148 G. F. MATTHEW ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS 
The Faunas. 
J.—FAUNAS OF THE PARADOXIDES DIVISION. 
Cambrian fossils are stated to occur in the slates near the city of St. John’s, but the 
proof that these slates are older than those to be hereafter described, does not appear to 
be altogether satisfactory. The fossils contained in these slates are worm burrows, and 
a gasteropod, but these are not of such a kind as would establish an older horizon. In 
almost every country, the Cambrian system is found to begin with coarse sediments, con- 
taining a few, and these obscure, fossils ; and the more characteristically fossiliferous beds 
which follow, may range any where from the Solva group to the equivalent of the highest 
Cambrian measures. No confidence, therefore, can be placed in these coarse or foliated 
beds with obscure fossils, as indicating any special horizon in the Cambrian system ; and 
we are compelled to look upon the strata in Conception Bay as those which give us the 
first sure indication of measures which can be parallelled with known Cambrian horizons 
in other lands. 
A.—Horizon of AGRAULOS STRENUUS.—The oldest fossils of this nature appear to be 
those of Topsail Head and Brigus, in Conception Bay, but these do not yet give sufficiently 
firm indications to make it clear that they are older than some other horizons mentioned 
hereafter. 
Mr. Billings describes from these places the following species :— 
Agraulos strenuus, Bill. 
Iphidea (allied to Zphidea bella, Bill.) 
Stenotheca paupera, Bill. 
To these I may add the following :— 
Paradoxides, Sp ? 
Selenopleura bombifrons, N. Sp. (see p. 156.) 
Ptychoparia, Sp. 
Straparollina, Sp ? 
Hyolithes Micmac, Matt. 
The position of these fossils (1. e. the horizon) is still open to question, as the material 
is too meagre to give satisfactory results, and the range of the species elsewhere is not 
sufficiently known. Agraulos strenuus appears to correspond to a species which is present 
in Band ¢ of Division 1, of the St. John group; but as one fossil is preserved in shale and 
the other in limestone, it is not quite certain that they are identical, since the conditions 
of preservation are not the same in the two localities. The first trilobite in the second 
list is also of uncertain value: it is a primitive form of the Paradoxides family, which has 
points of resemblance to P. Ajerulfi but differs in the form of the free-cheek and in other 
respects. Selenopleura is a genus which ranges through Bands c and d and has a still 
more extended range in Scandinavia. Hyolithes Micmac, in the St. John basin, is also 
found throughout Band ¢, and enters Band d. This species by its longitudinal striation 
appears to be related to H. tenuistriatus, Linnrs., of the Scandinavian measures, with a 
