NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF NEWFOUNDLAND—WESTON. 1538 
director of the Newfoundland Survey had in paleontological 
evidence, I will relate one incident out of many similar ones 
known to the writer :—In the summer of 1874 Murray wrote to 
Sir W. E. Logan, then director of the Canadian Survey, saying: 
“JT have made my Manuel’s River rocks Primordial; I am doubt- 
ful, however, whether my stratigraphy is correct ; neither Howley 
nor I have been able to tind the ghost of a fossil; could you 
arrange in any way to send Weston down for a few weeks.” The 
result was that I left by the next steamer which called at New- 
foundland, and a few days after my arrival at St. John’s was sent 
by Murray to Manuel’s River where he got lodgings for myself and 
indian guide. The following day I commenced my search for 
fossils, and in a short time was rewarded by finding, in the gray 
argillites, the well-known crustacean Microdiscus Dawsoni, 
Hartt, which occurs in abundance in the primordial slates of St. 
John, at Ratcliffe’s Mill Stream, and other localities in New 
Brunswick. This crustacean, Microdiscus, is a puny thing, not 
larger than the half of a small pea, but it told mea big tale 
about the geological horizon—told me that Murray’s stratigra- 
phy was correct, and that Istood on primordial strata similar to 
those of St. John, New Brunswick. 
I may mention here that the term primordial, used by Bar- 
rande and the late paleontologist of the Canadian Survey, Mr. 
E. Billings, is seldom used now—St. John Group being thought 
a better name for that extensive group of rocks. This Cambrian 
division of the lower silurian of Newfoundland according to 
Murray would, if found consecutive at any one locality, repre- 
sent a thickness of 6,000 feet of black, gray and other coloured 
argillites, micaceous calcareous slates and limestones, sandstones, 
conglomerates and other rocks, some of which are prolific in 
fossils, especially the iron-stained argillites of Manuel’s River 
and other localities in Conception Bay. The fauna is similar to 
that of the primordial of St. John, Ratcliffe’s Mill Stream, and 
other localities in New Brunswick. 
Among the forty or more genera and species of this group in 
Newfoundland Billings describes about sixteen species, some of 
