74 



Marvels of the Universe 



life the creatures send out innumerable feelers for food. For this reason they are placed among 

 the Rhizopods, or root-footed creatures. 



Ehrenberg (1795-1876), a specialist in microscopic research as applied to the minute forms of 

 marine life, seems to have paid more attention to the Polyc3'Stins than any of his predecessors 

 had done. 



Up to his time information about these organisms was limited to those found in the Island of 

 Barbados. He believed that they had a much more extensive range than the West Indies, and 

 he was encouraged in his belief by finding specimens of Polycystins at Cuxhaven, at the mouth of 

 the Elbe. Being a great traveller and an experienced naturalist, as shown in the twenty-four works 

 which he published, he discovered in the Nicobar Islands, which lie nearly in the same latitude with 

 the Barbados, but in the East instead of the West Indies, at a height of two thousand feet, clays, 

 marls and sandstones rich in Polycystins. In examining one hundred species under his microscope 

 he found them partly identical with three hundred species found in the rocks of Barbados. 



POL'iC'iSTINS. 



Three more remarUable forms oi these minute wonders. It is easy to imagine these as designs for articles of human 



workmanship. 



He also found that the islands of Car Nicobar and Camorta are specially remarkable in this 

 respect. On the latter there is a hill of three hundred feet, throughout which the Polycystins are 

 in abundance. 



Since Ehrenberg's time, geologists have shown that the Polyc3'stins have a still wider range — 

 tliat they form a large percentage of the composition of many of the rocks of the globe. Haeckel 

 has proved clearly that the Polycystins of the rocks of Barbados are closely allied to the Radio- 

 larians of the deepest parts of modern oceans. The Pohxystins are a constituent in the 

 composition of the jaspers of Siberia, of the tripoli of Richmond, Virginia, of the shales of Saxony, 

 of the marls of Sicilv, of the Cambrian strata of Thuringia, and of many other geological 

 formations. 



Sir Wy\'ille Thomson states that when deep dredging in the Atlantic, the dredge brought up a 

 large number of extremely beautiful Polycystins. 



The illustrations will, it is hoped, induce the young Nature student to examine the actual 

 specimens for himself. Prepared slides may be purchased at anj- of the establishments where 

 microscopes are sold. But it is much more satisfactory to prepare the material for observation 

 from a small piece of Barbadian rock, which may be obtained from any mineralogist. 



