192 A POPULAR EXPOSITION OF THE 
Fig. 161. Fig. 162. 
Conocephalites Zenkeri (Billings). Bathyurus Saffordi (Billings). 
more especially in the Island of Orleans, near Quebec, and in the 
district around Point Levis opposite the city. As they extend south- 
wards from the St. Lawrence, both into the Eastern townships and 
into central Gaspé, and the intervening district, they become greatly 
altered by metamorphic agencies. The fossils are obliterated; and 
the shales and other strata are changed into gneissoid, talcose, chloritic, 
and epidotic schists ; and also into tissile slates, serpentines, crystal- 
line marbles, and other analogous rocks. Some of these hold large 
amounts of copper ore, chromic iron, magnetic and red iron ores, 
galena, &c.; and the sands and alluvial sediments, derived from their 
disintegration, contain native gold. (See the descriptions of these 
minerals in Part II). The unaltered or fossiliferous strata of this 
Series present also an abnormal character, in being forced by a great 
dislocation and uplift into a position apparently higher than that occu- 
pied by the Trenton and other strata of really newer formation. This 
dislocation or great fault appears to be one of a connected series 
extending along the whole line of the Appalachian Mountains from — 
Alabama to Eastern Canada. The immediate fracture along the line 
of which the Quebec Formation has been lifted up, is traced from the 
Vicinity of Lake Champlain to a point just above Quebec, and from 
thence through the north part of the Island of Orleans, and along 
the Gulf of the St. Lawrence into the coast of Gaspé. The strata to 
the south and east of this dislocation are much disturbed, and in- 
clined at high angles, even where they remain (as on the edge of the 
disturbed region) free from metamorphic or chemical alteration. 
Many of the rocks, both altered and unaltered, of this region, contain 
irregular fissures partia'ly filled or lined with a peculiar anthracitic 
substance usually regarded as an altered bitumen. It is black, more 
or less lustrous, and usually very brittle. Sometimes (as also in more 
recent strata) it fills cavities in fossil corals and shells. It occurs 
more especially around Quebec, in the Island of Orleans, at Point 
Lévis, and in the townships of Acton, Grantham, St. Flavien, &c. It 
