406 
wrote his work on the Pre-Carboniferous 
Flora very much has been done in Europe 
to work out the zones of the Coal Measure 
Flora, and careful and accurate figures 
have been published which did not exist at 
the time he was carrying out his investiga- 
tions.” ‘A thorough revision of the work, 
especially in the light of subsequent collec- 
tions and possible discovery of more per- 
fectly preserved specimens, seems most de- 
sirable, and also that a better series of 
figures be published.”’ 
As complete a collection as possible of the 
fish remains of the Horton and Riversdale 
series of Nova Scotia was sent to Mr. A. 
Smith Woodward, in January, 1899, for 
examination and study, but no report upon 
these specimens has yet been received. 
The Devono-Carboniferous problem in 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick is far too 
complicated a question to be discussed at 
any length in an address of this kind. At 
present, however, it is obvious that there is 
some discrepancy between the views of the 
two geologists on the Canadian Survey 
staff, who have studied the question from a 
stratigraphical and lithological point of 
view, and those of the paleontologists whose 
names have been cited in this connection, 
as to the age of the Horton and Riversdale 
series of Nova Scotia, and of the plant-bear- 
ing beds near St. John, New Brunswick. 
New Brunswick.—It would appear that 
Devonian rocks, or at any rate rocks that 
have for many years been regarded as of 
Devonian age, were not recognized in New 
Brunswick until 1861. For, although Dr. 
Gesner made extensive geological explora- 
tions in the province last named, from 1838 
to 1843, the strata that he refers to the old 
red sandstone, in his first report on a geo- 
logical survey thereof, published in 1889, 
and in a short paragraph in chapter eleven 
of his volume on New Brunswick, published 
in 1847, are now regarded as of Carbonifer- 
ous age. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. X. No. 247. 
The occurrence of fossil plants in rocks 
near St. John was noticed by Dr. Gesner as 
early as in his second report on the Geology 
of New Brunswick, published in 1840, and 
Sir William Dawson states that a well- 
characterized specimen from these rocks, 
which he subsequently identified with the 
Calamites transitionis of Goeppert, was shown 
to him by the late Professor Robb in 1857.* 
In 1860 a small collection of fossil plants 
from the shales at the foot of the city of St. 
John, near the barracks, recently made by 
Dr. G. F. Matthew, was submitted to Sir 
William Dawson for examination. On the 
evidence of their fossil plants these rocks at 
St. John were referred to the Devonian sys- 
tem by Sir William, in a paper ‘ On the Pre- 
Carboniferous Flora of New Brunswick, 
Maine and Eastern Canada,’ published in 
the Canadian Naturalist and Geologist for 
June, 1861. Seven species are recognized in 
this collection, six of which are described 
as new. Professor L. W. Bailey, in his Re- 
port on the Geology of Southern New Bruns- 
wick, says that ‘‘the same author in June, 
1861, after an examination of certain fossils 
in eastern Maine, asserted the Devonian age 
of the rocks containing them, and also of 
the sandstones constituting the peninsula of 
St. Andrews, which they closely resem- 
ble.” 
Immediately after this, rocks containing 
similar fossils, and presumably, therefore, 
of Devonian age, were recognized at other 
localities in the neighborhood of St. John, 
or in St. John county, as at the Little and 
Mispec rivers, and more particularly at the 
Fern Ledges, in Lancaster parish. From 
the latter locality extensive collections or 
fossils were made by Dr. Matthew, Professor 
Hartt and other local collectors in 1861, 
1862 and 1863, and more recently by Mr. 
W. J. Wilson and Dr. Matthew. The lux- 
uriant and singularly varied fossil flora of 
the Fern Ledges has been described by 
* Acadian Geology, Second Edition, p. 502. 
