PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 11 



stoue of Scotland, aud their careful aud elaborate description by Mr. Whiteaves, in the 

 Transactions of our Society, constitute other aud most important steps of progress in the 

 developmeut of our knowledge of this system, as they supply another link between the 

 geology of eastern America aud that of Europe. 



A still more recent discovery in connection with our Devonian system is that of new 

 types of insects and crustaceans, found only last summer by Mr. "W". J. Wilson in the 

 same plant-beds at Carleton, near St. John, as those in which Devonian insects were first 

 found by Hartt. Tht^ latter, aud which were for a long time the earliest insect-remains 

 known from any part of the world, were synthetic forms, combining features of the 

 neuropterous and orthopterous orders. They have since been placed by Scudder in a new^ 

 Palaeozoic order, on the ground that they antedate both those modern orders and that 

 they represent the source from which these latter have sprung. 



The fact that considerable tracts in northern Maine, described in the Reports of the 

 Survey of that State, have been found to contain a well-marked Silurian fauna, has already 

 been referred to. On the other hand, small areas, carrying characteristic fossils of Oris- 

 kany age, have been observed by Mr. W. Mclnnes about the head-waters of the Tobique, 

 in New Brunswick, in a region previously supposed to be wholly Silurian.' 



In the case of the Carboniferous system, the facts ascertained du.ring the period now 

 under review have had to do rather with its economic aspects than with questions of 

 general scientific interest. In the year ISTG-YT the distribution and succession of the 

 Lower Carboniferous formation, as represented in King's, Albert and Westmorland Coun- 

 ties, was worked out in considerable detail, with special reference to the so-called Albert 

 shales and the unique and valuable mineral, albertite, associated with the latter.- These 

 investigations amply confirmed the idea of albertite being an altered mineral oil, aud 

 distributed much after the manner of ordinary mineral veins, with few, if any, of the 

 characteristics of a true coal, and also indicated the wide extent of the area, fully fifty 

 miles, over which the couditions resulting in these products had operated. In the very 

 same year, however, the original deposit of the Albert mines, which had been so long 

 and so profitably worked, was found to have so greatly decreased in amount as to render 

 its further prosecution useless, and thus what had been for many years the seat of a most 

 active industry as well as a source of considerable revenue to the Province, had to be 

 abandoned. This was not done without long and expensive search for further extensions 

 of th(> deposit, but though these, and explorations since made, resulted in the discovery 

 of the mineral at cjuite a number of poiuts, at none of these have the veins proved 

 sufiicieutly large to warrant their further prosecution. 



The existence of true coal in the Grand Lake district in Queen's County was discovered 

 soon after the first settlement of the Province, and the subsequent explorations of Dr. 

 Gesner aud others sufficed to show the enormous area over which the rocks of the coal 

 formation are spread within its limits. Prior, however, to the year 18*72, but little was 

 definitely known either as to the true thickness of the formation or its probable productive 

 capacity. The idea having been generally entertained by those resident in the Grand 

 Lake region that other and much thicker beds really existed there than the small twenty- 

 two-inch seam which had been so long known and worked near the surface, the members 



' Geologiral Survey, Report 1S8G. ' Report of Progress, Geological Survey, 1876-77. 



