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The history of the discovery of these living Globigerinoe, and of the part which they play in rock building, is singular enough. It is a discovery which, like others of no less scientific importance, has arisen, incidentally, out of work devoted to very different and exceedingly practical interests.
In all seas, from the equator to the polar ice, the tow-net contains Globigerinoe. They are more abundant and of a larger size in warmer seas; several varieties, attaining a large size and presenting marked varietal characters, are found in the intertropical area of the Atlantic.
Gwyn Jeffries, and other observers, found that Globigerinoe, with the allied genera Orbulina and Pulvinulina, sometimes occur abundantly at the surface of the sea, the shells of these pelagic forms being not unfrequently provided with the long spines noticed by Macdonald; and in 1865 and 1866, Major Owen more especially insisted on the importance of this fact.
If we accept the view taken by Wyville Thomson and his colleagues that the red clay is the residuum left after the calcareous matter of the Globigerinoe ooze has been dissolved away then clay is as much a product of life as limestone, and all known derivatives of clay may have formed part of animal bodies. Systema Naturae, Ed. xii., t. iii., p. 154.
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