" EOZO'ON." 89 



was quite unfit to resume his University duties. The long 

 strain which he had put upon his energies seemed to have 

 exhausted his natural powers of recovery. The eminent 

 medical men who met in consultation at his house, and 

 detected the presence of permanent disease, said to them- 

 selves beneath their breath outside the door of the patient's 

 room, " He has one foot in the grave already." Music 

 ceased to charm ; his scientific investigations were laid 

 aside ; his Foraminifera and his ComatuLne remained undis- 

 turbed. It seemed as though he had become prematurely 

 old ; torpor crept over him and numbed his activities ; the 

 weeks passed by listlessly and mounted into months, and 

 he gained no strength. The fears of his friends appeared 

 on their way to verification, when one day Sir William 

 Logan, the head of the Geological Survey of Canada, called 

 upon him, bringing with him some specimens from the great 

 beds of the Canadian limestones, on which he asked his 

 opinion. Dr. Carpenter's quick eye at once detected in 

 them a remarkable affinity to the foraminiferal structure 

 with which he was so familiar. His interest was again 

 powerfully awakened ; the "will to live" revived ; he began 

 to make microscopic preparations, and entered with much 

 of his former zest on a new path of inquiry, with the result 

 that he regained some of his old vigour, and became the 

 ardent champion of the truly organic character of the rock 

 in question. Here, as he believed, was the earliest known 

 form of animal existence ; it was the Eozo'dn, " the dawn 

 of life." 



The spring of 1865 found Dr. Carpenter again at his 

 post. But his strength was not yet adequate to the full 

 labours which the summer series of examinations entailed. 

 Threatened with another collapse, he was suddenly ordered 

 off to the Engadine, He passed slowly up the Rhine with 

 his wife, being directed to proceed as little as possible by 



