292 Scientific Meeting in Germany. 



partly by plants, partly by animals. The former secreted the 

 (carbonate of) lime by absorbing the carbonic acid by means of 

 which it was held in solution in the water, and decomposing it in 

 their 'change of matter, whilst by their organic materials them- 

 selves they protected the secreted lime from immediate contact with 

 the water and thereby from being re-dissolved. The latter took 

 up the gypsum, employed its sulphuric acid in the formation of 

 such of their organic materials as require sulphur (flesh, blood, &c :) 

 and combined the calcareous earth thus robbed of its acid with the 

 carbonic acid constantly produced in their bodies by respiration. 

 The carbonate of lime thus formed they deposited in their 

 organs, especially in their skin, in the form of shell. It 

 was of accumulations of these shells (interpenetrated with orga- 

 nic tissues and materials) and of the masses of lime secreted by 

 plants, that all limestone strata originally consisted. The lowest 

 classes of plants and animals, especially the microscopic (the one- 

 celled Algae — Diatomace or Bacill arias — and the Foramenifera), 

 are in this respect of by far the greatest importance in nature. 

 Hence, in the apparently compact limestone masses, their origin 

 from the incrustations of plants and the shells of animals generally 

 escaped the naked eye and required the aid of the microscope for 

 its demonstration. After the deposition of these calcareous se- 

 diments they were continually undergoing transpositions in conse- 

 quence of the decomposition of organic materials which was going 

 on within them. In this manner the traces of their origin became 

 more and more obliterated ; but even in limestones of the oldest 

 formations, we could occasionally observe those traces to such an 

 extent that it was impossible to mistake them. The speaker elu- 

 cidated his observations by laying before the meeting a series of 

 specimens from the miocene formation of the basin of Mainz taken 

 from the locality of Frankfort. 



The agreeable, though for me somewhat presumptuous, task 

 which I undertook I have now performed to the best of my ability. 

 I do not profess to have furnished anything like a complete out- 

 line of the proceedings ; but I trust that I may have been the hum- 

 ble means of conveying to such readers of the Naturalist as take 

 an interest in the proceedings of foreign geologists a slight idea of 

 the contents of some of the more important communications, 

 which will be found reported in extenso when the transactions of 

 the meeting shall have been published. 



