6o The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



five regions, the Acadian, Laurentian Hig"hlands, Lawrencian Low- 

 lands, Interior Continental Plain, and Cordilleran ; gives a list ot 

 the geological systems ; then, " compelled " thereto " by dire 

 necessity," proceeds "to affix provisional formational names." 



Of this great area nearly two-thirds belong to the Laurentian 

 and Huronian systems — names now generally adopted throughout 

 the world — in which no definite organisms have been found. In 

 regard to the occurrence of these rocks at Hudson Bay there is a 

 vague description (p. 190) of an " undifferentiated mass of granites, 

 . . . .consisting ot granites and gneisses and other crystalline rocks 



similar in structure and chemical composition to crystalline 



limestones " ! 



The great gold-bearing series of Nova Scotia, provisionally 

 called Lower Cambrian, is also barren of fossils ; while the over 

 lying Etcheminian and Upper Cambrian rocks of Newfoundland, 

 Cape Breton and New Brunswick hold fossils in abundance. Dr. 

 Ami, misunderstanding Mr. E. R. Faribault's description of the 

 mode of occurrence of the gold in Nova Scotia, speaks of "many 

 anticlines superimposed one upon the other at different depths and 

 intervals ;" and of strata, altered in a narrow zone by contact with 

 granite masses, as a " metamorphic series" ! Three Cambrian 

 fossiliferous zones have been recognized in British Columbia among 

 a great series of volcanic rocks. 



Ordovician or Cambro-Silurian rocks have been determined 

 by the author from their fossils in every one of the five regions 

 " the Sl<;iddaw and Arenig, the Hartfell and Llandeilo formations 

 being easily recognized in Canada." The Silurian system also 

 "presents a compact fauna which in facies closely resembles rocks 

 in the Kendal and Ludlow regions of England ; " yet local desig- 

 nations "based upon the faunistic relations" are given by the 

 writer. It is noteworthy that he now agrees with Dr. Honeyman 

 to include in the Silurian the disputed beds of the Nictaux iron 

 mines, called by him elsewhere Eo-Devonian. His new names 

 for the Arisaig Silurian tend only to obscure the correlation of 

 a regular succession of strata shown, forty years ago, to range 

 from Lower Helderberg to Medina. 



In all the five regions, Devonian and Carboniferous strata 

 have been met with. Many will object to the author's grouping 



