122 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



not open to correction in the direction of greater accuracy of detail. 

 It is the first essay made in this field as regards the i*ahi3ozoic I'orni- 

 ations for this area,^ but it Avill serve as a basis for future and more 

 accurate statements when the geology of the country shall have become 

 better known, and the data already gathered more fully digested. 



A cause of much confusion in the treatment of the geology of 

 this region is the attempt to exactly parallel its geological terranes or 

 formations with those of England on the one hand, or of New York 

 State on the other; whereas its geological history has been essentially 

 different from that of either of those regions. The region of New 

 England and the Maritime Provinces of Canada (Acadia) was subjected 

 to vicissitudes and changes which did not correspond chronologically 

 with those of the two other regions above cited, and so the cycles of 

 deposition are not synclironovs. 



The Laurentian Cycle. 



As in the case of the Cambrian cycle described on a later page, we 

 have found this system well developed in two districts only, one in 

 southern New Brunswick, the other in Cape Breton. The series is 

 best exhibited near St. John, in a section extending from Indiantown 

 on the St. John river nearly to the harbour of St. John. Elsewhere 

 in the district the succession is much broken and confused by sharp 

 folding and the intrusion of granitic masses. 



Above the gneiss and syenite of Indiantown is the following 

 succession :^ 



FEET. 



1. Variegated and crystalline gray limestone and dolomite, 



gneiss, and argillites 260 



2. Gray, rusty- weathering quartzose gneiss (further east this be- 



comes a feldspathic quartzite) 460 



3. Gray and dark gray to black, flinty mud rock, often in 



thin alternating Inyers 1 50 



4. Dark gray and gray crystalline limestone, and gray dolomite.^ 250 



5. Thin-bodded limestones, alternating with pyritiferous gray 



argillites, graphite, and beds of dark gray rusty-weathering 

 diorite 250 



The most marked and persistent, as well as the most easily recog- 

 nized, members of this cycle are the quartzites (No. 2), and the lime- 



^ Prof. Li. W. Bailey has wrltte-n some article bearing on this subject, 

 e.ff., " Notes on the Highlands of Northern New Brunswick," Bull. Nat. Hist. 

 See. of N.B., Vol. V, p. 93. 



2 nop. PropT. Can. Geol. Surv., 1875-6, p. 386. 



8 In other sections this member Is much thicker than here. 



