NUiMMULITE. 385 
siphuncle.* The form of the essential parts 
varies in each species of this genus, but their 
principles of construction, and manner of opera- 
tion, appear in all to have been the same. 
The remains of Nummulites are not the only 
animal bodies which have contributed to form 
the calcareous strata of the crust of the earth ; 
other, and more minute species of Chambered 
shells have also produced great, and most sur- 
prising effects. Lamarck (Note, v. 7. p. 611), 
speaking of the 3Iilioia, a small multilocular 
shell, no larger than a millet seed, with which 
the strata of many quarries in the neighbourhood 
of Paris are largely interspersed, notices the 
important influence which these minute bodies 
have exercised by reason of their numerical 
abundance. We scarcely condescend, says he, 
to examine microscopic shells, from their insig- 
nificant size ; but we cease to think them insig- 
nificant, when we reflect that it is by means of 
the smallest objects, that Nature every where 
produces her most remarkable and astonishing 
phenomena. Whatever she may seem to lose 
in point of volume in the production of living- 
bodies, is amply made up by the number of the 
individuals, which she multiplies with admirable 
* In PL 44, Figs. 6, 7, sections of two species of Nuinmulite 
are copied from Parkinson. These show the manner in which 
the whorls are coiled up round each other, and divided by oblique 
septa. 
GF.OL. c c 
