2 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. ix. 



there were no railways or county maps to assist the explorer, 

 and when the aids in determination of fossils were much less 

 accessible than at present ; and also that I have added some 

 explanatory notes, which are included iu brackets. 



" The oldest fossiliferous beds seen (at New Canaan) are the 

 fine fawn-coloured and gray clay slates of Beech Hill, in which 

 Dr. Webster, many years since, found a beautiful Dictyonema^ 

 the only fossil they have hitherto afforded. It is a new species, 

 closely allied to D. retlformis and D. gracilis of Hall, and will 

 be described by that palseontologist under the name of i). Wehsteri, 

 in honour of its discoverer. In the mean time I may merely state 

 that it is most readily characterised by the cellules, which are 

 very distinctly marked in the manner of Grapfolithus.^^ 



" The Dictyonema slates of Beech Hill are of great thickness, 

 but have in their upper part some hard and coarse beds. They 

 are succeeded to the south by a great series of dark coloured 

 coarse slates, often micaceous, and in some places constituting a 

 slate coDgloraerate, containing small fragments of older slates, 

 and occasionally pebbles of a gray vesicular rock, apparently a 

 trachyte. In some parts of this series there are bands of a coarso 

 laminated magnesian and ferruginous limestone, containing fossils 

 which, though much distorted, are in parts still distinguishable. 

 They consist of joints of crinoids, casts of brachiopodous shells, 

 trilobites and corals. Among the latter are two species of ^s^ro- 

 cerium, not distinguishable from A. pi/ri/orme and venustum of 

 the Niagara group, and a Heliolites allied to //. elegaiis, if not 

 a variety of this species.-!^ On the evidence of tliese fossils and 

 the more obscure remafns associated with them. Prof. Hall re- 

 gards these beds as equivalents of the Niagara formation of the 

 New York 2;eolo2;ists, the Wenlock of Murchison. Their g-eneral 

 strike is N. E. and S. W. ; and to the southward, or in the pro- 

 bable direction of the dip, they are succeeded, about six miles 

 from Beech Hill, by granite. They have in general a slaty 

 structure coinciding with the strike but not with the dip of the 

 beds, and this condition is very prevalent throughout this inland 

 metamorphic district, where also the principal mineral veins 

 usually run with the strike. The beds just described run with 

 S. W. strike for a considerable distance, and are succeeded in 

 ascending order by those next to be described." 



* [These corals fortunately show their structure very distiuctlT' 

 when cut and polished, though from the hardness of the rock their 

 external forms are obscure.] 



