fiMw.soN] FOBSIL SPONGES AND OTHEK ORGANIC REMAINS 07 



ut tho time of tho Quebec Group. Thus, though the con^lomoriite over- 

 lies and is newer than the shales holding sponi^oa, the limestone boulders 

 ccntaiiu'd in it are of much jrreater ai^e. It has loui"' been well known 

 that similar appearancoH occur in nearly all the limestone coniflomerates 

 of the '^lichee (rroup, and ut tii-sl they led to serious diHiculties as to the 

 a^re of the fornuition. Sometimes they are very deceptive. I have seen 

 in the coni,domera<<i at St. Simon a slab of limestone, eiij^ht feet in length, 

 which min'lil readily, in a limited exposure, be niislakcn for a bed in 

 place, but which is really a Lower Cambrian boulder contairiin<>' nume'- 

 ous fra,u;mentH of Olenellus and other aiu'ient Trilobites, and several 

 species of Ilyoiithes. , , 



These ifrcat and irrei^ular beds of coniflomerate would appear to indi- 

 cate ice-action in the Lower Paiu-ozoic sea, and it would seem that the 

 boulders must have been denuded from reets of older Cambrian rocks 

 now mostly covered uj) or removed by denuflation, while, unlike the 

 condition of tbinys at th(! time of the Pleistocene drift, no Laurentian 

 nuiteriai seems to have been accessible. 



Up to 1887 the beds in Little Metis Bay had been very unproductive 

 of fossils. They had attorded to the late Mr. Richardson the little Lin- 

 iiorfiHtnid iircfin.'iii, iind I had found in the sand.stonos of Mount Misery 

 and the Lij^htb Point a few fruf-ments of a lictiolitoi, apparently 



E. emiformis o. ' .ind in the shales near the .Lighthouse Point abun- 



dance of worm trulls, porae of the type of that described by the Swedish 

 ,ifeolo,u;i8ts as Amiicolitcs sjiirafis. In so far as these fossils alforded 

 inlormation, they tended to refer the whole series to tho lower part of 

 the Quebec Group, and, as it seemed to be an ascendino- one to the south- 

 west, the impression conveyed to me was that tb 3 black shales near the 

 upper part uiigbt belon<j; to the base of the Le^is series. As already 

 stated, however, the new facts ascertained respectim.- the position and 

 fossils of the Sillery series now tend to the conclusion that the whole 

 belongs to this lower membei-. 



For detailed sections of the productive sponge-beds I may refer to 

 my paper of 1889, merely remarking here that in a i)and of shale, with a 

 few thin layers of dolomite, the whole more than 100 feet in thickness, 

 only three or four layers, each from one to three inches in thickness, 

 have been productive of fossils. 



IV. — General Remarks on the Fossil Sponges. 



The discovery of fossil sponges at Little Metis Bay was made by 

 Dr. B. J. Harrington, F.G.S., in 1887, hi examining loose pieces of black 

 shale washed ui> on the beach. On searching for the.se shales in situ, 

 they were Ibund in low rcofs on the shore at about half-tide level, and 

 diligent search disclosed the fact that in a few thin bands of shale sponge 

 remains were abundant, though from the extreme delicacy of their spicu- 



