334 Reports and Proceedings — 



7 or 8 per cent, of water. It would not require a very profound 

 alteration of such a mineral to give it the composition indicated by 

 the analysis of our red chalk residue when dried at 100° C. Such 

 alteration would involve peroxidation of the iron, removal of most 

 of the potash, and relative increase of the alumina, results commonly 

 seen in many altered mineral residues. 



Great interest attaches to all questions concerning the red oceanic 

 clay. Its minute analysis will, doubtless, solve some of the problems 

 inferred to in the present imperfect note. In the mean time, I am 

 anxious that it should not be supposed that I ignore the differences 

 which must subsist between recent oceanic deposits and the rocks 

 which we may consider to have originated in former ages from 

 similar materials. It is not that the mere process of consolidation 

 must have altered them, but that the influences to which they have 

 been subsequently exposed may have caused unsuspected, though 

 not inconsiderable, changes in their chemical constitution. Materials 

 for the discussion of this question are still deficient, and we must 

 await complete quantitative analyses of recent glauconite, and of the 

 red oceanic clay, before a decision can be reached. On account of 

 this insufficiency of data, I have refrained from suggesting any 

 formula for the red chalk residue, though it may have, like kaolinite, 

 a claim to be regarded as a mineral species. 



EEPOETS ^.ISTJD PSOCEEDIITG-S. 



Geological Society of London. — May 12th, 1875. — John Evans, 

 Esq., V.P.E.S., President, in the Chair. — The following communica- 

 tions were read : — ■ 



1. " Notes on the Occurrence of Eozoon canadense at Cote St. Pierre." 

 By Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S. 



The author commenced by describing the arrangement and nature 

 of the deposits containing Eozoon at the original locality of Cote St. 

 Pierre on the Ottawa Eiver. The Eozoal limestone is a thick band 

 between the two great belts of gneiss which here form the upper 

 beds of the Lower Laurentian. Eozoon is abundant only in one bed 

 about 4 feet thick ; but occasional specimens and fragments occur 

 throughout the band. The limestone contains bands and concretions 

 of serpentine, and is traversed by veins of chrysotile ; the former 

 an original part of the deposit, the latter evidently of subsequent 

 formation. A thin section, 5^ inches in depth, showed : — 1. Lime- 

 stone with crystals of dolomite and fragments of Eozoon ; 2. Fine- 

 grained limestone, with granules of serpentine, casts of chamberlets 

 of Eozoon and of small Foraminifera ; 3. Limestone with dolomite, 

 and containing a thin layer of serpentine ; 4. Limestone and dolo- 

 mite with grains of serpentine and fragments of supplemental skeleton 

 of Eozoon ; 5. Crystallized dolomite, with a few fragments of Eozoon 

 in the state of calcite ; 6. Limestone containing serpentine, as No. 2. 

 The author criticized some of the figures and statements put forward 

 by Messrs. King and Kowney, and noticed two forms of Eozoon, 

 which he proposed to regard as varieties, under the names of minor 



