354 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
substance.” * These Cyatholithi are further stated to vary in size 
from -goVo "soVo diameter. The coccospheres 
are described by the same distinguished observer as ‘‘of two 
types — the one compact and the other loose in texture. The 
largest of the former type which I have met with measured 
about Y3V0 diameter. They are hollow, irregu- 
larly flattened spheroids, with a thick transparent wall, which 
sometimes appears laminated. In this wall a number of oval 
bodies, very much like the ‘ corpuscules’ of the Cyatholiths, are 
set, and each of these answers to one of the flattened facets of 
the spheroidal wall. The corpuscules, which are about 
an inch long, are placed at tolerably equal distances, and each 
is surrounded by a contour-line of corresponding form.” 
“ Coccospheres of the compact type of voVo 
diameter occur under two forms, being sometimes mere reduc- 
tions of that just described, while, in other cases, the corpus- 
cules are round, and not more than half to a third as big, 
though their number does not seem to be greater. In still 
smaller coccospheres, the corpuscules and the contour-lines 
become less and less distinct and more minute, until, in the 
smallest which I have observed, and which is only 45-Vo 
inch in diameter, they are hardly visible.” 
“ The coccospheres of the loose type of structure run from the 
same minuteness up to nearly double the size of the largest of 
the compact type, viz., yA-o of an inch in diameter. The 
largest (of which I have seen only one specimen) is obviously 
made up of bodies resembling Cyatholiths of the largest size in 
all particulars except the absence of the granular zone, of which 
there is no trace. I could not clearly ascertain how they were 
held together, but a slight pressure suffices to separate them.” f 
The relations subsisting between these Coccospheres on the one 
hand, and the Cyatholiths on the other, are very obscure ; but 
Professor Huxley deems it probable that some close affinity 
does exist; but whether the Coccospheres have been formed 
from a coalescence of Cyatholiths, whether the Cyatholiths have 
resulted from the breaking up of the Coccospheres, or whether 
the Coccospheres are altogether independent structures, yet 
remains to be decided. There appears, however, no reason to 
doubt that Coccoliths, Coccospheres, and Cyatholiths, equally 
belong to Pathybius, as the skeleton of a sponge, or the shell 
of a Foraminifer belong to their respective protoplasmic sarcodes. 
Since I'rofessor Huxley completed the observations to which 
I have referred, Hr. Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thomp- 
• On some Organisms from great Depths in the North Atlantic Ocean. 
Quarterly Jourtial of Microscopical ikicTice, Oct. 1808, p. 207. 
t Idem., p. 200. 
