176 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
The Eozoon Question . — The reader is, doubtless, familiar with the fact 
that the question of the animality of Eozoon canadense has been for a con- 
siderable time a matter of lively discussion. Dr. Dawson, its original 
describer, Dr. Carpenter and others, have stoutly maintained the organic 
nature of this supposed earliest evidence of the existence of life upon the 
earth ; while MM. King and Rowney have just as persistently argued on the 
other side ; and within the last, year or two Dr. Otto Hahn, of Reutlingen,’ 
and Prof. Mobius, have strenuously maintained that there is nothing in the 
so-called Eozoon which cannot be referred to mineral structure. 
The most elaborate work in opposition to the organic nature of Eozoon is 
the great memoir of Prof. Mobius, which appeared about a year ago in the 
Paldontographica ; and this, from its fulness of detail and the magnificent 
way in which it is illustrated, must be always of value, whatever the 
ultimate verdict in the case of Eozoon may be. 
The latest contribution to this subject is by Dr. Hahn, above mentioned, 
who has already published two memoirs in support of the purely mineral 
nature of Eozoon in the Jahreshefte of the Wiirttemberg Natural History 
Society These were serious productions, but his last production we cannot 
help regarding as an enormous joke, although it is difficult to understand 
any one taking the trouble to produce a pamphlet of seventy-one pages, 
illustrated with twenty-nine plates, merely for the purpose of poking fun at 
a scientific opponent. The book has, indeed, been treated as serious by 
several writers, both in Germany and in this country ; but it seems to 
us to be ironical throughout ; and every one knows that of all figures of 
speech irony i3 the one which is least readily understood. The very title 
sounds like a joke ; it is, when interpreted, ‘ The primordial cell, with the 
proof that granite, gneiss, serpentine, mica, certain sandstones, also basalt, 
and finally meteoric stones, and meteoric iron, consist of plants.’ * 
The author seems to have been moved to the production of this extra- 
ordinary work by the pertinacity with which Dr. Dawson maintains the 
animality of Eozoon, and partly by the indications given by him in recent 
publications of what he regards as possible traces of other organisms in the 
Laurentian rocks in which Eozoon occurs. 
Having visited Canada, and obtained specimens of the so-called Eozoonal 
limestone, Dr. Hahn professes to find himself converted from his former 
scepticism ; he admits that the so-called Eozoon is a fossil, but declares it 
to be a plant, and not an animal, and accordingly re-christens it Eophyllum 
canademe. Of course the name Eophyton, which would naturally suggest 
itself for the 1 dawn-plant,’ is preoccupied ; but the absurdity of using 
Eophyllum, as the generic name of a plant without any leaves is an additional 
evidenc i of the i ordeal character of the book. 
Having once got this clue to the mystery the author of course goes on 
* Die Urzelle ■, nebst dem Beweis dass Granit, Gneiss, Serpentin, Talk,, 
t/emsse Sandsteine , anch Basalt, endlich Meteorstein und Meteoreisen aus 
B/ianzen bestehen. 
