336 The Lawrencian Formatio7i, 



rials with whicli tliey are freighted, to the bottom. Should the 

 bed of the ocean between America and Europe become dry land, 

 there is not the least doubt but that we should find it strewn over 

 with blocks of stone, much in the same way as our fields are 

 strewn. This theory has many able advocates, but still it does 

 not satisfy all. 



The Lawrencian Formation. — What is considered to be the 

 true drift lies at the bottom of the mass of loose material which 

 covers Canada, and consists of clay, sand, gravel and boulders, 

 broken from every formation, and mixed confusedly together in 

 one common ruin ; but above this, there are in many extensive 

 tracts of country regularly stratified beds, which appear to have 

 been quietly deposited, and which also contain organic remains of 

 species identical with those now living in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 and northern seas. This deposit occupies the vallies of the St, 

 Lawrence and Ottawa, and consists of fine clay, sand and gravel, 

 which generally make a good and fertile soil. While it was in 

 the course of being deposited, there can be no question but that 

 all Canada, east of Kingston, was submerged beneath the ocean. 

 At the same time, the sea was tenanted by a considerable number 

 of the same species of marine animals that are now to be found in 

 it. The late Professor E. Forbes, in an elaborate and beautiful 

 memoir " on the geological relations of the existing Fauna and 

 Flora of the British Isles," gives a list of 1*74 species of animals 

 whose remains have been found fossil, either in the drift of Europe 

 or the Lawrencian deposit of America ; and since that paper was 

 published (1846) many other species have been found. He thus 

 classifies them : — 



Mammalia 5 



Pisces 1 



Mollusca 155 



Cirrhipeda 5 



Annellida 3 



Echinodermata 2 



Zoophy ta 2 



Plantse 1 



174 



The Mammalia of this list are altogether of the whale tribe ; 

 the single species of fish to which he alludes is the common 



