ABRAHAM GESNER REVIEW OF IIIS SCIENTIFIC WORK. 17 



the locality from which it came we know it to have heen 



•obtained from the shales of Division 1, Band c, of the 8t. 



John Group. In the fauna of this band, 



Fig. I the only fossil that will answer to Dr. Ges- 



ner's " terebi-atulite " is Orthis BUliiujxl, 



Hartt. Examples of this fossil, in which 



the ears are broken off or concealed in the 



matrix, would resemble the terebratulite.* 



AT,,. Dr. Gesner also found this formation to con- 



Slate of St. Jo?iT>. tain plant remains in the form of a ''cactus" 



(or Stigmaria). 

 In an upper set of beds other plant-remains were f(Hind. 

 These were discovered at Little River and consisted of trunks of 

 trees, conifera, a calamite, impressions of leaves, and a plant 

 called a Fhytolithiisj, which probably was a Sigillaria. From 

 the description of the locality it is evident that these plants 

 came from the Dadox3don sandstone, of the Little River group. 

 Dr. Gesner was thus the pioneer in making known the fauna of 

 the Cambrian and the flora of the overlying pre-carV)Oniferoiis 

 rocks in New Brunswick. That he did not reach the full signifi- 

 cence of his discoveries is not at all surprising, for the district 

 where these two classes of remains are found is a veiy complicated 

 one ; and the study of its geology for half a centur}^ past has 

 hardly yet resulted in the unravelling of its complicated 

 structure. 



Dr. Gesner's older Graywacke group is exemplified in the 

 Huronian schists of the Coastal group and the altered schistose 

 rocks between Cape Mispec and Emerson's Creek along the shore 

 of the Bay of Fundy. 



In his fourth report we find that Dr. Gesner revised his 

 I'eference of the Graywacke system, and upon the ground of the 

 scarcity of organic r'emains, a few terehratula and some land 

 plants only having been found, he classes it with the Cambrian 

 system of Professor Sedgewick. This classification he carried 

 out m a more systematic way, as regards the northwestein part 

 •of New Brunswick the next year, when he made his final report, i 



* Second Report, p. 8. 1 Second Report, p. 13. % Fifth Report, p. 54. 



