648 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1140 



a small element closely akin to the Bichmond- 

 ian of Anticosti Island. It is probable, bow- 

 ever, that for a brief time open waterways af- 

 forded migration by way of some northern 

 passage from Anticosti as far west as Mani- 

 toulin Island in Georgian Bay, for a small 

 contingent in the Bichmond fauna of the 

 western basin seems to have been recruited 

 from the St. Lawrence gulf. 



OIL AND GAS FIELDS 



Brief descriptions of the Paleozoic strata 

 of southern Ontario and Quebec are included 

 in a treatise upon the oil and gas fields of 

 these provinces by Wyatt Malcolm. 7 All 

 available drill records together with statistics 

 of production are assembled and the occur- 

 rence of oil and gas with relation to rock 

 structure is discussed. The oil production has 

 steadily declined in recent years, but gas pro- 

 duction has been rapidly increasing and the 

 fields have been widely extended. Oil or gas, 

 or both, have been found in the Onondaga, 

 Salina, Guelph, Clinton, and Medina forma- 

 tions. The prospects for new fields are not 

 very encouraging. 



Similar summary descriptions of Paleozoic 

 strata and the logs of wells drilled for oil and 

 gas in Ontario are assembled by 0. W. 

 Knight 8 in the current report of the Ontario 

 Bureau of Mines. 



DEVONIAN FORMATIONS AND FAUNAS 



In general, the introduction of a new fauna 

 or faunal facies is of more importance in de- 

 lineating stratigraphic boundaries than is the 

 persistence of an old biota. Applying this 

 principle to the basal Devonian strata in On- 

 tario, it becomes necessary to place the De- 

 troit Biver series in the Devonian rather than 

 in the Silurian system. The evidence for this 

 conclusion is presented by C. B. Stauffer in a 

 paper 9 which may be considered as a post- 



t ' ' The Oil and Gas Fields of Ontario and Que- 

 bec," Wyatt Malcolm, Geological Survey, Canada, 

 Memoir 81, 1915. 



8 " Oil and Gas in Ontario, " C. W. Knight, On- 

 tario Bureau Mines, 24th Ann. Kept., Pt. 2, 1915. 



» Bull. Geol. Soc. America, Vol. 27, 1916, pp. 72- 

 77. 



script to the same author's memoir on the 

 Devonian of Ontario. 10 The Detroit Biver, or 

 Upper Monroe, series comprises four forma- 

 tions : the Lucas and Amherstburg dolomites, 

 the Anderdon limestone, and the Flat Bock 

 dolomite, named in descending order. The 

 Amherstburg fauna is typically Devonian with 

 strong Onondaga affinities, but the Lucas dol- 

 omite contains a large proportion of residual 

 Silurian forms, many of which display little 

 or no recognizable variation from their pre- 

 Devonian ancestors. The erosion interval be- 

 tween the deposition of the Detroit Biver 

 series and the overlying Onondaga limestone 

 was a long one, so that the former is prob- 

 ably to be referred to the Helderbergian. 

 The faunas are, however, so distinctive that 

 they must have existed in an embayment, pre- 

 sumably from the north or northwest, which 

 was altogether isolated from that of New 

 York and adjacent states toward the east and 

 south. 



The Gaspe peninsula in Quebec rivals Anti- 

 costi Island in the significance of its record 

 of mid-Paleozoic times. Not the least inter- 

 esting of its sections is that of the escarp- 

 ment of the Table-A-Bolante at Perce, which 

 extends northwestward and southeastward 

 from the Pic d'Aurore. John M. Clarke's de- 

 scription 11 of this exposure is artistically il- 

 lustrated by a colored reproduction of the 

 brilliant cliffs which overhang the Mal-Baie. 

 The summit of the cliffs consists of horizontal 

 strata of Bonaventure conglomerate, a typical 

 " Old Bed " sandstone of later Devonian, and 

 possibly in part Mississippian, age. Uncon- 

 formably underlying that formation are the 

 Perce limestone and the Pic d'Aurore series. 

 In the midst of the latter is a sandstone band 

 carrying the typical sand fauna of the New 

 York Oriskany. Faulted up at the east is a 

 block of Barre limestone, of earliest Devonian 

 age. Beneath the Devonian strata are 

 highly contorted Silurian and Ordovician 

 sediments. The shoal water Oriskany sands 

 form a striking contrast to the lower portion 



io Geol. Surv., Canada, Memoir 34, 1915. 

 uN. Y. State Museum, Bull. 177, 1915, pp. 

 147-153. 



