272 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



them contrary to such evidence as we have. We 

 have, for example, no connecting link between 

 Eozoon and any form of vegetable life. Its struc- 

 tures are such as to enable us at once to assign it 

 to the animal kingdom, and if we seek for connect- 

 ing links between the lower animals and plants, we 

 have to look for them in the modern waters. We 

 have no reason to conclude that Eozoon could 

 multiply so rapidly as to fill all the stations suitable 

 for it, and to commence a struggle for existence. 

 On the contrary, after the lapse of untold ages the 

 conditions for the life of Foraminifers still exist over 

 two-thirds of the surface of the earth. In regard to 

 variation, we have, it is true, evidence of the wide 

 range of varieties of species in Protozoa, within the 

 limits of the group, but none whatever of any ten- 

 dency to pass into other groups. Nor can it be 

 proved that the conditions of the ocean were so 

 different in Cambrian or Silurian times as to pre- 

 clude the continued and comfortable existence of 

 Eozoon. New creatures came in which superseded 

 it, and new conditions more favourable in proportion 

 to these new creatures ; but neither the new creatures 

 nor the new conditions were necessarily or probably 

 connected with Eozoon, any farther than that it may 



