Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/118

vealed to us from their tombs in a stratum of peculiar earth, extending through considerable tracks in the island of Barbados. Sir Robert Schomburgh, in his "History of Barbados," describes this track of deposit as having been thrown up from some old sea-bottom by volcanic action, through rents in the coral-reefs of which the island is formed.

Dr. Davy, writing on 14th March, 1865, says, speaking of these Polyeystinic forms:—"I find, on referring to my note-books, that I first detected them on the 12th of January, 1846, in the chalk beneath the coral-rock, of which that remarkably-formed peak, the Peak of Teneriffe, consists." This was before Sir. R. Schomburgh came to Barbados. During his visit I informed him of this fact, and of other localities in which this same chalk-like matter occurred, and showed him with my microscope the skeletons of the infusoria in question; that they were not known before, is not surprising, as there was no microscope in the island, except the one I had, capable of showing them. Sir R. S. states in his work (p. 560), how he had sent specimens of this mud and marl to Professor Ehrenberg for examination, and adds in a note that I had previously discovered them, and had made mention of them in a discourse I delivered to the Agricultural Society of Barbados, in July, 1846.

Among the specimens from this seemingly inexhaustible mine of Barbadian fossils (the same which has yielded also the subjects for many of Dr. Greville's most exquisite figures of diatoms) are found some symmetrical forms of Polycystins, the most perfect of which have doubtless been selected by Professor Ehrenberg, for his most beautiful and elaborate delineations given, among other objects, on a few of the plates of that rare and costly work, the "Mikrogeologie," and the drawings for which have been copied into Sir R. Schomburgh's book and other works. But though some of the Polycystins are nearly symmetrical in figure, they are by no means universally so; in fact, the greater number assert their near relationship with amebæ and sponges by displaying the most grotesque polymorphisms. For instance, you find a Rhopalocanium of Ehrenberg, with the flowing outline of some elegant Etruscan vase with a tapering base; the next specimen you see may have ugly nose-shaped handles, adhering to its sides in a clumsy way; in another example, the noselike protuberances enlarge, thicken, become wrinkled, and, however droll-looking, militate sadly against one's ideas of elegance. Yet look again and again, and in some favourably well-grown individual, lo! there are the clumsy excrescences, lengthened out, curved, refined, and developed into supports worthy of the famed Delphic tripod of the Pythian priestess; the gently-swelling ends of the feet meanwhile indicating appearances as of little reservoirs or deposits of material accumulating for future use, either as buds or for some further development.

Again, in some of the pyramid or obelisk shapes, the fenestræ, small at the apex, widen more and more towards the base, and a fine inner lattice-work is seen to line these too wide open windows. But the variations in form assumed by these cunning artificers are far too numerous to mention; and although they do not work by mathematical rules and compasses, as has been sometimes represented, they have within themselves a mysterious unerring rule, which guides every thread, every particle of internal sarcode, or external silex, into the position, shape, and size, best suited to the situation, surrounding circumstances, and requirements of each individual organism. We call these low forms of existence; yet they are influenced by the same unceasing All-pervading Power, that "teaches the rose to draw her crimson from the dark brown earth, and the lily her shining white," and has breathed into man the spirit and capacity for investigating even a small portion of these marvels, with feelings of wonder, love, and praise!

Whilst in the Brazils about four years since, I was rather astonished on awakening after my first night's sleep in the little town of Malta de Sao Joao, about 60 miles inland from the town of Bahia, to find my hands swollen to such an extent as to appear very much as though ensconced in boxing-gloves, entirely preventing my closing them, at which state of things I was naturally greatly alarmed, imagining some serpent had stung me in the night. I therefore summoned our two native servants to see if they could solve the mystery, which they quickly did, by saying that the swelling was due entirely to my drinking the water obtained from the little river Jacuinverim, which ran close by, to which I was not yet acclimatized; they likewise said that most Europeans on drinking its water for the first time were affected in the same manner. The water was perfectly pure, and as good as could possibly be wished for, very different to what since then I have been glad to drink from the swamps, almost putrid, but which drunk with a little brandy I have never found to cause any unpleasant effects whatever; and although I continually drank from rivers and swamps during the subsequent twelve months, my hands have thereby never since been disfigured, so as to warrant the inference which any one unacquainted with my antecedents would have formed that sand doute I was a member of a pugilistic society.