[MATTHEW] MISPEC GROUP 107 



It is because the age of the Mispec Group may shed some light 

 upon this difficult question that the writer has made the Mispec 

 Group the subject of this article. The group was first observed at 

 the top of a synclinal fold of the strata between Little river and 

 Mispec river, on the eastern side of St. John Harbour. No determin- 

 able fossils were found in it, but the lower angle of dip and the distinct 

 change in the composition and source of the sediments showed the 

 diversity of this group from the rocks below. (Here also there was 

 a reduction in the dip of the measures from 20° or 15° to 5° which 

 further on was reduced to horizontality, and eventually to the re- 

 appearance of the grey shales with plant remains that had been 

 observed on the north side of the synclinal fold.) 



Such was the evidence upon which the Mispec Group was separ- 

 ated from the beds below, and on tracing the latter further westward 

 this divergence was seen to be more marked. 



The Mispec was found to recur to the south side of Lepreau 

 Basin near its head, extending thence westward where with the plant- 

 bearing beds below it extends beneath the Upper Devonian, which 

 dips westward and passes beneath the waters of the Bay of Fundy. 

 It is accompanied by a remnant of the pre-Cambrian complex ridge 

 which there shows itself for th^ last time. There is a group of small 

 islands in the Bay of Fundy called "The Wolves," where these 

 portions of the complex reappear for the last time. 



From this point westward the Mispec Group appears on the 

 north side of the Laurentian complex, showing in Bliss Island and 

 the headlands that project from the shore around the eastern entrance 

 to L'Etang harbour. At Beaver harbour the Mispec Group was also 

 observed on the road which leads westward from the head of the 

 harbour and on Black's harbour it also appears. On this northern 

 side of the Laurentian complex the various exposures of the Mispec 

 rocks have beds at low angles dipping to the north and in this corre- 

 sponding to the Mascareen series (Silurian) further west. The 

 numerous beds of conglomerates which are found in the Mispec 

 Group of this district show the dip very clearly. 



Fortunately the Geological Survey of the United States, when 

 undertaking the investigation of the Eastport quadrangle, placed the 

 fossils collected by Messrs. C. L. Berger and E. S. Bastin in the 

 hands of the late Prof. Henry S. Williams for determination. These 

 fossils have an important bearing on the age and condition of the 

 Upper Silurian measures in that part of Canada. The Canadian 

 surveyors had found a Silurian series in Passamaquoddy bay which 

 they called the Mascareen, dipping to the north at a low angle, and 



