A Retrospect of Fakeontology for Forty Years. 51 



FoRAMiNiFERA. — Sir William Logan was the first to announce the 

 discovery (November, 1864, p. 225) of the Foraminifer ' Eozoon ' in 

 the Laurentian rocks of Canada, and Sir J. W. Dawson contributed 

 "new facts " (in 1888), and "evidence for the animal nature of 

 JSozoon Canadense" (in 1895). But the inorganic nature of this 

 supposed most ancient fossil seems to be now very generally 

 admitted, although Dr. Carpenter and Sir William Dawson long and 

 valiantly laboured to maintain its integi'ity as one of the Protozoa. 



The Nestor of Palseontology, Professor T. Rupert Jones, wrote on 

 Foraminifera from the Bridlington Crag ; Orhitoides from Malta and 

 the West Indies ; on Jurassic Foraminifera of Switzerland and the 

 Chalk and Chalk Marl of South and South-East of England : in 

 company with Professor W. K. Parker he elucidated those of the 

 Chalk of Graveseud, and listed Eley's Foraminifera from the English 

 Chalk ; whilst with C. D. Sherborn he described the Jurassic 

 Microzoaof Wiltshire, etc. Dr. H. B. Brady enumerated and figured 

 Involutina liassica from the Lias of England, and 8 species of Tertiary 

 and Carboniferous Foraminifera from Sumatra. He reported upon 

 some 28 species from the ' Chalk ' of the New Britain group, of which 

 he observed : " After washing this Chalk it could not possibly be 

 distinguished, by its organic remains, from a washed sample of 

 ' Globigerina-Ooze ' dredged in 1,500 to 2,500 fathoms in the South 

 Pacific. May not the rock (he asks) be part of a recent sea-bottom 

 disturbed by volcanic or other agency." He also wrote on those 

 remarkable flask-shaped Foraminifera of the genus Lagena, from 

 the Upper Silurian of Malvern. A. Vaughan Jennings described 

 the Orbitoidal Limestone of North Borneo. Professor W. J. Sollas 

 defined two new species of the genus Webhina and other Foraminifera 

 from the Cambridge Greensand, and Walter Keeping the zone of 

 Niimmidina elegans at White Cliff Bay, Isle of Wight. F. Chapman 

 and C. D. Sherborn discoursed on the Foraminifera of the London 

 Clay, and F. Chapman on Hyaline forms from the Gault, also 

 upon Patellina and 23 other genera and species from the Tertiaries 

 of Egypt. A. K. Coomaraswamy wrote on the Eadiolaria 

 JSpongodisciis and Dictyomitra from the Upper Gondwana series 

 near Madras. 



PoKiFEEA — Sponges. — Dr. H. B. Holl contributed a carefully 

 written article on Fossil Sponges, in which, after describing their 

 various structures in considerable detail, he strongly advocated 

 their minute microscopic examination and comparison with living 

 forms, and said : " In conclusion, the Sponges appear to have 

 endured through a long range of time, subject only to modifications 

 which scarcely amount to specific distinctions." Dr. G. J. Hinde 

 explained the structure of Arclmocyathus minganensis from the 

 Palseozoic (Mingen) strata of Canada ; Sponge-remains from the 

 Chert and Siliceous Schists of Permo-Carboniferous age of Spitz- 

 bergen ; wrote on Stephanella sancta, a new genus of sponge 

 from the Lower Silurian, Ottawa, Canada ; and on FalcBosaccus 

 Baiosoni, a new Hexactinellid sponge from the Quebec group 

 (Ordovician), Little Mitis, Canada. The discovery of this fossil 



