8 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vil. 



Coenostroma, and which according to Liudstrom^ form masses in 

 the shales and limestones of Gothland a yard or more in diame- 

 ter. In all these fossils the skeleton consists of a series of cal- 

 careous layers connected with each other by pillars or wall-like 

 processes. The layers are perforated with minute artifices, 

 which are, however, less delicate and regular than in Eozoon, and 

 have in the thickened parts of the walls, radiating tubes of the 

 nature of the canals of Eozoon. (4) On a still higher horizon,, 

 that of the Devonian, these organisms abound, so that certain lime- 

 stones of this age in Michigan contain, according to Winchell, 

 masses sometimes tv.'elve feet in length, and in one place consti- 

 tute a bed of limestone twenty-five feet in thickness. A beauti- 

 ful collection of these Devonian forms, recently shown to me by 

 3Ir. llominger, of the State Survey of 3Iichigan, who has 

 worked out these fossils with great care, fully comfirms their 

 foraminiferal affinities, and also shows that in some respects, these 

 Devonian forms are intermediate between" the Eozoon of the 

 Laurentian and the Parkeria and Loftusia of the Greensand 

 and Eocene. We thus learn that these uio-antic represen- 

 tatives of one of the lowest forms of animal life hive extended 

 from the Laurentian, through the Hurouian, Cambrian and fol- 

 lowing formations, down nearly to the close of the Palseozoic. I 

 have no doubt, that when these successive forms are studied 

 more minutely, they will show like the Trilobites, indications 

 rather of successive creations than of evolution, though in 

 creatures of so low organization the diiferences must be less 

 marked. The point I now wish to insist on. is their continuance, 

 from the Laurentian down to a comparatively modern geolo- 

 gical period. 



For the third topic referred to at the beginning of this ad- 

 dress, I have reserved little space. In the memoir in the Jour- 

 nal of the Natural History Society already referred to, I have 

 re-asserted and supported by many additional proofs that theory 

 of the combined action of Icebergs and Glaciers in the produc- 

 tion of our Canadian Boulder-clay and other superficial deposits, 

 which, fortified by the great names of Lyell and Murchison, I 

 have for many years maintained, in opposition to the views of 

 the extreme glacialists. It is matter of gratification to me to 

 find, in connection with this, that researches in other regions 

 are rapidly tending to overthrow extreme views on the subject, 

 and to restore this department of geological dynamics more 



