94 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Quebt'(i Group conditions of col<l water and iniKidy dcpositH overHpread 

 tlie whole interior of (ho continent. tliiiH blendint;; the oceanic and plateau 

 conditions for a time, and forming (he mitural close of the Quebct- 

 (Iroup, because temporarily obliteratiiig the geographical dis(inc(ion on 

 which it is based. 



III. — LiTTi^K Mktis Bay. 



The author of this jjap/cr has had occasion for many years to spend 

 a portion of the summer at one or other of the health-resorts on tie 

 Lower St. Lawrence, and has latterly preferred Little Metis, as one of the 

 most pleasant in its atmosphere and surroundings. He has there natur- 

 ally endeavoured to familiarize himself with the rocks and fossils ac(!es- 

 sible in walks or short drives and boating excursions, and to devote some 

 time and labour to any locality which seemed unusually ])romising. 



At Little Metis, and indeed along the whole coast between the city of 

 Quebec and Cape Rosier, a stretch of about 350 miles, the shore on the 

 whole follows the strike of the great mass of "sandstones, shales and 

 conglomerates of the (Quebec Group and which are everywhere thrown 

 into sharp anti(dinal and synclinal folds, and often repeated by longi- 

 tudinal faults, while they are also much disturbed by transveree faults 

 and flexures. 



These older rocks are covered in places with the sands and clays of 

 the Pleistocene })criod, locally containing marine shells, and accomjjanied 

 with vast numbers of gneiss boulders from the Laurentian Mountains of 

 the north shore, here about forty miles tiistant, and with occasional, but 

 often very large, blocks of Silurian limestone from the hills to the south- 

 ward. Though masked on the low^er grounds by these superticial deposits, 

 the older rocks ajipear everywhere in the hilly ridges and in the coast 

 clitfs and reefs. 



Little Metis Bay faces the northeast, and its outer boundary consists 

 of a strong gray sandstone forming the Lighthouse Point and extending 

 to the eastward in a long and dangerous I'eef, which it is hoped may, at 

 some future period, form the basis of a harbour of refuge for shipping. 

 Lnmediately to the southwest of the point, the shore recedes rapidly (see 

 ma])), the sea having cut back along the outcrops of dark shaly bands 

 which overlie the atandstone, the whole dipping to the southward. These 

 occupy the northern division of the bay, about half a mile in width. 

 South of this a second reef of sandstone divides the bay, rising into a high 

 bluff, known as Mount Misery. This is divided by a shallow cove, and at 

 its southern extreniity there projects a low point of sandstone and con- 

 glomerate, which seem to extend eastward on a little outlying island 

 and a submerged bank, on which the sea breaks at very low tides, and 

 which connects it with another and higher vAet about two miles distant, 

 culled the Boule Rock. This consists of sandstone and conglomerate 



