190 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [APR. 15, 
work of Dr. Williams* and Miss Bascom} on the South Moun- 
tain volcanics, and the studies of Wadsworth,{ Diller§ and 
Sears || in the Boston Basin, the only descriptions of ancient effu- 
sive rocks from the eastern coast of which the writer knows are 
the recent article of Dr. Bayley § on the spherulitic felsites from 
Vinal Haven, Me., and a few descriptions of porphyries from the 
eastern townships by Dr. Adams**. There is, no doubt, other 
work of the kind in preparation, and quite probably other pub- 
lished descriptions exist, which have escaped this review; still 
the scantiness of petrographic descriptions of these early vol- 
canics of the east coast, in comparison with those from other 
parts of the United States, is rather remarkable. 
In Southern New Brunswick the so-called Huronian has been 
believed from the first to be in large part volcanic, and was so 
described in the reports of the different surveys. 
The first systematic survey was made by Dr. Abraham Ges- 
ner for the Provincial Government in 1858-42, its results be- 
ing published in five reports dated 1839-45, inclusive. Dr. Ges- 
ner was greatly impressed with the important part which had . 
been played in Southern New Brunswick by volcanic forces, 
which, however, he was inclined to over-rate, ascribing to them 
many of the effects due to erosion. Speaking of the southern 
part of the province he says: 
“At the southeastern base of this elevated region ” (the gran- 
ite area which divides Southern from Central New Brunswick) 
“the slates and limestones of the transition series, and the sand- 
stones and conglomerates of the secondary formations, are 
placed in their usual order of succession, wherever they have not 
been broken up and buried by extensive eruptions of volcanic 
matter. All these rocks have been penetrated by large and 
numerous dikes of trap, basalt and pophyry (sic), and the sur- 
face of the country with all the islands in the Passamaquoddy 
Bay exhibit the clearest evidences of having been the theatre of 
violent earthquakes and intense volcanie action.”+t 
Although some of the massive rocks which Dr. Gesner be- 
lieved igneous have been siuce shown to be of sedimentary ori- 
gin, yet his estimate of the importance of eruptive rocks in this 
* Amer. Jour. Sci. XLIV., 482. 
+ Jour. Geol., I. 
t Bull. Mus. Comp. Zéol. Hary., V., 275; Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., X-XI., 288. 
2 Bull. Mus. Comp. Zo6l. Hary., VII., 165. 
| Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Hary., XVI., No. 9; Bull, Essex Inst., XXVI., 118 ete. 
{ Geol. Soc. Amer., Baltimore Meeting, Dec.. 1894. 
** Can. Geol. Sur. Report of 1839, p. 12. 
++ Report of 1839, p. 12. 
