34 THE UNIVERSE. 



rocks owe their properties to animal matter which they 

 have retained, and that it is this which furnishes man with 

 this truly antediluvian food, composed of the remains of 

 microscopic animals. 



But the revolutions of the earth have not stopped here; 

 they have now and then produced a perfect fossil animal- 

 ized meal. There is nothing requisite but to make it into 

 bread. In fact, it is well known that, in times of dearth, 

 the Laplanders nourish themselves with a white mineral 

 dust, which they substitute for cereal products. Eetzius, 

 Avho examined this meal, found that it is composed of 

 nineteen species of Infusoria, analogous to those which' 

 now live in the neighbourhood of Berlin; and the learned 

 professor has even shown that this skeleton dust, which 

 is spread equally through Finland and Sweden, owes its 

 nutritive qualities to a certain amount of animal substance 

 which chemical analysis detected after so many, many 

 ages! 



Thus modern science throws her vivid light upon a 

 crowd of facts which till our day remained hidden in dark- 

 ness. 



though the substance ]30ssesses no conceivable alimentary properties. In Europe 

 it is only the mountain-meal of Lapland and Sweden that is so used. Of the moun- 

 tain-meal of LoUhagysyon, for example, there are every year many hundred wag- 

 gon-loads consumed. Many of these deposits are especially interesting on this ac- 

 count, that their upper beds consist of diatoms that are still living. To this class 

 belongs the deposit not far from Ebsdorf in the Lunenburg Heath, which is about 

 30 feet in thickness, aud, according to Ehrenberg, is composed of some thirty dif- 

 ferent species of diatoms. The prevailing species is, however, Synedra acuta, 

 whose hard coverings appear in the form of long ladder-like bodies. Next to it 

 the most conspicuous are Pinnularia vmvqualis (the crooked, ship-formed bodies, 

 marked with cross-lines), and Qallionella varians (the large round discs). — 

 Willkomm, Die Wunder dcs J/ikroskoj^s. 



