Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/850

830 change. It is true we have still a predominance of gneisses which may have been formed in the same manner with those below them; but we find these now associated with great beds of limestone and dolomite, which must have been formed by the separation of calcium and magnesium carbonates from the sea-water, either by chemical precipitation or by the agency of living beings. We have also quartzite, quartzose gneisses, and even pebble-beds, which inform us of sand-banks and shores. Nay, more, we have beds containing graphite which must be the residue of plants, and iron-ores which tell of the deoxidation of iron oxide by organic matters. In short, here we have evidence of new factors in world-building—of land and ocean, of atmospheric decay of rocks, of deoxidizing processes carried on by vegetable life on the land and in the waters, of limestone-building in the sea. To afford material for such rocks, the old Ottawa gneiss must have been lifted up into continents and mountain-masses. Under the slow but sure action of the carbonic dioxide dissolved in rain-water, its feldspar had crumbled down in the course of ages. Its potash, soda, lime, magnesia, and part of its silica, had been washed into the sea, there to enter into new combinations and to form new deposits. The crumbling residue of fine clay and sand had been also washed down into the borders of the ocean, and had been there deposited in beds. Thus the earth had entered into a new phase, which continues onward through the geological ages; and I place in your hands one key for unlocking the mystery of the world when I affirm that this great change took place, this new era was inaugurated, in the midst of the Laurentian period.

Was not this time a fit period for the first appearance of life? Should we not expect it to appear, independently of the evidence we have of the fact? I do not propose to enter here into that evidence, more especially in the case of the one well-characterized Laurentian fossil, Eozoön Canadense. I have already amply illustrated it elsewhere. I would merely say here, that we should bear in mind that in this latter half of the lower Laurentian, or, if we so choose to style it, middle Laurentian period, we have the conditions required for life in the sea and on the land; and, since in other periods we know that life was always present when its conditions were present, it is not unreasonable to look for the first traces of life in this formation, in which we find for the first time the completion of those physical arrangements which make life, in such forms of it as exist on our planet, possible.

This is also a proper place to say something of the doctrine of what is termed "metamorphism." The Laurentian rocks are undoubtedly greatly changed from their original state, more especially in the matters of crystallization and the formation of disseminated minerals by