IV. ON THE UPPER CAMBRIAN AGE OF THE DICTYONEMA 

 SLATES OF ANGUS BROOK, NEW CANAAN AND KENTVILLE, 

 N. S. BY H. M. AMI, D. Sc., F. G. S., of the Geological 

 Survey of Canada. 



(Read 10th February, 1902.) 



In his " Acadian Geology," second edition, 1868, p. 563, Sir 

 William Davvson figures Dictyonema Webateri and places it as a 

 Silurian (Upper Silurian) species. In describing the slates from 

 which the type-specimens of this species were obtained he 

 writes : " Passing from the Cobequid Mountains to the slate 

 hills of the south side of the Bay " --meaning the Bay of Fundy 

 " in Kings County, we find slates not very dissimilar from 

 those of the Cobequids," which he had described on the previous 

 page, 562 " in the promontory northward of the Gaspereau 

 River. Here the direction, both of the bedding and of the 

 slates structure, is N. E. by S. W. ; but the planes of cleavage 

 dip to the S. E., while the bedding, as indicated by lines of 

 different color, dips to the N. W. These slates with the quartzite 

 and coarse limestones, are continued in the hills of New 

 Canaan, where they contain crinoidal joints, fossil shells, corals, 

 and in some beds of fawn-coloured slate, beautiful fan-like 

 expansions of the pretty Dictyonema represented in fig. 196. 

 Very fine specimens of this fossil were found by the late Dr. 

 Webster of Kentville. It was the habitation of thousands of 

 minute polypes, similar apparently to those of the modern 

 Sertalaria. The general strike of the rocks in New Canaan is 

 N. E. and S. W., and they extend from that place westward to 

 the Nictaux River. Westward of Nictaux River, as already 

 mentioned in describing the Devonian, the beds of the Upper 

 Silurian, as well as those of the last mentioned formation, are 

 nterrupted by great masses of granite which form the hills 

 along the south side of the Annapolis River, from a place called 



(447) 



