No. 2.] EOZOON CANADENSE. 113 



fibrous layer (" acicular crust," " nuramuline layer," &c.) between 

 these bodies and the limestone (calcite) are treated of as fiuured 

 in the accompanying plates. The little Eoozonal stalk-like bodies 

 traversing the associated limestone (calcite), and regarded by 

 Eoozonistsas "casts of canals," are next dealt with (p. 185). The 

 structure, as a whole, is compared with that of Foraminifera at 

 pages 186-189. The absence of any primary or central chamber^ 

 the apparently capricious distribution of both the " tubuliue 

 layer" and the "canals," the impossibility of representing the 

 Eozoon as a whole by any drawing of one natunil specimen, and 

 the consequent necessity of using diagrammatic figures to illus- 

 trate the reconstructed body, are points dwelt upon in this chapter, 

 leadiuii: to Prof. Mobius's conclusion that he does not believe 

 Eozoon to be a Foraminifer or organic at all. 



At pages 189-191 the authors refers to the brief published 

 observations on Eozoon emanating from the lamented Max 

 Schultze, who stated that he could not agree in the opinion that 

 the so-called " nummuline layer " was really of Foraminiferal 

 origin ; and expressed his intention of giving further study to 

 the other peculiar structure, which had been referred by Dawson 

 and Carpenter to the "canal-system," and with specimens of 

 which his friends were supplying him. 



The reason for referring the structure of the Eozoonal marble 

 to a Rhizopodal organism have been given in detail, with illus- 

 trations, in many papers and notes by Carpenter and Dawson in 

 this and other periodicals. The objections now again raised by 

 our author have been already dealt with in those papers. Of the 

 structures treated of by Prof. Mobius the branching and lobular 

 infiUings of the "canal-system" are particularly valued by Eo- 

 zoonists as good evidence, on account of their peculiar arrange- 

 ment, so agreable to the disposition of canals in certain Forami- 

 niferal shells. Such appearances in Calcarina, &c. were figured 

 and published without reference to and before the discovery of 

 Eozoon. That ancient organisms, though belonging to the same 

 groups as represented in nature to-day, should differ widely in 

 details of structure, is a truism illustrated by many newly dis- 

 covered fossil (and eVen recent) forms of life, whose structure is 

 found to be wonderfully different from, and yet wonderfully con- 

 sonant with, the make-up of the already known types of organic 

 structures ; and this invalidates our author's objection to a reli- 

 ance on the possibilities of Nature. What zoologist or botanist 

 Vol. IX. H No. 2. 



