144 On Extensive Infusoria Deposits in the 



department were made, and believing that little is known as 

 to what share organic life has had in the alteration of the 

 component parts our globe, I conceive that any addition to our 

 stock of information on this subject must prove acceptable. 



The celebrated Professor Ehrenberg, of Berlin, whose pupil 

 I am proud to have been, informs us that one cubic inch 

 of such earth contains more than 41,000,000 of indivi- 

 duals. One species is able to produce in a few hours one million 

 of others, and. in four days some species produce 140 billions 

 or 2 cubic feet of solid stone, taking an abstract view of the 

 question. This animal moves at the rate of one mile in four 

 weeks. One hundred millions weigh about one grain. 



They have the qualities of organised animal life. Eefiect upon 

 the difference of size of such a minute creature as compared with 

 planets, with the velocity and size of any of which bodies, what 

 extremes of magnitude, what difference of purpose and function 

 are presented for the reflection of the philosophic student of 

 nature. On the one hand we have microscopic organisms so 

 minute that although their size may be expressed in figures, the 

 mind is unable to appreciate the minuteness of their structure ; 

 "on the other hand, we have bodies whose proportions are so 

 gigantic that the mind vainly endeavours to grasp the idea 

 of their magnitude. But if you consider that each animal has 

 its parasite, how much smaller must be the lice which prey and 

 live upon these little infusoria, and which lice, says Ehrenberg, 

 are again covered with still infinitely smaller parasites, which 

 consider the backs of the lice their natural home. These 

 little animalculse form here in our Mallee Scrub for hundreds of 

 miles, a deposit of such an extent that we shall be compelled at 

 some fure day to acknowledge its existence as a formation on 

 our geological maps ! 



You will, I hope, forgive me if I connect another observation 

 of mine with the present one, which if not distinctly appertain- 

 ing to our subiect, is nevertheless connected with it, and which 

 I have made only a few days ago in the Silurian strata near 

 Melbourne, viz., the existence of fucoidae in a fossil state, of 

 which I have the honour to lay before the members of this 

 Institute a magnificent specimen. As it is exactly sixteen years 

 ago since I discovered the first fucoidae in the limestone of 

 Tarnowitz, in Upper Silesia, belonging to the Upper Trias 

 Formation, and which are now in the possession of Professo 

 Goeppert in Breslau, I feel assured you will excuse me if I 

 inform you of a few details concerning them. 



Five years ago I found the first fossils in our Melbourne 



