10 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



ing upon it have been fully stated by Dr. Matthew and the writer in 

 a paper contained in the last volume of the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society, and more recently in other papers by the first-named author, 

 I have not considered it necessary to discuss the subject further here. 



The organic remains of the Little River group include those of 

 Ferns, Conifers and Insects. They therefore show the existence of 

 dry land near their place of burial and that this was covered by a 

 terrestrial vegetation. Moreover, the Conifers (Dadoxylon or Arau- 

 carites) are in places in such numbers and so confusedly piled together 

 as to indicate that they represent the driftage of considerable streams. 

 The land therefore must have been of such extent as to make possible 

 a system of drainage. The occurrence of beds carrying marine fossils 

 to the north of the area occupied by the Little River rocks militates 

 against the idea that any considerable tract of land lay at the time 

 in that direction, and Dr. Matthew, who regards these rocks as of 

 deltaic origin, has suggested the idea that they may have come, in 

 part at least, from the Meguma series of Nova Scotia, which, there is 

 reason to believe, was above the sea-level at the time and which has 

 undergone enormous denudation. 



The Devonian or Acadian Revolution 



We come now to consider some events which wrought a tre- 

 mendous change alike in the geography and physiography of Acadia. 

 All authorities agree that towards the later part of the Devonian age 

 there occurred a series of earth movements, accompanied by or re- 

 sulting in mountain elevations, metamorphism, etc., to which the 

 designation given above may very appropriately be applied. The 

 evidence of this revolution is to be found in the uptilting and folding 

 of all formations up to and including the Silurian, but which did not 

 affect the Perry Group or Upper Devonian or the Lower Carboniferous 

 — also in the intrusion of great granite batholiths, such as now form 

 the cores of such ranges as the York County Highlands, the Nerepis 

 range and the Caledonia range in New Brunswick, together with the 

 Cobequids and South Mountains of Nova Scotia. At many points 

 these granites are seen to penetrate and alter Siluro-Devonian rocks, 

 and boulders of granite, rare in the conglomerates of older formations, 

 abound in those of the Perry formation and Lower Carboniferous. 

 These latter formations, like the Coal measures, also show no evidence 

 of the metamorphism which is so conspicuous in all the groups of 

 earlier age^ 



' e.g. The slaty structure of the mud rocks. 



