Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/285

Rh I cannot forbear alluding to the interesting confirmation of the genuineness of Eozoön afforded by the discovery of these Huronian fossils in New Hampshire: 1. Eozoön sprung upon us with affinities rather remote from existing forms, but the Stromatopora has been known for fifty years as a veritable organism. 2. The latter has the same silicated condition with the former; hence we cannot set aside Eozoön merely because the supposed animal parts have been infiltrated



by a silicate. A well-known organism is proved to be silicated; hence all presumption against the existence of the same mineral condition in a related animal is removed. 3. Stromatopora is zoologically allied to Eozoön. 4. It appears in a subsequent period, showing a natural order of development. 5. Stratigraphical and petrographical studies prove the greenstones to satisfactorily belong to the true Huronian formation, and thus make the sequence of life free from ambiguity.

—Such vast periods are necessarily involved in those early stages of the earth's growth, that we cannot portray