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The Canadian Geological Report for 1857 first drew the attention 

 of geologists to the beds exhibited upon this island. The peculiari- 

 ties of the deposits described in that report being such as to render 

 them unprecedented among known strata, it was judged advisable to 

 make some further examination into the geology of the island. With 

 this intention three students of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 in Cambridge, visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence last summer, explored 

 the deposits of Anticosti and the shores directly to the north, and were 

 fortunate enough to secure ample collections from nearly, if not quite, 

 all the important points in the great section there exposed. 



It was the intention of the party to have made an immediate and 

 careful investigation of the collections, with a view of ascertaining 

 certain facts lightly touched upon in the Canadian Report, but since 

 the return of the expedition two of the members have been unable to 

 give any time to the work. Deeming it advisable that geologists 

 should not take the result as given by the Canadian Report as the true 

 view of these singular beds, I have ventured to lay before you a very 

 brief abstract of certain conclusions attained from a careful study of 

 the Brachiopoda of the collection. I would especially request that 

 these few remarks be not taken as a report of the results of the expe- 

 dition, but only as a preliminary notice upon the question, until time 

 shall allow of a full and careful research into the whole matter. 



The geological position of Anticosti indicates it as a portion of the 

 paleozoic beds deposited around the Laurentine Mountains during the 

 Silurian period. This conclusion may be arrived at by the stratigraphi- 

 cal relations of the beds, without any reference to the contained fossils. 



Mr. Richardson, of the Canada Survey, has already lucidly set 

 forth these arguments, drawn from the stratigraphy of the region, and 

 I willingly concur with him when he assigns to the beds of the Anti- 

 costi section a position among the deposits of the Silurian epoch. But, 

 while I accept the general determinations of the Canadian Report, I 

 must protest against the important conclusion arrived at, that these 

 beds afford a passage from the Lower to the Upper Silurian, present- 

 ing in their fossil contents forms regarded as characteristic of these 

 separate formations. Having had the best opportunities for a com- 

 parison of the Anticosti Brachiopoda with those from Europe and the 

 western deposits of the United States, I have been led by such com- 

 parison to the following conclusions : — "" 



First — That the Anticosti section, from the base at the level of the 

 Canadian channel to the summit at the south-western point of the 

 island, gives us beds entirely Upper Silurian and synchronous with the 

 Clinton and Niagara of New York, with the Wenlock Shale and 

 Wenlock Lime in England, with Divisions E and F of Barrande in 



