Bigshy— On the Laurentian Formation. 205 
composition. If the specimens had been obtained from the altered 
rocks of the Lower Silurian series, there would have been little 
hesitation in pronouncing them to be fossils.’ 
The third instance I found in the course of a geological excursion 
on the north shore of the St. Lawrence, at the base of Cape Tour- 
ment, a massive headland, 2000 feet high, and 36-40 miles below 
Quebec. Within 200 yards of a cascade, 400 feet high or more, 
and the only one for many miles in any direction, is a vertical face 
of a close-grained quartzose gneiss, which, in the body of the rugged 
headland, sometimes becomes granitoid. At 3 or 4 feet above high- 
water-mark is a circular, cup-like, organic (?) body, two or three 
inches in diameter, with much of the look, as well as the size, of a 
Maclurea, not, however, with gyrations, but with concentric rings, 
one within another ; the summits are rounded and not sharp-ridged ; 
no radiating striz nor reticulations were observed in it, but they 
may exist. It might be very loosely compared to Spongarium in- 
terlineatum, or to a Chetetes. At first we took it for the effect of 
friction by pebbles ; but its position forbids the idea. It is pro- 
bably organic ; and Sir W. Logan intends to examine the locality 
carefully. Near this fossil (?), and for some hundred yards around, 
the gneiss contains many small wandering veins of calespar (tested); 
and here and there ragged scraps of dark blue limestone, of Lower 
Silurian age, adhere loosely to the Laurentian rock. Whatever may 
be the importance to which these appearances on the south base of 
Cape Tourment are entitled, they seem well worthy of some notice. 
Nore.—Since the above was written, the hope of recovering some 
traces of organic life has been realized in Canada, that geologically 
ancient and instructive land. Practised observers announce that a 
fossil has been detected, beyond all doubt, far down in the great 
Laurentian series. This is a discovery which concerns the deepest 
recesses of time, and points to extensive assemblages of life in 
primeval ages, instead of the blank desolation hitherto supposed. 
Principal Dawson’s determination of this newly discovered, but most 
ancient fossil (Hozoén Canadense) as a Foraminifer has been already 
alluded to in the GroLtoeicaL MaGazine, No. 1, p. 47; and I will 
only add the few following remarks, which are of great interest to 
naturalists, who know that somewhat similar changes in the structure 
of recent Foraminifera have been shown by Ehrenberg and Bailey to 
be taking place in the ocean in the present day. ‘'The calcareous 
septa, says Sterry Hunt, ‘which form the skeleton of this Fora- 
minifer are unchanged, while the sarcode has been replaced by 
certain silicates, which have not only filled up the chambers, cells, 
and septal orifices, but have been injected into the minute tubuli, 
which are thus perfectly preserved. The replacing silicates are a 
white pyroxene, serpentine, and a dark-green alumino-magnesian 
silicate, near chlorite and loganite.’ 
AppENDIx.—The presence of Phosphoric Acid and Phosphates in Rocks. 
Igneous Rocks.—Phosphorie acid abundant in augite-rock, porphyry, and 
vesicular lava (Rhine); white trachyte (Drachenfels); dark-red scoriaceous 
