Dr. W. B, Carpenter on Eozoon canadense. 459 



It was doubtless the apparent force of the argument 

 whose fallacy I have thus demonstrated, which led Prof. 

 Max Schultze, after reading the paper of Professors King 

 and Rowney, to write to jMr. Barker that it had " made 

 a very great impression " on him, and that " with respect to 

 the 'proper wall' of Carpenter" he was "entirely of their 

 opinion." I have no reason to believe that Prof. Max 

 Scliultze ever did see the " proper nummuline wall," such as 

 I shall presently describe and figure it ; Professors King 

 and Rowney certainly have not, if they can identify it with 

 a film of chrysotile or asbestiform serpentine, forming " an 

 integral portion of the grains and plates of serpentine," and 

 can assert that in its typical condition it occurs in cracks or 

 fissures of the serpentine (p. 393) ; and they misled Prof. 

 Schultze into the belief that they and I were speaking of the 

 same things. When I sent him the preparations he asked 

 for, I expressed my regret at not being able to supply him 

 with a characteristic specimen of this structure, having given 

 away all the duplicates of it I could spare ; and, as it is rarely 

 well-preserved, it is very probable that he did not find it by 

 his own examination of the larger specimens he afterwards 

 received from me and from other sources. At any rate, there 

 is no mention of the " nummuline wall " in his communica- 

 tion to the Wiesbaden Association — his acceptance of Eozoon 

 as a Foraminifer entirely resting on the " canal-system," 

 which he had minutely studied*, and as to which there is no 

 evidence ichatever that he had changed his opinion, as asserted 

 by Professors King and Rowney. Had he lived to see Avhat 

 I shall presently describe, I cannot doubt that he, in common 

 with the numerous Microscopists to whom I have recently 

 shown it, would have accepted the " nummuline wall " with- 

 out the slightest hesitation. 



Before, however, I proceed to describe it, I find myself obliged 

 to notice the following statement made by Professors King and 

 RoAVTiey in the second note to p. 393 of their last paper : — 



* Mr. Carter questions the existence of a canal-system in Polytrema, 

 referred to by Prof. Schultze, because his owti " mounted specimens " do 

 not show it. "When he has extended his knowledge of Foraminifera by 

 the careful study of my "Introduction" and of the types minutely de- 

 scribed in it, he will find that the development of the " canal-system " ia 

 correlated to that of the " intermediate skeleton," and that varietal or 

 even individual differences may occur in this particular. I had never 

 my.self seen it in Planorbulina (for example), until M. Munier-Chalmas 

 showed it to me, a few weeks since, in a specimen in the Sorbonne Mu- 

 seum. This specimen had grown so closely attached to a Coral, as to have 

 shaped itself on the inequalities of the Coral-surface ; and yet its lower 

 or attached side was as perfecthj tubulated as its upper or free side — a fact 

 which I commend to the consideration of Professors King and Rowney. 



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