220 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [June, 



By far the most important publication of the past year, in the 

 Natural History of Canada, has been the great Report of the 

 Geological Survey, a work in which, as the achievement of mem- 

 bers of this Society, we may very well take pride ; and on which 

 we may congratulate ourselves as facilitating the labors of those 

 among us who pay attention to geology, either with a view to prac- 

 tical or scientific results, and as greatly raising the scientific 

 reputation of this country. 



The Report of the Survey has already been reviewed in the 

 Naturalist^ and I propose here not so much to say anything as to 

 its general merits, as to refer to a few points in Canadian geology 

 to which it directs our attention. 



One of these is the discovery of fossils in the old Laurentian 

 rocks, heretofore usually named Azoic^ as being destitute of life, 

 and much older than any rocks known to contain fossils. The 

 oldest remains of living beings, until this discovery, had been 

 found in rocks known as Cambrian, or Primordial, and equivalent 

 in age to our oldest Silurian of Canada, or at the most to our 

 Huronian. But the Huronian series in Canada rests on the 

 upturned edges of the Laurentian, which had been hardened and 

 altered before the Huronian series was deposited. Again, Sir 

 William Logan has shown that the Laurentian system itself 

 contains two distinct series of beds, the upper of which rests 

 unconformably on the lower. There are thus in Canada at least 

 two great series of rocks, of such thickness as to indicate two 

 distinct periods each of vast length, below the lowest fossiliferous 

 rocks of other countries. Yet in the lowest of these so-called 

 Azoic groups fossils have now been found; Canada thus dis- 

 tancing all other parts of the world, so far as yet known, in the 

 antiquity of its oldest fossils. 



I have had the happiness to submit these remarkable specimens 

 to microscopic examination, at the request of Sir W. E. Logan, 

 and have arrived at the conclusion that they are of animal nature, 

 and belong to the very humblest type of animal existence known, 

 that of the Rhizopods, though they far outstrip in magnitude any 

 known modern representatives of that group. The discovery of 

 this remarkable fossil, to be known as the Eozodii Ganadense, will 

 be one of the brio;htest gems in the scientific crown of the Geo- 

 logical Survey of Canada. 



In connection with this subject, it is to be observed that the 



