122 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



the mass, some thousands of feet in thickness, in which the plants are 

 imbedded ? Large areas to the North and West in this part of New- 

 Brunswick are composed of Lower Devonian and Silurian slaty rocks, 

 of marine origin, that would not have furnished any material to a 

 river capable of building up a delta of such bulk and extent as that 

 which carries these old plants. We have, therefore, to look in the 

 opposite direction for the dry land of Silurian age, and in that direction 

 find the great Meguma Pre-Cambrian series of Nova Scotia, of great 

 thickness and which evidently suffered enormous denudation through- 

 out Silurian time. This may have been one of the chief areas for the 

 supply of the products of erosion at this time, though the old Pre- 

 Cambrian ridges of southern New Brunswick may also have furnished 

 their quota. 



A sketch map to be published later will show the spread of the 

 known remaining area of this Delta, and the change of conditions from 

 a coarse sandstone (1) with a few plant remains (and those of the 

 denser and rriore resistant kinds) to the finer sediments (2) showing 

 well preserved plant remains, to (3) a portion of what appears to have 

 been the delta-margin, and finally, to the area where typical Silurian 

 marine forms are found. The coarse beds (1) with poorly preserved 

 fossils are present on the Mispec River and the east branch of Black 

 River. The finer shales (2) with well preserved plants are found at St. 

 John and Carleton, and the third type (3) is that of the Beaver Harbor 

 beds. 



As regards the marine Silurian, (or Lower Devonian) drift frag- 

 ments of plants are known in it from Oak Bay and Flume Ridge in 

 Charlotte county, and at the base of the series in Queen's county, 

 near Gaspereau station, there are sandstones with plant remains. It 

 is also to be noted that on the south side of the granite ridge which 

 separates the last named locality from a more southerly band of 

 Silurian on the Nerepis Road, is a locality where Silurian fossil fish 

 are found, together with other indications of brackish or fresh water 

 organisms. But these may be in the upper portion of the Silurian 

 beds. 



It should be borne in mind that the confirmation of a Silurian 

 age for the Plant-beds of St. John and its vicinity involves the ad- 

 mission of the existence at that time of several orders of animals, 

 which, according to many geological text books, appeared first in 

 Carboniferous time. Among these are the mailed fishes, long known 

 as Silurian in European deposits, Batrachians, Snails, Neuropteroid 

 and wingless Insects, Myriapods and other forms of the forests and 

 river banks. 



