62 REPORT — 1851. 



dips, and on the shores of Bay Chaleur it lies in a quiescent condition on the tilted 

 edges of the lower formations, sometimes resting on one find sometimes on another. 

 Its north-western outcrop however, or rather, I should say, the longitudinal axis of 

 the whole coal-field from New Brunswick to Newfoundland, has a parallelism with 

 the folds of the inferior rocks, and there are several parallel undulations in nearly the 

 same direction on the south side of the carboniferous deposit. 



The conclusion to be drawn from these facts appears to be, that some cause pro- 

 ducing folds in the stratification in one general direction has been in operation from 

 at least the cessation of the Lower Silurian epoch to the termination of the carboni- 

 ferous ; and it only requires the inspection of a map of Atlantic America to observe 

 how the features of its physical geography, displayed in the configuration of its 

 coast, in its valleys of undulation and those of transverse fracture, are almost entirely 

 dependent on the results of this cause. 



The fossiliferous rocks of both these divisions, with the exception of that part sup- 

 ported by the Cambrian formations of Lakes Superior and Huron, rest, along the 

 valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, upon a series consisting of micaceous 

 and hornblendic gneiss interstratified towards the south with great bands of cry- 

 stalline limestone, sometimes highly charged with magnesia and associated with 

 vast masses of magnetic iron ore, but without calcareous beds on the north. These 

 rocks constitute a part of the low granitic ridge, which to the westward has been traced 

 by Sir J. Richardson as extending with a north-westerly curve to the Arctic Ocean. 



The Canadian rocks on the north side of this granitic ridge, as displayed toward 

 the head of Lake Temiscamang, consist, in ascending order, of chloritic slates and 

 conglomerates with a slaty matrix ; the volume of these is probably not less and 

 may be much more than 1000 feet. On them rests a set of massive pale greenish- 

 white or sea-green sandstones, the total amount of which, as determined by the 

 height of hills which they compose in nearly horizontal layers, is between 400 and 

 500 feet. These are succeeded by about 300 feet of buff and whitish fossiliferous 

 limestones, the lowest bed of which is composed of a collection of great boulders and 

 blocks of sandstone, some of them 9 feet in diameter, that were lying immediately 

 on the strata from which they were derived when they became covered up, and in 

 which great cracks and worn fissures are filled with the calcareous deposit that en- 

 velopes the whole. The sandstones being without discovered fossils, it is not easy 

 to detei-mine their age ; but the limestones by their organic contents are distinctly 

 shown to belong to the Upper Silurian epoch. The liOwer Silurian deposits, 

 unless the unfossiliferous sandstones be a member of the group, appear to be wholly 

 wanting in the locality, and as all the forms brought from other localities on the 

 north side of the granitic ridge by Bigsby, Richardson rnd others, are, I believe^ 

 referable to Upper Silurian types, it appears not improbable that the absence of the 

 Lower Silurian rocks may spread over an extensive area, and the south side of the 

 ridge indicate an ancient limit to a Lower Silurian sea. 



The nearest locality of the well-defined forms which inhabited this sea is at the 

 island of Allumette, about 200 miles southward from the Upper Silurian rocks of 

 Lake Temiscamang ; there is however a patch of the same lower formation which 

 is only about 100 miles southward from them, but in it the fossils are obscure. 

 Instead of giving any remarks of my own on the fossils of the two sides of the granitic 

 ridge, I shall append to my paper a note which my friend Mr. Salter of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of the United Kingdom has been so kind as to make on them after a 

 careful inspection, only stating that the specimens which have been examined are 

 but a small part of an important collection, chiefly from the eastern of the two divi- 

 sions that have been alluded to, brought from Canada for comparison, and that twice 

 as many specimens as have been brought remain in the province from other parts, 

 while great additions it is hoped will annually be made to them. 



I have only further to add, that I exhibit to the Section as one of the character- 

 istics of the lowest member of the Lower Silurian rocks of Canada, a small slab of 

 sandstone and a cast from a larger one, showing what Professor Owen has, in a 

 communication to the Geological Society, pronounced to be a track and footsteps of 

 a species of tortoise, thus proving the existence of reptiles at the very earliest period 

 of known animal life ; a fact, upon the importance of which it is unnecessary to insist 

 before a geological audience. 



