Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, First Part: Porulosa (Spumellaria and Acantharia): Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIIIHaeckel, Ernst
Science
Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, First Part: Porulosa (Spumellaria and Acantharia): Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIII
Haeckel, Ernst
Radiolaria
In their general morphological characters, the Tertiary
SPUMELLARIA and NASSELLARIA {clxv}are related to those forms which are
found in the recent Radiolarian ooze of the depths of the Pacific,
especially to the species which are characteristic of the Challenger
Stations 225, 226, 265 and 268. Many living genera and families (_e.g._,
most #Larcoidea# and #Stephoidea#) have not yet been found in the Tertiary
formations.
A. The famous Polycystine marl of Barbados in the Antilles, which Robert
Schomburgk discovered forty years ago, belongs to the Miocene formation,
and is the richest and best known of all the important Radiolarian
deposits (see L. N. 16, pp. 5-8). After Ehrenberg had published in
December 1846 the first preliminary communication regarding its
composition out of masses of well-preserved Polycystina, he was able in
the following year to describe no less than 282 species from it; he
distributed these in 44 genera and 7 families (L. N. 4, 1847, p. 54). In
the year 1854 Ehrenberg published figures of 33 species in his
Mikrogeologie (L. N. 6, Taf. xxxvi.); but it was only in 1873 that he
published descriptions of 265 species (Monatsber. d. k. preuss. Akad. d.
Wiss. Berlin, Jan. 30, pp. 213-263). Finally there followed in 1875 his
Fortsetzung der Mikrogeologischen Studien, mit specieller Rücksicht auf
den Polycystinen-Mergel von Barbados (L. N. 25). On the thirty plates
which accompany this the last work of Ehrenberg, 282 species are figured
and named, of which 54 are SPUMELLARIA (13 #Sphæroidea#, 8 #Prunoidea#,
33 #Discoidea#), and 228 NASSELLARIA (2 #Stephoidea#, 38 #Spyroidea#, and
188 #Cyrtoidea#). The fourth section of this memoir contains a survey of
the Polycystine formation of Barbados (pp. 106-115), and the fifth
section the special description of a large specimen of rock from Mount
Hillaby in Barbados (see also L. N. 28, p. 117, and L. N. 41, pp.
476-478). The account given by Ehrenberg of the Polycystina of Barbados
is in many respects very incomplete, and very far from exhausting this
rich mine of remarkable forms. This may be readily seen from the
twenty-five plates of figures of Polycystins in the Barbados Chalk
Deposit published by Bury in 1862 (L. N. 17). The number of species here
figured (140 to 142) is about half of those given by Ehrenberg; and there
are among them numerous generic types, some of great interest, which were
entirely overlooked by the latter; _e.g._ _Saturnalis_ (#Sphæroidea#),
_Cannartidium_ (#Prunoidea#), _Tympanidium_ (#Stephoidea#),
_Cinclopyramis_ (#Cyrtoidea#), &c. Finally, Ehrenberg always (until 1875)
ignored Bury's atlas, which had been published thirteen years ago and was
quite accessible to him. How different were the contents of the two works
may easily be seen from the following abstract.
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