Dr. Dawson'' s * Dawn of Life.'' 361 



1. ^^ Restoration of 'EiOzoonJ'' 



" The place of Eozoon will be in the family Nummulinidce , 

 or between this and Olohigerinidce'''' (Dawson). Looking at 

 the " Magnified and Ilestored Section of a portion of Eozoon 

 canadense " in pi. iv. of ' The Dawn of Life ' — if the author 

 when he constructed it was unaware that no Nummulid has a 

 canal-system passing off from the nummuline cell-wall, such 

 as is given in the restoration (which is correct as far as the 

 mineral configurations, aciculae, and arborescences in ophite 

 warrant their being thus represented), we would refer him to 

 Mr. H. J. Carter's paper in the ' Annals ' of December last, 

 where it will be learnt, from the highest authority on the 

 matter, that " such a relation of the ' canal-system ' to ' num- 

 muline tubulation ' could not exist in a foraminiferal test 

 either in theory or fact ! " (p. 423) *. 



But active believers in Eozoonism have a profound con- 

 tempt for all laws of organic construction. On a former occa- 

 sion we had to call attention to another restoration of the 

 " creature of the dawn," in which its " nummuline cell-wall " 

 was represented with an unbroken continuous line. We 

 showed that this was based on a partial consideration of facts. 

 Dr. Dawson has in no way profited by this con-ection, having 

 represented the " wall " bounded on both sides by two con- 

 tinuous lines (fig. 49 «', p. 176), which, though it may be a 

 fact in the specimen, is a fallacy from a foraminiferal stand- 

 point. The " restored section " represents ^^ Eozoon " with its 

 " first gelatinous coat of animal matter which grew upon the 

 bottom, and which must have resembled in appearance at least 

 the shapeless coat of living slime found in some portions of 

 the bed of the deep sea, which has received from Huxley the 

 name BatJiyhius.^^ It is a sad reflection that this " protozoon 

 of indefinite expansion," thus made the basement layer of 

 ^^EozooHj^ though examined and believed in by the highest 

 authorities, should have turned out to be no more than a mineral 

 substance. Is it not significant that those who accepted 

 Bathyhius are for the most part no-surrender champions of 

 Eozoonism ? 



* The statement in ' The Dawn of Life ' respecting the trumpet- 

 mouthed " termination of one of the canals against the proper wall, its 

 end expanding into a wide disk of sarcode on the surface of the wall, aa 

 may he seen in similar structures in modem Foraminifera " (p. 182), 

 besides asserting a foraminiferal impossibility, shows the highly imagi- 

 native style in which things are represented by scientific Eozoonitea. 

 " Thus " Tliow could it be otherwise than that " few even of geological and 

 biological students have clear idens of the real nature and mode of occur- 

 rence of Eozoon and its relation to better-known forms of life," or that 

 " the crudest and most inaccurate ideas have been current in lectures and 

 popular books, and even in text-books" ? 



