

, 



3 



ence, I think it well to notice thorn along with the reply of Prof. 

 Moebius. 



Moebius has thought proper to take advantage of the security 

 guaranteed to him by the Editor of the American Journal, to 

 reply to my courteous and somewhat forbearing criticism, in a 

 manner which relieves me from any obligation to be reticent as 

 to his errors ;md omissions. I shall, however, contint? myself to 

 those points in his rejoinder which seem most important in the 

 interest of scientific truth. 



1. With reference to the geological and mineral relations of 

 Eozoon, I cannot acquit Moebius of a certain amount of inex- 

 cusable ignomnce. More especially, he treats the structures as 

 if they consisted merely of serpentine and c.wlcite, and neglects to 

 consider those specimens which, if more rare, are not less impor- 

 tant, in which the fossil has been mineralised by Loganite, 

 Pyroxene and Dolomite. If he had not specimens of these, he 

 should have procured them before publishing on the subject. 

 He neglects also to consider the broken fragments of Eozoon 

 scattered thiough the limestones, and the multitudes o^ Archceo- 

 spherina' lying in the layers of deposit. Nor can I find that he 

 has any clear idea how the structures of Eozoon could have been 

 produced otherwise than by living organisms. Still farther, he 

 mnkes requirements ;is to the state of preservation of the proper 

 wall and canal system which would be unfair even in the case of 

 Tertiary or Cretaceous Foruminifcra injected with Glauconite, 

 how much more in the case of a very ancient fossil contained in 

 rocks which have been subjected to great mechanical and chemi- 

 cal alteration. 



2. In his reply he reiterates the statement that Eozoon is so 

 different from existing Foraminiferd. tliat, if this is a fossil, we 

 must divide all organic bodies in "I. Organic bodies with 

 protoplasmic nature (all plants and animals) ; and 2. Organic 

 bodies of Eozoonic nature (AW^o/t, Dawson)," Without refer- 

 ring to the somewhat offensive way in which this is stated, I need 

 only say that Dr. Carpenter has well replied that the structures 

 of Eozoon are in no respect more different from those of modern 

 Foraminifera than those ol' many other old fossils are from their 

 modern representatives. All palaeontologists know, for example, 

 that while we cannot doubt that Receptuculites, Archctocyaihus, 

 and iStromatopora are organic, and probably Protozoan, it has 

 proved most difficult to correlate their structures with those of 

 modern animals. 



