[MATTHEW ] CAMBRIAN FAUNAS 107 
direction. Burials in tidal mud would occur in largest numbers at the 
recession of the tide, and the valves would have been oriented to the 
southwest, whereas these valves have just the opposite direction. 
If then the burial of the shells was not by tidal mud but through 
sediment carried on a continuous marine current, this current undoubt- 
edly set steadily to the northeast. The nature of the sediment which 
it carried and the species of fossils entombed by it, show that it was 
a shore current. Whether the currents of the open ocean set in 
the same direction, or not, there is no evidence to show. This may 
have had a reversed direction, just as the Gulf stream is complimentary 
to the Arctic current along the coast at the present day; but so far 
as the shore animals are concerned, these were subject to the condi- 
tions of trdnsportation above inferred. 
We as yet know nothing of the deep water animals of this time, 
which may have dwelt in a southwest current as did those of the 
Utica slate, and probably also those of the Paradoxides beds. 
Full particulars of observations on the orientation of the Cape 
Breton Cambrian fossils are contained in the report on that region 
recently submitted by the writer to the Director of the Canadian Geo- 
logical Survey. 
No. 8. CAMBRIAN BRACHIOPODA AND MoLLUSCA or Mr. STEPHEN, B.C., 
WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF METOPTOMA. 
At the time that the trilobites of the Mt. Stephen fauna were 
reviewed by the author, the Brachipods were left, in hope that better 
material would come into his hands, than were found in the Walker 
collection. Since then, through the kindness of the late Director of 
the Geological Survey of Canada, opportunity was furnished to examine 
the collections that had been made for that survey by Messrs. 
McConnell and Ami. These gave some further material for study. 
In this year, through the courtesy of the Director of the U. S. 
Geological Survey, I have seen the types of the species from Mt. 
Stephen described by him (except the Crania) and so am in a position 
to identify with some certainty the several Brachiopods coute by 
Mr. Walker and Dr. Ami. 
Mr. Walcott, through the occurrence of several of the Mt. Stephen 
species in the Cambrian strata of central Nevada, correlates them with 
the fossils of a certain belt of shales that occurs in a section in that 
district.* 

Am. JOUr SC, AVOIR VII Sept. 188s. 
