LITTLE EIVBE GEOUP, No. H. 91 



a short distance from it. Its axis has a considerable inclination to the southwest, for the 

 strata are found to bend over it in ascending order in that direction. This peculiarity causes 

 the deposits in the intermediate synclinal fold to expand to the westward and assume the 

 appearance of a liasin opening to the sea. 



" Principal Dawson, in his article on the Devonian Flora of Northeastern America, 

 published in the November number (1862) of the Journal of the Ge(.)logical Society, divides 

 these Pre-Carboniferous beds into several groups, which, with some modifications, are given 

 below. I have attached names to these groups, indicating the localities where the best and 

 most typical exposx;res have been observed, which may serve tlie convenience of local 

 observers until the strata have been co-ordinated with deposits in regions better known. 



Bloomsbury group (No. 4 of Dawson), thickness 2,500 feet.' 



a. Basalt, amygdaloid, trapash, trapash slate ; some beds of conglomerate. Thick- 



ness, 2,000 feet.- 



b. Fine grained red clay slate. | tj^j^.^^^^^^ ^qq f^^^_ 



Eeddish gray conglomerate. J 



Little River Group (Nos. 2 and 3 of Dawson). — Thickness 5,200 feet. 



a. " Dadoxylon Sandstone." — Gray sandstone and grit, with beds of dark gray 



shale, sometimes graphitic. Thickness 2,800 feet. Fossils — Numerous plant 

 remains. 



b. " Cordaite shales." — Gray, greenish and red shales; reddish and gray sandstones, 



grits and conglomerates, alternating with shales. Thickness 2,400 feet. Fos- 

 sils. — Cordaite, Calamités, Stigmaria, Ferns, etc., [many] identical with those 

 of the preceding section. [Several crustaceans, wings of insects.] 

 MisPECK Group (No. 1 of Dawson). — Thickness 1,800 feet. 



a. Coarse subangular conglomerate. 



b. Fine grained purple clay slate and grits, surmounted by slate conglomerate. 



" Topography. — The indentations in the coast line of the Bay of Fundy at Port Simonds 

 and St. John harbour, cut directly across all the groups of rocks mentioned above. In the 

 peninsula between Kennebeckasis Bay and the Bay of Fundy, two hilly ridges, one skirting 

 the former, and the other the latter baj' [eastward of Cape Spencer], are the most prominent 

 topographical features. An intermediate ridge of land which extends a short distance into 

 the Bay of Fundy. [between Port Simonds and St. John liarl>our] consists principally of the 

 highest group (" Mispeck")." 



I quote here from the article some further details of the description of these rocks and 

 the Lower Carboniferous, to show their relations to each other. 



"Bloomsbury Group. — a. Volcanic Beds. — Later traverses of the liorders of the Little 

 River — Mispec Basin, made by the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada, have shown 

 that the volcanic beds east of St. John harbour, belong to an older series than the Devonian, 

 and are, in fact, Pre-Cambrian. 



" b. Sedimentary beds. — The thickness of these red beds seen at St. John harbour is insig- 

 nificant, but in the basin next west from St. John, extending from Musquash to Lepreau, 

 they form quite an important mass of red slates and conglomerates, which to the southward 

 rest on quartziferous porphyries. 



' Where a group appears on both sides of a synclinal fold, the average thickness has been given. The measure- 

 ments are to be regarded as merely approximate. 



■^ The greater part of this a group was subsequently found to be infolded rocks of Pre-Cambrian age. 



