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SECTION IV., 1886. | fe she Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA. 
IV.—On the Silurian System of Northern Maine, New Brunswick and Quebec. 
By L. W. BAILEY. 
(Read May 27, 1886.) 
Since the time of the publication, in 1842, of Dr. A. Gesner’s Fourth “Report on the 
Geology of New Brunswick,” the Upper Silurian age of the extensive tract comprising the 
northern counties of this Province has been generally accepted; the fossils collected from 
various localities along the St. John River, and again in the counties of Restigouche and 
Gloucester, indicating an horizon about that of the Niagara or Lower Helderberg forma- 
tions. In his “Geology of Canada” for 1863, Sir W. E. Logan described at length the 
same formation, chiefly as found in the Province of Quebec, under the name of the “ Gaspé 
‘Limestone ” series, at the same time referring to its northern base as being found on Lake 
Temiscouata, where a high ridge abutting upon the lake, known as Mount Wissick or 
Mount Lennox, and abounding in fossils, was regarded as resting unconformably upon a 
series of beds at one time supposed to be Devonian, but then referred to the base of the 
Quebec group. In Northern Maine also the same formation had been early recognized by 
Jackson, and was subsequently more fully investigated (in 1860) by Packard and Hitchcock, 
the latter describing the Silurian rocks as found at Lake Sedgewick (Square Lake) and 
some other points, and which were richly fossiliferous, as being unconformably overlaid by 
a series of red shales and conglomerates, referred to the Devonian. In the meantime the 
limits of the formation in New Brunswick remained for the most part undefined, and were 
variously located by different observers. It was not until 1879 that, by simultaneous 
observations on either side of the St. John River, in Carleton county, made by Mr. G. F. 
Matthew and the author, something like satisfactory data upon these points were obtained ; 
the unconformity of the Silurian system with the associated rocks, more particularly along 
the Beccaguimic valley, being then established upon the triple evidence of the composition 
of the conglomerates at the base of the former, the discordance of dip between the two, 
accompanied by progressive overlap, and finally of fossils, the lower rocks being found to 
hold a fauna apparently indicative of the age of the Trenton. In the same valley, at its 
mouth, a series of coarse conglomerates had been previously found by Mr. Chas. Robb to 
contain thin seams of shale abounding in remains of Psilophyta, and, upon the evidence of 
these, the beds containing them, together with a somewhat extensive tract of other coarse 
sediments occurring about the headwaters of the Beccaguimic, were referred (by Mr. R. W. 
Ells) to the Devonian, and regarded:as the equivalents of the Gaspé sandstones. 
A contact of the Silurian with at least two other systems was thus indicated in the 
Beccaguimic valley. But as it was difficult, from the limited exposures of a single narrow 
stream, the strata of which are, for the most part, excessively disturbed, to remove all 
obscurity as to their true relations, the author was led, during the last summer, to visit 
