Life's Dawn on Earth: Being the history of the oldest known fossil remains, and their relations to geological time and to the development of the animal kingdomDawson, John William, Sir
History
Life's Dawn on Earth: Being the history of the oldest known fossil remains, and their relations to geological time and to the development of the animal kingdom
Dawson, John William, Sir
Life -- Origin; Paleontology -- Precambrian
"But the organization of a new layer seems to have not unfrequently
taken place in a much more considerable extension of the sarcode-body
of the pre-formed layer; which either folded back its margin
over the surface already consolidated, in a manner somewhat like
that in which the mantle of a Cyprœa doubles back to deposit
the final surface-layer of its shell, or sent upwards wall-like
lamellæ, sometimes of very limited extent, but not unfrequently of
considerable length, which, after traversing the substance of the
shell, like trap-dykes in a bed of sandstone, spread themselves out
over its surface. Such, at least, are the only interpretations I can
put upon the appearances presented by decalcified specimens. For
on the one hand, it is frequently to be observed that two bands of
serpentine (or other infiltrated mineral), which represent two layers
of the original sarcode-body of the animal, approximate to each other
in some part of their course, and come into complete continuity;
so that the upper layer would seem at that part to have had its
origin in the lower. Again, even where these bands are most widely
separated, we find that they are commonly held together by vertical
lamellæ of the same material, sometimes forming mere tongues, but
often running to a considerable length. That these lamellæ have not
been formed by mineral infiltration into accidental fissures in the
shell, but represent corresponding extensions of the sarcode-body,
seems to me to be indicated not merely by the characters of their
surface, but also by the fact that portions of the canal-system may
be occasionally traced into connection with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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