Geological Survey of Canada. 65 



like coal measures on the carboniferous or mountain limestone, 

 and, were it not for the fossils and the relations of the sandstones 

 to the southward, they might easily be mistaken for coal mea- 

 sures. Another portion of Mr. Richardson's Report is occupied 

 with the record of a short reconnaissance of the Silurian lime- 

 stone which appears at Lake St. John at the head of the Sague- 

 nay, accompanied as usual by fertile soil. The occurrence of 

 these rocks here is interesting, as an indication of the recurrence 

 of the fossiliferous formations in an outlvino- basin in the midst of 

 the great area of Laurentian metamorphic rocks which bound culti- 

 vable Canada on the north. 



The Palaeontology of the Report is wrought out by Mr. Billings 

 and Professor Hall of Albany. As we have already published in this 

 Journal the greater part of both reports, it is unnecessary to 

 refer to them here, except by way of general remark. Prof. 

 Hall's paper on Graptolites is a valuable contribution to palaeon- 

 tology. These curious fossils are very characteristic of certain 

 portions of the Lower Silurian series, and therefore important to 

 geologists in classifying these rocks; but their true nature has 

 been very obscure. The unusually perfect specimens obtained by 

 Sir W. E. Logan have enabled Prof. Hall to represent for the 

 first time their general forms and the arrangement of their parts, 

 though he still expresses a doubt as to their affinities. It seems 

 however almost certain that they were intended to float freely in 

 the sea, bearing along the numerous little animals inhabiting the 

 cells on the sides of their branches, and which were very pro- 

 bably allied to the Bryozoa. 



Mr. Billings gives us an elaborate comparison of the fossils of 

 the Black River limestone in Canada with those of the same for- 

 mation in New York, confirming and extendino; the fact ascer- 

 tained by Sir William Logan some time since, — that the fossils of 

 this formation in Canada graduate into those of the Trenton lime- 

 stone. Mr. Billings has also commenced the study and publication of 

 the fossils of the Devonian series in Western Canada, and de- 

 scribes in this report a number of new species and some new 

 genera of corals and mollusks from these and the Silurian rocks. 



We are glad to see so much of tin- \l< port occupied with palae- 

 ontology, and trust that this will be continued and increased. 

 (Jntil the engagement of Mr. Billings, this was the weak point of 

 the Canadian Survey; and as our geological readers very well 

 know, no reliable work can be done in geology without attention 

 to fossils. Obvious though this is, however, we are inclined to 

 . Nat. Vol. IV. No. 1 



