[bailey] present configuration OF NEW BRUNSWICK S7 



Upper Devonian. — The rocks here referred to this horizon are those 

 which in the reports and maps of the geological survey have been'*de- 

 scribed as those of the Mispec Group and Lower Carboniferous forma- 

 tions. The former has alwa3^s been referred to the Devonian, but recent 

 studies of the plant remains in the so-called Lower Carboniferous have 

 shown that those of the second series are the equivalents of the Perry 

 sandstones of Passamaquoddy Bay and should also be referred to the 

 Devonian. They exliibit a much less inclination than do the Lower 

 Devonian strata about St. Jolm and show that the disturbances affecting 

 the latter took place before the close of the Devonian era. In corre- 

 spondence with all the strata bordering the Bay of Fundy they indicate 

 by their uptilted and faulted cJiaracter more marked movements along 

 the trough occupied by the latter than is usually the case with the equi- 

 valent strata of the interior, and have had much to do in determining 

 the bold and rugged features which characterize so much of the southern 

 seaboard of the Province, especially to the east of St. John harbour. 



Lower Carboniferous. — In striking contrast witTi the formations of 

 the earlier Palœozoic, those of the group now considered show as a rule 

 but little evidence of great deformatory movements. The strata are 

 rarely highly inclined, and such differential changes as have affected 

 them are probably mostly of later origin. The thickness of the Upper 

 Devonian and Lower Carboniferous strata in the Kennebecasis valley 

 and their relations to the rocks on either side would indicate that, sub- 

 sequent to the Devonian revolution, great subsidence took place along 

 old lines of weakness, as was also true of the Bay of Fundy, as indicated 

 by the numerous displacements on the St. John and Albert county coasts, 

 and the enormous ' thickness of the Carboniferous strata at the Joggins, 

 in Nova Scotia. Volcanic disturbances would, however, seem to have 

 been quite general and the materials brought to the surface by this means 

 have had a marked influence upon the topography of the districts in 

 which they occur. Thus Bald Mountain, Cranberry Hill and other 

 ridges near Ilarve}^, in York county, Currie's Mountain and McLeod's 

 Hill near Fredericton, the comparatively elevated tracts which bound 

 the Newcastle coal field on the north, and some of the hills on the south- 

 west Miramichi, as well as others about the Bay des Chaleurs, are of this 

 origin. They belong mostly to the close of the era, and would seem to 

 have come up through the clastic deposits without greatly affecting their 

 horizontality. . The conspicuous felsite hills known as the Blue Moun- 

 tains in the Tobique valley are usually also ascribed to this period, but 

 the writer is disposed to think that these are, in part at least, of greater 

 antiquity and probably Silurian. 



