533 



combination with the most wonderful exactness, over areas of immense 

 extent.''* This passage contains a remarkable admission, which in 

 point of fact is next to surrendering the organic origin of " Eozoon ;"■ 

 for the features of this " fossil," it is conceded, " can be separately 

 paralleled by mere mineral arrangement.! So, there is little now left 

 in favour of the " received doctrine" but the " broad basis of cumula- 

 tive evidence" above referred to ; which consists of the " combination" 

 of "chamber casts," " intermediate skeleton," " nummuline layer," and 

 ''canal system." Has a " combination" of all these "features" been 

 discovered "in every single mass" of Canadian " eozoon al" ophite? 

 Even taking the expression in a much more limited sense than its 

 construction bears — how does it happen that the " proper wall" is 

 generally absent, or so very imperfectly preserved, in " masses" of this 

 rock from Grenville and the Grand Calumet ? And why is it that 

 neither the " proper wall," nor the " canal system," occurs in "masses" 

 at Burgess ? Where, " over areas of immense extent," has a " repetition 

 of this combination" been found? The researches of Dr. Giimbel and 

 Professor Hochstetter have certainly not supplied Dr. Carpenter with 

 evidences bearing out his assertion. Again — are " eozoonal features" 

 only " separately paralleled" in pargasitic and other crystalline lime- 

 stones, in which both the " chamber casts" and " intermediate skeleton" 

 occur? Or — is such the case in chondroditic rock, which possesses 

 not only the " features" just named, but also the " nummuline layer ?" 

 Nay— have not the "canal system" and "nummuline layer" (and of 

 course the "intermediate skeleton") been " distinctly observed" by Dr. 

 Giimbel " around scapolite nodules, encrusted with serpentine, associated 

 with calcareous marble at Steinhag, in Bavaria ?"J 



This "combination'' argument is based on an exceptional fact; for 

 the " assemblage" referred to by Dr. Carpenter is rarely seen in other 

 varieties of ophite than the one occurring at Petite Nation ; but, whether 

 exceptional or not, it requires some further notice. 



"We feel persuaded that the fact, as just admitted, represents a 

 phenomenon inherent in serpentinous rocks, arising from their mineral 

 composition, and the physical conditions under which they may have 

 existed — a phenomenon to which Breithaupt's term, paragenesis, might 

 not be inappropriately applied. 



We have in previous pages made known that serpentine is often 

 seen intersected or broken up by divisional planes — some regular and 

 parallel, others exceedingly irregular. Prom a number of evidences we 

 have met with, and which have already been noticed in detail, we have 



* Quarterly Journal of Geul. Soc, vol. xxii., p. 223. 



f The concession, however, was only made after we had pointed out the parallel 

 cases. Neither Drs. Dawson, Carpenter, nor Sterry Hunt, in their original memoirs, 

 refers to the " intermediate skeleton," and the " chamber casts," being " paralleled" in 

 the Tyree and other marbles, — the " nummuline layer," by modified chrysotile, 

 filling up true fissures, — and the " canal system," by dendritic configurations of 

 metaxite, &c. 



X This case will be further noticed presently. 



