Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-01-22
ISN'T THIS INTERESTING?
Some Wonderful Glass Models of Curl
oI.e [ ittIa Amin ale

Gus LlCtle AnindiS.
At the American Museum of Natural
History, New York city, there has been
placed on exhibition a series of skilfuly
constructed glass models of the beautiful
and intricate shells of certain varieties
of microscopic animals known to scien-
fists as protozoans. These glass models
are the delicate handiwork Of Mr.. Fl.
Muller, who made them under the direc-
ton of Messrs. Roy w. Miner and B. E.
Dahlgren, of the museum staff
Wonderful as are the protozoans them
selves as viewed under microscopes, ones
admiration is even more excited by the
and correctly detailed models. Photo
graphic illustrations, much reduced in
size, like those accompanying this article,
cannot do justice to the exquisite beauty
of the models.
Many protoZoans are SO simple in struc-
ture that they consist of only a tiny cell
without any covering. They have no
legs, but extend any part of the jelly-lil<e
body in the form of slender, finger-like
processes with which they cling to the
supporting object and so drag themselves
along.
These processes are called "pseudopo-
dia'' (false fee) and sometimes extend
from the body so much like the roots Of
a tree that they have given the class
name to the little Observation-Disclosures
the root-footed."
Wonderful as it may seem. these ami
mails have no special mouth, but may
develop a mouth on any part of the body.
for when one of the pseudopodia comes
in contact with anything eatable, such
as tiny diatoms. infusora, algae, etc.
the part is withdrawn. bringing the par
tice of food with it into the interior.
where it is digested.
Huxley regarded these tiny creatures
as the most wonderful examples of ami
NAL existence, mainly on account of
their extreme simplicity. Mere bits of
wonderful jelly are they but neverthe
less they digest and assimlate food they
live, grow and maintain their existence
in the face of destructive forces constant
ly opposed to them. They have the
ability to build shell or external skele
ton, which is always beautiful and often
in character.
Another group of these lowly animals
are the saltwater forms called radolar
ians. These are found almost every
where. but most abundantly in tropical
seas, where they swarm in myriads.
They may be taken from the surface, but
they have also been dredged from q
depth of nearly three miles.
You may get some notion of the count
less numbers of these radiolarians and
the millions of years that they have eX
listed when you learn that their skeletons
have formed vast beds of stone one
known stratum of which, in the Nicobar
Islands, is 1000 feet in thickness. The
Barbados island is largely formed of their
fossilized skeletons, but the deposit there
is not so thick as in the Nicobar Islands.
Odd as these tiny creatures are in many
ways, one would scarcely look for beauty |
in such mere specks of animal jelly |
Here, however, lies their greatest charm |
Few animals are more beautiful than
these lowly radiolarans. their finty |
skeletons assuming an infinite variety of
form. Haeckel, alone, has described more
than four thousand species. most of
which are but specks invisible to the I'M
aided eye. 1t is the microscope that re-
veals them to us, and shows them to be
forms of beauty such as tiny openwork |
boxes, latticework cones, concentric |
spheres of which the inner are held in
baskets" ''lanterns,'' "bee hives"Zall |
formed of glass-lilze silica.-From Mature !
and Science" in February st. Nicholas.