JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 49 
other was gradual, in much the same manner as the Barton succeed- 
ed the chert in the vicinity of Hamilton. Slow subsidence of the 
sea-bed may have taken place. The difference in the chemical com- 
position of the respective rocks may admit of a more satisfactory 
explanation than the writer cares to offer. 
On looking over the organic remains, you may observe that 
although the Guelph fossils in the Museum belong to several families, 
as a general rule they are poorly preserved and frequently present 
moulds merely of the shells, etc., which disappeared. Stromatopora 
and Murchisonia are common fossils in both series. Some are iden- 
tical in the Barton beds also, as in specimens of the yellow Czxystaddine 
dolomites of the Guelph formation, you notice similar hollows once 
occupied by dead representatives. The Pleurotomaria, which the 
writer submitted for the inspection of the Geological Section at our 
last meeting, viz., Pleurotomaria Solaroides, Hall, was obtained from 
a quarry in the Barton Niagaras, abandoned several yearsago. ‘The 
fossil is not uncommon, remarks the late Professor Nicholson, in the 
Guelph formation of Hespeler, Guelph and Elora. 
The late paleontologist of the Dominion Survey, E. Billings, 
named a coral he found in the Guelph formation Amplexus laxatus. 
Nicholson states these limestones at Hespeler and Elora contain an 
abundance of a species of coral. Some specimens have the form of 
detached cylindrical tubes, irregular in thickness, varying in diameter. 
The marginal Septa in the form of strong longitudinal ridges and 
hollow tubes, as described, are also found in the Bartons, that I 
recognized as representing a species of Amp/exus. On reference to 
a work I received from the Survey Office, Ottawa, I found the so- 
named coral! figured so accurately by Professor Whiteaves’ assistant 
(Foorde), that little difficulty was experienced in recognizing it as 
the one he claimed as coming under the head Monticuliporide. 
Having already, in a former paper, said that among palzeontol- 
ogists there is much difference of opinion regarding the true classifi- 
cation of many organic remains, let me remind you of a remark 
of one of the greatest palzeontologists the United States gave to this 
Dominion, and whose scientific investigations attracted world-wide 
attention to Canada. ‘“‘ Many Palzeozoic fossils appear to unite in 
themselves two distinct families seemingly.” He here, perhaps, antici- 
