Acervuline Variety of Eozoon 135 32, 33, 34. Archæospherinæ 137, 138 35. Annelid Burrows 140 36. Archæospherinæ 148 37. Eozoon Bavaricum 149 38, 39, 40. Archæocyathus 152, 153 41. Archæocyathus (Structure of) 154 42. Stromatopora 157 43. Stromatopora (Structure of) 158 44. Caunopora 159 45. Cœnostroma 160 46. Receptaculites 162 47, 48. Receptaculites (Structure of) 163 49. Laminæ of Eozoon 176 THE DAWN OF LIFE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Every one has heard of, or ought to have heard of, _Eozoon Canadense_, the Canadian Dawn-animal, the sole fossil of the ancient Laurentian rocks of North America, the earliest known representative on our planet of those wondrous powers of animal life which culminate and unite themselves with the spirit-world in man himself. Yet few even of those to whom the name is familiar, know how much it implies, and how strange and wonderful is the story which can be evoked from this first-born of old ocean. No one probably believes that animal life has been an eternal succession of like forms of being. We are familiar with the idea that in some way it was introduced; and most men now know, either from the testimony of Genesis or geology, or of both, that the lower forms of animal life were introduced first, and that these first living creatures had their birth in the waters, which are still the prolific mother of living things innumerable. Further, there is a general impression that it would be the most appropriate way that the great procession of animal existence should commence with the humblest types known to us, and should march on in successive bands of gradually increasing dignity and power, till man himself brings up the rear.