THE DAWN OF LIFE, 



CHAPTER L 



INTEODUCTGRY. 



Every one iias lieard of, or ought to have heard of, 

 Eozoon Canadense, the Canadian Dawn-animal, the sole 

 fossil of the ancient Lamrentian rocks of North 

 America, the earliest known representative on our 

 planet of those wondrous powers of animal life which 

 culminate and unite themselves with the spirit- world 

 in man himself. Yet few even of those to whom the 

 name is familiar, know how much it implies, and how 

 strange and wonderful is the story which can be 

 evoked from this first-born of old ocean. 



No one probably believes that animal life has been 

 an eternal succession of like forms of being. We are 

 familiar with the idea that in some way it was intro- 

 duced; and most men now know, either from the 

 testimony of Genesis or geology, or of both, that the 

 lower forms of animal life were introduced first, and 

 that these first living creatures had their birth in the 

 waters, which are still the prolific mother of living 

 things innumerable. Further, there is a general im- 

 pression that it would be the most appropriate way 

 that the great procession of animal existence should 



B 



