1866.] CARPENTER — EOZOON CANADENSE. 223 



recent Foraminifera*, because it is by this feature that the organic 

 origin of Eozoon is capable of being most unmistakeably recognized. 

 If my account of it is correct, no more doubt can be reasonably en- 

 tertained of the animal nature of Eozoon than of the animal nature 

 of any extinct type of Nummuline Poraminifera ; and all the other 

 curious features of its structure, including the singular varieties in 

 the distribution of its canal-system, may be accepted without 

 hesitation. 



But even if some undoubtedly mineral product could be shown 

 to present the characteristic peculiarities of the Nummuline shell- 

 wall, I should be still prepared to maintain the organic origin of 

 Eozoon on the broad basis of cumulative evidence aiforded by the 

 combination, in every single mass, of an assemblage of features which 

 can be only separately paralleled elsewhere ; and in the repetition of 

 this combination with the most wonderful exactness, over areas of 

 immense extent. This evidence, indeed, is very much of the same 

 nature as that on which the doctrine of the Human fabrication of the 

 " flint implements " is now universally accepted. No one, on -looking 

 at such an implement, would be justified in saying of any single 

 fracture presented by its surface, that it might not have been acci- 

 dental ; yet that man must have a strong faith, who could honestly 

 inaintain that any succession of accidental fractures would have been 

 likely to shape out even a single specimen. But admitting such a 

 possibility in regard to one, it is narrowed down by every repetition 

 of the same or of a similar form, to a vanishing point wMch the 

 intellect refuses to apprehend. 



Although not perhaps entitled to any great weight, yet the an- 

 tecedent probabilities of the case are not to be disregarded. Geolo- 

 gists are now, I believe, very generally agreed in the opinion that 

 all the great beds of limestone in the formations known to be 

 fossiliferous are the products of animal agency, which separated 

 carbonate of lime from its solution in the waters of the ocean in the 

 form of Corals, Shells, Encrinite-skeletons, &c. And it is also fully 

 admitted that the crystalline condition of a limestone affords no ar- 

 gument against this view; many comparatively modern rocks, of 

 whose organic origin there can be no reasonable doubt, having been 

 brought to this condition by subsequent metamorphism. The, 

 occurrence of limestone beds in the Laurentian rocks, therefore, 

 affords a presumption in favour of the existence of marine animal 

 life at that epoch ; in the same manner as the occurrence of beds of 

 graphite may be fairly regarded as indicative of the antecedent 

 existence of vegetation. And while this presumption is in no degree 

 invalidated by the crystalline condition which usually prevails in 

 these rocks, it derives additional weight from the fact noticed by Sir 



* It may serve to show the necessity of practical familiarity with the micro- 

 scopic appearances in question, if I mention the fact, that an eminent Palaeon- 

 tologist who had previously committed himself to the opinion that the Num- 

 muline layer of Eozoon is simply " an agatized mineral," gave precisely the same 

 verdict upon a section of a recent Nummuline shell, — thus unintentionally 

 bearing the strongest testimony to the identity of the two structures, and con- 

 sequently to the organic nature of the former. 



