PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 9 



well be doue uutil the entire field had been surveyed and the rocks of this Province 

 brought iuto connection with the previously studied and more typical sections afforded 

 by the Island of Auticosti and the Gaspé Peninsula. This has now to a large extent 

 been effected, partly by the explorations of Dr. E. W. Ells and his associates, in the pen- 

 insula referred to, and more recently by the author, in connection with Mr. Mclnnes, in 

 the district lying between the Metapedia River and Lake Temiscouata. In the same con- 

 nection a considerable amount of exploration has been made in the very interesting and 

 highly fossiliferous region of Aroostook County, Maine, and thus the data are now at hand, 

 not only for a comparison of these several localities with each other and the typical sec- 

 tion at Cape G-aspé, but also for instituting a similar comparison between the succession 

 and origin of the Silurian strata in northern New Brunswick, Quebec and Maine, and 

 those of the equivalent strata near the Bay of Fundy. vSeveral papers relating to this 

 subject I have already had the honour to lay before the Section ; and during our present 

 meeting, it is my desire, in another paper, to discuss at some length, the subject of our 

 early^Silurian geography, as indicated by the facts now in our possession. It will there- 

 fore not be necessary to dwell upon this topic now, further than to say that we have here, 

 apparently, a pretty full representation of the entire Silurian system, with, however, con- 

 siderable diversity, both of character and fossils, in the southern as compared with the 

 northern sections of the area considered, and in both with features, particularly of life, 

 which approximate to the geology of Europe rather than to that of the more westerly 

 portions of our own continent. Thus, as regards the former point, while in both dis- 

 tricts fossiliferous horizons have been recognized ranging from the lower part of the 

 Niagara formation up to and including the Lower Helderberg, and while in both there 

 are evidences of physical movements, accompanied by igneous extrusions and uncon- 

 formability, between the lower and higher members of the formation, these in northern 

 New Brunswick and Quebec were followed by a general subsidence, leading to an ex- 

 tensive invasion of the sea, and the formation of thick limestone strata abounding in 

 corals, etc., while in southern New Brunswick, about the Bay of Fundy and Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, the movement was largely upward, leading to the origination of shallow 

 water sediments, with but little limestone. 



Again, as regards the European aspect of our Silurian basin, this was early recognized 

 and commented upon by the late Mr. Billings, being seen not only in the large number 

 of genera common to the two, but also in the close approximation or identity of many of 

 the species. It has also been quite fully and ably considered in a recent article by Sir 

 W. Dawson.' 



An interesting discussion of the character and relations of the Silurian rocks as 

 developed about Cobscook and Passamaquoddy Bays, near the boundary between Maine 

 and New Brunswick, has, since the termination of the labours of the Canadian Survey in 

 that region, been made by Prof. N. S. Shaler," on behalf of the Geological Survey of the 

 United States, but the conclusions reached are, for the most part, in accord with those 

 already announced by the former. 



The evidences of igneous activity, to which reference has been made as occurring 

 during the progress of the Silurian era in the Acadian basin, constitutes another of its 



' On the Eozoic and Palteozoic Rocks of the Atlantic Coast of Canada, Quart. Jouru. Geol, Soc., Nov., 1888. 

 - Am. Journal of Science, July, 1886. 



SeclIV, 1889. 2. 



