ON FOSSIL SPONGES FEOM METIS. 33 



teristic Grraptolites of the older or Matane series, which «ccurs further east, aud is 

 probably of Calciferoïis or Tremadoc age. 



The locality of the fossil sponges to be described, is the beach at the foot of the cliff 

 ill front of the "Wesleyan church, on the south side of the bay, where a considerable 

 thickness of black and gray shales is exposed, forming low ledges extending along the 

 beach parallel with the direction of the coast. The dip is S. 10' W. (magn. var. 22' 33' "W.) 

 at angles of 45' to 50°, and the beds containing the sponges are best seen opposite a huge 

 boulder of conglomerate on the beach, and about 90 feet from the face of the cliff. The 

 sponges were first discovered in a thin layer of tough black shale having hard gray and 

 soft black beds associated with it. A second similar layer was afterwards found about 

 nine feet outside the first and therefore underlying- it, besides other beds holding frag- 

 mentary remains (see section below). Both these layers have Linnarssonia and Buthotrephis 

 pergraci/is associated with the sponge-remains. 



The following is a general section of the beds in descending order : — 



(1.) A thick bed of hard sandstone or quartzite and conglomerate, underlaid by 

 coarse gray arenaceous shales, and forming the cliff immediately in front of the church. 

 It shows in some of the beds radiating markings {Astropoliihon). 



(2.) Black and gray shales, the former thinly laminated aud of fine texture, the latter 

 harder and arenaceous, with some hard calcareous or dolomitic bands — thickness about 

 100 feet. The black shales of this division hold sponges and layers of sponge spicules, 

 especially in the two bands above referred to, with fucoids (Buthotrephis) and valves of 

 Linnarssonia. All of these fossils are usually in a pyritised state. 



(3.) Flaggy sandstone and shale, gray and dark-colored, about twenty feet. 



(4.) Hard gray sandstone with quartz veins, three to five feet. 



(5.) Hard gray shales and calcareous and dolomitic bands, with some layers of sand- 

 stone — 800 feet or more. 



(6.) Apparently underlying these, aud occupying a great extent of the shore, are 

 black, gray and red shales and thick beds of gray sandstone, the latter appearing at Mount 

 Misery and Lighthouse Point, aud holding the Grraptolites above referred to. These beds 

 must be of great thickness in the aggregate, but they are possibly repeated in part by 

 faults and contortions. 



Along this coast the beds generally run approximately parallel to the shore, or 

 slightly oblique to it, Avith south-easterly dip, but at intervals they are broken by trans- 

 verse fractures throwing the beds, locally, into different lines of strike, and often accom- 

 panied by violent contortions of the strata. Beyond these they resume their usual course, 

 so that the outcrops form a series of salient and reentering angles along the coast. At 

 the south side of Little Metis Bay there is a comparatively undisturbed portion, extend- 

 ing for more than half a mile along the coast, but there is one break, throwing the beds 

 nearly at right angles to their former position, at the mouth of Little Metis Eiver, in the 

 head of the bay, and another to the eastward near Turriff's Hotel, where the beds, as seen 

 on the beach, are jnuch contorted. Beyond these breaks, beds similar to those holding 

 the sponge-remains appear to the westward at Grand Metis Bay, and similar beds appear 

 with like accompaniments near Bic. To the eastward they appear at several places on 

 the coast, and have afforded graptolites of Levis and calciferous age. ' 



' Report of Peter RedpathiMuseum, no. ii ; Lapworth, Canadian Graptolites. 



Sec. iv, 1889, . 5. 



