AMERICAN GEOLOGY DECADE OF 1870-1879. 577 



and herbaceous matter as might be embedded or submerged before 

 decay had time to take place. 



He referred again to the observations and conclusions made by him 

 in connection with his Joggins work several years previous, to the 

 effect that the layers of clear, shining coal (pitch or cherry coal) are 

 composed of flattened trunks of trees, and that of these usuall} T the 

 bark alone remains, the lamination of the coal being due to the super- 

 position of la} T ers of such flattened trunks alternating with the accu- 

 mulations of vegetable matter of successive years, and occasionally 

 with tine vegetable muck or mud spread over the surface by rains or 

 by inundations. 



The stigmaria found in the clay underlying nearly every bed of coal 

 he felt proved beyond question the accumulation of the coal-forming 

 materials through growth in situ, following in this respect the teach- 

 ing of Logan. The under or tire clay was thus looked upon as a fossil 

 soil robbed of its alkali and lime through growths of terrestrial 

 vegetation. 



The rocks of the Arisaig series, which in 1855 he regarded as Silu- 

 rian (Devonian ?), in the edition of 1868 he says "must be regarded as 

 representing the middle and upper parts of the Upper Silurian, a 

 position somewhat lower than that assigned to it in the first edition." 



The provincial predictions of Dawson in this work are somewhat 

 amusing. Thus, on page 4: 



Further, since by those unchanging laws of geological structure and geographical 

 position which the Creator himself has established, this region must always, notwith- 

 standing any artificial arrangements that man may make, remain distinct from Can- 

 ada mi the one hand and New England on the other, the name Acadia must live; 

 and I venture to predict that it will yet figure honorably in the history of this west- 

 ern world. The resources of the Acadian provinces must necessarily render them 

 more wealthy and populous than any area of the same extent on the Atlantic coast 

 from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of Mexico, or in the St. Lawrence Valley from 

 the sea to the head of the Great Lakes. Their maritime and mineral resources con- 

 stitute them the (Jreat Britain of eastern America, and though merely agricultural 

 capabilities may give some inland and more southern regions a temporary advantage, 

 Acadia will in the end assert its natural preeminence. 



Dawson was a Nova Scotian by birth, having first seen the light of 

 day at Pictou in 1820. He was educated at Pictou Academy and sub- 

 sequently at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he came 



under the influence of Jamieson, Forbes, Balfour, and 

 sketch of Dawson. Alexander Rose. In 1817 he returned to Nova Scotia, 



and in 1855 assumed the principalship and chair of 

 natural history in McGill University, Montreal, at the head of which 

 institution he remained until 1893, when he was forced by ill health to 

 resign. His first original paper, as has been noted, was on a species of 

 field mouse found in Nova Scotia, and was read before the Wernerian 

 Society of Edinburgh. From so insignificant a beginning he developed 



NAT MITS 1904 37 



