31 
With them are found minute elliptical granular bodies, first 
described by Ehrenberg, and called by him Crystalloids; the 
latter are of importance and will demand presently a more 
detailed account. Returning to the mud, which is brought up 
from the bottom of the Atlantic, this, in the tracts of higher 
deep sea temperature, considerable experience has shown to be 
very uniform in composition. 
What is this composition ? The characters are thus des¬ 
cribed by Captain Dayman, who in 1857 in the Cyclops, 
examined that portion of the Atlantic bed in which the 
telegraph is laid, and known as the Telegraph Plateau. He 
says, between fifteen and forty-five degrees of West Longi¬ 
tude lies the deepest part of the ocean, the bottom of which is 
almost wholly composed of the same kind of soft mealy sub¬ 
stance, which for want of a better name I have called ooze. 
This substance is remarkably sticky, having been found to 
adhere to the sounding line through its passage from the bottom 
to the surface—in some instances more than 2000 fathoms. 
Dried it has the aspect of chalk.” The stickiness is due to 
the fact that it contains innumerable lumps of a transparent 
gelatinous substance, which by examination under the micro¬ 
scope, is found to be made up of granules, coccoliths and 
foreign bodies embedded in a transparent colourless matrix. 
The granules vary in size 1-40.000 to 1-8000 of an inch, and 
are of various forms; these Mr. Huxley considers to be masses 
of sarcode or protoplasm, which he calls Bathybius. Ad¬ 
herent to it are numerous minute rounded bodies, coccoliths, 
and in addition to these Dr. Wallich has discovered, associated 
with the Bathybius, some large spherical bodies of more complete 
organization, which he designates coccospheres. Yet more 
recently under higher powers Professor Huxley has found the 
coccoliths to be of two classes, called by him respectively 
Discoliths and Cyatholiths. The Coccospheres are hollow irre¬ 
gularly flattened spheroids of two kinds, one compact, the other 
loose in structure. They are 1-1700 to 1-2000, and some 1-760 
of an inch in diameter. It is the opinion of Professor Huxley 
that the Coccospheres have some relation to the Cyatholiths, 
but that relation is diificult to determine. Whether the cocco- 
