476 Chronicles of Science. [ July, 
can Association for the advancement of science,* that one of the 
geologists of the Canadian Survey, Mr. John M*Mullin, had found 
some specimens in the Laurentian formation of Ottawa, which 
appeared strongly to resemble the fossils from the bird’s-eye lime- 
stone known under the generic name of Stromatocerium, the statement, 
though printed in most of the scientific journals, received but little 
credence ; but now that it is made for the second time, it has attracted 
the attention of most paleontologists, and won the belief of not 
a few. 
One of the original specimens is figured in Sir William Logan’s 
‘Geology of Canada,’ and, as he observes, it certainly bears a won- 
derful resemblance to Stromatopora, which genus, we believe, is now 
thought to belong to the class Polyzoa. 'The Geological Survey of 
Canada has recently, however, had the good fortune to find other spe- 
cimens of the same, or a similar organism, in the serpentine-limestone 
of Grenville; and as these specimens have been carefully prepared for 
a rigid examination, which has been undertaken by Dr. Dawson, F'.R.8., 
F.G.S., who is well known as an able investigator of the minute struc- 
ture of fossils, and who considers them to be Foraminifera, there 
appears to be no longer room for doubt as to their organic character, 
though until Dr. Dawson’s figures and descriptions are published, the 
place they really occupy in the animal kingdom must remain un- 
certain. 
The Laurentian rocks of Canada are older than any of the British 
strata, with the exception, perhaps, of some masses of granitic gneiss, 
which are supposed by many eminent geologists to be their equiva- 
lents, and which occur in the extreme north-west of Scotland and in 
the neighbouring isles. This statement may give some idea of the 
antiquity of the fossils, but their date is even more remote than would 
be supposed from a comparison of that nature, for Sir Wiliam Logan 
has recently discovered that the Laurentian system consists of two 
great groups, the upper of which—the Labrador series—rests uncon- 
formably upon the more ancient or Laurentian series, and it is in the 
latter that these fossils have been found. Below the whole series of 
British stratified rocks and their unconformities it is therefore neces- 
sary to add the Labrador series, then another unconformity, and another 
great series of rocks, and not until then do we arrive at the geological 
position of these old Foraminifera. 
There is yet another point of interest connected with these ancient 
organisms, namely, their mineralization, Mr. Sterry Hunt having 
determined the substance which was formerly supposed to replace the 
calcareous skeleton of the animal, but which is now known to fill up 
the interspaces, to be true serpentine ; so that, although it was pretty 
certain before, there can now be no doubt whatever that that rock is 
sometimes of metamorphic origin. 
In a recent memoir, M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards discusses the 
‘Geological Distribution of Fossil Birds.’ Although most of the 
fossil remains of birds hitherto discovered have been found in Ter- 
* See ‘Canadian Naturalist and Geologist,’ vol. iv, 1859, p. 300. 
