HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



103 



gentially, or obliquely, and may run for considerable 

 distances in the chamber walls. Moebius figures a 

 specimen in which this disregard for a rule absolute 

 among foraminifera is admirably seen (Fig. 49). King 

 and Rowney maintain that this so-called proper wall 

 is but a layer of fibrous chrysolite, due to the altera- 

 tion of the serpentine, and have pointed out several 

 cases, two of which are figured (Figs. 50 and 51) where 

 a gradual passage can be traced from unaltered 

 serpentine through various incipient stages till 

 thoroughly fibrous ; frequently where fissures in the 

 serpentine cross the chamber casts, the walls of the 

 serpentine along the crack are altered to exactly the 

 same fibrous layer as the " proper wall." " It is 

 unnecessary," they say "to add another sentence by 

 way of argument in opposition to the view which 

 ascribes the asbestiform layer to pseudopodial tubu- 

 lation." In fact, Eozoonists seem to have now 

 generally admitted the inorganic nature of the proper 

 wall. Max Schultze did so in 1874. Professor 

 Rowney has kindly favoured me with an extract from 

 a letter he received in 1882, in which Carpenter 

 abandoned his claim for its foraminiferal nature, 

 though his conversion on this point was first publicly 

 announced by Messrs. Whitney & Wadworth in their 

 memoir on the Azoic System (see Bull. Mus. 

 Compar. Zool. Cambridge, Mass., xi. 1884, p. 535). 

 Professor T. R. Jones has, I believe, also accepted 

 this important modification in the theory. 



The intermediate skeleton described by Dawson 

 as uniform and homogeneous, when dissolved in acid 

 is found to contain amorphous masses, pyrites, fili- 

 form crystals and fragments of a mineral considered 

 by King and Rowney to be titaniferous iron ; the 

 whole structure is completely paralleled in the matrix 

 of other minerals, as that of saccharoidal calcite 

 of chondrodite and pargasite, or of the coccolite 

 marble of Tyree. As this is only of importance in 

 connection with the other structures, it is perhaps 

 unnecessary to add more and we may pass at once 

 to the stolon passages and canals by which it is 

 penetrated. The former appear at first to be exactly 

 analogous to the stolon passages of Cycloclypeus, but 

 are found on further examination to be crystals of 

 probably " pyrosclerite," or "white chlorite," a 

 hydrous silicate of magnesia and alumina, which 

 differ from the granules they connect in colour and 

 lustre ; two such crystals from Grenville are figured, 

 in the second of which, as the crystal was not long 

 enough to complete the connection, the interspace 

 is rilled by a white amorphous rudely laminated 

 mass. 



The canal systems are attributed to crystals of such 

 minerals as metaxite, a form of which obtained by the 

 decalcification of saccharoidal calcite from Reichen- 

 stein, in Silesia, is figured by King and Rowney. 

 Moebius objects to their organic origin from their 

 dissimilarity to the canals of foraminifera and their 

 absolute irregularity, in illustration of which he gives 



a long series of figures (as Figs. 52, 53, 55, and 56). 

 He points out that they may be close together or far 

 apart ; may run parallel, or radiate from one or more 

 centres ; they may crowd the bodies of the cal- 

 careous masses or lie embedded in them, may be 

 simple, ramified or feather shaped, thin and long or 

 broad and short, have fine, club or spoon-shaped 

 terminates ; " they are straight, bent knee-wise, 

 undulating or crooked, are irregularly wound or 

 folded, or their bending lies in one plane." In cross 

 section (Fig. 54), they are mostly concavo-convex, 

 but may be biconvex, triangular or rectangular, but 

 seldom circular or elliptical, and all these variations 

 may be noted in the course of one canal. In their 

 relation to the serpentine bodies they are equally 

 erratic, as they may run parallel to the long axis of 

 the body chamber or branch off at every conceivable 

 angle ; in one place the canals extend from the 

 neighbourhood of the cell walls, in another, "the 

 branches press from the fibrous layer, or by the 

 interposition of the calcite the stems are separated 

 from it. In a third canal from the same slip are 

 long, slender, unbranched canals close to one 

 another and perpendicular to the surface of the 

 serpentine ; in a fourth, short and thick stalks lie 

 far from the serpentine in the middle of the calcite." 

 Such variations are certainly wholly incompatible 

 with an organic origin. 



After having thus summarised the arguments to 

 show what Eozoon is not, to complete the case 

 against its organic nature, it but remains to point out 

 what it really is. And just as previously a digression 

 was necessary to review the main points in the 

 structure of its assumed relations, so now we must 

 glance briefly at that so truly called "protean" 

 mineral serpentine. Serpentine is a hydrous silicate 

 of magnesia, generally colloidal, the only crystals 

 known being probably pseudomorphs ; it varies 

 extremely and contains an extensive series of 

 varieties and allomorphic modifications. Thus it is : 



Massive in common and noble serpentine, retinalite, 

 porcellophite, &c. 



Lamellar in antigorite, williamsite, marmolite, 

 thermophyllite, &c. 



Fibrous in chrysolite, picrolite, metaxite, balti- 

 morite. 



Flocculent in flocculite. 



Scaly aggregates in Bowenite. 



These forms are all essentially of approximately the 

 same chemical composition, differing in the per- 

 centage of water and other details, and all graduate 

 into one another, the whole series being truly allo- 

 morphic, i.e. being of different forms but of the 

 same chemical composition. To these, many other 

 hydrous silicates are closely allied, such as pyro- 

 sclerite, bastite, loganite and chonicrite. 



It is always as a modification of or in association 

 with this group of minerals interlamellated with 

 calcite, or sometimes by a dolomite produced by the 



