V. Further observations on the structure and affinities of Eozoon Canadense . In a letter to the President. By William B. Carpenter, M. D., F. R. S., F. L. S., F. G. S

Abstract

When, on the 14th of December 1864, I addressed you on the subject of the remarkable discovery which had been recently made in Canada, and submitted by Sir William Logan to myself for verification, of a fossil belonging to the Foraminiferal type, occurring in large masses in the Serpentine-limestones intercalated among Gneissic and other rocks in the Lower Laurentian formation, and therefore long anterior in Geological time to the earliest traces of life previously observed, no doubts had been expressed as to the organic nature of this body, which had received the designation Eozoon Canadense . The announcement was soon afterwards made, that the Serpentine Marble of Connemara, employed as an ornamental marble by builders under the name of “Irish Green,” presented structural characters sufficiently allied to those of the Laurentian Serpentines of Canada to justify its being referred to the same origin. An examination of numerous decalcified specimens of this rock led me to the conclusion, that although the evidences of its organic origin were by no means such as to justify, or even to suggest, such a doctrine, if the structure of the Canadian Eozoon had not been previously elucidated, yet that the very exact correspondence in size and mode of aggregation between the Serpentine-granules of the Connemara Marble and those of the ‘acervuline’ portion of the Canadian, was sufficient to justify in behalf of the one the claim which had been freely conceded in regard to the other.