[Footnote 2:  During the cruise of H.M.S. Bulldog, commanded by Sir Leopold M’Clintock, in 1860, living star-fish were brought up, clinging to the lowest part of the sounding-line, from a depth of 1,260 fathoms, midway between Cape Farewell, in Greenland, and the Rockall banks.  Dr. Wallich ascertained that the sea-bottom at this point consisted of the ordinary Globigerina ooze, and that the stomachs of the star-fishes were full of Globigerinoe.  This discovery removes all objections to the existence of living Globigerinoe at great depths, which are based upon the supposed difficulty of maintaining animal life under such conditions; and it throws the burden of proof upon those who object to the supposition that the Globigerinoe live and die where they are found.]

However, the important points for us are, that the living Globigerinoe are exclusively marine animals, the skeletons of which abound at the bottom of deep seas; and that there is not a shadow of reason for believing that the habits of the Globigerinoe of the chalk differed from those of the existing species.  But if this be true, there is no escaping the conclusion that the chalk itself is the dried mud of an ancient deep sea.

In working over the soundings collected by Captain Dayman, I was surprised to find that many of what I have called the “granules” of that mud were not, as one might have been tempted to think at first, the more powder and waste of Globigerinoe, but that they had a definite form and size.  I termed these bodies “coccoliths,” and doubted their organic nature.  Dr. Wallich verified my observation, and added the interesting discovery that, not unfrequently, bodies similar to these “coccoliths” were aggregated together into spheroids, which lie termed “coccospheres.”  So far as we knew, these bodies, the nature of which is extremely puzzling and problematical, were peculiar to the Atlantic soundings.  But, a few years ago, Mr. Sorby, in making a careful examination of the chalk by means of thin sections and otherwise, observed, as Ehrenberg had done before him, that much of its granular basis possesses a definite form.  Comparing these formed particles with those in the Atlantic soundings, he found the two to be identical; and thus proved that the chalk, like the surroundings, contains these mysterious coccoliths and coccospheres.  Here was a further and most interesting confirmation, from internal evidence, of the essential identity of the chalk with modern deep-sea mud. Globigerinoe, coccoliths, and coccospheres are found as the chief constituents of both, and testify to the general similarity of the conditions under which both have been formed.[3]

[Footnote 3:  I have recently traced out the development of the “coccoliths” from a diameter of 1/7000th of an inch up to their largest size (which is about 1/1000th), and no longer doubt that they are produced by independent organisms, which, like the Globigerinoe, live and die at the bottom of the sea.]