Chap. L] EOZOON OF THE LAURENTIAN ROCKS. 13 
way the same foundation-stones exist, and have their proper place far 
beneath the well-known Silurian formations of Sweden and Norway. 
The figures of Eozoon Canadense, which are here given, have been se- 
lected by my friend Professor Rupert Jones from the works of Principal 
Dawson and Dr. Carpenter. 
Fossils (1). 
1 2 3 
1. Portion of the serpentinous marble of Canada, composed of Eozoon ; of the natural 
size. The broken black lines represent the serpentine, and the white spaces are the cal- 
careous skeleton. Copied from Dr. Dawson's nature-printed section of a specimen of 
Eozoon Canadense (from Petite Nation Seigniory), first polished and then corroded with 
acid. [See Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, April, 1865.] 
2. The serpentinous portion of a piece of Eozoon, after maceration in acid, magnified. 
It presents the natural casts of the chambers and tubes, or a model of the sarcode of 
the Eozoon. (After Dr. Carpenter's plate in the Intellectual Observer, No. XL. p. 300 &c.) 
3. A portion of the chamber-walls, or calcareous shell, of the Eozoon, restored and 
highly magnified, showing the tubuliferous walls, the pseudopodial tufts in the inter- 
mediate skeleton, and the stolon-passages. (After Carpenter, loc. cit.) 
As these authors, who have long studied this class of animals, are 
supported by Eeuss and other sound foreign naturalists in their belief 
that the Eozoon (of which two nominal species have been described) is 
truly a Foraminifer, I bow to their decision, and regard the Laurentian as 
the base of all Palaeozoic deposits. 
Whilst the Laurentian gneiss of Scotland differs essentially (as I have 
shown in other publications*) from the superjacent crystalline rocks (gneiss 
in parts) of Lower Silurian age, the most marked distinction, besides its 
infraposition, consists in the entire divergence of its direction or strike, 
and its abrupt separation from all the overlying formations. Thus, whilst 
* For many complete demonstrations of the Silurian rocks (the latter being often highly crys- 
infraposition, in the Western Highlands and the talline, gneissose, and micaceous), see the memoir 
Hebrides,of the Laurentian gneiss to the Cambrian by Mr. Geikie and myself, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 
sandstones and conglomerates, and of the latter to May 1861 vol. xvii. p. 171 &c. See Chap. VIII. 
