No. 4.] HUNT — ON CAMBRIAN AND SILURIAN. 435 



in a narrow basin. The series, the total thickness of which is 

 estimated by Messrs. Matthew and Bailey at over 2000 

 feet, contains Lingula throughout, but has yielded no remains 

 of a higrher fauna. The same Menevian forms have been found 

 in small outlying areas of similar rocks, at two or three places 

 north of the St. John basin, but to the south of the New Bruns- 

 wick coal-field. To the north of this is a broad belt of similar 

 argillites and sandstones, which extends south-westward into 

 the state of Maine. This belt has hitherto yielded no organic 

 remains, but is compared by Mr. Matthew to the Cambrian 

 rocks of the St. John basin, and to the gold-bearing series of 

 Nova Scotia, [Geol. Jour, xxi, 427,] which at the same time 

 resembles closely the Cambrian rocks of southeastern Newfound- 

 land. This was remarked by Dr. Dawson in 1860, when he 

 expressed the opinion that the auriferous rocks of Nova Scotia 

 were '^ the continuation of the older slate series of Mr. Jukes 

 in Newfoundland, which has afforded Paradoxides," and proba- 

 bly the equivalent of the Lingula flags of Wales. [Supplement 

 to Acadian Geology (I860,) page 53; also Acad. Geol. 2nd ed., 

 page 613.] Associated with these gold-bearing strata, along the 

 Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, occur fine grained gneisses, and 

 mica-schists with andalusite and staurolite; besides other crys- 

 talline schists which are chloritic and dioritic, and contain crystal- 

 lized epidote, magnetite and menaccanite. These two types of 

 crystalline schists, (which, from their stratigraphical relations, as 

 well as from their mineral condition, appear to be more ancient 

 than the uncrystalline gold-bearing strata,) were in 1860, as now, 

 regarded by me as the equivalents respectively of the White 

 Mountain and Green Mountain series of the Appalachians ; as 

 will be seen by reference to Dr. Dawson's work just quoted. 

 At that time, however, and for many years after, I held, in com- 

 mon with most American geologists, the opinion that these two 

 groups of crystalline schists were altered rocks of a more recent 

 date than that assigned to the auriferous series of Nova Scotia 

 by Dr. Dawson ; who was much perplexed by the difficulty of 

 reconciling this view with his own. The difficulty is however at 

 once removed when we admit, as I have maintained for the last 

 two years, that both of these groups are pre-Cambrian in age 

 [Amer. Jour. Sci. II, 1. 83 ; address to the Amer. Assoc. Adv' 

 Sci. August, 1871.] 



A notice by Mr. Selwyn of some of these crystalline schists in 



