104 



HARDIVICRE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



partial replacement of the calcite by carbonate of 

 magnesia, that Eozoon occurs. All the various 

 structures supposed to aflirm its organic origin are 

 but members of this series of minerals. The proper 

 wall is but a layer of fibrous chrysolite, indistinguish- 

 able from that round the nodules described by 



the admission, that the case for the organic nature of 

 Eozoon rested on the "assemblage of facts which 

 can only be separately paralleled elsewhere." 



To obtain such a structure all we require would be 

 a bed of " lamellated ophite," or thin alternations 01 

 serpentine and calcite, produced,* e.g., by the action 



Fig/48. — Specimen sent to Moebius by Carpenter, k, calcite, supposed intermediate skeleton ; s, serpentine, supposed casts ot 

 body chambers; w, bai.d of chrysolite fibres, the supposed proper wall. (Moebius, pi. 35, fig. 48.) 



Fig. 49. — Two asbestiform layers (proper walls) on serpen- 

 tine granule ; the fibres are in close contact on right hand 

 side of specimen. The asbestiform layers are white, the 

 serpentine green and translucent. From Grenville. (After 

 King and Rowney.) 



Fig. 51.— A supposed "stolon pas- 

 sage " from Grenville. Consists 

 of a crystal of probably pyro- 

 sclerite, partially fringed by an 

 asbestiform layer, and connect- 

 ing two granules of serpentine. 

 (After King and Rowney.) 



Fig. 30. — Specimen from Grenville, after King and Rowney. c, calcite ; s, serpentine ; 

 ■ww, asbestiform layer or proper, with the fibrous structure completely developed in 

 places {d), but in an incipient stage of development at a and b ; the latter shows that 

 the layer is an integral part of the serpentine. 



Delesse, in the ophite of Zeltes in the Vosges, while 

 gradual passages from this to amorphous serpentine 

 are frequently observable as already figured and 

 discussed : the sarcode chambers consist of serpen- 

 tine granules — "serpentin korper" as Moebius calls 

 them : the intermediate skeleton is the calcific or 

 dolomitic matrix, the stolon passages are simply 

 crystals of pyrosclerite, and the canals are often 

 metaxite. These points have been practically ad- 

 mitted by even Dr. Carpenter, who was forced into 



Fig. 52. — A specimen similar 

 to the last, but the crystal 

 being too short to con- 

 nect the granules, the inter- 

 space is filled with a white 

 amorphous mass. 



Fig- S3- — Dendroid crystal of 

 metaxite, obtained by de- 

 calcification from a matrix 

 of saccharoidal calcite. Fi- 

 gured comparison with figs. 

 54 and 55. 



of water charged with carbonate of lime, on an olivine 

 rock, and from this by heated water or other meta- 



* Professor Alexis Julien insisted upon the tendency of 

 pyroxene and the serpentine produced therefrom, to occur in 

 alternating layers with calcite, in a paper read before the 

 American Association at the Philadelphia meeting in 1884. 



