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558 DR. W. B. CARPENTER ON ORBITOLITES TENUIS SIMA. 
much more specialised character. And when this transition has been once made, there 
appears no disposition whatever, in the reparation of injuries, to a reversion to the 
earlier plan. Now, this is a ‘'pregnant instance ” of the following “law of formation,” 
sagaciously laid down long since by Sir James Paget : — “ When, in an adult animal, 
a part is reproduced after injury or removal, it is made in conformity, not with that 
condition which was proper to it when it was first formed, or in its infantile life, but 
with that which is proper according to the time of life in which it is reproduced; 
proper, because like that which the same part had, at the same time of fife, in 
members of former generations.” And the study of this humble Orbitolite will be 
found, not only in this, but in other particulars, to justify the profound remark made 
by the same philosophic Pathologist/' long before the promulgation of the doctrine of 
“ evolution,” that, “if we are ever to escape from the obscurities and uncertainties of 
our art, it must be through the study of those highest laws of our science which are 
expressed in the simplest terms in the lives of the lowest orders of creation.” 
Geographical, Bathymetrical, and Geological distribution. 
So far as is at jmesent known, Orbitolites tenuissinia inhabits only the North 
Atlantic Ocean and the seas in communication with it. The first complete specimens 
were obtained in the “ Porcupine ” dredgings of 1869, at depths of from 630 to 1,443 
fathoms, between the north-west of Ireland and Rockall Bank. In the “Porcupine” 
expedition of 1870, however, it was brought up from a bottom of only 64 fathoms in 
Setubal Bay, on the coast of Portugal, and afterwards from a shallow bottom within 
the Mediterranean, near Carthagena. That it is an inhabitant of other parts of the 
Mediterranean I then inferred from the fact that I had detected fragments of it in 
the Foraminiferal dredgings, made at 250 fathoms by Edward Forbes and Lieut, 
(now Admiral) Spratt in the kEgean, in 1842 ; and it is stated by Dr. J. Gwyx 
Jeffreys, in his “ Report on the Biology of the ‘Valorous’ Cruise,” that it has been 
dredged by the Marquis du Monterosato at from 100 to 200 fathoms’ depth, off 
the coast of Sicily. That it might extend far to the north, would be expected from 
its capability of bearing the low temperature of 37° Fahr., which prevails over the 
deep bottom from which it was first brought up; and this expectation was verified by 
its presenting itself in one of the “Valorous” dredgings in Baffin’s Bay (fat. 62° 6’ N., 
depth 1,350 fathoms, temperature 34° 6' Fahr.), as well as at two stations in the 
North Atlantic, No. 12, depth 1,450 fathoms, and No. 13, depth 690 fathoms, both in the 
parallel of 56°. It has been only once brought up, however, in the “Challenger” 
expedition, viz,, at Station 44, off Cape Hatteras, from a bottom of 1,700 fathoms’ 
depth, over which creeps (there is strong reason to believe) an underflow of cold water 
from the Arctic basin. Several specimens have (I am informed) been since found in a 
* “Lectures on Surgical Pathology,” 1849;—Lect. VII. General Considerations on Repair and 
Reproduction. 
I, 
