280 Dr. W. B. Carpenter on the 



geologists to be adverse to its organic character. In response, 

 I forwarded to him two specimens — one a transparent section 

 taken from the same block as that which furnished the section 

 examined by Mr. Carter, the other a decalcified slice. Sub- 

 sequently, at his request, I sent him the largest specimen of 

 Eozoon I could spare en hloc^ that he might make preparations 

 for himself. The result of his examination of these specimens 

 was to satisfy Mm completeJi) of the Foraminiferal character of 

 Eozoon *. This conclusion was formed without any " verbal 

 arguments " or "prolonged disputations," but on the basis of 

 Prof. Schultze's own "actual comparison of specimens" of 

 Eozoon with specimens of recent Foraminifera — the former 

 showing the very structures which Mr. Carter could not find in 

 the specimens he examined, and the latter exhibiting those 

 precise parallelisms w^hich the recent types referred to by Mr. 

 Carter do not furnish. 



I shall now briefly state what these parallelisms are. 

 1. Large masses of rock occur in the Laurentians of 

 Canada, in which there is a very regular alternation of lamellae 

 of Carbonate of Lime (sometimes replaced by Dolomite) with 

 lamellae of Serpentine or some other Magnesian Silicate, often 

 to the number of fifty or more. For this alternation, such 

 eminent Petrologists as Dr. Sterry Hunt and Mr. Sorby have 

 expressed their inability to account on any known principles 

 of Mineralogical formation ; on the other hand, it becomes 

 perfectly intelligible when we view the calcareous lamellae as 

 having been successively formed by the growth of a Foramini- 

 feral shell, and the serpentinous lamella as having been sub- 

 sequently produced by the replacement of the sarcodic body 

 which occupied its cavities by a deposit of serpentine or some 

 other silicate; for such replacement is going on at the present 

 time, so as to furnish us with internal casts of various Forami- 

 nifera brought up by dredging from the ordinary sea-bottom — 

 these internal casts giving us (when the calcareous shell is 

 dissolved away by dilute acid) the perfect models, not merely 

 of the segments of the sarcodic body, but also of the sarcodic 

 ramifications of the canal-system, and even, in some instances, 

 of the sarcodic threads filling the minute tubuli of the shell- 

 . wall. Even so, when the calcareous lamella3 of Eozoon 



* Referring to the sections I had sent him, Prof. Max Schultze said, in 

 a letter dated Aug. IG, 1873, " Some points are very difficult to settle ; 

 but the organic structure cannot be doubtful." And after making his 

 owTi investigation on the piece I had subsequently sent to him, he said, 

 in a letter dated Xov. 15, 1873, "In the last number of the ' Comptes 

 Rendus ' of the Association of Wiesbaden, I gave a short extract of my 

 researches on Eozoon, quite accordant with yours." A translation of this 

 report will be found in p. 324. 



