Review of Recent Geological Literature. 
49 
Many have supposed that the attacks made on the assumed organic 
nature of Eozoon by King and Rowney and by Mdbius and others had 
settled the question adversely, but Sir W. Dawson comes forward with a 
mass of evidence old and new, on which he bases his faith with undis¬ 
turbed security. In his summary of arguments in support of the animal 
nature of Eozoon canadense , he embraces the following statements: 1. 
It occurs in masses in limestone rocks just as Stromatoporce occur in the 
palaaozoic limestone. 2. In small or limited individuals it assumes a 
regular rounded, cylindrical or more frequently broadly turbinate, form. 
3. Microscopically it presents a regular lamination, the laminae being 
confluent at intervals so as to form a net-work in the transverse section. 
The laminae have tub erculated surfaces or casts of such surfaces, giving 
an acervuline appearance to those laminae which are supposed to be the 
casts of chambers. 4. The original calcareous laminae are traversed by 
systems of branching canals, now filled with various mineral substances. 
5. In some specimens large vertical tubes or oscula may be seen to pene¬ 
trate the mass. 6. On the sides of such tubes, and on the external surface 
the laminae subdivide and become confluent, thus forming a species of 
porous epidermal layer or theca. 7. Fragments of Eozoon are found form¬ 
ing layers in the limestone, showing that it was being broken up when 
the limestones were in process of deposition. 8. The great extent and regu¬ 
larity of the limestones show that they were of marine origin, and they 
contain graphite, apatite and obscure organic (?) fragments other than 
Eozoon. 9. The mineralization is identical with that of Silurian and other 
fossils. 10. Sometimes the calcareous filling of the canals and chamber- 
lets can be distinguished as different from the calcite of the original wall. 
11. The specimens have been folded and faulted with the containing lime¬ 
stones, showing that they are not products of any subsequent segregation. 
12. Similarly they are crossed by the veins of chrysotile which traverse 
the limestones and are of later origin. 13. All the forms and structures 
are such as might be expected of a gigantic generalized rhizopod of 
primitive times. 14. Many of the objections raised have been based on 
insufficient or imperfect specimens, or on want of the necessary experi¬ 
ence in the study of the more ancient fossils in various states of preserva¬ 
tion. 
Functionally Eozoon was a collector of calcareous matter from the sea. 
Its role was the same as that of the stromatoporoids and calcareous spon¬ 
ges, smaller foraminifers and corals of the later times. Zoologically 
Eozoon presents some resemblances to stromatoporoids, but the position of 
these is in dispute. They are evidently divisible into different groups, 
and Eozoon may represent one of them. Eozoon is probably more akin to 
the calcareous-shelled rhizopods than any other modern group. “ The 
modern Polytrema which encrusts shells and dead corals in the warmer 
seas seems to me to present more resemblance to Eozoon than any other 
organism I know.” 
The Gold Fields of Victoria. Reports of the mining registrars for the 
quarter ending 30th June , 1888. Compiled and arranged by the Secretary 
for mines. (C. W. Langtree.) Melbourne. 4to. pp. 92. From this docu- 
