436 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. 



Nova Scotia will be found in the Report of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of Canada for 1870, [page 271]. He there remarks more- 

 over the close lithological resemblances of the gold-bearing strata 

 to the Harlech grits and Lingula-flags of North Wales, and 

 announces the discovery among these strata at the Ovens gold- 

 mine in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, of peculiar organic markings 

 regarded by Mr. Billings as identical with the Eopliyton Lin- 

 noeanum, which is found in the Regio Fucoidarum, at the base 

 of the Cambrian in Sweden. In the volume just quoted [page 

 269] will be found some notes by Mr. Billings on this fossil, 

 which occurs also near St. John, New Brunswick, in strata sup- 

 posed to underlie the Paradoxides beds. The same form is found 

 in Conception Bay, in south-eastern Newfoundland, in strata 

 regarded by Mr. Murray as higher than those ^fi'iih. Paradoxides^ 

 and containing also two new species of Lingula, a Cruziana and 

 several fucoids. Still more recently, Eopliyton, accompanied by 

 these same fucoids, has been found by Mr. Billings at St. Lau- 

 rent, on the island of Orleans near Quebec, in strata hitherto 

 referred by the Geological Survey, on stratigraphical grounds, to 

 the Quebec group. The evidence adduced by Mr. Billings shows 

 that this organic form, whatever its nature, belongs to a very low 

 horizon in the Cambrian. 



As regards the probable downward extension of these forms of 

 ancient life, I cannot refrain from citing the recent language of 

 Mr, Hicks. [Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, May 1872, page 174.] After 

 a comparative study of the Lower Cambrian fauna, including 

 that of the Harlech and Menevian rocks in Wales, and the re- 

 presentatives of the latter in other regions, he adds : 



'' Though animal life was restricted to these few types, yet at 

 this early period the representatives of the several orders do not 

 show a very diminutive form, or a markedly imperfect state ; 

 nor is there an unusual number of blind species. The earliest 

 known brachiopods are apparently as perfect as those which suc- 

 ceed them ; and the trilobites are of the largest and best devel- 

 oped types. The fact also that trilobites had attained their 

 maximum size at this period, and that forms were present repre- 

 sentative of almost every stage in development, from the little 

 Agnostus. with two rings to the thorax, and Microdiscus with 

 four, to Erimiys with twenty-four ; and blind genera along with 

 those having the largest eyes ; leads to the conclusion that for 

 these several stages to have taken place numerous previous faunas 



