112 THE DAWN OF LIFE 



The first specimens of Eozoon ever procured, in so far as 

 known, were collected at Burgess, in Ontario, by a veteran 

 Canadian mineralogist, Dr. Wilson, of Perth, and were sent to 

 Sir William Logan as mineral specimens. Their chief interest 

 at that time lay in the fact that certain laminae of a dark green 

 mineral present in the specimens were found, on analysis by Dr. 

 Hunt, to be composed of a new hydrous silicate, allied to serpen- 

 tine, and which he named loganite. The form of this mineral 

 was not suspected to be of organic origin. Some years after, in 

 1858, other specimens, differently mineralized with the minerals 

 serpentine and pyroxene, 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 resembling the 

 Silurian fossils known as Stromatopora^ and he showed them 

 to Mr. BilUngs, the palaeontologist of the survey, and to the 

 writer, with this suggestion, confirming it with the sagacious 

 consideration that inasmuch as the Ottawa and Burgess speci- 

 mens 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 affirming the organic nature of such 

 specimens ; and my own suggestion was that they should be 

 sliced, and examined 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 ; 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, 



