64 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
question is insoluble; it is sunk in an abyss of obscurity. The 
coral, or rather the aggregation of living beings which bear the name, 
are attached to the rock which has seen their birth, and which will 
witness their death: the Infusoria, of microscopic dimensions, which 
revolve perpetually in a circle infinitesimally small; the marvellous 
Amcebe, which in the space of a minute can change their form a 
hundred times under the surprised eyes of the observer, are, in truth, 
mere atoms charged with life. Yet all these beings have an existence 
to appearance purely vegetative. In their obscure and blind life, 
have they consciousness or instinct? Do they know what takes 
place at the three-thousandth part of an inch from their microscopic 
bodies? To the Creator alone does the knowledge of this mystery 
belong. 
It would be foreign to the object of this work to enumerate all 
the minute details concerning the innumerable creatures which swarm 
in the ocean and on its confines. We shall perhaps best consult the 
convenience of our readers by saying a few words about the Protozoa 
in general, before proceeding to discuss the three classes which form 
this division of the animal kingdom. 
The Protozoa represent animal life reduced to its most simple 
expression. They are organised atoms, mere animated and moving 
points, living sparks. As they are the simplest forms of animal life as 
regards their structure, so also are they the smallest. Their micro- 
scopic dimensions hide them from our view. The discovery of the 
microscope was a necessary step to our becoming acquainted with 
many of these beings, whose existence was ignored by the ancient 
philosophers, and only revealed in the seventeenth century by the 
discovery of the microscope. When, armed with this marvellous 
instrument, we examine these minute organisms, as Leuwenhoek did 
when, for example, he applied his magnifying glass to some infusions 
of macerated vegetable and animal substances, or when he scrutinised 
a drop of water taken from the ocean, from a river, or a lake, we, as 
he did, will discover there a new world, a world which will be partly 
unveiled in these pages. 
Some modern writers believe that the Protozoa are mere cellular 
organisms, such as we find among the vegetable kingdom. Accord- 
ing to this hypothesis, the Protozoa would be to the animal kingdom 
what the Algsze and Fungi are to the vegetable world. This idea is 
so far wrong, that it has been founded upon a basis of pure theory. 
“In reality,” says Paul Gervais and Van Beneden, “the animals 
which we thus designate very rarely resemble elementary plants.” 
The substance of which the bodies of the Protozoa are composed is 
