26 THE CAMBKIAN. 



chusctts with their underlying conglomerates may be considered a 

 continuation of the New Brunswick beds.* 



Above these in Eastern Newfoundland is a slender representation 

 of the lower part of the Upper Cambrian, consisting of sandstones and 

 flags, often micaceous, with Lingulce. Similar beds cap the Lower 

 Cambrian in southern New Brunswick. Mr Fletcher, of the Canadian 

 Survey, has found fossils indicating what is probably the same horizon in 

 the slaty districts of southern Cape Breton. Mr Matthew regards these 

 series as covering the whole succession from the Caerfai group of 

 Hicks to the Lingula-^ags, and the two great zones A and B of 

 Angelin in Sweden. There is, however, no certain evidence that any 

 of these beds reach so high as the horizon of the Potsdam. -j- 



These rocks of Newfoundland and the Acadian Provinces, containing 

 what I formerly named the " Acadian group," | are in their litho- 

 logical characters and fossil remains equivalents of the Longmynd, 

 Menevian, and Lower Lingula-flag groups of England. 



In this connexion an important group of rocks is the Atlantic coast 

 series, or gold series of Nova Scotia, described by me in the 

 Geological Society's Journal in 1850, § and subsequently in " Acadian 

 Geology " and supplements thereto. j| This great series, extending 

 for more than 200 miles along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, 

 consists of dark-coloured quartzite and slate in massive bands, the 

 former predominating below and the latter above, and the whole 

 attaining to a thickness of perhaps 10,000 feet. In its western 

 extension it appears to rest on rocks of Huronian aspect, and where it 

 is invaded by granitic masses and veins (Devonian in age) it assumes 

 the condition of mica- schist and imperfect gneiss, being then similar 

 in mineral character to the rocks elsewhere known as Montalban. It 

 has, unfortunately, afforded no well-characterized fossils. The mark- 

 ings called Eophyton ^ and certain radiating bodies ( Astropolithon) ** 

 found in it are, however, similar to those occurring elsewhere in 

 Lower Cambrian rocks. Murray was disposed to regard this forma- 

 tion as corresponding to his Huronian in Newfoundland ; but it does 

 not agree with this either in mineral character or in fossils, and is 

 perhaps rather to be regarded as a great development of the lowest 

 member of the Cambrian, an exaggerated equivalent of the Harlech 

 Grits and Llanberris Slates. In this case, however, it may be 

 expected that it will yet afford true Cambrian fossils. 



* Crosby, Boston Society of Nat. History, 1884. 



f Fletcher, Report Geol. Purvey of Canada; Matthew, Trans. Eoy. Soc. Can., 

 1886 ; Canadian Record of Science, 188 . 



X Acadian Geology, 1868. § Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. vi. || 1868 and 1878. 

 ^ Selwyn, Report Geol. Survey. ** Acadian Geology, Supplement, p. 82. 



