SECTION IV., 1882. MAOIMI Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA. 
XI.—On Some Supposed Annelid-Tracks from the Gaspé Sandstones. 
By J. F. WHITEAVES. 
(Presented May 27th, 1882.) 
At various horizons in the Paleozoic rocks of Canada, in addition to the ordinary and 
more characteristic fossils, there occur certain markings or impressions whose nature and 
origin are alike uncertain. Some of these markings have been regarded as footprints, 
tracks or burrows, as the case may be, of various kinds of marine invertebrates, while 
others have been supposed to be casts or pseudomorphs, as it were, of fucoids. To the 
former class belong such forms as the Protichnites, Climactichnites and Scolithus of the Potsdam 
Sandstone, and to the latter, such genera as Cruziana, Palæophycus, Licrophycus, Rusophycus 
and Arthrophycus. The impressions to which the name Protichnites was given by Prof. 
Owen were thought by that careful observer to be probably footprints of large extinct 
crustaceans allied to the king crab of existing seas, and the huge tracks described by Sir 
W. E. Logan as Climactichnites were supposed to have been made by some mollusc of the 
period, though Prof. Chapman has since expressed the opinion that they are more likely 
casts of some unknown marine plant. The cylindrical holes or vertical perforations in the 
Potsdam and Medina Sandstones to which the name Scolithus was applied by Dr. Emmons, 
were so designated, as the name implies, on the presumption that they were burrows of 
marine worms. In an unpublished paper read some years ago before the Natural History 
Society of Montreal, Mr. E. Billings endeavored to shew that these supposed worm burrows 
are really moulds of funnel-shaped sponges, and in the catalogue of North American 
Paleozoic Fossils published by Mr. 8. A. Miller in 1877, the genus Scolithus is placed in 
the vegetable kingdom. Of the obscure “ fucoids” of the older Palzeozoic rocks none 
shew any true vegetable or indeed any other kind of minute structure under the micro- 
scope, and Principal Dawson has suggested that the name Rusophycus in particular should 
be changed to Rusichnites on the ground that the specimens on which the former genus 
was based are not remains of fucoids but casts of the burrows of trilobites. 
In addition to those which have been figured and described, or identified with genera 
and species already defined, the Museum of the Survey contains examples of at least two or 
three kinds of impressions which have either not been reported upon at all, or only ina 
very brief and insufficient manner. Those which form the subject of the present commu- 
nication are well shewn on the surface of three large slabs of sandstone from the Lower 
Devonian rocks of the 8. E. side of Gaspé Bay, two of which are represented on a 
reduced scale (see plate). A short description of the exact stratigraphical position 
of these slabs and of the most obvious characters of the impressions upon them was 
published on page 399 of the “Geology of Canada,” 1863, in the chapter devoted 
to the consideration of the Gaspé Sandstones. The passage referred to reads as follows :— 
“ Between Tar Point and Douglastown a section of 3,800 feet was observed, after which 
the summit of the series became concealed. At about 500 feet from the base of this section 
