No. 4.] BILLINGS — FOSSILS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 465 



this rule, or law of nature as it may be called, that met only the 

 age of the Taconic but also the age of the slates, at St. Johns 

 New Brunswick, and of the great series of rocks investigated by 

 Mr. Murray in Newfoundland were determined. The age of a 

 number of other doposites in the Western States and in the 

 Rocky Mountains has been decided by the same law. 



ON SOME FOSSILS FROM THE PRIMORDIAL ROCKS 



OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 



By E. Billings, F.G.S. 



In Mr. Murray's " Report upon the Geological Survey of New- 

 foundland for the year 1870," the Primordial rocks of the south- 

 easterly portion of the Island, are estimated to have a thickness 

 of about 6000 feet. The upper 476 feet, constituting Bell 

 Island, in Conception Bay, a short distance from the city of St, 

 Johns, hold a peculiar group of fossils, the exact age of which 

 has not yet been determined. The species thus far collected, 

 consist entirely of Lingulce, Cruziana and fucoids. Among the 

 latter are fine specimens of several species of Eojyhi/ton, a genus 

 first discovered on this continent by Mr. Murray. The Lingulce, 

 on a superficial examination, might be taken for those of the 

 LTpper Potsdam of Wisconsin. They are, however, specifically, 

 and two of them are, perhaps, even generically, difi"erent. These 

 two are distinguished by the remarkable convexity of the dorsal 

 valve. They have their nearest representatives in some species 

 from the '' Budleigh Salterton Pebble-bed" of Devonshire, 

 England. The pebbles of this latter formation, which hold the 

 Lingiihr, are supposed to have been derived from the " Armori- 

 cain sandstone" of Brittany, France, considered to be about the 

 base of the Lower Silurian. In Newfoundland, up to the pre- 

 sent' time, true primordial trilobites have been collected, only in 

 beds, the highest of which are full 2000 feet below the lowest 

 strata of Bell Island. 



I shall therefore describe the fossils of this Island as a distinct 

 division. 

 Vol. VI. ■W No. 4. 



