SEPTEMBER 22, 1899. ] 
Abraham Gesner, published in the Proceed- 
ings of the Geological Society of London 
for May 10, 1843,* the following paragraph 
occurs : 
“Old Red Sandstone or Devonian group.—Above the 
Silurian beds there occurs in several parts of the 
province, a bright red micaceous sandstone or conglom- 
erate, accompanied by thin beds of red shale and 
marly clay, and in some places containing seams of 
fibrous gypsum. Hitherto no organic remains have 
been found in it. At Advocate Harbor and on the 
Moose River this sandstone is seen lying uncom- 
formably beneath the coal measures. At the lat- 
ter locality the sandstone dips W. 21° and the coal 
measures dip N. N. E. 60°. It is from a joint consid- 
eration of the mineral characters of this formation, and 
its relative position as compared with the coal meas- 
ures, that the author has regarded it as the equiva- 
lent to the old red sandstone.’’ 
This would seem to be the earliest state- 
ment in regard to the occurrence of rocks of 
Devonian age in British North America, 
but Gesner then included in his old red 
sandstone group certain outliers of Car- 
boniferous limestone and possibly Trias, that 
are now known to be associated with rocks 
still held to be Devonian. 
Not quite two years later than this, in a 
paper read before the Geological Society of 
London on January 22, 1845, Sir William 
Dawson says that beyond Cape John the 
newer coal formation ‘“‘seems to overlie, 
unconformably, a series of hard grits, slates 
and limestones, with scales of Holoptychius, 
Encrinites and fragments of bivalve shells, 
and which are probably of newer Silurian 
or Devonian age. The last-mentioned 
rocks, with various kinds of trap, form an 
elevated ridge belonging to the Cobequid 
chain of hills.’ + 
\ Influenced, as he elsewhere tells us, by 
information supplied by Sir Charles Lyell, 
Gesner’s earlier statements as to the De- 
vonian rocks of Nova Scotia were modified 
in his ‘ Industrial Resources of Nova Sco- 
* Vol. IV., Part I., p. 187. 
T Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of Lon- 
don, VollI., p. 235. 
SCIENCE. 
403 
tia,’ published at Halifax in 1849. In this 
volume the paragraph about the Devonian 
rocks is as follows : 
“Old Red Sandstone or Devonian Group.—Above 
the Silurian strata there occur thick beds of conglom- 
erate, bright red and micaceous sandstones, red shale 
and marly clay. At Advocate Harbor, Parrsboro,’ 
Moose River, Horton, Shubenacadie and other places 
these rocks are seen dipping beneath the coal meas- 
ures and gypsiferous red sandstones. The scales of 
fishes and other organic remains found in these de- 
posits are too scanty and imperfect to afford conclu- 
sive evidence of their relative age ; but from a joint 
consideration of them, the mineral character of the 
formation and its position, it may be classed as the 
equivalent of the old red sandstone of Europe or a 
part of the great carboniferous series. The strata 
contains but few minerals of importance.’’ 
The first edition of the ‘Acadian Ge- 
ology,’ by Sir William Dawson, published in 
1855, contains a‘ Tabular View of Rock 
Formations in Nova Scotia,’ in which the 
Devonian is defined as including the “‘ fos- 
siliferous slates of Bear River, Nictaux, New 
Canaan, Pictou, Arisaig, etc., and perhaps 
also parts of the metamorphic rocks of the 
Cobequid and Pictou, hills.”’? In the four- 
teenth chapter of this volume the fossilifer- 
ous slates at Arisaig and the Hast River of 
Pictou are regarded as of Devonian age, on 
the authority of James Hall, but in a sup- 
plementary chapter, dated August, 1860, 
they are referred to the Silurian. Nine 
‘fossils from the Devonian and upper 
Silurian (?) rocks of Nova Scotia’ are fig- 
ured in this volume, but none of these are 
specifically determined and only three are 
Devonian. But, in the supplementary 
chapter, four of the fossils of the Nictaux 
and one of the Bear River series are deter- 
mined specifically. Of the former it is 
stated that Hall ‘‘ compares them with the 
fauna of the Oriskany sandstone, and they 
seem to give indubitable testimony that the 
Nictaux iron ore is of Lower Devonian 
age.”’ A fuller list of fossils from Bear 
River and Nictaux, in which sixteen species 
