77 
article that the flour of the cereal plants was found of advantage. 
Great praise is due to the Inland Revenue for carrying out 
this prosecution so successfully, and thereby protecting the 
honest trader. These prosecutions could scarcely have been 
carried on but by the aid of the microscope. It was through 
the energy and intelligence possessed by Mr. Philips, the 
superintendent of the Inland Revenue Laboratory at Somer- 
set House, that this instrument was placed in the hands of 
the revenue officers under his guidance ; and this is not the 
first instance of extensive frauds having been detected by its 
agency. — E. L. 
Coccoliths and Coccospheres. By G. C. Wallich. Sep- 
tember 7th, 1868. — In a lecture “ On a Piece of Chalk,” 
delivered by Prof. Huxley to working men during the recent 
meeting of the British Association, and published with the 
author’s initials in the September number of ‘ Macmillan’s 
Magazine,’ attention is directed to certain minute bodies, to 
which he gave the name of “ coccoliths,” as met with in 
soundings obtained in 1857 by Capt. Dagman in H.M.S. 
“ Cyclops.” Speaking of these bodies, the author says, 
“ Dr. Wallich verified my observation, and added the interest- 
ing discovery that not unfrequently bodies similar to these 
coccoliths were aggregated together into spheroids, which he 
termed coccospheres.” He goes on to say that “ A few years 
ago Mr. Sorby, in making a careful examination of the chalk, 
by means of sections and otherwise, observed, as Ehrenberg 
had done before him, that much of the granular basis pos- 
sesses a definite form. Comparing these formed particles with 
those in the Atlantic soundings, he found the two to be 
identical, and thus proved that the chalk, like the soundings, 
contains these mysterious coccoliths and coccospheres.” 
In the above extract I will, with your permission, point 
out one or two inaccuracies, no doubt unintentional, on Prof. 
Huxley’s part, but of sufficient importance to induce me to 
beg you ■will afford me the opportunity of correcting them, 
and at the same time of drawing the attention of naturalists 
to some additional facts connected with the bodies in question. 
The occurrence of the spheroidal objects to which I as- 
signed the name of coccospheres, as being most intimately 
connected with the coccoliths of Prof. Huxley, was detected 
by me in North Atlantic soundings, whilst on the surveying 
cruise of H.M.S. “ Bulldog,” in July, 1860, a general notice 
of their existence having appeared in my * Notes on the pre- 
sence of Animal Life at great Depths in the Sea ’ in Novem- 
ber of the same year, and a detailed description, with figures 
