Excerpt from Fresh-Water Rhizopods of North America In compensation for the smallness Of these creatures, they make up in numbers, and it is questionable whether any other class Of animals exceeds them in importance in the economy Of nature. Geological evidence shows that they were the starting-point Of animal life in time, and their agency in rock-making has not been exceeded by later higher and more visible forms. With the marine kind, known as Foraminifera, we have been longest familiar.' Their beautiful many-chambered shells - for the most part just visible to the naked eye - form a large portion Of the ocean - mud and the sands Of the ocean-shore. Shells Of Foraminifera likewise form the basis Of miles Of strata Of limestone, such as the chalk of England and the lime stones of which Paris and the pyramids of Egypt are built. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.