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Updated: June 23, 2025
But the fact is that the proportion of other Foraminifera is exceedingly small, nor have I found as yet, in the deep-sea deposits, any such matters as fragments of molluscous shells, of Echini, &c., which abound in shallow waters, and are quite as likely to be drifted as the heavy Globigerinoe.
"I confess, though as yet far from regarding it proved that the Globigerinoe live at these depths, the balance of probabilities seems to me to incline in that direction. And there is one circumstance which weighs strongly in my mind.
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.
Nevertheless, the positive and negative evidence all points the other way. The skeletons of the full-grown, deep-sea Globigerinoe are so remarkably solid and heavy in proportion to their surface as to seem little fitted for floating; and, as a matter of fact, they are not to be found along with the Diatoms and Radiolaria in the uppermost stratum of the open ocean.
The notion that animals can live and flourish in the sea, at the vast depths from which apparently living Globigerinoe; have been brought up, does not agree very well with our usual conceptions respecting the conditions of animal life; and it is not so absolutely impossible as it might at first sight appear to be, that the Globigcrinoe of the Atlantic sea-bottom do not live and die where they are found.
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.
It has been observed, again, that the abundance of Globigerinoe, in proportion to other organisms, of like kind, increases with the depth of the sea; and that deep-water Globigerinoe are larger than those which live in shallower parts of the sea; and such facts negative the supposition that these organisms have been swept by currents from the shallows into the deeps of the Atlantic.
It so happens that calcareous skeletons, exactly similar to the Globigerinoe of the chalk, are being formed, at the present moment, by minute living creatures, which flourish in multitudes, literally more numerous than the sands of the sea-shore, over a large extent of that part of the earth's surface which is covered by the ocean.
One of the commonest is something like a badly-grown raspberry, being formed of a number of nearly globular chambers of different sizes congregated together. It is called Globigerina, and some specimens of chalk consist of little else than Globigerinoe and granules. Let us fix our attention upon the Globigerina. It is the spoor of the game we are tracking.
But as our belief in the building of the Pyramids by men is not only grounded on the internal evidence afforded by these structures, but gathers strength from multitudinous collateral proofs, and is clinched by the total absence of any reason for a contrary belief; so the evidence drawn from the Globigerinoe that the chalk is an ancient sea-bottom, is fortified by innumerable independent lines of evidence; and our belief in the truth of the conclusion to which all positive testimony tends, receives the like negative justification from the fact that no other hypothesis has a shadow of foundation.
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