THE CAMBRIAN. 87 



Mr Fletcher has still more recently (1877) procured fossils, not 

 yet described, from the vicinity of Mire River, where beds similar 

 to those of St Andrew's Channel are extensively developed, and which 

 include an Agnostus and other trilobitcs of primordial type, but 

 specifically distinct from those of the Acadian group; and also a small 

 Orthis, apparently allied to 0. Evadne, Billings, from the Quebec 

 group, or to 0. lenticularis, Dalman, of tlie British Upper Lingula 

 flags. These fossils 1 regard as indicating a position probably 

 Cambrian, but later than that of the Acadian beds of St John. Tlie 

 beds containing these fossils are associated with the vulcanic ash 

 series of Southern Cape Breton, but 1 have no information as yet 

 with reference to their precise geological relations. It is interesting 

 and instructive thus to find the Upper Cambrian series appearing in 

 ( 'ape Breton. With the Acadian or Mencvian, and the probable 

 Longmynd series of the coast of Nova Scotia, it serves to complete 

 the representation of that system of formations in Acadia. 1 may add 

 that Professor Bailey informs me that in the belt of old rocks, north 

 of the central Coal-field in New Brunswick, there are portions, appar- 

 ently older than the Silurian rocks of that region, and resembling the 

 Nova Scotia coast series, like which they are auriferous. 



12. THE HURONIAN. 



The Coldbrook series of Messrs Bailey and Matthew, rising from 

 beneath the Cambrian fossiliferous slates, was referred to this age in 

 my second edition; and this view has been still further confirmed and 

 extended by recent observations of Professor Bailey. From these it 

 appears that the Coldbrook or Huronian series rests unconformably 

 on the Laurentian, and that pebbles of the latter are included in its 

 conglomerates. On the other hand, the Acadian or Mcnevian beds 

 lie unconformably on the Coldbrook series. Further, the Upper 

 Huronian is now identified with the "coastal scries" of former reports, 

 and thus greatly extended, more especially to the eastward of St John. 

 There would also appear to be indications of unconformity between 

 the upper and lower members of the Huronian itself. It thus appears 

 as a distinct formation, or group of formations, between the Laurentian 

 and Acadian groups, and connected with neither. The study of a 

 scries of typical specimens, kindly furnished by Mr Matthew of St 

 John and Mr Murray, director of the Geological Survey of Newfound- 

 land, enables me to affirm a remarkable similarity in mineral character 

 between the rocks described as Huronian in these two regions, while 

 their relations to the Laurentian below and Mcnevian above are the 



