204 THE DAWN OF LIFE, 



they prefer, as they assure us, to regard them as the results of 

 that hitherto unheard-of process, the pseudomorphism of ser- 

 pentine ; as if the deposition of the carbonate of lime in the 

 place of dissolved serpentine were a simpler process than its 

 direct deposition in one or the other of the ways which all the 

 world understands ! " 



C. DR. CARPENTER ON THE FORAMINIFERAL RELATIONS OF 

 EOZOON. 



IN the Annals of Natural History, for June, 1874, Dr. Car- 

 penter has given a crushing reply to some objections raised in 

 that journal by Mr. Carter. He first shows, contrary to the 

 statement of Mr. Carter, that the fine nummuline tubulation 

 corresponds precisely in its direction with reference to the 

 chambers, with that observed in Nummulites and Orbitoides. 

 In the second place, he shows by clear descriptions and figures, 

 that the relation of the canal system to the fine tubulation is 

 precisely that which he had demonstrated in more recent num- 

 muline and rotaline Foraminifera. In the third place he ad- 

 duces additional facts to show that in some specimens of 

 Eozoon the calcareous skeleton has been filled with calcite 

 before the introduction of any foreign mineral matter. He 

 concludes the argument in the following words : 



" I have thus shown : (1) that the ' utter incompatibility ' 

 asserted by my opponents to exist between the arrangement of 

 the supposed ' nummuline tubulation ' of Eozoon and true 

 Nummuline structure, so far from having any real existence, 

 really furnishes an additional point of conformity ; and (2) 

 that three most striking and complete points of conformity 

 exist between the structure of the best-preserved specimens of 

 Eozoon, and that of the Nummulites whose tubulation I de- 

 scribed in 1849, and of the Calcarina whose tubulation and 

 canal system I described in 1860. 



" That I have not troubled myself to reply to the reiterated 

 arguments in favour of the doctrine [of mineral origin] ad- 

 vanced by Professors King and E/owney on the strength of the 

 occurrence of undoubted results of mineralization in the Cana- 



