104 THE MICROSCOPE. July 



Cod. In enclosed sens we Lave the largest forms as ob- 

 sculina. 



Dr. Carpenter remarks that there is no division of the 

 animal kingdom whose range in time (so far as is at 

 present known) can be compared with the Foramenifera. 

 Looking, indeed, to the vast series of ages that must 

 have been required for the deposit of that long succession 

 of upper Laurentian and Huronian rocks which inter- 

 vene between the Eozoon limestone of the lower Lauren- 

 tians of Canada, and in the lowest strata in which the 

 most ancient representatives of the Palseozoic fauna have 

 as yet been found, it may even be said that other fossils 

 are modern by comparison. For the interval between 

 the formation of the Canadian Eozoon and the period 

 represented by the oldest fossils of the Lower Cambrian 

 series seem undoubtedly to have been quite as great — 

 geologically speaking — at that which intervened between 

 the latter and the existing epoch, if not greater, the "fun- 

 damental gneiss" of Sir Roderick Murchison, which 

 represents in central Europe the Laurentian of Canada, 

 and near the base of which is found the kindred Eozoon 

 bararicum, having a thickness estimated at 90,000 feet, 

 and being overlaid by a great thickness of other non-fos- 

 siliferous rocks. Hence the determination of the organic 

 origin of this Ophicolcite, and its Forameniferal affinities, 

 which has been affected by the examination and compar- 

 ison of parts of specimens so minute as to be scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye, must be considered as one of the 

 most remarkable results of microscopic reseach — fully 

 equal in importance, when considered in all its bearings, 

 to the discovery of Prof. Ehrenberg of the Forameniferal 

 origin of the chalk. 



As Prof. Gumbel says "The discovery of organic re- 

 mains in the crystalline limestones of the ancient gneiss 

 of Canada, for which we are indebted to the researches of 



