10 GE^LOMY AND ECONOMIC MINERALS OiT NORTHERN NEW BRUNSWICK. 



found in certain districts, and the whole serie.^ is intersected by 

 dykes of intrusive rocks. Where the latter are not predominant, 

 the slates and calcareous rocks decompose into a fertile soil. On 

 the table lands 800 to 1,000 feet high, which constitute the larger 

 part of the area outside of the river valleys, the superticial de- 

 posits are deep, often loamy and highly productive from an ag- 

 ricultural point of view. Thousands of acres of tie uplands of 

 northern New Brunswick, containing soils of this description, are 

 still in a wilderness condition and await settlement. 



DEVONIAN. 



The only rocks of this age in the north of the ])rovince oc- 

 cur in the Restigouch'e valley, :ind in a belt crossing the upper 

 waters of the I-psahjuitch, the precise limits of which have not 

 yet been defined. Interesting suites of fossil fishes and ferns 

 have been obtained from these rocks in the first mentioned lo- 

 cality. 



6. 



CARHONIFEROITS. 



The sediments of this formation cover a large area in the 

 central and eastern })art of New Brunswick and consist for the 

 most part of flat-lying gray sandstones and grits, fringed by a 

 belt of red sandstones and conglomerates. Their northern boun- 

 dary has already been defined. Portions of the series are mas- 

 sive and well adapted for building stone. Thin seams of coal 

 occur in a number of places, and fossil i)lants and trunks of 

 trees are not uncommon. 



7. 



IGNEOI'S ROCKS. 



The granite of the Bale des Chaleurs district is confined to 

 the areas of pre-Cambrian and Cambro-Silurian rocks, and is re- 

 garded as older than the Carboniferous. The diorites or dia- 

 bases, felsites, etc., come up through all the rocks, though rarely 

 met with in the millstone grit area. The south shf)re of the Bale 



