90 
THE OCEAN WORLD. 
observed in the Antarctic Seas, during the voyages of Captain $ lf 
James Boss, offer a richness of organization, often accompanied * ) > 
elegance of form, quite unknown in more northern regions. In d 11 
residuum of the blocks of ice floating about in latitude seventy-ei ^' 1 
degrees ten minutes, nearly fifty different species -were found. MaC 
of them had ovaries, according to Ehrenberg, still green, which pro'y 
that they had struggled successfully with the rigours of the climate 1,1 
searching for food. 
At a depth in the Bea which exceeds the height of the lofti fi ^ 
mountain, Humboldt asserts that each bed of water is animated by & 
innumerable phalanx of inhabitants imperceptible to the human of' 
These microscopic creatures are, in short, the smallest and the 
numerous creations in Nature. They constitute with human bei n<? 
one of the wheels of that very complicated machine, the glo^' 
They are in the rank and at the station willed for them, as <leb r ' 
mined in the great First Thought. Suppress these microscopic beinr®’ 
and the world would be incomplete. It was said, and wisely said, lom 
long ago, “ there is nothing so small to the view but that it nA' 
becomo great by reflection.” 
The Infusoria, in short, abound everywhere. We find their remains 011 
the loftiest mountain ridges, and in the profoimdest depths of the S&' 
They increase and multiply alike under the Equator, and towards 
polar regions. The seas, rivers, ponds — the flower vase which 
upon the casement — even our tissues, and the fluids of our bodies - 
,D 
contain infusorial animalcules. Whole beds of strata, often many ^ 
thick, and covering a surface of considerable extent, are almost ex^ 11 ' 
sively formed of their accumulated debris. It is to the Infusoria ^ 
the mud of the Nile and other fluviatile and lacustrine deposits owe i 1 ' 
prodigious fertility. To them also is due the red or green layer 0 
colouring matter found in ponds and tanks at certain seasons. Wbf 
exposed to great solar heat, in order to extract the salt, as it is 111 
the vast artificial basins, hollowed out for the purpose in the ^ 
marshes near the sea shoro in the south of France, the salt w&^' 
when it reaches a certain degree of concentration, acquires a fine r° s 
colour, which is due to the presence of innumerable masses of SJ® 
Infusoria having, a reddish shell. Finally, let us add that the sd 1 
d ibris of certain fossil Infusoria, of surprising minuteness, have foU®®, 
the stone so much used by workers in metal, which is known as 
Atm 
