THE 



CANADIAN 



MTUEALIST AID GEOLOGIST. 



Vol. Y. FEBRUAEY, 1860. No. 1. 



ARTICLE I. — On Fossil Plants from the Devonian Rocks 

 0/ Canada. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.G.S., Principal of 

 McGill College, Montreal. (From the Prcceedings of the 

 Geological Society of London.) 



In 1843-44, Sir W. E. Logan ascertained, and published in his 

 Report* for the latter year, the occurrence of a series of beds of 

 Devonian age in the Peninsula of Gaspe, Lower Canada, contain- 

 ing fossil plants, apparently of the land, and some of them 

 evidently in situ. Nothing was done toward the precise determin- 

 ation and description of these remains until 1856, when Sir 

 William kindly permitted the writer of this paper to examine his 

 collection, and to describe before the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science the most interesting specimen contained 

 in it — a fossil trunk exhibiting a very remarkable and previously 

 undescribed coniferous structuref . The other specimens in the 

 collection were so fragmentary or obscure, that it was not deemed 

 expedient to attempt their description before studying them (as 

 all fossil plants should, when practicable, be studied) in the rocks 

 in which they occur. With this view I visited Gaspe in the past 



* Report of Progress of Canadian Geological Survey, 1844, p. 36, and 

 Appendix. 

 t Proceedings of American Association, 1856, p. 1T4. 



Canadian Nat. 1 Vol. V. No* 



