[ells] CANADIAN GEOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE 19 



Survey at that date. In doing so lie remarks that " in the names used we 

 have been desirous of availing ourselves, as much as possible, of those 

 which have been applied to well established groups of strata elsewhere, 

 with a view of at once facilitating comparisons of equivalent masses, and 

 of rendering homage to those whose labours have aided us in understand- 

 ing onr own rocks. The investigations which had already been made in 

 the state of New York when the Canadian Survey commenced, had in 

 some degree rendered the stratigraphical nomenclature of that state 

 classic in America, and, while the undisturbed condition of the masses in 

 that part of the .state which furnished the local names, rendered the 

 sequence certain, the formations passed from Kew York into Canada in 

 such a manner that there was no doubt of their equivalence on the 

 opposite side of the boundary. For the subordinate groups of 

 fossiliferous strata it thus becomes extremely convenient to adopt the 

 nomenclature of New York. , . . It is only where a group has 

 not been recognized among the rocks of New York, or where a mass 

 there destitute of organic remains is replaced in Canada by one marked 

 by fossils, that a Canadian name is introduced." 



In accordance with the principles thus laid down, we find in the 

 scale of formations established for the volume in question, that, with, the 

 exception of the terms Laurentian and Huronian, which were included 

 under the general name of Azoic, and used to represent the lowest of our 

 rock series, the nomenclature of the formations in Canada is largely 

 thai of the state of New York. 



The literature relating to the fossiliferous sediments was also en- 

 riched about this time by the use of the term Quebec Group, which first 

 appeared in 1860-61. This was designed to include certain members of 

 the Lower Silurian; but from the imperfect state of our knowledge of 

 these rocks at that date, it was also made to embrace different areas of 

 crystalline rocks which have since been separated under the head of pre- 

 Cambrian, and which are now generally regarded as belonging to the 

 Huronian series. The rocks of this group were at first arranged under 

 two heads, viz., the Sillery and the Levis, which were supposed to re- 

 present or be the equivalents of the Chazy and Calciferous. This was 

 increased by the addition of the term Lauzon, which was held to apply 

 to a portion of the origmal Sillery, but this term was subsequently 

 abandoned. The names Levis, Sillery and Lauzon were all derived from 

 localities near the city of Quebec, where the rocks of this group were first 

 studied; and in the early stages of the discussion these were all supposed 

 to pertain to the Silurian system, reaching as high in the scale as the 

 Medina sandstone of the New York system of nomenclature. In the final 

 settlement of this question the crystalline portion was, as just stated. 



