456 Dr. W. B. Carpenter on Eozoon canadense. 



LXVI. — New Observations on Eozoon canadense. 

 By William B. Carpenter, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 



[Plate XIX.] 



It may be thought that Mr. Carter would have best consulted, 

 not only the interests of science, but his own reputation, by 

 abstaining from any further attempts to disprove the Forami- 

 niferal nature of Eozoon^ until he had either acquainted him- 

 self with the careful descriptions and " fac-simile " representa- 

 tions of its structure given by Dr. Dawson, Prof. T. Rupert 

 Jones, and myself*, or had satisfied himself, by an examina- 

 tion of the specimens which I expressed my readiness to show 

 him, of the fallaciousness of my interpretation. But I make 

 no complaint of his having chosen the opposite course, since 

 his adoption of it has led me to a careful re-examination of 

 the whole subject, with the result of not only removing a dif- 

 ficulty I had myself felt, and of thus strengthening my own con- 

 viction, but of enabling me (as I anticipate) to carry that 

 conviction to the mind of every competent judge, who has not 

 so completely made up his mind to a foregone conclusion as 

 to be unable to appreciate the force of the new evidence I 

 have now to produce. 



I shall first dispose of the objection Avhich Mr. Carter ad- 

 duces as fatal to the Foraminiferal doctrine, viz. that the 

 supposed nummuline tubuli frequently lie 'parallel to the 

 chamber-walls, instead of perpendicular to them — a character 

 which, says Mr. Carter, " is utterly incompatible with Fora- 

 miniferal structure." This dictum^ when translated from 

 Carterese (p. 278) into English, merely means that it is 

 incompatible with Mr. Carter^s 7iotions of Foraminiferal 

 structure ; to which, as I have already had occasion to show, 

 Nature refuses to bind herself. I fully admit the fact as he 

 states it, and now find a perfectly simple explanation of it in 

 the structure of those very Nummulites which Mr. Carter knows 

 so well. In the lower or " lamellar " portion of the Canadian 

 Eozoon, the nummuline tubulation (where preserved) always 

 presents — so far as my experience extends — its normal perpen- 

 dicularity to the sui'face of the chambers ; as shown iu 

 PI. XIX. figs. 1, 2. The arrangement referred to by Mr. 

 Carter presents itself only in that upper or " acervuline " por- 

 tion, in which, as in many recent Foraminifera, the chamber- 



* The " constructed " figure which I introduced for mere convenience 

 of reference, was built-up (as every one of my "constructed" figures has 

 been) from parts which were separately described and tigm-ed ten years 

 ago from the actual specimens, for the sake of showing the relations be- 

 tween them, — a method used by every Palpeontologist. 



