194 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



notice of geologists, and at the present moment it 

 seems extremely improbable that any older sedi- 

 ments exist, at least in a condition to be recognised 

 as such. The other is that Eozoon, as a member of 

 the group Protozoa, of gigantic size and comprehen- 

 sive type, and oceanic in its habitat, is as likely as 

 any other creature that can be imagined to have been 

 the first representative of animal life on our planet. 

 Vegetable life may have preceded it, nay probably 

 did so by at least one great creative a^on, and may 

 have accumulated previous stores of organic matter ; 

 but if any older forms of animal life existed, it is 

 certain at least that they cannot have belonged to 

 much simpler or more comprehensive types. It is 

 also to be observed that such forms of life, if they did 

 exist, may have been naked protozoa, which may 

 have left no sign of their existence except a minute 

 trace of carbonaceous matter, and perhaps not even 

 this. 



But if we do not know, and perhaps are not likely 

 to know, any animals older than Eozoon, may we 

 not find traces of some of its contemporaries, either 

 in the Eozoon limestones themselves, or other rocks 

 associated with them ? Here we must admit that a 

 deep-sea Foraminiferal limestone may give a very 



