150 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
different minerals, wedged cross- ways or obliquely in the calcareous 
interspaces between the grains and plates of serpentine. 
11th. The canal system " is composed of serpentine, or malacolite. 
Its typical kinds in the first of these minerals may be traced in all stages 
of formation out of plates, prisms, and other solids, undergoing a process 
of superficial decretion.f Those in malacolite are made up of crystals 
— single, or aggregated together — that have had their planes, angles, 
and edges rounded off ; or have become further reduced by some solvent. 
12th. The canal system " in its remarkable branching varieties is 
completely paralleled by crystalline configurations in the coccolite marble 
of Aker, in Sweden ; and in the crevices of a crystal of spinel imbedded 
in a calcitic matrix from Amity, JSTew York. 
13th. The configurations, presumed to represent the "canal system," 
are totally without any regularity of form, of relative size, or of arrange- 
ment ; and they occur independently of and apart from other eozoonal 
features," (Amity, Boden, &c,) ; facts not only demonstrating them 
to be purely mineral products, but which strike at the root of the idea 
that they are of organic origin. 
14th. In answer to the argument that as all the foregoing " eozoonal 
features " are occasionally found together in ophite, the combination 
must be considered a conclusive evidence of their organic origin, we 
have shown, from the composition, physical characters, and circumstances 
of occurrence and association of their component serpentine, that they 
represent the structural and chemical changes which are eminently and 
peculiarly characteristic of this mineral. J It has also been shown that 
the combination is paralleled to a remarkable extent in chondrodite and 
its calcitic matrix. § 
* " Quart. Jour. Geol. Society," vol. xxii., pi. xiv., figs. 10, H, pi. xv., fig. 15, 
pp. 207, 208. 
t " Proo. Eoy. Irish Acad.," vol.x., pL xliii., figs. 7, 8, pp. 527, 528. Dr. Car- 
penter seems to be unable to give a correct account of our view of the origin of the 
" canal system." Speaking of its "arborescent structure" he has, on diiferent occa- 
siong, stated that we " maintain it to consist of mere mineral infiltrations^'' I And hence, 
by adopting the following mode of reasoning, he evidently feels that a decisive case 
has been made out against us. As the " ramifications pass across the planes of 
cleavage, every mineralogist will at once say that this is perfectly conclusive — 
against their being, by any probability, mere inorganic infiltration ; that nothing 
but organic structure could in this manner produce a ramification of one mineral in 
the interior of another, a ramification of serpentine in the interior of carbonate of 
lime passing against its crystalline planes" ("Pharmaceutical Journal," Feb. 11, 
1871, p. 649). When this point was first introduced ("Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc," 
vol. XXV., p. 118), we hinted to Dr. Carpenter that he was treading on, to him, 
unknown ground ("Proc. Hoy. Irish Acad.," vol. x., foot note, p. 523) ; as it will 
necessarily follow, that imbedded minerals which produce " ramifications" in the " in- 
terior of calcite, and passing against its crystalline planes," (as is common with 
native silver, prismatic pyrites, &c.) can be " nothing but organic structures" ! It is 
to be regretted that Dr. Carpenter does not altogether leave such points alone, or allow 
mineralogical believers in "Eozoon" to express their own arguments, if they have 
really got any. 
% " Proc. Royal Irish Academy," vol, x., pp. 533, 534, 535. 
§ " Quarterly Journal Geological Society," vol. xxii., pi. xiv., figs. 5, 6, p. 197. 
