438 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST, [Vol. vii. 



Nova Scotia, causing the collapse of the earth's crust in the 

 intermediate space. For the same reason, probably, deep water 

 surrounds Isle Haute, an isolated peak of Triassic trap in the 

 Bay of Fundy, toward its upper end : and it is noteworthy that 

 wherever in this part of the Bay, Triassic trap appears upon 

 two opposite shores, holes and troughs exist in the intervening 

 space in the bottom of the Bay. I may add that the regular 

 trend across the bay of the contour lines of 50, 40, 30 and 25 

 fathoms, toward that part of the Nova Scotian coast where the 

 trap mountains attain their greatest development, is not without 

 significance in this connection.] 



II. Syrtensian Epoch. 



Under this h,ead I propose to describe a group of beds which 

 rests immediately on the Boulder clay : in the flat country of 

 the interior, they are largely composed of sand, but in the val- 

 leys among the Southern hills, and between the ridges of slate 

 in the northern part of Charlotte county, mucli coarse material 

 is mingled with the sand, and in narrow and confined valleys 

 the deposit is apt to consist chiefly of gravel and to contain great 

 numbers of blocks of stone, and boulders more or less rounded 

 and deprived of striae. Either these beds are not well developed 

 in other parts of Canada and along the Atlantic seaboard, or their 

 position and origin has been misunderstood. Prof, C. H. Hitchcock 

 includes similar beds with the Leda-clay in his division of the 

 Drift which he calls the Beach and Sea-bottom period, but in 

 this country the known beaches are associated with a later group 

 (Saxicava sand) and his Sea-bottom beds seem to correspond to 

 the Leda-Clay, The gravelly group is not recognized by Dr. 

 Dawson apart from the Leda-clay, probably because it forms 

 but an inconspicuous portion of the Modified Drift in the Saint 

 Lawrence valley. I think, however, that it is recognizable in 

 some of his sections, as for instance that of the Glen brick works, 

 Montreal, Nos. 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Section.^ Also in speak- 

 ing of the stratified sand and gravel of Nova Scotia,f which he 

 considers to be '' newer than the Boulder-clay, and also newer 

 thin the str itified marine clays," he describes strata very like 

 our Syrtensian beds. 



Dr. A. S. Packard gives sections of some Post-pliocene depo- 



* Notes on the Post-Pliocene Geology of Canada, Montreal, 1872. 

 t Op. cit. pp. 39 & 40. 



