194 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



PART II. 



Billings's Primordial Fossils of Vermont and Labrador. 



As I found in studying the fossils of Hastings Cove that I was tread- 

 ing very closely on the confines of the Olenellus fauna, it seemed to me 

 important that I should see the types of those fossils of the Champlain 

 and St. Lawrence valleys, and of Labrador, which Billings, the late 

 palfeontologist of the Canadian Geological Survey, had described as 

 Primordial forms of the Potsdam Group. I therefore applied to the 

 present director of the Canadian Geological and Natural History Survey 

 for permission to examine these forms. This request was considerately 

 granted, and I have carefully examined these fossils, and made fresh 

 drawings of them, as the originals were woodcuts and too small to show 

 properly the specific characters. 



While these are ostensibly Billings's types, it is only proper to remark 

 that Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, the present palaeontologist of the Survey, has 

 warned me that too much reliance should not be placed in these types, as 

 the original had in some cases been detached from their tablets, and it 

 was not certain that in all cases the specimens were those studied by Mr. 

 Billings,^ I have, however, carefully compared such of these fossils as I 

 have had occasion to describe in the sequel, with Billings's descriptions, 

 both as regards dimensions and form, and find reason to think that the 

 majority at least are authentic. 



In this paper I have not taken up all of Billings's Primordial fossils, 

 described at the beginning of " Palaeozoic Fossils," but only such as it 

 was necessary to examine in connection with the sub-fauna of Hastings 

 Cove. The other Primordial forms described by Billings therein, were 

 the two Olenelli, 0. Thompsoni and 0. Yermontana, two Salterellas, and 

 Plantre, Protozoa and Brachiopoda. From the following remarks it will 

 be seen that in the opinion of the writer the study of Billings's types has 

 thrown considerable light on the geological horizon of Olenellus, and 

 appears to link this genus with the middle rather than the lowest Cam- 

 brian. 



It is only just to Prof Jules Marcou to say that this is the position 

 which be has contended for as the true age of Olenellus, determined by 

 him from a study of the geology in the vicinity of Swanton, Vt., and 

 Point Levis, near Quebec. I think he is the only American geologist who 

 has held rigidly to this view ; or at least the only one who has contended 



1 " In the case of a few of the species described by Mr. Billings in the ver}' early 

 part, say the first eighteen pages of the first volume of the Palœozoic fossils, it is 

 doubtful whether the specimens in the Museum are always what they are said to be 

 on the labels, and there is reason to believe that some of the types are lost or mis- 

 laid."-.! . F. W. 



