a new Genus of Forammifera. 335 



science. But it was given to the celebrated M. Dujardin to 

 discover the simplicity of the organization of these animalcules, 

 and to demonstrate that they are only formed of a fleshy mass, 

 resulting from the coalescence of numerous filaments, and 

 filling a calcareous shell, through the pores of which the fila- 

 ments pass, performing the office of locomotive organs. By 

 reason of the great simplicity of their structure, they were 

 placed amongst the lowest of the zoological series, near the 

 zoophytes. 



" De Ferussac would not bow to the clear and well-proven 

 discovery of Dujardin, but adhered to the former belief. Not 

 so D'Orbigny, who, struck by the clear light of the newer 

 views, gave up his opinion to adoj)t them, and, devoting in- 

 creased attention to the Foraminifera still living in the sand of 

 our seas, as well as to those which have left their shells in 

 the rocks formed from marine deposit, established a methodical 

 classification which is still followed, and compiled many in- 

 teresting and valuable treatises, amongst which are numbered 

 those in which he gives his observations on the Foraminifera 

 of the Canary Islands and of South America, of the fossils of 

 the white Chalk of Paris and of the Tertiary basin of Vienna, 

 together with other valuable memoirs. 



'' Numerous other zoologists have continued the investigation 

 of this class of Radiata, amongst them Deshayes and Michelotti, 

 and more recently Reuss, Czjzek, and Costa, who, prtshing 

 forward in an unlimited field, have by their researches added 

 many new facts to the interesting science of minute life. 



"Whilst zoologists by their researches have settled the posi- 

 tion of these Radiates, they have not been of one accord as to 

 the name to be assigned to them ; and science has been re- 

 tarded by the useless dificrences that have thereby arisen. 

 Thus Blainville called th em 5/-yo.i;oa2Ves; T)u]2ixda\\,Rhizostomes 

 or Simjjlectomeres ', Deshayes, Polypodes ; Michelotti, Rhizo- 

 podi- Foramimferi ; Menke, Trematophores ; and, finally, 

 D'Orbigny used the term Foraminiferes^ which denomination 

 has been adopted by modern writers. 



"Although animals of this class are endowed with extreme 

 minuteness, they are equally remarkable for the immense mul- 

 tiplication of individuals, so that a handful of our sea-sand may 

 contain several thousands of specimens ; and not only do they 

 manifest themselves in such large numbers in the present 

 geological period, but they must have existed to even greater 

 extent in the Tertiary epoch, to have formed the numerous rocks 

 and extensive strata which in certain places are built up of 

 their fossil shells. And though not a few writers have de- 

 scribed the Foraminifera of particular beds, if we consider how 



