112 E. W. ELLS ON THE GrEOLOGY OF 



In addition to the division of the Quebec group found at Levis, there was included in 

 the Levis formation the rocks of the citadel and city of Quebec, which for many years 

 were regarded as non-fossiliferous. Examination of these by Dr. Selwyu in 1877 led to 

 their removal from this formation to a higher position in the scale. Subsequently fossils 

 were found at different points in the city rocks by Mr. T. C. Weston and later by other 

 members of the Geological Survey staff, which have been partially determined and from 

 which a difference of view has arisen concerning their exact horizon. As this question 

 cannot yet be considered to be fully settled, pending further investigation, discussion 

 of the question may be considered unnecessary. But they appear to belong to what 

 Billings calls the Trenton division of fossiliferous rocks, which by him were regarded as 

 including the Black liiver to the Hudson River formations, both inclusive. 



The question of the age of the Quebec group rocks passed almost entirely out of 

 the field of public discussion after Richardson's report of 1869, for some years the only 

 ofHcial reference to the sl^bject being the important paper by Dr. Selwyn in the report of 

 1877-78, which was reproduced in enlarged form in the ' Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of Canada,' 1882, in which he summed up concisely the changes of opinion arrived at 

 after his study of the Eastern Township geology for several years prior to that date. 

 In this paper, the first official separation on the part of the Geological Survey of the crys- 

 talline schists from the fossiliferous portion of the Quebec group, and their probable equi- 

 valency to the Huronian of other parts of Canada, was made. The evidence for dividing 

 the Sillery into two portions, as suggested by Richardson, was not considered sufficient, 

 but a lower Cambrian series was suggested, which might embrace a great group of rocks 

 beneath the Sillery and Levis as hitherto recognized, while the Sillery and Levis were 

 classed together under the head of Lower Silurian. In the paper to the Royal Society of 

 Canada, 1882, the division into pre-Cambrian, Cambrian and Cambro-Siluriau was 

 clearly asserted ; and in regard to the fossiliferous portion, viz., those rocks seen about 

 Quebec, Levis and the south side of the St. Lawrence, the statement is made that the Sil- 

 lery and Lauzon divisions, embracing the red and green slates and sandstone, undoubtedly 

 underlie the more highly fossiliferous Levis portion, thits overturning the order of strati- 

 graphy which had been maintained since 1863, and confirming the statements of Dr. 

 Hunt in 1878 already quoted. 



During the seasons of 1882-83 the examination and mapping of the rocks on the 

 Gaspé peninsula was taken up by the writer. In this work sections were made not only 

 along the whole extent of both north and south coasts, but along the rivers from side to 

 side. On the south coast, rocks of the lower Sillery division of the Quebec group and of 

 the metamorphic portions were found extending for a short distance west of Cape 

 Maquereau, eastward for some miles. Those more directly of Sillery aspect, consisted of 

 purple, green and grey slates, often argillaceous in texture, considerably altered, and 

 having sometimes a schistose structure and with numerous quartz veins. They more 

 closely resemble the lower portions of the Sillery, and these were underlaid near Cape 

 Maquereau by schists of various kinds, including talcose, chloritic and micaceotts, along 

 with certain felspathic rocks, which were regarded as of pre-Cambrian age. The age of 

 the overlying series was at that time stated as probably Cambro-Silurian, following the 

 determinations of previous years, which held the Quebec group to be the equivalents of 

 the Calciferous-Chazy, and on the hypothesis that the Sillery was more recent than the 



