86 SIR WILLIAM DAWSON ON 



ÎÏOTE ON Devonian Plant-Beds at St. John, New Brunswick. 



It may seem remarkable that these beds of shak^, occupying a limited area in the 

 vicinity of St. John, New Brunswick, should have jaelded so rich a flora and fauna, and 

 at first sight they seem to lie altogether exceptional in this respect — so much so, indeed, as 

 to have occasioned doubts in some quarters as to their Devonian age. Remarkable though 

 they are, however, a little .consideration will serve to remove their apparently anomalous 

 character. Though the beds of the Middle and Upper Devonian are largely marine, and, 

 therefore, not likely to be rich in plant remains, we find even in some marine limestones of 

 the Middle Devonian of Ohio, trunks of trees of the genus Dadoxylon, trunks of tree-ferns, 

 stipes of fronds, indicating imperfectly many other species of ferns, and the vast masses of 

 Macrospores and Sporo carps of Protosalvinia in the Devonian shales of Ohio and Ontario ; and 

 these associated with Calamitean and Lepidodendroid plants, which also occur in the 

 Devonian of Pennsylvania. In the Chemung group of Gilboa, New York, Prof. Hall has 

 even discovered erect stumps of large tree-ferns surrounded with their aerial roots. Fresh 

 water bivalves also occur in the Catskill group oi' New York, and in the Kiltorcan beds of 

 Ireland and the Devonian of Europe, and even the Upper Silurian has afibrded remains of 

 scorpions and insects. It follows from these facts that if we can anywhere find a true fresh- 

 water accumulation of this period favourably constituted for the preservation of the more 

 delicate fossils, we may expect to find a land flora and fauna comparing in richness with 

 that of the Coal -formation. This is what we seem to have in the fern ledges of St. John. 

 Besides this, these beds are favourably exposed in the vicinity of a large city, possessing a 

 zealous society of naturalists and geologists, eminent among whom have been the late Prof. 

 Hartt, and Mr. Matthew, who is still spared to us. The labours of these gentlemen and their 

 colleagues have undoulitcdly been the leading cause which has enabled this peodiar deposit 

 to yield up its treasures. It is rarely that such exceptionally rich beds as those of the Cam- 

 brian and Devonian of the vichiity of St. John have been so specially and thoroughly worked. 

 Hence we need not be surprised that they have contributed so much to remedy the imper- 

 fections of our geological record. 



Suggestions to Collectors. 



My attention was first called to Palœozoic land animals by the discovery of Baphetes 

 planiceps in 1851 ; and since that time I have in all my explorations in the Carboniferous 

 rocks kept constantly in view, the possibility of the occurrence of such remains ; and when I 

 have employed others to collect for me, have instructed them to be constantly on the watch 

 for specimens of this kind. I have indeed not been without hope that we might some day 

 l)e rewarded by a true reptile, or a bird or even a prototypal mammal among the debris of 

 the Carboniferous forests. In any case we may expect to find many more s^jccies of the types 

 of life on the land already known in the Palœozoic. 



The most promising repositories are undoubtedly those erect trees which ha\e already 

 yielded so many remains, and the recent discovery in the Joggins section of such trees at 

 two new horizons in the Joggins section in Nova Scotia ' should stimulate to further search. 

 From the summer of 1851, when the writer in company with Sir Charles Lyell, found remains 



' See preliminary notice, Canadian Record of Science, May, 1894. 



