GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 515 



portant — so far, at least, as regards our knowledge of the organizatiou-characters 

 of these extinct types. For this reason, -we have ventured to allude to them in the 

 present note. 



GEOLOGY OF GA8PE. 



We cull the following extracts from a very interesting paper by Professor Daw- 

 son, of MeGill College, Montreal. It is published in the October number of the 

 Canadian Naturalht, and entitled, " A "Week in Gaspe :" 



" The peninsula of Gaspe, the land's-end of Canada toward the east, presents 

 ■within itself an epitome of several of the leading geological formations of the Pro- 

 vince; and, here as elsewhere, these impress with their own characters the surface 

 and its capabilities. On that side which fronts the river St. Lawrence, it consists 

 of an enormous thickness of shales and limestones, belonging to the upper part of 

 the lower silurian series, and the lower part of the upper silurian. These beds, 

 tilted in such a manner that they present their up-turned edges to the sea, and dip 

 inland, form long ranges of beetling cliffs running down to a narrow strip of beach, 

 and affoi'ding no resting-place even for the fishermen, except where they have been 

 cut down by streams, and present little caves and bays opening back into deep 

 glens affording a view of great rolling wooded ridges that stand rank after rank 



behind the steep sea-c!iff, though, no doubt, with many fine valleys between 



Resting on the Upper Silurian beds that form Cape Gaspe, and, of course, newer in 

 geological time, is a series of grey, red, and broAvn sandstones and shales. These 

 rocks belong to the Devonian system, the equivalent of the older part of the Old 

 Red Sandstone of Scotland, and probably of the Hamilton and Upper Helderburg 

 groups of Ifew-York. Doubled into a trough along the south side of Cape Gaspe, 

 they form a low country in which Gaspe Bay stretches far inland, afifording a noble 

 harbour for shipping Southward of Gaspe Bay, the Devonian rocks are cap- 

 ped by a great mass of conglomerate, belonging to the Lower Carboniferous series, 

 and made up of pebbles of all the rocks from the old Laurentian of the North 

 Shore, to the Devonian. It is this bed which gives its picturesque character to the 

 scenery of Perce, and which running onward with a shght dip to the southward, 

 underlies the coal-formation of JSTew-Brunswick." 



The following observations, from the same jjaper, are also of much interest Iq 

 their geological bearings. After some remarks on the different species of whales 

 taken in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, Professor Dawson continues : " On the long^ 

 sand point that, stretching far into the bay, shelters the harbour, I observed an ap- 

 pearance new to me, and of some geological interest. Shoals of the Americaa 

 Sand Launce ( Ammodytes Americanus) a little fish three or four inches in length 

 had entered the Bay, and either seeking a place for spawning or sheltering them- 

 selves from their numerous enemies, had run into tlie shallow water near the 

 point, and, according to their usual habit, had in part buried themselves in the 

 sand which they had thrown up by means of their long pectoral fins. In this si- 

 tuation, countless multitudes had died or been thrown on shore by the surf, and the 

 crows were fattening on them, and the fishermen collecting them in barrels for 

 bait. Acres of them still remained whitening the bottom of the shallow water with 

 their bodies. It was impossible not to be reminded by such a spectacle of the beds 



