichever of the two great 

 kingdoms in nature we refer it, " there seems adequate reason 

 for regarding this Bathybius as one of the chief instruments 

 whereby the solid material of the calcareous mud which it 

 pervades is separated from its solution in the ocean-waters." 

 To this description Dr. Carpenter adds, in a footnote, that "the 

 discovery of this indefinite plasmodium covering a wide area of 

 the existing sea-bottom should afford a remarkable confirmation, 

 to such [at least) as still think confirmation necessary, of the 

 doctrine of the organic origin of the serpentine limestone of the 

 Laurentian formation. For if Bathybius, like the testaceous 

 Rhizopods, could form for itself a shelly envelope, that envelope 

 would closely resemble Eozoon. Further, as Prof. Huxley has 

 proved the existence of Bathybius through a great range, not 

 merely of depth but of temperature, I cannot but think it 

 probable that it has existed continuously in the deep seas of all 

 geological epochs " *. 



At a Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on the 

 29th Nov. 1870 f, Prof. Huxley himself still further sig- 

 nalized his reputed discovery in these words : — " The Bathy- 

 bius formed a living scum or film on the sea-bed, extending 

 over thousands upon thousands of square miles ; evidence of 

 its existence had been found throughout the ivhole North and 

 South Atlantic, and wherever the Indian Ocean had been sur- 

 veyed, so that it probably forms one continuous scum of 

 living matter girding the whole surface of the earth. This 

 opinion had been confirmed in all its essential details by Prof. 

 Haeckel, who had published an admirable account of specimens 

 obtained by him "f. 



It is almost superfluous to point out that emphatic and 

 authoritative statements such as these, published in the journals 

 and, to this extent, under the august prestige of two of the 



* " Preliminary Report on Deep-sea Dredgings," by Dr. Carpenter and 

 Dr. Wyville Thomson (Proceedings of the Koyal Society, Dec. 17, 1808, 

 pp. 190, 191). 



t ' Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society,' March 23, 1871, 

 vol. xv. no. 1, p. 38. 



t The italics in the above paragraphs are mine. — G. C. W. 



23* 



