328 



NATURE 



\7uly i\, 1879 



The Japan Gazette learns that as an encouragement to the 

 producers of tea, silk, and cocoons, it has been resolved by the 

 Government to hold an exhibition of these articles in the 

 Machigwai-sho at Yokohama. Foreigners and native dealers 

 are not to be allowed to exhibit, as the scheme is devised entirely 

 for the benefit of producers and manufacturers. 



Gold-bearing quartz has lately been discovered at Sarugoye 

 in the Yamato district of Japan. 



The Golos reports the discovery in the district of Perejaslavl, 

 Pultowa Government, of 370 flint arrow-heads, a number of 

 bones of men and animals, fragments of earthenware, and bronze 

 objects. 



The Annual Report of the Goole Scientific Society for 1878-9 

 records satisfactory progress. As the result of a rule admitting 

 ladies, twenty-one have joined the society. 



The Hull Literary and Philosophical Society, to judge from 

 the Report for 187S-9, seems to be doing a great variety of good 

 work in their district by means of lectures, papers, classes, &c. 

 The Society is in a flourishing condition as to members and 

 funds, and has added, during the session, a Microscopical and a 

 Geological Section. 



The additions to the Zoological Society's Gardens during the 

 past week include two Red and Yellow Macaws (Ara chloroptcra), 

 a Red and Blue Macaw ^^Ara macao), a Blue and Yellow Macaw 

 (Ara ararauna) from South America, a Common Trumpeter 

 (Psophia crepitans) from Demerara, presented by Mr. Chas. 

 Fricker ; two Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaclos) from Scotland, 

 presented by Mrs. A. H. Browne ; a Geoffroy's Marmoset 

 (Midas geoffroii) from Panama, purchased ; a Stanley Crane 

 (Tetraptiryx paradisea) from South Africa, received in ex- 

 change ; a Bay Antelope (Cephalophus Jersalis) from West 

 Africa , ..' eposited ; a Peacock Pheasant (Polyplectron diinquis), 

 two Black-crested Cardinals (Guiernatrix cristatella), two 

 Geoffroy's Doves {Peristera geoffroii), bred in the Gardens, 



THE EOZOON CANADENSE 



"\XT'E have received the following communications on this 

 '' subject: — 



I shall be glad to be allowed to ask your readers to suspend 

 their judgment in the matter of Eozoon, until the appearance of 

 the Jull and complete memoir, based (I venture to say) upon 

 investigations far more comprehensive than those of Prof. 

 Moebius — upon which I am now engaged, in conjunction with 

 my friend Prof. Dawson. But as the production of this memoir 

 will necessarily be a work of considerable time, on account of 

 the elaborate illustrations it will require, I would now offer the 

 following brief remarks on that part of Prof. Moebius's discus- 

 sion which relates to the so-called "canal-system." 



Among the numerous beautiful figures which Prof. Moebius 

 has given of sections of the "canal-system," there is not one 

 which represents what I described and figured, when I last wrote 

 on the subject {Ann. of Nat. Hist., June, 1874, plate xix.), as 

 "what appears to be the typical mode of its distribution." 

 Nor is this brought out in any of the small number of figures 

 which Prof. Moebius gives of the internal casts obtained 

 by decalcification. Now to any one who will picture to himself 

 how imperfect would be any conception he could form of the 

 ramification of a tree, by taking a number of sections of its 

 stem and system of branches through different planes, it must be 

 obvious that "internal casts," in relief, when \\ell preserved, will 

 give a representation of the canal-system, which must be much 

 truer than any conception can be that is based on a comparison 

 of sections only ; and that, in fact, it is only when the sections 

 are interpreted by such solid models, that the real forms and 

 relations of these "canal-systems" can be made out. 



Having been kindly furnished by Prof. Dawson some months 

 ago, with a large amount of new material, consisting of numerous 

 specimens of Eozoon, obtained from different localities and in 

 different states of mineralisation, I am now able to assert with 



confidence that the peculiar distribution described and figured by 

 me from the actual specimens (one of which has been in Prof. 

 Moebius's own possession) five years ago,' is the regular and 

 characteristic " canal-system" 0/ Eoziion. For my cabinet now 

 contains hundreds of examples of it, both in transparent sections 

 and in the solid models obtained by decalcification ; and these 

 last, in partially " dolomitised " specimens of Eozoon, show the 

 following singular peculiarities, which do not seem to have fallen 

 under Prof. Moebius's observation. When a band of dolomite 

 runs through the calcite layers, (i) the "canal systems" in its 

 neighbourhood are very commonly filled with dolomite, instead 

 of with serpentine ; (2) in one and the same canal-system, some 

 of the branches are often filled with dolomite, and others with 

 serpentine ; while (3) individual branches are often partly 

 filled with one mineral and partly with the other. 



How these facts can be explained, except by ^t pre- existence i 

 a system of canals in the calcareous layers into which these mineral 

 have penetrated, I must confess myself unable to conceive ; and 

 that they thus afford demonstrative evidence of a structure which 

 cannot be otherwise than m-ganic is not merely my own opinion, 

 but that of such accomplished petrologists as Prof. Geikie, who 

 has been for some years engaged in the microscopic study of the 

 metamorphic rocks of Scotland, and Prof. Bonney, who has 

 been similarly studying the Cornish serpentines. 



Whether, when taken in connection w ith the general structure 

 of the organism, these "canal-systems" indicate \Xs Foramim- 

 T^ra/ affinities is, of course, an altogether different matter. To 

 Prof. Moebius the difference seems greater than the resemblance ; 

 but it is noteworthy that his comparisons are limited to types 

 examined by liimself, and do not extend to Calcarina, in whose 

 "canal-system" Dr. Dawson and I recognise the nearest ap- 

 proach to that of Eozoon. To myself, as to the late Prof. Ma;i 

 Schultze,^ the resemblance seems greater than the difference. 

 And as the several "canal-systems" of Numtnulina, Polysto- 

 mella, Calcarina, linoporus, and Cycloclypeus (all originally 

 worked out by myself) differ from each other in plan, I cannot 

 regard it as a valid argument against the foraminiferal affinities 

 of Eozoon that its canal-system has a plan of its own. Surely 

 Prof. Moebius would not deny the foraminiferal characters to 

 any new recent type that the Challenger or any other collection 

 may yield, if it should show a plan of canal-system different 

 from any yet known, and approximating to that of Eozoon. 



That iniii general plan of growth (to which the distribution ol- 

 the canal-system is intimately related) Eozoon differs from all 

 recent Forajuinifera at present known cannot be regarded as r. 

 proof of its »^H-foraminiferal character by any who have full)' 

 studied the very wide range of forms which that group compre- 

 hends, including the numerous indefinite "arenaceous" types, 

 whose import is only now beginning to be understood by thofc 

 who have the bes-t opportunities of studying them. 



I would suggest this further consideration : If we are to rele- 

 gate to the mineral kingdom every supposed fossil that does nol 

 conform to any known existing type, we must expunge not only 

 Eozoon, but Stromatopora — to say nothing of many other fossils- 

 whose place no one has yet been able to assign with certainty. 

 Now, is Prof. Moebius prepared to say that Stromatopora is n 

 "pseudomorph," because one zoologist thinks it a coral, another 

 a sponge, and another a foraminifer ? On his method of " differ- 

 ences " it is clearly neither one of these ; and must, as he says 

 of Eozoon, be either shut out of the animal kingdom altogether, 

 or be made to constitute a sub-kingdom in itself. To myself it 

 appears more philosophical to suppose that such "archaic" 

 types combined in themselves characters which were after- 

 wards speci.alised as those of distinct groups. And following 

 this clue, I find in the chambered structure of Eozoon, and in its 

 general relations to the canal-system traversing its calcareous 

 layers, points of essential conformity to the group of Foraminifera, 

 which seem to me far to outweigh the differences of detail by 

 which Prof. Moebius ha5 been led to the opposite conclusion. 



I limit myself to this special point, because an excellent 

 general criticism of Prof. Moebius's memoir, from the pen of Dr. 

 Dawson, has already appeared in the American Jounml op 

 Science ; and I hope that as you have given so much prominence 

 to the views put forth by Prof. Jloebius, you will do Dr. Dawson 



^ I think it rather hard that an early diagrttvi of mine should be cited, 

 and made the subject of adverse criticism, while those more recent represen- 

 tations 0/ actual structures are ignored. 



'^ I have been informed on good authority that Prof. Max Schultze^ left 

 behind him for publication an elaborate and beautifully illustrated memoir on 

 Eozoon, arguing for its foraminiferal character on account of the rescmbtance 

 of itf " canal-system " to that of existing types. 



