PART I. 



GEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC MINEEAL8 OF 



NOIITHERN NEW BRUNSWICK. 



By Robt. Chalmers, F. G. S. A., 



of the Geological Survey of Canada. 



1. 



HISTORICAL RESUME. 



The rock-formation3 of Northern New Brunswiek have heen 

 studied by a number of leading geologists at ditTerent tiniCo 

 during the last sixty years. The lirst investigation known to 

 the writer was in 1841 by W. J. Henwood, an English geologist, 

 who examined the country to the south of the Baie des Chaleurs 

 in some detail and crossed the great sandstone or Carboniferous 

 area between Fredericton and Bathurst, defining its limits. The 

 thin seam.3 of coal which occur in these sandstones at Clifton, 

 Gloucester County, were noted by him, and a collection of ])lant 

 remains from the rocks of that locality Vvas also made. The 

 granite at Bathurst w<is examined and considered by Mr. Hen- 

 wood to be the lowest or basal rock of the legion, according to 

 the views then he'd, having been found overlaid on the south by 

 the sandstone and conglomerates of the coal measures, and on 

 the north by slates, with numerous quartz veins and irregular 

 masses of greenstone. Along the coast between J:athurst and 

 the Restigouche River he likewise made a survey of the rocks 

 and spent some time at Dalhousie studying the Caje Bon Ami 

 beds, from which he obtained a large collection of fossils. But 

 although describing the rocks and grouping them according to 

 their lithological character and contained fossils, he made no 

 attempt to lix their geological age. On his return to England he 

 lead a paper on the geology and fossil remains of tiie northern 

 part of the province before the Geological Society of London.* 



In 1842, Dr. Abraham Gesner, then provincial geologist of 

 New Brunswick, carried out an exploration of the northern 



* Proc. Geol. iSoo. of JLondon, Vol. Ill, 1838-42, pp. 451-1.'jG. 



