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n those early forest glades insect life abounded, whose cheery hum 

 broke the monotony of the long silence, while the rich tints displayed 

 by the flashing of their wings enlivened the sombre gloom. ISJany of 

 these insects were of the order Neuroptera, and in size equalled, if even 

 they did not far surpass, those of the present time, having a spread of 

 wing of eight or ten inches, and in some recently found specimens of 

 nearly two feet. The earliest remains of these insects have been found 

 in our own country, or more properly speaking in the provinces by the 

 sea, the fern ledges near St. John, N.B., having yielded a rich harvest 

 to the labors of the local geologists, and so wonderfully preserved were 

 they that the delicate veinings of the wings are yet perfectly distinct. 

 Large fishes also occupied the waters in the Devonian time, and the 

 visitor to the geological museum will find there a fine collection of the 

 same forms as those described years ago by Hugh Miller from the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Scotland. These also are found in New Brunswick 

 and along the adjacent shore of the Gaspe Peninsula, where the strata 

 are sometimes thickly strewed with their well-preserved forms. So 

 great in fact was the number of species in that period that the 

 Devonian has been styled the age of fishes. The distribution of these 

 fish remai. ^ is worthy of notice, for while the Devonian rocks are well 

 and widely known throughout Canada, the fish localities are very few, 

 being mostly, in so far as yet known, confined to two areas, one at 

 Campbellton, N.B., and the other on the north side of the mouth of the 

 Bestigouche, opposite Dalhousie, where they occupy a portion of the 

 shore about five miles in length. In these cases also the most delicate 

 markings of the scale are as perfect as in the living fish to-day. 



I have passed over the periods of the Cambro-Silurian and 

 Silurian of our scale with scarcely a reference. These systems are 

 largely represented in Canada and everywhere abound in organic 

 remains, but are for the most part not conspicuous for economic 

 minerals. Each of the systems is divided into several formations, each 

 of which in turn is characterized by its own peculiar forms, but as 

 these pertain more particularly to the province of the Paleontologist 

 we will not pause longer on this portion of the subject, but pass to the 

 consideration of the closing portion of the paleozoic, viz. : the 

 Carboniferous. 



