Dr. G. C. Wallich on the Coccosphere. 343 



spheres. But any one who carefully studies his remarks 

 must, I think, conclude that, on the whole, he was disposed to 

 give ^^ Bathyhius'''' the benefit of the doubt, and to regard the 

 coccospheres as subsidiary productions due to " the coales- 

 cence " of the '"'' coccoliths'''' — a view, which then, as now, I 

 venture most respectfully to contest. For although the 

 supreme interest that centred in the " coccoUths " has waned 

 since they ceased to constitute the bones of Bathyhius, we must 

 not forget the important part already played by them in the 

 construction of certain rocks, and which they still continue to 

 play in the construction of certain oceanic deposits. I may be 

 pardoned therefore for seeking to redeem the coccosphere- 

 question from the chaos into which it has drifted, and for 

 suggesting that had the fact indicated by me in a paper " On 

 the Polycystina " (read at the Royal Microscopical Society in 

 1865), namely that I " had met with coccosph.eres as free 

 floating organisms in tropical seas" in 1857, been recognized 

 as I think it ought. Sir Wyville Thomson would have abstained, 

 in 1872 *, from casting unmerited doubts on my view re- 

 garding the true relation of the " coccoUths " to the cocco- 

 spheres^ and, in 1874, from adopting and publishing that view 

 as a new and original observation made on board the ' Chal- 

 lenger ' t- 



From first to last in my published writings on the subject, 

 I have never made the statement so persistently attributed to 

 me (and which involves a contradiction of the opinion really 

 entertained and expressed by me), namely that "sometimes 

 the coccoliths are found aggregated into spheroids " (see ' Lay 

 Sermons,' " On a Piece of Chalk," by Prof. Huxley, 5th edit. 

 1874, p. 186) :j:, but have invariably adhered to the opinions 



* " Sometimes the ' Coccoliths ' are found aggregated ou the surface 

 of small transparent balls, and these, loldcli seemed atjirst to have something 

 to do with the production of the ' coccoliths,' Dr. Wallich has called 

 ' coccospheres! " (Sir Wyville Thomson, '■ The Depths of the Sea,' 1872, 

 p. 4L3.) 



t " I need only say that I believe our observations have placed it 

 beyond a doubt that the ' coccoliths ' are the separated elements of a 

 peculiar calcareous armature which covers certain spherical bodies (the 

 * coccospheres ' of Dr. Wallich)." (Sir W. Thomson, ' Proceedings Roy. 

 Soc' vol. xxiv. No. 154, Nov. 1874, p. 38.) 



\ See also * The Microscope,' 5th edit. 1875, p. 464, where Dr. Car- 

 penter speaks of "the larger spherical aggregations first observed hy Dr. 

 Wallich, and designated by him as coccospheres ; " and at p. 4G6, " The 

 coccospheres are made up hy the aggregation of bodies resembling cyatho- 

 liths." As (in the ' Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera, 1862, 

 pp. 46-7) Dr. Carpenter quoted almost in extenso both the description 

 and figures of " coccoliths " and coccospheres given by me in * The Annals ' 

 of July 1861, it is difficult" to see how he could so completely have mis- 

 understood what I both described and figured. 



24* 



