oL' BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



ARTICLE IV 



RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE ST. JOHN GROLT, 



No. 2. 



Bv G. F. Matthew, 1). 8c, F. R. S. C. 



(Read January 5, 1897.) 



(See also Bull. IV., p. 97; Bull. V., p. 25; Bull. X., p. 34, x. and xi. 

 Bull. XL, p. 11 ; Bull. XIII., p. 94.) 



Since the description was given in Bulletin X., page 34, of the 

 genus Protolenus, and its place in the Cambrian succession, anil of 

 Trematobolus, in Bulletin XIII., p. 94, no record has been presented 

 to the Society of the progress made in the study of the Acadian Cam- 

 brian faunas. It seems desirable, therefore, to add here a few words 

 on this subject. 



The Protolenus Fauna. — The chief work done of late in this 

 direction has been the elaboration of the Protolenus Fauna*, which 

 appeared in the Transactions of the New York Academy of Science 

 (Vol. XIV., p. 101 to 153, PI. 1 to 11, and Fig. 1). 



Any fauna which can be found in the sediments of the earth's 

 crust older than those which contain the Primordeal Fauna of Barrande 

 is of interest to naturalists and geologists, because Barrande named 

 this fauna as being the oldest, as he thought, except traces of worms 

 that had existed on the earth. But beside the peculiar fossils of the 

 Laurentian and other pre-Cambrian rocks, several faunas of greater 

 antiquity have since been described by Linnarsson in Sweden, by Kjerulf 

 in Norway, by Schmidt in Russia, and by Hicks in Wales; but these 

 European faunas agree in having only a few species of trilobites. A 

 fuller representation of pre-Pi imordeal trilobites is that discovered by 

 ( '. I ). Walcott in Newfoundland; but even this does not reach, in variety 

 of trilobites, the number shown in the Protolenus Fauna. From this 

 cause and others, a brighter light is thrown on various zoological prob 

 Jems by the facies of this fauna than by that of any of the others. 



* This fauna is contained in Division 1, Band b, or the Zone of Protolenus tBerj?eroiiia 

 ai i ice i ihalus (formerly Agraulvs articqphaltu). See Hull. X.. |> 12. 



