34 SCUDDER ON THE DEVONIAN 



more simple and to the more generalized forms. We have nothing in the devonian 

 so simple as Euephemerites, nothing so comprehensive as Engereon, nothing at once 

 so simple and comprehensive as Dictyoneura. On the derivative hypothesis, we must 

 presume, from our present knowledge of devonian insects, that the Palaeodictyoptera 

 of the carboniferous are already, in that epoch, an old and persistent embrj'onic type 

 (as the living Ephemeridae may be considered to-day, on a narrower but more 

 lengthened scale) ; that some other insects of carboniferous times, together with most 

 of those of the devonian, descended from a common stock in the lower devonian 

 or silurian period ; and that the union of these with the Palaeodictyoptera was even 

 further removed from us in time ; — carrying back the origin of winged insects to 

 a far remoter antiquity than has ever been ascribed to them ; and necessitating a fiiith 

 in the derivative hypothesis, which a study of the records preserved in the rocks could 

 never alone afford ; for no evidence can be adduced in its fovor based only on 

 such investigations. The profound voids in our knowledge of the earliest history of 

 insects, to which allusion was made at the close of my paper on the Early types of 

 insects, are thus shown to be even greater and more obscure than had been presumed. 

 But I should hesitate to close this summary without expressing the conviction that some 

 such earlier unknown comprehensive types as are indicated above did exist and should be 

 sought. 



X. Note on the Geological Relations of the Fossil Insects from the Devo- 

 nian OF New Brunswick. By Pi-incipal Dawson, LL.D., F.E.S., &c. 



The beds affording these remains occur in the vicinity of the city of St. John, New 

 Brunswick, and are well exposed on the shores of Courtney Bay, on the east side of the 

 city, and at Duck Cove, Lancaster, on its western side. They consist of sandstones, 

 shales, and conglomex'ates, having an aggregate tliickness of about 7,500 feet,^ as shown 

 in the following generalized section, in ascending order : — 



1. Bloomshury Conglomerate — Reddish-gray conglomerate with interstratified hard 

 red shale. 500 feet. 



2. Dadoxylon Sandstone — (Lower part of Little River Grouf) in my Acadian Geol- 

 ogy ). Gray sandstone and grit, with beds of gray and black graphitic shale — Fossil plants, 

 etc. 2,800 feet. 



3. C or daite Shales — (Upper part of the Little River Group) — red, gray and black 

 shales, with beds of sandstone and conglomerate — Fossil Plants, etc. 2,400 feet. 



4. Ilispec Conglomerate — Red conglomerate and shale. 1,800 feet. 

 In the vicinity of St. John, these beds rest on cambrian rocks of the Acadian (Mene- 



vian) group, and are overlain uncomformably Ijy lower carboniferous ("sub-carboniferous") 

 conglomerates, which in their extension eastward are associated with the Albert shales 

 holding fossil fishes aud plants of characteristic lower carboniferous types.^ Elsewhere in 



1 Report of Bailey and Matbew, Geol. Survey of Canada, - See for details the author's Acadian Geology, 3d Edi- 



1871. In the author's Acadian Geology, the thickness is tion. 

 given as 9500 feet; but later observations have reduced the 

 thickness of the lower members. 



