Transactions of The Royal Society of Canada 



SECTION IV 

 Series III MAY, 1920 Vol. XIV 



A Devonian Glacier 

 By G. F. Matthew, D. Sc, F.R.S.C. 



(Read May Meeting, 1920) 



That a glacier of Devonian Age is not quite so impossible as it 

 might once have been thought, is clear from the facts,. now acknowl- 

 edged of a glacial floor to the Cambrian rocks of Northern Scandinavia 

 and the discovery that glacial conditions existed both North and 

 South of the equator in Triassic times. Such discoveries and others 

 have given a severe shock to the theory of Laplace, so long held, as 

 to the origin of the planetary masses, and turned more attention to 

 the Planetesimal theory of Prof. Chamberlain and others, who would 

 derive such masses from the aggregation of cold particles of matter 

 floating in the cosmic spaces in past ages. 



Without entering into speculations as to the origin of the planetary 

 systems the writer proposes to present herein the evidences of certain 

 phenomena observed in connexion with the present appearance of the 

 terrain which lies at the base of the Carboniferous rocks as they are 

 seen in the eastern part of the Maritime Provinces of Canada, and 

 especially in the vicinity of the city of Saint John, New Brunswick. 



It is true that he has not observed a glacial floor beneath this 

 terrain, nor has he found this to abound with glaciated stones and 

 boulders, as do the more recent deposits of the modern Glacial Period, 

 nevertheless there are some characteristics of this terrain which are 

 essentially glacial. 



The Geological Complex on Which the Supposed 

 Glacier Rested 



In the first place I propose to say a few words in reference to the 

 geological complex which formed the foundation on which the glacier 

 was built up, and left its characteristic deposit. 



The exposed part of the complex had in its longest diameter a 

 course approximately from N.E. to S.W., in the former direction 

 emerging from beneath the Coal Measures (Carboniferous) and in 

 the latter disappearing beneath the waters of the Bay of Fundy, an 



Sec. IV, Sig. 1 



