268 ANXUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



product is chlorido of sotlium, accompanied by the salts of soda 

 and i)otash ; an eruption of tlie seeonil order gives hydrochloric 

 acid and chloride of iron ; in the third degree, sulphuric acid and 

 salts of ammonia; and, in the fourth or most feeble phase, steam 

 onh', witii carl)onic aei<l and ct»mbustiljle gases. The eruption at 

 Neo-Kainuni has never exceeded the thiixl degree of intensity ; 

 and, when it excited the greatest alarm, it gave off only sulphuric 

 acid, steam, and C()mbustil)le gases. 



The active volcano now forming part of the Neo-Kaimeni Island 

 continues to increase in size by the addition of volcanic matter 

 ejected from tlie crater, and the rate* of increase of the new 

 island situated to the south-west, near St. George's Bay, is con- 

 siderably less than at first. The new island contains the crater 

 of a second volcano, thirty feet in height, with a eircular base of 

 three hundred yards; and, judging from tlie soundings obtained 

 at Paleo-Kaimeni and St. George's Bay, it is probable that the 

 island will eventually fill up the bay. 



THE STRUCTURE AND AFFINITIES OF EOZOON CANADENSE. 



This object has been the cause of much discussion among geol- 

 ogists, some maintaining it to be an inorganic sul)stance assuming 

 an animal-like form, wliile others have decided tliat it is a fossil. 

 Messrs. King and Rowney, of Queen's College, Galway, in Janu- 

 ary, 18C6, maintained, Ijcfore the Geological Society, that it is the 

 result of what tliey term mineral segregation. The following had 

 been communicated to the " Reader" as early as June 3, 1865 : — 



" For several weeks past we have been engaged in investiga- 

 ting the microscopic structure of the serpentine of Connemara, ia 

 comparison with that of a similar rock occurring in Canada, which 

 has attracted so much attention of late. For a considerable por- 

 tion of the time, we entertained the opinion, in common with Sir 

 William Logan, Doctors Dawson, Steriy Hunt, Carpenter, and 

 Professor Rupert Jones, that the Canadian serpentine is of organic 

 origin, the result of the growth of an extinct foraminifer, called 

 Eozobn Canadense. It was also our belief for a while that the Con- 

 nemara rock had originated from a similar organism. Gradually 

 of late, however, we have been reluctantly compelled to change 

 our opinion. 



" It is now our conviction that all the parts, in serpentine, which 

 have been taken for the skeleton-structures of a foraminifer, are 

 nothing more than the effect of crj'stallization and segi-egation." 



Dr. Cai-jjenter followed Avith a paper showing that it is a forara- 

 iniferous fossil. In this paper Dr. Carpenter stated that a recent 

 siliceous cast of Amphistegina from the Australian coast exhiljited- 

 a perfect representation of the " asbestiform layer," which had pre- 

 viously led him to infer the nummuline affinities of that ancient 

 foi'aminifer, — a determination which has since been confirmed by 

 Dr. Dawson. This " asbestiform laj'er " was shown to exhibit in 

 Eozoon a series of remarkable variations, which can be closely 

 paralleled by those which exist in the course of the tubuli in the 

 shells of existing nummuline foraminifera, and to be associated 



