

NEWFOUNDLAND. 



379 



Mr. A. Murray, in his report to Logan of what was done during the 

 year 1864, recognizes the Laurentian Series as occurring on the north- 

 ern peninsula of Newfoundland. He gives the following table of the 

 sequence and distribution of the rocks of that region. (L c, p. 8.) 



I. Laurentian Series, „ ^ ^ 



T-T T ci■^ • a • { rotsuam Group. 



11. Lower Silurian Scries. { ^ , ^ ^ 



III. Upper Silurian Series. < ^'"'^'"' ^^°"P- 



IV. Devonian Series. 



After describing the rocks assigned to the Laurentian, which were 

 found to be exclusively of a gneissic character, he adds as follows : 



*' The rocks which have thus been described are considered Laurentian, not 

 merely from the lithological resemblance which they bear to the strata of that 

 series in various parts of Canada, but also from the relation they are seen to 

 have to the Lower Silurian series, which unconformably covers them up in the 



northern part of the peninsula In Canada the Laurentian gneiss is in 



some parts in t erst ratified with enormous bands of crystalline limestone 



None of these bands have been met with among the gneiss of the northern 

 peninsula." (I. c, pp. 10, 11.) 



In the Report upoti the Geological Survey of Newfoundland for the 

 year 1868, Mr, Murray introduces into the series of formations of that 

 island an " Intermediate System," which he supposes to be the " equiv- 

 alent of the Cambrian of England, and the liuronian of Canada." This 

 scrioa he divides into seven distinct groups, admitting, however, that 

 " there are many repetitions of the same strata," and that " a large por- 

 tion of the country is concealed by superficial deposits of gravel and 

 boulders." The total thickness of the strata thus divided is given at 

 11,370 feet, the rocks being, with the exception of the upper portion, 

 chiefly slates, and the reason for this manifold division of the series not 

 being apparent in the description of the same. About the middle of 

 the series, in group c, '* fossil forms, supposed to be of the genus Old- 

 hairiia,^^ were obtained. In group d, also, " some obscure organic 

 remains, rescmbllug the fossils found in c," were found. The order of 

 superposition of these rocks was determined by observations made along 



J 



a section from St. John's to the northern side of Great Bell Isle in 

 Conception Bay. In a note added to the English reprint of the series 

 of Newfoundland geological reports (published by Stanford, in London, 

 in 1881), it is said that the fossil forms "supposed to resemble the 

 Oldhamii of Bray Head *' were pronounced, on examination by Mr.. 

 Billings, the late palaiontologist of the Survey, to be undeterminable. 

 *' He doubted their organic origin altogether,*' {L c, p. 144.) 



