. The dawn of life [microform] : being the history of the oldest known fossil remains, and their relations to geological time, and to the development of the animal kingdom. Paleontology; Life; Paléontologie; Vie. WHAT IS EOZOON ? 71 animals, they may also be the fry of Eozoou, or small portions of its acervuline upper surface floated off in a living state, and possibly capable of living indepen- dently and of founding new colonies. It is only by a somewhat wild poetical licence that Eozoon has been represented as a " kind of enormous composite animal stretching from the shores of Labrador
. The dawn of life [microform] : being the history of the oldest known fossil remains, and their relations to geological time, and to the development of the animal kingdom. Paleontology; Life; Paléontologie; Vie. WHAT IS EOZOON ? 71 animals, they may also be the fry of Eozoou, or small portions of its acervuline upper surface floated off in a living state, and possibly capable of living indepen- dently and of founding new colonies. It is only by a somewhat wild poetical licence that Eozoon has been represented as a " kind of enormous composite animal stretching from the shores of Labrador to Lake Superior, and thence northward and south- ward to an unknown distance, and forming masses 1500 feet in depth/' We may discuss by-and-by the question of the composite nature of masses of Eozoon, and we see in the corals evidence of the great size to which composite animals of a higher grade can attain. In the case of Eozoon we must imagine an ocean floor more uniform and level than that now existing. On this the organism would establish itself in spots and patches. These might finally become confluent over large areas, just as massive corals do. As individual masses attained maturity and died, their pores would be filled up with limestone or silicious deposits, and thus could form a solid basis for new generations, and in this way limestone to an indefinite extent might be produced. Further, wherever such masses were high enough to be attacked by the breakers, or where por- tions of the sea bottom were elevated, the more fragile parts of the surface would be broken up and scattered widely in beds of fragments over the bottom of the sea, while here and there beds of mud or sand or of volcanic debris would be deposited over the living or dead organic mass, and would form the layers of gneiss. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectpaleontology, bookyea
