118 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 


é Lepreau Jar bor 



OLS Aint RÉNTEER 
NE ENTRE 
PreStluran Complez— AA eA ES Pre Silurian ao mple x— 
MATINS TY ats ES AR tet J SL a PE OerUP ie arr amas nas ms man cam agneau, 
No. 2. Section from Lepreau R. in the direction of Dipper Harbor.—Scale, 1 
mile to an inch. D & C=The Little R. terrane; D—Dadoxylon Sandstone; 
C=Cordaite shale; M—Mispec terrane; L.C.—Lower Carboniferous terrane. 
This section shows as unmistakably as the preceding one the wide 
difference in the attitude of the Lower Carboniferous and the under- 
lying terranes. The latter were closely folded and eroded to their base 
before the deposition of the Lower Carboniferous sandstone and con- 
glomerate. It is difficult to conceive how the former can be Millstone 
Grit or Coal Measures, while the latter, as an overlying unconformable 
terrane, contains such species as Spirifer glaber, Producus cora, P. semi- 
reticulatus and Terebratula sacculus, which are Carboniterous Lime- 
stone species. It will be readily seen then that the geological structure 
gives no support to the view that the plant beds of the Little River 
terrane fall within the Carboniferous system. 
The section at Lepreau also shows more clearly than that at St. 
John the erosion interval between the Little River Group and the 
Mispec. At the west end of the Lepreau Basin three synclinals in these 
beds appear, all more or less broken and irregular. Of these the southern 
is reduced to a monocline by faulting and erosion. Of the three syn- 
clines, the two northern contain no Mispec rocks, while the southern 
monocline, not only contains such rocks, but is separated by a belt of 
Mispec rocks from the next syncline. 
THE BIOLOGICAL PROBLEM. 
Uf, then, these plant beds are so much older than the Carboniferous 
System, how are we to account for the close resemblance of their flora 
to the plants of the Coal Measures and the Millstone Grit ? 
This resemblance has struck other observers, and notably the prin- 
cipal describer of the flora of the plant beds; who in speaking of the 
Neuropterids, says that “ they approach very closely to those of the Car- 
boniferous, several of the species being closely allied to common Coal 
formation ferns. They are however distinct specifically.” Similar 
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