450 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



the minute structure of these paleozoic criuoids has been preserved, 

 was precisely similar to that seen in the glauconite casts of more 

 modern foYaminifera, and in the Eozoon of older times. This 

 ancient calcareous rhizopod though most frequently preserved by 

 serpentine, had been shown, both by himself in Canada and by 

 Hoffmann in Bohemia, to be in some cases injected by silicates 

 related in composition to that of these criniods. He then pro- 

 ceeded to speak of the great class of silicates of which serpentine, 

 loganite, pyrosclerite, fahlunite and jollyte are members and 

 which are generally described as the results of pseudomorphic 

 changes of pre-existing silicated or carbonates, but which he, since 

 1853, has maintained to be original aqueous depositions, similar 

 in their origin to the related mineral glauconite; a view now 

 adopted by such investigators as Naumann, Scheerer, Giimbel 

 and Credner. He noted in this connection the bearing of these 

 facts on the Eozoon Canadense, the organic nature of which, 

 though almost universally admitted by zoologists and miner- 

 alogists, was nevertheless still questioned by Messrs. King and 

 Rowney. These gentlemen object that the ancient rocks in which 

 Eozoon is found are what are called metamorphic strata, which 

 have been, according to them, subjected to pseudomorphic changes, 

 and therefore the Eozoon may be the result of some unexplained 

 plastic force, which has fashioned the serpentine and other 

 mineral silicates into forms so like those of foraminiferal organisms 

 as to deceive the most practiced observer. This, said Dr. Hunt, 

 was goino; back to the notions of those who rather than admit 

 that mountains had been formed beneath the sea, imagined that 

 the fossil shells which they often contain were not the real shells 

 of animals, but the result of some freak of nature. The argu- 

 ment of Messrs. King and Rowney that the Eozoon rock is a 

 result of pseudomorphic alteration because it contains serpentine, 

 is a begging of the question at issue, by asking us to admit that 

 the presence of serpentine is an evidence of metamorphic change, 

 which is denied. He then remarked that the specimens of this 

 oro-anic limestone, with its injected crinoids, differed from 

 Eozoonal rock only in containing at the same time recognizable 

 frao-ments of other organic remains, and in presenting in its in- 

 jected portions the differences which distinguish the minute 

 structure of a crinoid from that of a calcareous rhizopod. In con- 

 clusion, he again adverted to the views which he had long main- 

 tained as to the origin of great masses of silicated rocks by a 



