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XXIII. On the Fossil Remains of the soft parts of Foraminifera, discovered in the Chalk 
and Flint of the South-east of England. By Gideon Algernon Mantell, Esq., 
LL.D., F.R.S., 8$c. 
Received May 28, — Read June 18, 1846. 
XHE last communication I had the honour to lay before the Royal Society, related 
to the organic remains of the colossal extinct Reptiles, which inhabited the dry 
land, during that remote period when the Wealden strata were deposited. The 
present notice embraces the consideration of the fossil relics of beings so minute as 
to be invisible to the unassisted eye, that swarmed in the cretaceous ocean, and of 
which numerous genera and species have descended through succeeding ages, and 
constitute a large proportion of the inhabitants of the present seas. 
In a microscopical examination of chalk and flint, undertaken for the purpose of 
testing the accuracy of the statement of M. Ehrenberg, that a considerable portion 
of the cretaceous strata is composed of minute organisms, I observed that the cham- 
bers of the shells of many Rotaliae were filled with a substance, varying in appear- 
ance from a dark opaque brown, to a light transparent amber; and resembling 
in form, the soft bodies of existing species of Polythalamia*. I was particularly 
struck with the similitude between some of the fossils, and the recent Nonionina 
when deprived of its shell by immersion in diluted hydrochloric acid ; and having, 
by the courtesy of Mr. Williamson of Manchester, procured Rotaliae from mud 
dredged up in the Levant, I found among them several that contained the body of 
the animal partially collapsed, and of a dark brown colour, which presented an ana- 
logous appearance. I was therefore led to infer, that the substance filling the cells of 
the flint Rotaliae was the remains of the soft parts of the original animalcules, in the 
state of molluskitef- . 
In a paper read before the Geological Society of London, and published in the 
Annals of Natural History for August 1845^:, I ventured to suggest this explanation 
of the origin of the fossils in question ; but the conjecture was regarded by certain 
geologists as “ very startling and unsatisfactory and as the specimens were enve- 
loped in flint, the appearance was attributed to an infiltration into the empty 
* The first flint specimen that came under my notice was discovered by my friend the Rev. J. B. Reade, F.R.S. 
f Molluskite ; a name proposed by the author, (in a paper read before the Geological Society, but not pub - 
lished) for the carbonaceous substance resulting from the soft bodies of testaceous mollusks that abounds in 
various limestones. See Medals of Creation, p. 431. 
J Notes of a Microscopical Examination of the Chalk and Flint of the South-east of England, with remarks 
on the Animalculites of certain Tertiary and modern Deposits. 
MDCCCXLVI. 3 P 
