276 Professors King and Ilowney's 



he has " seen no parallel to this disposition in other Forami- 

 nifera." We, therefore, expressed ourselves as being disposed 

 to regard so anomalous a peculiarity as evidence on our side. 

 Mr. H. J. Carter (without, we suspect, being aware of the 

 above admission, or of the view we wxre inclined to take), 

 when he became acquainted with the anomaly, belonging, be 

 it observed, to a part " by which the organic origin of Eozoon 

 is capable of being most unmistakably recognized," emphati- 

 cally pronounced against the identification of this part with 

 the chamber-wall of a Foraminifer, and no Avonder, 



Mr. Carter mentions that the acicul^e are " sometimes ob- 

 served to be standing perpendicularly on, but much more fre- 

 quently parallel with, the surface of the grains of serpentine : " 

 and Dr. Carpenter, in his first reply, " freely admits " that 

 this " fact " is one of " two anomalies in the arrangement of 

 the " aciculaj * ; but, not being able to meet it, he runs off by 

 appealing to " the wonderful variability of the Foraminiferal 

 type, &c." However, in his second reply (having, apparently, 

 just made the discovery), he states, '' I now find a perfectly 

 simple explanation of the fact in the structure of those very 

 Nummulites which Mr. Carter knows so well." The explana- 

 tion is afforded by a figure, " after D'Archiac and Haime," 

 representing the tubulation of XummuUtes kevigatus^ which 

 tubulation, we are given to understand, is " t]iQ precise counter- 

 jKirt to^^ the parallel aciculte of '■^Eozoon canadensey 



Considering the admissions made by Dr. Carpenter, we 

 were certainly surprised to learn from himself that similar 

 coiLnterparts are abundantly represented by D'Archiac and 

 Haime in their ^ Animaux Fossiles du Groupe Xummulitiquc 

 de rinde.' We have no intention of criticising the figure 

 that has been copied ; for the original was made when the 

 minute structure of the shell-layers of a nummulite was only 

 imperfectly known. Having, however, some knowledge of 

 the " pillars " or " cones " (so called by Sowerby) belonging 

 to these layers, but respecting which various opinions have 

 been advanced, we refused to put any faith in the explanation 

 until the true character of the " pillars " and their relation to 

 the chambers became known to us. 



Within the last few months we have been kindly fav^oured 

 by Mr. Carter with the loan and presentation of some valuable 

 specimens of recent and fossil Foraminifers, together with 

 copious information ; so, when the " precise counterpart" came 

 under oui- observation w^e solicited his further favours. The 

 specimens he sent us in return were exactly what were re- 



* The other anomaly will be noticed hereafter. 



