There are Foraminifera which live only at great depths, and there are Foraminifera which live only near the surface. The ooze is found to consist of shells belonging to both kinds, though it may be that the surface species carry away the palm in point of greater multitudes.
CHAPTER XV.
OF OCEAN-WEEDS
“Have hung
My dank and dripping weeds.”—Trans. Horace.
“The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits; on the French Coast the light
Gleams, and is gone; the Cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.”
Matthew Arnold.
SCATTERED through the vast Chalk-beds of Great Britain and the Continent are thousands of layers of Flint, such layers as any of us may have seen intersecting the smooth white face of Chalk Cliffs. And as with Chalk, so with Flint—we at once find ourselves upon the track of Life.