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associating with them some forms of fcfe, hswerer lowly. 

 And yet, till within the last two years, the search for traces 

 of life in these primeval rocks was considered visionary, and 

 azoic and hypozoic, or " lifeless " and " under-all-life," were 

 the technicalities by which they were known. Nil desper- 

 andum, however, should be the geologist's motto, and espe- 

 cially of those who believe as we do that Life on this globe 

 was coeval with the stratified rocks, and that the conditions 

 which permitted the deposition of ordinary sediments must 

 have been favourable at the same time to the manifestation 

 of some form or other of vitality. And so it happens 

 that traces of lowly organisation have recently been detected 

 in these old Laurentian rocks in the serpentinous lime- 

 stones of Canada thus holding out the hope that the 

 primeval rocks of other regions will yet yield similar traces, 

 and prove that the earliest waters were tenanted by their 

 own forms of life, and were gladdened by the manifestations 

 of sentient existence. 



Indeed similar organisms have already been detected in 

 the old (and probably contemporaneous) serpentines of 

 Ireland and marbles of Bohemia j and as one form of life 

 generally indicates the existence of another upon which it 

 preyed or was in turn preyed upon, we may shortly expect 

 important additions to this discovery. Even while we 

 write (1866), tracks and burrows, supposed to be those of 

 worms, have been discovered in a somewhat higher zone, and 

 described by Principal Dawson of Montreal. The organism 

 discovered, Eozoon Canadense, or "Dawn-animal" of Can- 

 ada," belongs to the lowest forms of life lower than the in- 

 fusory animalcules, and even still lower than the sponges. 

 It is one of the Foraminifera, mere animated specks, which 

 have nevertheless the power of secreting lime from the 

 waters, and enveloping themselves in elegant and variously- 

 formed cases. These calcareous cases are mere microscopic 



