126 



Newfoundland,— This vev J ancient Briti^R colony, viewed until 

 recently as a mere fishing station; but now rising rapidly into iiii- 

 portance through its internal sources, has recently undergone a 

 geological survey by one of our members, which demands notice in 

 this portion of my Address, because the author, Mr. Jukes, is of 

 opinion, that this island contains no strata of younger age than the 

 Carboniferous. The eastern parts are, it appears, composed of 

 very thick deposits of slaty rocks, sandstones and conglomerates, 

 which are divided into upper and lower masses. They are pene- 

 trated by different igneous rocks traced from north-north-east to 

 south-south-west in a number of anticlinal and synclinal lines. Great 

 masses of the central tract are usurped by granite and various 

 igneous with metamorphic rocks, which are followed on the west by 

 a band of gneiss and mica schist with crystalline limestone*. To what 

 epochs any of the slaty rocks belong, has not been determined, as no 

 organic remains have been found in them, bat on the western shores, 

 this ancient and crystallized series is overlapped by red sandstone, 

 shale, gypsum, beds of coal subordinate to shale, marl, yellow sand- 

 stone and grit. I here quote the ascending order which Mr. Jukes 

 assigns to the strata ; but as he admits he never coidd observe con- 

 secutive sections, is it not possible that the great gypsiferous beds 

 of Newfoundland may occupy the same place in relation to the coal- 

 fields as in the opposite shores of Nova Scotia, and like them re- 

 present the Permian deposits ? In fact, Mr. Jukes candidly states, 

 that the gypsiferous, red and inferior portion of the coal formation 

 (as he classes it) is so similar to the New Red Sandstone of En- 

 gland, that he was at first sight tempted to give it that name. Now 

 as these rocks are seen in one section only beneath the coal, the fol- 

 lowing hypothesis may be adopted : that the coal in question is not a 

 portion of the great old coal foi'mation, but of the same age as the 

 coal in the Permian rocks of Russia, and that the strata have been 

 inverted where our author examined them, a phaenomenon easily 

 understood in a region so highly metamorphosed as Newfoundland, 

 and where rocks of the age of the Magnesian Limestone may have 

 been locally placed beneath true carboniferous strata. It would be 

 wrong, however, to attempt more than mere suggestions from any 

 evidence which has yet been brought before us, since Mr. Jukes 

 has found no traces of organic remains even in these uppermost de- 

 posits of Newfoundland. In truth, our associate has evidently had 

 to grapple with some of the most ambiguous rock-masses of North 

 America, in a country obscured by moss and vegetation, as yet 



who is of opinion, that they hear a most striking analogy to those of the 

 Magnesian Limestone of England. It is satisfactory, therefore, to know 

 that the beds containing the footmarks are proved to be of the same age 

 with the gypsifei'ous rocks bj?^ the presence of the same group of fossils. 

 Mr. Logan alludes to plants which I have not seen, and thp exact com- 

 parison of these and others collected by Mr. Lyell with Permian types is 

 still very desirable. — April 1st, 1843. 



* See also some very interesting observations on the structure of New- 

 foundland in Sir R. Bonnycastle's 'Newfoundland in 1842,' vol. i. p. 179. 



