XV.] CAMBRIAN AND SILURIAN IN NORTH AMERICA. 409 



A notice by Mr. Selwyn of some of these crystalline schists 

 in Nova Scotia will be found in the Eeport of the Geological 

 Survey of Canada for 1870 (page 271). He there remarks, 

 moreover, the close lithological resemblances of the gold-bear- 

 ing strata to the Harlech grits and Lingula flags of North 

 "Wales, and announces the discovery among these strata at the 

 Ovens gold-mine in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, of peculiar or- 

 ganic markings regarded by Mr. Billings as identical with the 

 Eopliyton Linnceanum, which is found in the Regio Fucoidarum, 

 at the base of the Cambrian in Sweden. In the volume just 

 quoted (page 269) will be found some notes by Mr. Billings 

 on this fossil, which occurs also near St. John, New Brunswick, 

 in strata supposed to . underlie the Paradoxides beds. The 

 same form is found in Conception Bay in southeastern New- 

 foundland, in strata regarded by Mr. Murray as higher than 

 those with Paradoxides, and containing also two new species 

 of Lingula, a Cruziana, and several fucoids. Still more re- 

 cently, Eophyton, accompanied by these same fucoids, has been 

 found by Mr. Billings at St. Laurent, on the island of Orleans 

 near Quebec, in strata hitherto referred by the geological sur- 

 vey, on stratigraphical grounds, to the Quebec group. The 

 evidence adduced by Mr. Billings tends to show that this or- 

 ganic form, whatever its nature, belongs to a very low horizon 

 in the Cambrian. 



As regards the probable downward extension of these forms 

 of ancient life, I cannot refrain from citing the recent language 

 of Mr. Hicks. (Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc., May, 1872, page 174.) 

 After a comparative study of the Lower Cambrian fauna, in- 

 cluding that of the Harlech and Menevian rocks in Wales, and 

 the representatives of the latter in other regions, he adds : 



" Though animal life was restricted to these few types, yet 

 at this early period the representatives of the several orders 

 do not show a very diminutive form, or a markedly imperfect 

 state ; nor is there an unusual number of blind species. The 

 earliest known brachiopods are apparently as perfect as those 

 which succeed them ; and the trilobites are of the largest and 

 best developed types. The fact also that trilobites had attained 

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