Correspondence — Rusticus expectans. 91 



before me I shall eschew them, and even encourage a Spongiphobia 

 in the matter of silicification, until, Mr. Editor, I am directed to the 

 true light, though it he but a spark, that zoologist, mineralogist, and 

 geologist together have to get out of flint. 



My next trouble — no — you shall not be bored with that. It is 

 like the others — the result of enthusiastic savants running wild 

 with the one new idea that has, I fear, deluded them, and others 

 before them, with the hope of throwing a flood of light on that 

 obscure but interesting subject which circumstances have led them 

 to take up as a study, or as the text for a lecture. " The intelli- 

 gent foreigner " that we know of once found, in the lake of 

 Mexico, petrified Notonecta eggs so like oolite that, being a geo- 

 logist, he immediately discovered that all oolites are petrified 

 insect eggs ! So with the spores ; — all flaming coal is spores ! So 

 with flint ; it is all jelly of diatom-broth and sponge-spicule-soup ! 

 And now, dear Sir, please tell me, are these the curds and whey 

 from which genuine cheese is made ? — Yours, etc., 



CoALHOTJSE, Flintshire, EuSTICUS EXPECTANS. 



Christmas Bay, 1870. 



Postscript. — I am troubled too by what seems to be a Ehizopodal 

 madness among palaeontologists, upsetting my old notions, and offer- 

 ing such new ones that a course of reading in the existing manuals 

 does not enable me to digest In fact, nearly every obscure little 

 thing, and many big things once safely registered among corals and 

 such like, become foraminiferal now-a-days. Indeed, geologists, 

 especially the new ones, have had the Globigerina-fever ever since 

 Mr. Sorby explained that some chalk is nearly made up of Globi- 

 gerina shells. The Atlantic mud, in some places, was next found to 

 consist of Foraminifers and Polycystines ; and if anything else was 

 wanted in its protozoal character, it was soon supplied with Cocco- 

 liths and the pervading but almost intangible Bathybius, which has 

 permeated ocean-beds and men's minds after the fashion of Huns and 

 Tatars, Saracens and Prussians, invading broad lands and occupying 

 history until a change comes o'er the spirit of earth's dream once 

 more. I suppose these Ehizopodal truths are more or less genuine. 

 But are we to admit of sub-Alpine flanks and sub-Himalayan but- 

 tresses made of Nummulites, and that the Turco-Persian frontiers 

 are marked out by gigantic Foraminiferal Loftusias ? Are there 

 whole beds of Parkerias ; and are wide sea-floors coated thickly 

 with siliceous casts of small Forams ? Are we to suppose that nearly 

 all the fine-grained limestones belong to the protozoists, and are 

 sealed as theirs by visible Alveolines, Fusulines, etc., and by micro- 

 zoa innumerable, known only to the experts ? This seems enough for 

 us to believe ; but let me ask — did really the big Stromatopora enter 

 as a Foraminifer in the race of life ? And did the Eozoon, known 

 only to the upper ten of palaeo -zoology, play as important a part 

 before Canada was, as it has (in books) since Canada became a 

 Dominion ? We are overwhelmed with Ehizopods : to say nothing 

 of Sponges, old and new, and other Protozans. 



Can you, Mr. Editor, tell me when the Ehizopodists will cease to 



