THE HISTORY OF A DISCOVERY 1 43 



affinities of some of the fragments associated with 

 Eozoon. Less altered portions of the Laurentian 

 rocks may be found, where even the vegetable 

 matter may retain its organic forms, and where 

 fossils may be recognised by their external outlines 

 as well as by their internal structure. Thus the 

 time may come when the rocks now called Primordial 

 shall not be held to be so in any strict sense, and 

 when swarming dynasties of Protozoa and other low 

 forms of life may be known as inhabitants of oceans 

 vastly ancient as compared with even the old 

 Primordial seas. Who knows whether even the 

 land of the Laurentian time may not have been 

 clothed with plants, perhaps as much more strange 

 and weird than those of the Devonian and Carboni- 

 ferous, as those of the latter are when compared with 

 modern forests ? 



