NEW BRUNSWICK. 371 



prcsslj states that there is no proof of uncouformability,* and also that 

 the deposits of the St. John group 



" present a marked contrast with those of the formation on which they rest 

 [Colilbrook Group]. Coarse fragmeutal beds and volcaiuc products are com- 

 mon in the latter ; but among the foruier no conglomerate or even a grit has 

 been detected, or any evidence of synchronic igneous action." (Quar. Jour. 

 Geol. Soc, 1865, XXI. p. 427.) 



It is also stated in the Observations on the Geology of Southern New 

 Brunswick (1865, p. 4G), that 



" between the rocks above alluded to as constituting the upper member of the 

 Coldbrook Group, and the deposits which underlie the City of Saint John, the 

 contrast is very marked. While in the former, beds of coarse materials are 

 almost universal, the Saint John Group is, without exception, a collection of 

 the finer sediments. Throughout the limits of its distribution, not one con- 

 glomerate or even a grit has been yet observed ; while the sandstones which 

 occur interstratified with the slates, are usually of a fine and even texture." 



If there were no conglomerates, or even grits, known in 1865 in the 

 St. John group, and the two formations were conformable, how could 

 Mr. Matthew, in the same paper in which these facts are stated, have 

 referred the Coldbrook group to the Huroniau, because it was nncou- 

 formably overlain by the St. John group, and held fragments of the 

 Coldbrook group in its conglomerates 1 The fact is, that Mr. Matthew, 

 at that time, assigned the Coldbrook group to the Huronian, on ac- 

 count of its lithological characters, and because it imderlaid conform- 

 ably the St. John group. In fact Dr. Hunt himself was not aware 

 of any such uncouformability of the rocks in question, since he thus 

 expressed himself in 1866, referring to the Lower Silm-ian : — 



" The lowest member of the series as yet known, is a group of 3000 feet of 

 black shales and sandstones, which at St. Johns, New Brunswick, is found 

 resting conformably upon still older schistose rocks, as yet unstudied. This, 

 which has been provisionally called the St. Johns group, has yielded numerous 

 fossils, which have been examined by Mr. Hartt, and show the formation to 

 correspond with the third division (Etage C) of the primordi;d zone." (Geol. 

 of Canada, 1866, pp. 235, 236.) 



Lithological evidence, so far as we can find, is all that is offered in 

 support of the statement that the Bloomsbury group is " a repetition of 

 the Coldbrook group on the opposite side of a closely folded synclinal 

 holding Lower Cambrian sediments." The synclmal, the re2Mition, the 

 faults and overturns, appear to be purely theoretical, and introduced to 

 obtain conformity with that which the lithological characters seemed to 

 * See Dawson's Acadian Geology, edition of 1868, pp. 660, 662. 



