No. >>.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 175 



from it certain sandstones and associated beds on the Lower St. 

 Lawrence. More especially I ma}" refer to the sandstones and 

 shales near Metis, holding Astrojwlithon, Scolifhus, and Arcnico- 

 lites spiralis, and to beds near Matane holding species of Conoce- 

 phalites of very primitive type. In Newfoundland also, where 

 the sequence of these beds is better seen than elsewhere, there 

 are, according to Richardson and Billings, 2000 feet of beds 

 under the typical Levis and over the Lower Calciferous, holding 

 fossils unquestionably of the second fauna of Barrande, or Lower 

 Silurian, and below them there is a great thickness of Calciferous 

 and Potsdam. All these beds must exist in the Quebec group 

 districts of Canada, folded up along with the Levis, and as yet 

 very imperfectly separated from it. Dor is it at all unlikely that 

 in some localities they may have been confounded with the Lauzon 

 and Sillery. 



With regard to the distinction of these last-named formations 

 as npper members of the Quebec group, we must agree with Mr. 

 Selwyn that in the present state of our knowledge they cannot 

 be clearly separated from the Levis or from one another. 

 Nevertheless it is true that on the typical Levis there rest 

 sandstones and shales of considerable thickness, not holdino- its 

 characteristic fossils, and forming an upper member of the 

 Quebec group, as yet not well defined, but representing in nature 

 the Lauzon and Sillery of Logan. 



In the next place, Mr. Selwyn is disposed to separate from the 

 Quebec group the greater part of those altered and crystalline 

 rocks associated with it, and which appeared to Sir William 

 Logan to be metamorphosed equivalents of this group, and 

 largely of its upper or Sillery division. Of these rocks he forms 

 two series, which however he regards as closely associated, and 

 probably not unconformable with each other. 



The first and nearest in age to the Quebec group is defined as 

 including '' felspathic, chloritic, epidotic and quartzose sand- 

 stones, red, gray and greenish siliceous slates and argillites," with 

 " breccias and agglomerates, diorites, dolerites, and amygdaloids,-' 

 as well as serpentine, dolomite, and calcite. In short this forma- 

 tion is one of mixed igneous and aqueous origin, non-fossiliferous, 

 except in the case of a few microscopic fragments, and mostly 

 crystalline. As regarded by Sir W. E. Logan, these rocks, in 

 consequence of their apparent conformity with the Levis series, 

 and their apparent superposition in some sections, were held to 



