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210 



Canadian Jlccanl of Scunce. 



1 



of much more recent (hue. Xm- could Lliey with proba- 

 ])iHty bi' referi'ed to spoiiLres, as they were composed of 

 soHd calcareous plates which, as was evident from their 

 texturt', could not have been spicular, and which, it 

 ap}>eared, must have been composed of ordinary (;alcite 

 and not of araifonite. One seemed thus shut uj) to tlie 

 idea of their bein<j; foranuni feral, ami if so verv larue and 

 com})le.\ forms of that <^roup, consisting of perforated 

 ciiambers arranged around a central funnel and occasionally 

 subdivided by thinner curvt-d laiudlae. 1 mentioned them 

 in this connection in the "Dawn of Life" in I.STo, not as 

 closely related to Eozoon, but as a])parently showing the 

 existence of verylarge foranunifera in the Lowest Cambrian. 

 The si)ecimens thus noticed were those named A. pro- 

 fundus by ])illings, and were from the Lower Cand>rian. 

 He had, however, referred to the same genus siliciiied 

 specimens from the Calciferous or rp])er Cambrian, which 

 were subsetjuently found to be associated with spicules 

 like those of lithistid s{)onges, and which may have been 

 very different from the s])ecies of the Lower Caml)rian, 

 and are now indeed ])lace(l in a ditlerent genus. The 

 subject became in this way involved in some confusion, 

 and the genus of Billings was su])])osed Ijy some to be 

 referable to corals and by others to sponges. I, therefore, 

 asked mv friend Dr. Hinde to re-examine niv si>ecimens, 

 and at the same time Mr. Billings placed in his hands 

 examples of the later form, and he also obtained specimens 

 from European localities whicli agreed substantially with 

 the older of the Labrador si)ecimens, ami were from the 

 same ancient horizon. Hinde retains the original and 

 t)lder type from Labrador in Arclueocyathus,^ and places 

 the later form, A. minganensi>> of liillings, in a new genus 

 Archicoscyphia. In this Walcott, in his memoir on the 

 Lower Cambrian fauna, substantially agrees with Hinde. 

 Hinde, however, rejects my foraminiferal suggestion, and 



1 Journal Geol. Society of I.oikIoii, Vol. 45, 1889, 1>J>. 125, et seiju. 







