110 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Reach and the Kennebecasis, and occupying the peninsula of Kingston, 

 has been described as the Kingston Group. It consists to a very large 

 extent of alternating beds of felsite and intrusive diorite, and is there- 

 fore mainly of igneous origin, but associated with these as a distinct 

 division, is a considerable body of argillites. Being at many points 

 bordered by fossiliferous rocks and at others apparently enclosing 

 strata which are also fossiliferous, it was at one time supposed that 

 they were wholly Silurian; but notwithstanding such evidence as 

 applying to certain portions or certain strata of the Kingston rocks 

 as originally described, there is still good reason to believe that a 

 considerable portion of this group is really of Pre-Cambrian age. 

 This remark applies not only to the rocks of the Kingston peninsula, 

 where they were first studied, but to their apparent extension west- 

 ward to Beaver Harbor and the islands of Campo Bello, Deer Island 

 and Grand Manan. In each of these Silurian fossils have been found 

 but it is still a question whether the formation as a whole is Silurian 

 or whether the occurrence of such fossils may not be the result of 

 folding and enclosure among strata of greater antiquity. The fact 

 that at many other points the Kingston rocks or portions of them are 

 overlaid by Silurian deposits tends to indicate their greater antiquity. 

 In the Nerepis region and towards the head of the long Reach they 

 are also apparently overlaid by the basal beds of the Cambrian. 



The last region in New Brunswick which has been described and 

 mapped as consisting mainh^ of Archaean or Pre-Cambrian rocks is 

 that of the Northern Highlands, a rugged and semimountainous 

 tract from which many of the larger rivers of the Province, such as 

 the Miramichi, the Tobique, Nepisiquit, Upsalquitch and others 

 draw their water supply. In the present connection they are of 

 interest as showing how readily serious mistakes may be made by 

 giving too much weight to lithological resemblances, when unsup- 

 ported by other evidence. For there is now good reason to believe 

 that much of the region thus referred to a Pre-Cambrian (probably 

 Huronian) horizon, is really Silurian or even more recent. 



The rocks which compose very many of the hills bordering the 

 Tobique and Nepisquit rivers, and to which reference was made by 

 the writer as long ago as 1862, are felsites (really rhyolite), associated 

 with various other products of igneous origin, and being from their 

 reddish color very conspicuous and forming the summit of numerous 

 eminences, were rightly supposed to give character to the whole; 

 but their first assignment to a definite age, viz. Pre-Cambrian, was 

 not until a short time prior to the publication of the Geological Map, 

 when, from their evident likeness to the Coldbrook Huronian rocks 

 of St. John, they. were described as their probable equivalents. That 



