194 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
of diabases and diorites, with chloritic schists, mica schists, quartzites, 
and slates, which have proved to be highly productive of mineralg of 
economic value to man; gold, silver, lead and copper being conspicuous. 
General Note. Inno other country on the face of the earth is there 
such a development of old crystalline rocks referable to the Laurentian 
and Huronian as is to be found in Canada. The rocks which constitute 
them are highly metalliferous, and the varieties or species of minerals 
of economic value, which must lie hidden in their formations, are so 
numerous that the latent resources of Canada can be affirmed to be a 
store of untold wealth. These will, no doubt, soon be more extensively 
developed and utilized as the country is opened up and our population 
increases from year to year. 
The Algonkian of Van Hise and other North American geologists 
is a newly-coined term which embraces practically the same rock-forma- 
tions as the Huronian. Prof. Van Hise’s Map of the Algonkian com- 
pared with Sir Wm. Logan and Murray’s Map of the Huronian system 
suffices to show that the two systems are synonymous—the earlier term 
Huronian having priority. 
No definite organisms have as yet ben recorded from the Lauren- 
tian or Huronian of Canada. The terms Laurentian and Huronian in- 
troduced into geological nomenclature by Sir Wm. Logan in the early 
days of the Canadian Geological Survey are now very generally adopted 
throughout the world. 
THE CAMBRIAN SYSTEM. 
The Cambrian system forms the base of the Paleozoic column, and 
is the term now generally adopted to include those sedimentary forma- 
tions which hold entombed in their strata the earliest truly recognizable 
forms of animal life in a fossillized condition. 
The Acadian Region.—In Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick, the three divisions into which the Cambrian formations are 
naturally and generally divided, namely: Lower, Middle and Upper, are 
all well represented. In certain portions of Newfoundland, at Smith’s 
Sound and Signal Hill, and St, John, N.B., also on the Kennebecasis 
river, series of fossiliferous sediments have been assigned by Dr. G. F. 
Matthew to the Htcheminian system and by him separated from the 
Cambrian proper. The Htcheminian appears to be a phase or formation 
in the series of fossiliferous Lower Cambrian sediments, and its position 
is evidently in the Lower or Eo-Cambrian. 
The gold-bearing series of Nova Scotia, consisting of an upper 
slate formation and a lower quartzite formation, both destitute of fossils, 

