146 
NATORE 

[Dec. 22, 1870 

Our great traveller and naturalist, Mr. Wallace, says, 
that “during twelve years spent amidst the grandest tropi- 
cal vegetation, he has seen nothing comparable to the 
effect produced on our landscapes by gorse, broom, 
heather, wild hyacinths, hawthorn, and buttercups.” Mr. 
Robinson’s aim is to make our gardens as beautiful as our | 
hedgerows and woods ; and to this end he would not have 
his favourite plants placed together indiscriminately in a 
bed ; but, as far as possible, he would imitate the natural 
habitat of each species, and for this he gives full instruc- 
tions in each case. Half the volume is occupied by a list 
of hardy exotic plants suitable for naturalisation in our 
woods, semi-wild places, shrubberies, &c., with directions 
for their cultivation ; and we hope it may assist in again 
bringing the public taste to the culture of flowers beautiful 
not only in themselves, but from the historic associations 
connected with many of them. A. W. B. 
Die Kleinschmelterlinge der Umgegend Miinchens und 
cines Theiles der bayerischen Alpen. Non August Hart- 
mann. 8vo, pp. 96. (Munich, 1871: E. Lotzbeck.) 
Tuls is a catalogue of the Micro-Lepidoptera of the 
neighbourhood of Munich, and of a portion of the Ba- 
varian Alps, with indications of the plants on which | 
the larvae of the different species have been found feeding 
and of the times and places at. which the species have 
occurred. In his Introduction the author describes the 
method which he adopts for killing and preparing the 
delicate little moths which form the subject of his book, 
and from this the collector of Micro-Lepidoptera may gain 
some important hints. He also notices especially the 
curious moths belonging to the group of Psychidz, and 
those Tineidz which resemble them in habits; and he 
fully confirms the statements of Von Sicbold as to the 
occurrence of parthenogenesis in Solenobia triguetrella 
and Zichenella. W.S. D. 


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
* by his Correspondents. No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. 
Eozoén Canadense 
Ir is now about five years since a series of communications 
to the Geological Society of London by Logan, Dawson, Car- 
penter, and Sterry Hunt, announced the discovery of organic 
remains in the Laurentian rocks of Canada. They were de- 
cidedly interesting, not only as attempting to show that the belts 
of limestone interpolated in the great beds of Laurentian Gneiss 
were organic in their origin, but also from the @7¢ which the 
authors displayed in the mode of placing their views before the 
public. The realistic manner in which the fossil Lozedn canadense 
is drawn as it were from the /if, coupled with the fixed belief in 
most men’s minds that limestone is necessarily’ organic in its 
origin, predisposed many to accept the theory without much 
inquiry. The reputation of Dr. Carpenter as a physiologist was 
alone considered sufficient to settle the matter. These views 
did not, however, long remain unchallenged, for in the following 
year Professors King and Rowney, in a communication ‘ On the 
so-called Eozoénal Rock,” detailed the elaborate investigations 
by which they arrived at the conclusion that the presumed fossil 
was purely a mineral production. The replies that naturally 
followed were literally little more than reiterations of previous 
statements, excepting in the important admission from Dr, Car- 
penter, that the several features (that is chamber casts, canal 
system, and proper walls) could be separately paralleled else- 
where. He, however, took his stand upon the combination 
of the whole found in the Canadian specimens. To the fatal 
objection that all had been obtained from metamorphosed rocks 
Dr. Dawson replied by producing a specimen from Tudor, Ontario, 
which Sir W. E. Logan goes no further than to declare is from 
comparatively unaltered limestone, but which Dr. Dawson con- 
siders furnishes a conclusive answer to all arguments drawn from 
metamorphism. Since then I am not aware that any further 
evidence in favour of the organic hypothesis has been made 



public. On the other hand, Professors King and Rowney 
announced in a paper, read before the British Association at the 
Liverpool meeting, that they had discovered the features of the 
so-called organism in the Ophite of Strath in the Isle of Skye, an 
altered sedimentary deposit of the Liassic age, in which evidence 
of its mineral origin was conclusively proved. Here, at present, 
the matter rests ; but in my opinion ample materials exist for 
forming a judgment, not by reliance on authority but by indepen- ~ 
dent reasoning. With this object in view, and with your per- 
mission, I will proceed to detail a few of the facts of the case. 
Before doing so I would, however, call attention to the stranse 
absence of any allusion to obvious objections which characterises 
the first series of papers, and to the persistent begging of the 
question involved in constantly speaking of the specimens as 
undoubted fossils. ‘The adoption of this objectionable practice 
under authority of such eminent names is prejudicial to an im- 
partial judgment, as it indirectly influences the mind, I am quite 
willing to admit that there existed sufficient reasons for suspecting 
them to be fossils, but I submit that it is not philosophical to 
state so distinctly before a thorough examination of all the 
objections. For evidence of this having been done I search 
these papers in vain. How then can any one, accustomed to 
scientific methods of investigation, help suspecting that under all 
this scientific and pictorial use of the imagination there exists or 
lurks a fallacy ? 
First, then, the specimen from Tudor has to be disposed of ; 
nor will this be difficult, for it is altogether a lame affair. It is 
admittedly not from an unaltered rock, so it is difficult to see 
even how it bears on the question. The distinctive features are 
also obscure, and the chambers not of the usual form and propor- 
tion. Yo call this Zozcéw canadense, and then bring it forward 
as closing the discussion, is an amusing piece of controversial 
skill. When it is more certainly co-ordinated with the original 
specimens, it will he time to discuss it. I simply ask, would it 
have been pronounced organic had it been the only variety dis- 
covered? I think not. 
The broad fact then rcmains unshaken that in unaltered rocks 
no Eozo6nal structures lave yet been discovered. On the other 
hand, in metamorphosed rocks such structures are abundant, and 
even Dr. Giimbel, of the Bavarian Survey, a believer in Eozoon, 
has been much mystified by finding its features in impos. ble 
places. Not only do we find it in the Laurentians, but in rccks 
of a much later date, but curiously only in those that have under- 
gone alteration, If it Le an organism, then hydrothermal action, 
it seems, is necessary to its development, not as one woul! sus- 
pect during life, but eges after its entombment in sedimentary 
deposits. ~ 
The prevailing infilling material of the ‘‘ chamber casts ” re- 
presenting ‘‘the sarccde body of the anima!,” is also admittedly 
serpentine or some analagous mineral—a mineral that forms the 
basis ofno known fossil, consequently we are toassume that ateach 
period of the animal's existence, either the conditions were different 
to those under which others were fossilised, or that the original 
infilling has since been replaced by serpentine ; and this, be it 
said, must always have happened in those rocks afterwards 
selected for metamorphism. 
Again, us minerals of this description are never found in un- 
altered rocks, we must be prepared to believe in the curious 
coincidence of the same rocks, and only these, having, at periods 
widely separated in point of time, been selected for the preserva- 
tion of the organism and the deposit of these minerals. Hither 
we must do this, or be prepared to show that metamorphism must 
necessarily change the infilling of the ‘‘ chamber casts” to ser- 
pentine. Which supposition is the wildest 2 
Still further, we must believe that not only has Nature so 
miraculously preserved her pet animal, but that she has also 
imitated the fossil organism in the same minerals in an altercd 
rock, ina manner to justify such acute observers as Professors 
King and Rowney in considering the imitation identical with the 
thing itself Tor in the altered portion of the rock at Strath, 
before referred to, we have the features of the Eozoon, while the 
unaltered portion, which it gradually shades off into, teers with 
characteristic Liassic fossils. Have these fossils been obliterated 
in the altered portion, or have we the Eozo6n again conterminous 
with the metamorphism ? 
And, in conclusion, we must further admit that all these con- 
ditions have been fulfilled over wide areas and at periods re- 
motely separated with unerring regularity whenever the Eozo6n 
has made its appearance. Is not this an improbability amount- 
ing to the impossible? For my part, this negative evidence far 
ww 

