165 

 ON UTICA FOSSILS FROM RIDEAU, OTTAWA, ONT, 



By Henry M. Ami, M.A., F.G.S. 



{Read 19th January, 1888.) 



As a natural consequence of the recent annexation of the vice-regaF 

 suburb of New Edinburgh, cr Fideau, to the municipality of Ottawa, 

 this new ward has had extensive operations performed within its limits 

 during the past summer. Rideau, for the most part, exhibits through- 

 out its entire area the bare strata of the Utica and Trenton formations, 

 seeing that tho newer Post-Tertiai-ies have been almost completely 

 swept away and denuded in times subsequent to the deposition of the 

 "boulder clays," " Leda clay" and " Saxicava sands," which at some 

 period covered the valley of the Rideau River. An extensive series of 

 trenches were opened and a system of pipes laid for water supply iiv 

 the various streets, to such an extent that an excellent opportunity was 

 afforded the members of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club and other* 

 of examining not only the stratigraphy of the rocks occurring there, but 

 also of making collections in the highly fossiliferous measures brought 

 to view and of obtaining not a few fossils of rare occurrence, many of 

 which have proved new to the locality and a few new to science. 

 These latter, it is hoped, will shortly be described, ami communicated 

 at one of the Club's Soil ees. 



Detailed sections of the strata were obtained at various points 

 along Crichton Street and elsewhere, and these may prove valuable for 

 both paliBontological and stratigraphical purposes. In order to give 

 satisfactory notes on the distribution of the fossils of the Utica here as 

 in other quarti'i s, it is deemed advisable to insert these sections, giving 

 the sequence of strata and the precise horizon at which most of the 

 species mentioned in the lists to be given hereafter propeily belong, 

 in the description of the strata, their lilhological character as well as 

 the thickness of the beds and tlio fossil remains entombed within them 

 and so well preserved, are given in more or less detail according as the 

 facts were ]iresented to the writer in the field work. VN^'^'^/ 



