250 RECAPITULATION. PAKT m. 



recent or fossil, is sufficient to determine the nature of 

 the animal to which it belonged ; and, if fossil, to assign 

 the geological period at which it had lived, whether on 

 the earth, in the waters, or the air. By the microscopic 

 examination of a minute Foraminifer or shell-like or- 

 ganism, it has been proved beyond a doubt that the 

 Eozoon, an animal which existed at a geological period 

 whose remoteness in time carries us far beyond the 

 reach of imagination, only differs in size from a kind 

 living in the present seas. Simplicity of structure has 

 preserved the race through all the geological changes 

 which, during millions of centuries, have swept from 

 existence myriads of more highly organized beings. 

 The Eozoon is the most ancient form of life known, 

 and was probably an inhabitant of the primeval ocean. 

 Patches of carbonaceous matter imbedded in the same 

 strata show that vegetation had already begun; so 

 at that most remote period of the earth's existence, 

 the vivifying influence of the sun, the constitution and 

 motions of the atmosphere and ocean, and the vicis- 

 situdes of day and night, of life and death, were the 

 same as at the present time. 



