466 Dr. W. B. Carpenter on Eozoon canadeuse. 



the Secretary of that body wrote to me, stating that its 

 Members were desirous of forming their own judgment on the 

 subject, and requesting that I Avould transmit specimens for 

 their examination. I immediately replied, forwarding the two 

 best duplicates I had to spare, with a request that after they 

 had served their immediate purpose they might be presented 

 to the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin ; and I further 

 offered to go over to Dublin and 'personallii exhibit my own 

 selected series of specimens (which I declined to part with out 

 of my hands) if I could obtain a short leave of absence from 

 my official duties. Not receiving any acknowledgment, either 

 of my specimens or of my proposal, I wrote a second time to 

 the Secretary, and again waited in vain for a reply. I then 

 wrote to the President of the Academy, stating the purport of 

 my previous communications to its Secretary ; but as he, too, 

 deemed me unworthy of the honour of an answer, I thought 

 it unadvisable to take any further action in so thankless a 

 matter. 



As the readers of these ' Annals ' have never had placed 

 before them the general evidence in favour of the organic 

 origin oi Eozoon ^ adduced by Sir William Logan and Dr. Daw- 

 son when they first brought their discovery before the Geolo- 

 gical Society nearly ten years ago, I venture to ask their con- 

 sideration of the following brief summary of t\\Q, facts of this 

 remarkable case, and of the inferences which they seem to me 

 to justify. 



1. There occurs in the Lower Laurentians of Canada a 

 stratum of " Serpentine Limestone" or "Ophite," extending 

 over several hundred square miles, and impressing the able 

 Geological Surveyors of Canada with its resemblance to a 

 Coral Reef. 



2. Most Geologists now accept it as a probability, that the 

 formation of Limestones generally is due, either directly or 

 secondarily, to Animal growth ; and the evidence of this doc- 

 trine is continually accumulating. The antecedent probability 

 that such was the case with the Laurentian limestone, is in- 

 creased by the circumstance that beds of Graphite (which 

 every Mineralogist now recognizes as of Vegetable origin) 

 occur in the same formation — that many specimens of the 

 Limestone give forth v.dien struck the overpowering smell of 

 carburetted hydrogen, which is well known to be given off from 

 many beds of Carboniferous Limestone whose organic origin 

 is most distinct — and that so strong a musky odour was 

 emitted from the specimen of which I sent slices to Prof. 

 Eowney and Prof. Schultze, when it was being cut in Mr. 



