[bailey] presidential ADDRESS 9 



time and nearly with its present limits. Lastly, the wide distribution 

 of volcanics on the Northern Highlands, if of Silurian age, as is al- 

 together probable, show that this portion of the Province also was at 

 that time one of pronounced vulcanism. 



In Nova Scotia, the only rocks of Silurian (or Eo-Devonian) 

 age with which the author of this address is personally familiar are 

 those which, at Bear River, Clementport and Nictor, border the 

 southern side of the Annapolis Valley. They are sandstones and slates 

 with beds of iron ore, and are abundantly fossiliferous, the fossils, 

 consisting largely of Spirifers, indicating an horizon which is about 

 that of the Oriskany formation. Being evidently marine, though of 

 shallow water origin, we must look elsewhere for evidences of land 

 areas, but, as already explained, these are wholly wanting in penin- 

 sular Nova Scotia, the only other formations being the great granite 

 batholiths which by their invasion of the Eo-Devonian rocks show their 

 later origin, and the Meguma and Halifax formations, which, though 

 of great antiquity, can hardly be otherwise than of oceanic origin. 

 As in the Cambrian era, we must look to a possible Atlantis to the 

 eastward of the present Atlantic seaboard for such land as then lay 

 above the sea-level in this region. 



Another important area of Silurian rocks in Nova Scotia is that 

 of Arisaig. In view, however, of the diversity of opinion entertained 

 by different writers regarding these rocks it is not proposed to dis- 

 cuss them further here than to say that they indicate submergence at 

 the time of their origination. 



It will here be in place to consider a group of rocks found in south- 

 ern New Brunswick as to the age of which there has been much con- 

 troversy. I refer to what is known as the Little River group occurring 

 on the coast of the Bay of Fundy, near St. John, where they include 

 the well-known deposits of "the Fern Ledges," of Carleton. These, 

 partly on palaeobotanical and partly on stratigraphical grounds were 

 originally referred by Dawson, Hartt, Matthew and the writer to 

 the Devonian, and later by Matthew to the Silurian, but have been 

 claimed by White, Ami, Mrs. Stokes and others as equivalents of the 

 Millstone Grit, or even as representing higher horizons in the Carboni- 

 ferous system. Thus a wide divergence of opinion has developed as 

 to their true position, but it is to be noted that the view that they are 

 of Carboniferous age rests solely upon palaeobotanical grounds, 

 which may be liable to change, while no one who has actually studied 

 the ground has as yet reached any other conclusion than that they are 

 really older than the formation last named. The question has been 

 largely and somewhat acrimoniously discussed, but as the facts bear- 



Sec. IV, Sig. 2 



