362 Profs. King a7}d Rowney on 



2. ^^Differences hetweeii the cell-wall o/*Eozoon and a vein 

 of chrysotiley 



It would have much surprised us if " all who have had an 

 opportunity of examining " Dr. Dawson's " specimens " of the 

 " proper wall of Eozoon " and his veins of chrysotile had not 

 " expressed astonishment that appearances so dissimilar should 

 have been confounded with each other " (p. 181). But to 

 whom does the charge involved in this statement apply ? Not 

 to us ; for we have from the first been careful in asserting that 

 the typical " proper wall " is an acicular modification of chry- 

 sotile — that its aciculee are cylindrical and separated by inter- 

 spaces of calcite. Dr. Dawson, who has formed his own 

 ideas respecting chrysotile, describes it as fibrous serpentine, 

 or consisting of " closely packed angular prisms " — " angular 

 crystals," — and represents it with a definite rhombo-prismatic 

 structure (fig. 27, p. 106), Evidently, then, as such descrip- 

 tion does not apply to the " proper wall " as we conceive it to 

 be, our opponent has at the very outset destroyed the validity 

 of his own argument. But more of this hereafter, 



3. ^^ Proper wall shifted hy a faulty and more recent chrysotile 

 vein not faulted^ 



This point is evidently considered by Dr. Dawson as a crux. 

 Still, notwithstanding the popular notion that what is written 

 in a book must be true, it is really not worth the paper on 

 which it is written. Any one acquainted with our theory of 

 the origin of the " proper Avail " will understand that it does not 

 preclude the formation of this part at different times, and even in 

 the same portions of a rock. Hence the unfaulted vein of chry- 

 sotile (s' in fig. 3, pi. viii.) represents no more than a divisional 

 structure developed subsequently to the faulting of the adjacent 

 " proper wall." We have no doubt that originally this " wall " 

 was also chrysotile ; but whether it became changed into its 

 present acicular condition before or after the faulting took 

 place is immaterial to the question. 



Of similar import Dr. Dawson would have us to believe is 

 the fact that " chrysotile veins often penetrate diagonally or 

 transversely across both chambers and walls " (p. 107). Such 

 " veins," it is argued, " have been filled subsequently to the 

 existence of Eozoon in its present state." He therefore con- 

 cludes "that there is no connexion between them and the 

 nummuline wall" (p. 189). This argument may be correct, 

 limited to the'cases referred to ; but as it is based on partial facts, 

 it in no way invalidates our theory, inasmuch as the vein 



