336 THE TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE ANIMAL WORLD 



characteristic structure of certain Foraminifera, 

 like the Nummulites, and that they had come across 

 the most ancient organic remains of which traces 

 were left on the earth, whence the name of Eozoon, 

 or Dawn of the Animal World. Observed soon after- 

 wards in the Archean gneiss of Ireland, Bohemia, 

 Bavaria, and the Pyrenees, the Eozoon became the 

 object of passionate controversy, some electing for 

 the organic nature of this strange giant among 

 Foraminifera, and others refusing to see anything 

 in it but a simple mineral concretion. This last 

 interpretation forced itself on all minds after the dis- 

 covery by Johnston-Lavis in the lava of Vesuvius and 

 on the flank of the Somma, of volcanic concretions 

 absolutely similar to the Eozoon, and the result, as 

 in Canada, of a close mineralogical admixture of 

 calcareous and serpentine elements. The Dawn of 

 Life thus once again withdrew itself from the 

 deceptive investigations of geologists. 



Is it to be concluded from these facts that we 

 must for ever abandon the solution, or at least 

 the attempt to solve the entrancing problem of 

 the commencement of life on our globe ? This, 

 unfortunately, it must be acknowledged, is the 

 most probable prospect. The only hope remaining 

 to us is that we may find, in some unexplored region 

 where the Archean soil crops up, some portion of 

 these layers which have, through local circumstances, 

 escaped the destructive action of metamorphic 

 agents. This is not absolutely impossible, since 

 the pre-Cambrian soil is nearly everywhere meta- 

 morphosed, and has only yielded fossil-bearing 

 layers in very limited points of its outcrop. 



