A RAY OF LIFE. 71 



no stomach, no liver, no heart, no breathing organ, no head, 

 no feet in short, this animal is destitute of organs, except 

 as it employs the whole body for every purpose. When 

 ever it seizes its food it extemporizes an arm for the work. 

 Whenever it eats it must extemporize a mouth. When 

 ever it digests it must extemporize a stomach. It seizes, 

 it eats, it digests, it breathes with the whole body. There 

 are few animals, indeed, so utterly destitute of differentia 

 tion of the parts of the body. There is not the least divis 

 ion of labor. It symbolizes primeval society, in which every 

 man does every thing that is done in the community. 



Our Laurentian protozoan was as poorly furnished and 

 as badly organized a being as this. But he possessed 

 great advantages in point of size, and was, moreover, fur 

 nished with a stony armor a wise provision, as one would 

 think, for a creature that must buffet the storms which pul 

 verized mountains, and defy the chemistry that dissolved 

 granite. It only remains to effect the formal introduction 

 to the reader. His name is Eozoon Canadense. [See Ap 

 pendix, Note II.] 



I said that the burial-place of this most venerable deni 

 zen of our planet was among the Laurentian rocks of Can 

 ada. Strange as it may appear, no vestige of animal or 

 ganization has as yet been found among the overlying Hu- 

 ronian strata. It can not be doubted that life still contin 

 ued upon the earth. It is possible that some of the most 

 ancient forms of the Old World flourished during this age. 

 Indeed, they herald the name of an Eozoon from Bohemia, 

 and still another from the Emerald Isle. It seems certain 

 that the latter had no contemporary and no rival for su 

 premacy. He certainly was the first of the Fenians. But 

 in America, so far as actual discovery goes, life touched 

 the earth at a single point, and vanished again from view. 

 This dawn of animal life was like the first gleam of sun- 



