236 RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE 



skeleton with such chambers, canals, and tubuli 

 could be formed ; and this is solved by the dis- 

 covery that all these facts correspond precisely with 

 those to be found in the shells of modern oceanic 

 Foraminifera. The existence, then, of Eozoon, its 

 structure, and its relations to the containing rocks 

 and minerals being admitted, no rational explana- 

 tion of its origin seems at present possible other 

 than that advocated in the preceding pages. 



If the reader will now turn to the figures in the 

 illustration on the opposite page (Fig. 59), he will 

 find a selection of examples bearing on the above 

 arguments and objections. Fig. i represents a por- 

 tion of a very thin slice of a specimen traversed by 

 veins of fibrous serpentine or chrysotile, and having 

 the calcite of the walls more broken by cleavage 

 planes than usual. The portion selected shows a part 

 of one of the chambers filled with serpentine, which 

 presents the usual curdled aspect almost impossible 

 to represent in a drawing (j). It is traversed by a 

 branching vein of chrysotile (/), which, where cut 

 precisely parallel to its fibres, shows clear fine cross 

 lines, indicating the sides of its constituent prisms, 

 and where the plane of section has passed obliquely 

 to its fibres, has a curiously stippled or frowsy ap- 



