It is different, however, with the round cells infiltrated with serpentine and with the silicious grains included in the loganite. I have already referred to and figured ([fig. 18]) the remarkable rounded bodies occurring at Long Lake. I now figure similar bodies found mixed with fragmental Eozoon and in separate thin layers at St. Pierre ([fig. 32]), also some of the singular grains found in the loganite occupying the chambers of Eozoon from Burgess ([fig. 33]), and a beaded body set free by acid, with others of irregular forms, from the limestone of Wentworth ([fig. 34]). All these I think are essentially of the same nature, namely, chambers originally invested with a tubulated wall like Eozoon, and aggregated in groups, sometimes in a linear manner, sometimes spirally, like those Globigerinæ which constitute the mass of modern deep-sea dredgings and also of the chalk. These bodies occur dispersed in the limestone, arranged in thin layers parallel to the bedding or sometimes in the large chamber-cavities of Eozoon. They are so variable in size and form that it is not unlikely they may be of different origins. The most probable of these may be thus stated. First, they may in some cases be the looser superficial parts of the surface of Eozoon broken up into little groups of cells. Secondly, they may be few-celled germs or buds given off from Eozoon. Thirdly, they may be smaller Foraminifera, structurally allied to Eozoon, but in habit of growth resembling those little globe-shaped forms which, as already stated, abound in chalk and in the modern ocean. The latter view I should regard as highly probable in the case of many of them; and I have proposed for them, in consequence, and as a convenient name, Archæospherinæ, or ancient spherical animals.
Carbonaceous matter is rare in the true Eozoon limestones, and, as already stated, I would refer the Laurentian graphite or plumbago mainly to plants. With regard to the worm-burrows referred to in 1865, there can be no doubt of their nature, but there is some doubt as to whether the beds that contain them are really Lower Laurentian. They may be Upper Laurentian or Huronian. I give here figures of these burrows as published in 1866[AG] ([fig. 35]). The rocks which contain them hold also fragments of Eozoon, and are not known to contain other fossils.
[AG] Journal of Geological Society.
Fig. 35. Annelid Burrows, Laurentian or Huronian.
Fig 1. Transverse section of Worm-burrow—magnified, as a transparent object. (a.) Calcareo-silicious rock. (b.) Space filled with calcareous spar. (c.) Sand agglutinated and stained black. (d.) Sand less agglutinated and uncoloured. Fig. 2. Transverse section of Worm-burrow on weathered surface, natural size. [Fig. 3]. The same, magnified.
If we now turn to other countries in search of contemporaries of Eozoon, I may refer first to some specimens found by my friend Dr. Honeyman at Arisaig, in Nova Scotia, in beds underlying the Silurian rocks of that locality, but otherwise of uncertain age. I do not vouch for them as Laurentian, and if of that age they seem to indicate a species distinct from that of Canada proper. They differ in coarser tubulation, and in their canals being large and beaded, and less divergent. I proposed for these specimens, in some notes contributed to the survey of Canada, the name Eozoon Acadianum.
Dr. Gümbel, the Director of the Geological Survey of Bavaria, is one of the most active and widely informed of European geologists, combining European knowledge with an extensive acquaintance with the larger and in some respects more typical areas of the older rocks in America, and stratigraphical geology with enthusiastic interest in the microscopic structures of fossils. He at once and in a most able manner took up the question of the application of the discoveries in Canada to the rocks of Bavaria. The spirit in which he did so may be inferred from the following extract:—