No. 5.] DAWSON EOZOON CANADENSE. 285 



yet as serpentine exists in connection with many specimens of 

 this fossil, it is time that geologists were warned against the 

 extravagant ideas of pseudomorphism which have been promul- 

 gated in connection with it. I have, therefore, been engaged 

 in the present summer in re-examining large series of specimens 

 of serpentines associated with organic remains, and have visited 

 some of the Canadian localities of such serpentines, and have 

 studied their geological relations. I hope to show, when these 

 researches are complete, that microscopical and palseontological 

 evidence completely vindicates the theory of aqueous deposition 

 of serpentine as maintained by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, and shows 

 that this mineral, like glauconite and similar silicates, may fill 

 the pores and cavities of fossils, without in any way destroying 

 their forms or structures. I have examples of Silurian corals 

 and other fossils mineralized with true serpentine, precisely like 

 Eozoon in the Laurentiau. Further it can be shown that the 

 Lower Silurian serpentines of Canada, alike in their interstrati- 

 £cation with fossiliferous limestones, and in their passage into 

 limestone, dolomite and even red slates, conform in a striking 

 manner to the known laws of deposition of hydrous silicates in 

 the modern oceans. Whatever opinions may be held as to the 

 metamorphic origin of certain serpentines, or as to the mode of 

 formation of serpentine veins, the facts I already possess are 

 amply sufficient to show that such theories have no application 

 to the ordinary serpentines found in beds associated with fossil- 

 iferous rocks. 



(8.) I may add that* I hold GumbeFs elaborate exposition of 

 the foraminiferal nature of Recej)taculites, in the Transactions 

 of the Royal Bavarian Academy, and the announcement by Prof. 

 Karl Moebius of a recent sessile Foraminifer from the Mauritius, 

 not very remote from Eozoon in its general mode of growth, to 

 be important contributions towards the history of this oldest 

 fossil ; whose investigation, as will be seen from the above 

 notes, is by no means fully worked out. 



