THE HISTOEY OP A DISCOVEEY. 37 



ene_, were found by Mr. J. McMullen^ an explorer in 

 the service of the Geological Survey^ in the limestone 

 of the Grand Calumet on the River Ottawa. These 

 seem to have at once struck Sir W. E. Logan as re- 

 sembling the Silurian fossils known as Stromatojpora , 

 and he showed them to Mr. Billings^ the palaeontolo- 

 gist of the survey, and to the writer, with this sugges- 

 tion, confirming it with the sagacious consideration 

 that inasmuch as the Ottawa and Burgess specimens 

 were mineralized by different substances, yet were 

 alike in form, there was little probability that they 

 were merely mineral or concretionary. Mr. Billings 

 was naturally unwilling to risk his reputation in affirm- 

 ing the organic nature of such specimens; and my own 

 suggestion was that they should be sliced, and ex- 

 amined microscopically, and that if fossils, as they 

 presented merely concentric laminae and no cells, they 

 would probably prove to be protozoa rather than 

 corals. A few slices were accordingly made, but no 

 definite structure could be detected. Nevertheless 

 Sir William Logan took some of the specimens to the 

 meeting of the American Association at Springfield, 

 in 1859, and exhibited them as possibly Laurentian 

 fossils j but the announcement was evidently received 

 with some incredulity. In 1862 they were exhibited 

 by Sir William to some geological friends in London, 

 but he remarks that ^' few .seemed disposed to believe 

 in their organic character, with the exception of my 

 friend Professor Ramsay.''^ In 1863 the General Re- 

 port of the Geological Survey, summing up its work 



