354 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1904. 



with Murchison's Silurian, into upper and lower members, of which 

 the upper contained a fossil mollusk which he identified as a terebrat- 

 ulite, and which Dr. G. F. Matthew" thinks to have been probably 

 a soniewhat poorly preserved Orthis billingsi. He also reported 

 the finding of remains of conifers, calamites, and a cactus (?), the last 

 being- regarded by Matthew as some form imitative of a stigmaria. 

 Though the full significance of these fossil remains was not appre- 

 ciated by Gesner, yet he must be regarded as a pioneer in making 

 known the flora of both the Cambrian and Carboniferous beds in New 

 Brunswick. 



In his fourth report he classed this graywacke with Sedgwick's 

 Cambrian. About this time (1842) he seems to have become acquainted 

 with Agassiz's glacial theories and referred to the expressed opinions 

 of Lyell and Buckland with reference thereto, but thought that "the 

 general occurrence of diluvial grooves and scratches upon the sur- 

 faces of the rocks * * * can not in general be explained unless 

 by admitting that a great current of water has passed over the coun- 

 try from the north toward the south," though "it appears that ancient 

 glaciers have had a powerful influence in the accumulation of those 

 parallel mounds of erratic sand and gravel observed in different parts 

 of these provinces, and likewise the} r may have been the means whereby 

 bowlders of granite and other rocks have been scattered over the 

 country." 



In this, his fifth report, he gave a general description of the coal 

 fields of the province, which he estimated as embracing an area of 

 8,700 square miles, or nearly one-third the entire area of New r Bruns- 

 wick, making it one of the largest in the world. Through the influ- 

 ence of these reports a great deal of interest was excited in the public 

 mind concerning the mineral wealth of the province. A large number 

 of mining adventures were undertaken with the expectation of imme- 

 diate and favorable returns. Few of these were, however, successful, 

 and the reaction in public feeling tended to throw discredit on Ges- 

 ner's work and probably was influential in terminating his engage- 

 ment, the survey being brought to an abrupt conclusion in 1848. 



The problem of the Tertiary deposits of the southern Atlantic 

 States, which up to date had been touched upon in a scientific manner 

 only by Finch, Morton, Vanuxem, and Lea, was again, in 1839, 

 taken up by T. A. Conrad. In the journal of the 

 on the Tertiary, Philadelphia Academy of Sciences for this year Con- 

 rad described the Tertiary of Maryland as occupying 

 all the tract south of an irregular line running from the vicinity of 

 Baltimore to Washington, the Potomac being the western and the 

 Chesapeake the eastern boundary. The deposit in the vicinity of Fort 



a Bulletin 15, Natural History Society of New Brunswick, 1897. 



