Lesquereux.] 202 [March. 



than to ours. If it is so, we would have on our continent an ano- 

 maly of relation contradicted by what we know from the other forma- 

 tions. Good and long palseontological researches may help to settle 

 the question 



It is certain that our coal-measures are increasing in thickness 

 eastward, especially for the sandstone and the shale strata. Admit- 

 ting, if not a continuity, at least a contemporaneity of formation 

 under the same influences, and a continuation of increase of thick- 

 ness in the same direction and the same proportion, this would already 

 give us many hundred feet of difference for Canada. I understand 

 moreover, that a shore formation of the coal has been necessarily 

 subjected to a great many local variations, which could not reach an 

 inland one. It is clear that the invasion of the sea, bearing with it 

 sand and other materials, could not always penetrate the inland part 

 of the basin, and cover the whole of it. This accounts for the multi- 

 plication of strata, and the dividing of coal strata into thin and nume- 

 rous seams. Of course, if such divisions did happen on the shores, 

 while the internal part of the basin continued in the same state of a 

 continual peat growing, boggy marshes, the vegetation of these partial 

 coal-seams cannot be variable. So local vegetation is always affected 

 or directed by the general one, and the difference of vegetation of 

 our coal strata becomes especially evident, after such cataclysms or 

 such changes of level under the influence of which the whole extent 

 of the coal-measures was covered with deposits, brought by water or 

 formed under it, viz., sandstone or limestone. 



It is therefore evident, that even if it was based on well ascertained 

 facts, the sixth objection of Professor Dawson would be of little im- 

 portance, especially in its application to our coal-measures. But I 

 fiud it extraordinary to say the least, when compared to other asser- 

 tions of the same author. In his last valuable paper on the flora of 

 the Devonian period (Quarterly Journal, November, 1862), he says, 

 page 328 : '' Some species which appear early in the Devonian period, 

 continue to its close without entering the Cai-boniferous; and the 

 great majority of the species, even of the Upper Devonian, do not 

 reappear in the Carboniferous period, but a few species extend from 

 the Upper Devonian into the Lower Carboniferous, and thus estab- 

 lish a real passage from the earlier to the later flora. The connec- 

 tion thus established between the Upper Devonian and the Lower 

 Carboniferous, is much less intimate than that which subsists between 

 the latter and the true coal-measures. Another way of stating this 

 is, that there is a constant gain in the number of genera and species, 



