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II.— 0^ some Recent forms o/ Lagense /ro??i Deep-sea Soundings in the Java Seas. By 

 F. W. Owen Rymer Jones. {Communicated hy H. T. Stainton, J?«^., ^S'^^. X. Soc.) 



(Plate XIX.) 



Bead June 6, 1872. 



Having devoted my time for some months past to the investigation of some packets 

 of mud from deep-sea soundings in the Java seas, which were kindly transmitted to 

 my father by Lieutenant A. Eoss, one of the officers on hoard H.M.S. * Serpent/ sent 

 out on a surveying expedition in the latter part of 1868, I propose giving the results 

 of my labours in a series of papers treating of the Eoraminifera therein contained, 

 beginning with the simple monothalamous group Lagena, many varieties of whicli, 

 I believe, have not hitherto been figured. Though much valuable information regarding 

 the minute organisms of the Poraminifera has of late years been brought to light, yet 

 their distribution is so extensive both in a fossil and in a recent state, and they play so 

 important a part in the economy of our earth, that our knowledge of them, even 

 morphologically speaking, is still very incomplete. From the pole to the equator and 

 from the equator to the pole, in littoral deposits and through every varying grade 

 to the abyssal depths of ocean, these microscopic atoms teem in incalculable myriads, 

 steadily increasing in numbers, and silently but surely forming, with the accumulated 

 shells of ages, one of the most, if not the most, important of the potent agents in the 

 remodelling of the surface of the earth. 



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The sounding (Xo. 2) from which aU the forms figured in this paper were drawn, was 

 brought up from ar depth of about a mile and a quarter (1080 fathoms), ten miles south 

 of Sandalwood Island (lat. 8° 30' S. long. 115° 10' E.), October 13th, 1868 ; and when 

 brought up to the surface, the mud " had a greenish look and was very soft, with a 

 consistency of jelly. Its temperature was 47° F. ; and when the hand was applied 

 it felt like ice." When I received the packet, it had the appearance of a thick cake of 

 dry light-grey mud *. 



Amongst the forms which are most powerfully represented, both as regards number 

 and size, those of the Rotaline series seem to claim the precedence. Botalia is abundant, 

 and occasionally attains a good size (comparatively speaking ; for all the forms from this 

 sounding, with very few exceptions, are extremely minute). Discorbina and Flanor- 

 hulina are abundant, but smaller. The UvigerincB and Bulimin(e are plentiful and well 

 developed ; but BoUvina, though well developed, is more rare. Texttilaria is abundant ; 

 and its uniserial variety, the Bigenerina of D'Orbigny, is occasionally met with ; while 

 Cristellaria is rather rare and feeble. Nod6sa7Ha is well developed but not very 

 abundant, as also is its Dentaline variety, though the latter is still more scarce. 

 Globigerina is common. NummuUna is rather rare ; but its variety Operculma ammo- 

 noidesy Gron., is more abundant. Cornuspira is present, though moderately rare ; and 



* Vide note on page 69. 



