A HAY OF LIFE. fi 



no stomach, no liver, no heart, no breathing organ, no head, 

 no feet — in short, this animal is destitute of organs, except 

 as it employs the whole body for every purpose. When- 

 ever it seizes its food it extemporizes an arm for the work. 

 Whenever it eats it must extemporize a mouth. When- 

 ever it digests it must extemporize a stomach. It seizes, 

 it eats, it digests, it breathes with the whole body. There 

 are few animals, indeed, so utterly destitute of differentia- 

 tion of the parts of the body. There is not the least divis 

 ion of labor. It symbolizes primeval society, in which every 

 man does every thing that is done in the community. 



Our Laurentian protozoan was as poorly furnished and 

 as badly organized a being as this. But he possessed 

 great advantages in point of size, and was, moreover, fur- 

 nished with a stony armor — a wise provision, as one would 

 think, for a creature that must buffet the storms which pul- 

 verized mountains, and defy the chemistry that dissolved 

 granite. It only remains to effect the formal introduction 

 to the reader. His name is JEozoon Canadense. [See Ap- 

 pendix, Note II.] 



I said that the burial-place of this most venerable deni- 

 zen of our planet was among the Laurentian rocks of Can- 

 ada. Strange as it may appear, no vestige of animal or- 

 ganization has as yet been found among the overlying Hu- 

 ronian strata. It can not be doubted that life still contin- 

 ued upon the earth. It is possible that some of the most 

 ancient forms of the Old World flourished during this age. 

 Indeed, they herald the name of an Eozoon from Bohemia, 

 and still another from the Emerald Isle. It seems certain 

 that the latter had no contemporary and no rival for su- 

 premacy. He certainly was the first of the Fenians. But 

 in America, so far as actual discovery goes, life touched 

 the earth at a single point, and vanished again from view. 

 This dawn of animal life was like the first el earn of sun- 



