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FACTS AND FANCIES, 



known, from their mode of occurrence in later 

 deposits, to be results, direct or indirect, of the 

 agency of life ; and if they afforded no traces 

 of organic forms, still their chemical character 

 would convey a presumption of their organic 

 origin. But additional evidence has been ob- 

 tained in the presence of certain remarkable 

 laminated forms penetrated by microscopic 

 tubes and canals, and which are supposed to 

 b6 the remains of the calcareous skeletons of 

 humbly-organized animals akin to the simplest 

 of those now living in the sea. Such animals 

 — ^little more than masses of living animal jelly 

 — now abound in the waters, and protect them- 

 selves by secreting calcareous skeletons, often 

 complex and beautiful, and penetrated by pores, 

 through which the soft animal within can send 

 forth minute thread-like extensions of its body, 

 which serve instead of limbs. The Laurentian 

 fossil known as Eozoon Canadense (see Fig. 3) 

 may have been the skeleton of such a lowly- 

 organized animal ; and if so, it is the oldest 

 living thing that we know. But if really the 

 skeleton or covering of such an animal, Eozoon 

 is larger than any of its successors, and quite 

 as complex as any of them. There is nothing 

 to show that it could have originated from dead 



