32 PENHALLOW AND DAWSON 



the centre of each, and hiid close together iu oue plane. They are most freqixeutly 

 attached to loose valves of bivalve shells. They must have been soft bodies covered with 

 a tough smooth membrane, and vFere probably the ova of molluscs or crustaceans. Of 

 the latter, fragments referable to Dithyrocaris, Eurijpterus, Plerygotus, CeriaHocaris and 

 Bei/richia occur in these beds. 



" Prof. Hall has kindly compared the molluscous remains vrith those of the Devonian 

 of New York. He does not profess to give a conclusive judgment on them, but states 

 that their aspect is that of the Hamilton" group. 



" The only remaining point connected with local geology to which I shall allude is 

 the admirable and exceptional facilities afforded by 'the Gaspé coast both for ascertaining 

 the true geological relations of the beds, and for studying the Devonian plants, as dis- 

 tinctly exposed on large surfaces of rock. On the coast of the Eiver St. Lawrence, at 

 Cape Eozier and its vicinity, the Lower Silurian rocks of the Quebec group are well 

 exposed, and are overlaid unconformably by the massive Upper Silurian limestones of 

 Cape Graspé, which rise into cliflEs 600 feet in height, and can be seen filled with their 

 characteristic fossils on both sides of the cape. Resting upon these, and dipping at 

 high angles toward Claspé Bay, are the Devonian sandstones, which are exposed in rugged 

 cliffs slightly oblique to their line of strike, along a coast-line of ten miles in length, to 

 the head of the bay. On the opposite side of the bay they reappear ; and, thrown into 

 slight xindulations by three anticlinal curves, occupy a line of coast fifteen miles in length. 

 The perfect manner in which the plant-bearing beds are exposed in these fine natural 

 sections naay serve to account for the completeness with which the forms and habits of 

 growth of the more abundant species have been disclosed and will be described in the 

 following pages." 



The upper part of the Bay des Chaleurs presents another trough of Erian rocks some- 

 what similar to that of Gaspé Bay, but much richer in remains of fossil fishes. The lower 

 beds, consisting of agglomerate, sandstone and hard shale, are well seen near Campbellton 

 and on the ox^posite side of the Eestigouche River iu the Bordeaux quarry, which shows 

 thick beds of sandstone perhaps a little higher in the series: Near Campbellton, the 

 shales abound iu Psilophyton, while Arthrostigma and Leplophleum also occur. At Bordeaux 

 quarry there are numerous specimens of Psilophyton and Rliodea, and also surfaces covered 

 with quantities of the resinous bark to be mentioned hereafter. The largest trunk of 

 Nemutophyton yet found in the Bay des Chaleurs, two feet five inches in diameter, occurs 

 in this quarry (Fig. 4.), and also stumps with gnarled roots. That these beds, near and 

 opposite to Campbellton, are Lower Erian, is proved not only by their stratification and 

 fossil plants, but by the fossil fishes of the genera Cephalaspis, Coccosteus, etc., discovered in 

 them and described by Mr. Whiteaves. 



Farther to the east, in Scaumenac Bay, opposite to Dalhousie, the Upper Erian beds, 

 consisting of grey and red sandstones and shales appear, and are overlain by the red con- 

 glomerates of the Lower Carboniferous. These beds hold fishes of the genus Pterichthys, 

 and their characteristic plants are ferns of the genus Archœopteris which are not found in 

 the lower series. Nematophyton is not known to occur in these upper beds. 



The following table shows the general relations of the Gaspé and Bay des Chaleurs 

 beds to those elsewhere : — 



