will have some hard work in winnowing my Geology; what little I know I
have learnt in such a curious fashion that I often feel very doubtful
about the number of grains [of value?]. Whatever number they may turn
out, I have enjoyed extreme pleasure in collecting them. In T. del Fuego
I collected and examined some corallines; I have observed one fact which
quite startled me: it is that in the genus Sertularia (taken in its
most restricted form as [used] by Lamoureux) and in two species which,
excluding comparative expressions, I should find much difficulty in
describing as different, the polypi quite and essentially differed in
all their most important and evident parts of structure. I have already
seen enough to be convinced that the present families of corallines as
arranged by Lamarck, Cuvier, etc., are highly artificial. It appears
that they are in the same state [in] which shells were when Linnaeus
left them for Cuvier to rearrange. I do so wish I was a better hand
at dissecting, I find I can do very little in the minute parts of
structure; I am forced to take a very rough examination as a type for
different classes of structure. It is most extraordinary I can nowhere
see in my books one single description of the polypus of any one
coralline excepting Alcyonium Lobularia of Savigny. I found a curious
little stony Cellaria (5/1. Cellaria, a genus of Bryozoa, placed in the
section Flustrina of the Suborder Chilostomata.) (a new genus) each cell
provided with long toothed bristle, these are capable of various and
rapid motions. This motion is often simultaneous, and can be produced
by irritation. This fact, as far as I can see, is quite isolated in
the history of zoophytes (excepting the Flustra with an organ like a
vulture's head); it points out a much more intimate relation between the
polypi than Lamarck is willing to allow. I forgot whether I mentioned
having seen something of the manner of propagation in that most
ambiguous family, the corallines; I feel pretty well convinced if they
are not plants they are not zoophytes. The "gemmule" of a Halimeda
contained several articulations united, ready to burst their envelope,
and become attached to some basis. I believe in zoophytes universally
the gemmule produces a single polypus, which afterwards or at the same
time grows with its cell or single articulation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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