THE PRIMEVAL AMERICAN CONTINENT, 237 



dom of the Protozoa and allied to Foraminifera. They represent it as 

 an organism attaching itself by a gelatinous body to sea-floors, en- 

 veloping itself with a crust of carbonate of lime in which very small 

 tubes penetrated to the surface through which the sarcodous material 

 within projected in tapering fingers, to be withdrawn at the will of the 

 animal ; upon this another layer of protoplastic matter, formed in the 

 growth of the creature, connected with the first, but separated through- 

 out most of its extent by an interlamination of limestone, in which 

 radiating canals are discerned, and which succeeds the earlier porifer- 

 ous shell. Upon this new calcareous crusts arise, and thus a cellular 

 and tuberiferous mound is formed, compacted and regular, along the 

 base of attachment, but loose, granulated, and divergent at its summit. 



In our present seas closely related organisms appear, the Rhizopods, 

 minute bodies, structureless, mere pellets of protoplasm, yet possessed 

 of a secretive function which incases them in exquisitely symmetrical 

 houses of lime. They are naturally low in the animal scale, indeed 

 primary, and the Eozoon seems to have been a Titan progenitor of these 

 hosts of later protozoans whose numberless fragments form the chalk- 

 beds of England and France. 



The Eozoon Ccmadense is found in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, 

 other species in the Huronian of Bavaria, and specimens have been 

 described from the Adirondacks and from Massachusetts. Forms 

 strikingly resembling Eozoon may be found in the serpentine ledge in 

 Fifty-ninth Street, near Tenth Avenue, New York. The soft parts in 

 the calcareous skeleton of this Rhizopod have been replaced by min- 

 erals, and on the resemblance, amounting almost to identity, between 

 the Eozoon and certain mineral pseudomorphs are based the objec- 

 tions made to its acceptance as of organic origin. King and Rowney, 

 of Dublin, and Mobius, of Germany, have very vigorously attacked it, 

 and lately Roemer rejects it from the list of palaeozoic fossils. But it 

 seems impossible to doubt the reality of its animal an-angement. Pro- 

 fessor Hitchcock thoughtfully observes in this connection as regards its 

 resemblance to mineral replacements, " Inasmuch as these structures 

 represent the higher efforts of the mineral kingdom in crystallization 

 and the nearest approach to the inorganic world allowed by animal 

 forms, it is not strange that the two extremes should resemble each 

 other sufficiently to deceive practical observers." 



This was, in a few words, the archaean Continent. Its greatest area 

 was in the north, with scattered islands and thin prolongations south- 

 ward along the present axes of elevation. Subsequent j^eriods built 

 out from this and filled in the shadowy but prophetic sketch of Korth 

 America not an azoic or lifeless country, as once thought, yet a terri- 

 tory where silence reigned, broken only by the roar of the surf along 

 its bleak margins, the whistle of the gale through its defiles, and the 

 thunder of tempests upon its plains. " Lonely, silent, and impassive, 

 heedless of man, season, or time, the weight of the Infinite seemed to 

 brood over it." 



