cvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



there were upward of twenty active rotifers, to a hot sun, 

 during an afternoon ; after moistening the material, all con- 

 tinued motionless. From these observations, it appears that 

 when the animals are actually dried, they are incapable of 

 being revivified. 



The name of Our amoeba is proposed by Professor Leidy for 

 a fresh-water rhizopod, allied to Amoeba, but distinguished 

 by tufts of tail-like appendages or rays, which are rigid and 

 coarse compared with those of Actinophrys. He describes 

 two species. 



According to Mr. Hawkins Johnson, thin sections of flint, 

 and iron pyrites of the chalk, also of septaria and clay iron- 

 stone nodules, all exhibit, after proper treatment with acid, 

 a structure apparently consisting of fibres ramifying in all 

 directions, the organic character of which can scarcely be 

 doubted. 



The Eozoon Controversy. The debate as to the organic or- 

 igin of this object has been again revived, through an ar- 

 ticle in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, by 

 the well-known authority H. J. Carter. An abstract of this 

 paper may be found in the July number of the Monthly Mi- 

 croscopical Journal. In the April number of the Annals, Dr. 

 Carpenter returns to the charge, and writes what we con- 

 sider to be the best and clearest article he has yet given on 

 the subject. After perusing Dr. Carpenter's paper, it is dif- 

 ficult to turn away the conclusion that Eozoon was a true 

 foraminifer, abnormal in many respects, but not more so than 

 the Parheria of the greensand. In the same number is an 

 abstract of a paper by Professor Max Schultze on the Eozoon 

 Canadense, in which that celebrated microscopist gives the 

 result of his own examination of original specimens; and the 

 conclusion he has arrived at is that there can be no serious 

 doubt as to the foraminiferous nature of Eozoon. 



Mr. George W. Morehouse, in an excellent article upon the 

 markings of the Diatomacese under high powers, in the Amer- 

 ican Naturalist for May, arrives at the conclusion that the 

 perfect box-like form and elaborate ornamentation exclude 

 the idea of a blind process of chemical crystallization, refer- 

 ring, we suppose, to Max Schultze's so-called " Artificial Di- 

 atomacese," and Mr. Slack's experiments with silica films. 

 He is wrong, however, as to the silicious build of the frus- 



