SECTION AT Till: FERM U DCH -. 5 1 ."i 



fossiliferous, and ill-preserved plant remains had been observed In the 

 sandstones of the 'Ledges,' Mr Matthew, who had previously dis- 

 covered in the shales at the foot of the city of Si John, near the 

 barracks, the plants which Dawson described in bis paper mi the 

 'Flora of the Precarboniferous, etc.,' collected in I860, a1 the 

 'Ledges,' from one of the exposures of Plant-bed No. 1, of the fol- 

 lowing section, some obscure markings which were probably Leaves 

 of Asterophyllites longifolia, Brongn. ; but it was not until May L861 

 that I found that these rocks were richly fossiliferous, and discovert d 

 in Beds Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 8 ('?), a large number of fossil plants, prin- 

 cipally ferns, a remarkable Crustacean, Amphipeltis paradoxus, Salter, 

 and a Spirorbis. Messrs Matthew, W. R. Payne, James Began, and 

 Lunn, took part in the explorations which were carried on during the 

 summer, Mr Matthew discovering, among other things, a new species 

 of Eurypterus, E. pulicaris, Salter ; while Mr Payne secured a single 

 specimen of a trilobite, still undetermined, the only one the locality 

 has afforded. 



" These discoveries proved so interesting that Principal Dawson, to 

 whom I communicated them, paid a visit to St John, and examined 

 the locality in person. The collections made were put into his 

 hands, and the plants were described in detail in his paper pub- 

 lished in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, entitled, 

 'On the Flora of the Devonian Period in North- Eastern America.' 

 The number of plants obtained thus far from the Lancaster localities 

 was 36, which, with the three species of Crustacea, the Spirorbis, and 

 the three species of plants previously collected in St John by Mi- 

 Matthew, made the number of species of animals and plants ascer- 

 tained to occur in the Little River group, 43. 



M The following summer I spent thirty days at this locality, being 

 rewarded by the discovery of some ten or more new species of plants, 

 principally ferns, and by securing larger and more perfect specimens 

 of many of the species described by Dawson from mere fragments. 

 Rut the most valuable and entirely unexpected discovery, was that 

 of remains of insects, of which five species have been obtained. Th 

 specimens are in the hands of my friend Mr Scudder of Roston, the 

 well-known entomologist, for description. During the summer, I 

 began the task of examining every bed in the section at this locality, 

 a task not easy to perform, where the tough rocks lying below high- 

 water mark and buried in a luxuriant growth of sea-weed, arc worn 

 away in such a manner as to make it difficult to work them, 



" In the summer of 1863, I spent eight days at the locality, during 

 which time I finished my section. Several new plants were discovered, 



