Revieics — G. F. Matthew — The Etcheminian Fauna. 87 



stated that the entire group is made up of a conformable series of red 

 sandstones, conglomerates, and mai'ls with cornstones. Of these, 

 three divisions have been traced out and coloured on the map. 

 Remains of Pteraspis and Cephalaspis occur in the lowermost division. 



The Lower Carboniferous rocks rest conformably on the Old Red 

 Sandstone, but they differ from equivalent beds in the Mendip area, 

 inasmuch as the mass of " Lower Limestone Shales " there, is repre- 

 sented in the neighbourhood of Newport by a lower bed of brown, 

 often oolitic, encrinital limestone 50 to 100 feet thick, surmounted 

 by from 40 to 90 feet of shale. Above is the main mass of Carboni- 

 ferous Limestone, which in the area now described varies from 150 

 to 700 feet. No particular attention appears to have been given to 

 the fossils of these rocks, and we can hardly wonder that this has 

 been the case. Fossils are not readily to be obtained from the 

 Carboniferous Limestone of Monmouthshire, and the field-geologist 

 can scarcely give the weeks of labour to quarries and other exposures 

 of rock, without which collecting would be of little value. 



No distinct division of " Upper Limestone Shales" is recognized. 

 The strata immediately above the Carboniferous Limestone are 

 grouped as Millstone Grit, and they comprise not only the 

 characteristic hard grit with quartz pebbles, but considerable 

 masses of shales. The details relating to the Coal-measures 

 naturally form the most important features in this Memoir, judged 

 from an economic point of view. A study of the various faults and 

 dislocations is most important, and these will be best understood 

 when the map is placed alongside the memoir. Descriptions ai'e 

 given of the Keuper Marls, the Rheetic Beds, and the Lower Lias 

 which are exposed near Newport, in quarries and cuttings at Lis- 

 Werry and at Goldclifif on the Severn shore. Various Glacial drifts, 

 River gravels, and other Alluvial deposits are also described. 



IX. — Preliminary Notice of the Etcheminian Fauna of Cape 

 Breton. By G. F. Matthew, LL.D., etc. Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. 

 New Brunswick, vol. iv, pp. 198-208, pis. i-iv. December, 1899. 

 rpHE fossils described in this article were collected from a terrane 

 X beneath the Cambrian in Cape Breton Island, in the province 

 of Nova Scotia, Canada. The sections given prove that this terrane 

 is beneath the Cambrian, which overlies it unconformably. Thej'^ 

 show no ' Lower Cambrian,' as the faunas of Paradoxtdes and 

 Protolemis are absent, or, at least, have not been recognized. The 

 beds are therefore assigned by Dr. Matthew to the same level as the 

 beds of similar appearance and position in New Brunswick and 

 Newfoundland (see Geological Magazine, Dec. IV, Vol. VI, pp. 373 

 and 472, August and October, 1899 ; see also next notice). The 

 Pre-Cambrian life-period thus revealed has been named Etcheminian 

 by its discoverer. It was a period characterized in this region by 

 much volcanic activity, and by rather humble forms of life : worms 

 in abundance, primitive brachiopods, Capulidge but few other 

 molluscs, some ostracods but no trilobites. None the less, still 

 a long way from the beginning of things. 



The fauna in the Cape Breton Etcheminiaa is quite different from 



