‘434 
represented by about 100 feet of red and 
other shales, from which no fossils have 
yet been collected. In any case they are 
of special interest as showing certain well 
marked and not altogether unexpected 
points of resemblance to those of the English 
and European Devonian. For, the upper 
half of the Manitoba Middle Devonian, or 
Winnipegosan formation of Mr. Tyrrell; 
consists of a tough white dolomitic lime- 
stone holding numerous examples of a large 
Stringocephalus which is apparently identica 
with the S. Burtini of Defrance and other 
European authors. Moreover, it is here 
associated with many fine specimens of 
Spherospongia tesselata, Phillips, and with 
fossils that cannot at present be distin- 
guished from the following well-known 
European species : 
Cladopora cervicornis (De| Paracyclas antiqua (Gold” 
Blainville). fuss). 
Spirorbis omphalodes, Gold-| Murchisonia turbinata, 
fuss. Schlotheim. 
Productella productoides| Euomphalus annulatus, 
(Murchison). Phillips. 
Stropheodonta interstrialis | Loxonema priscum, Mun- 
(Phillips). ster. 
Atrypa reticularis, L. Macrochilina subcostata 
Atrypa aspera, Schlotheim. (Schlotheim ). 
Pugnax pugnus (Martin). 
The Stringocephalus limestone of Mani- 
toba would seem to occupy much the same 
stratigraphical position as that of Devon- 
shire, Rhenish Prussia and Belgium, and 
its fossils show that it is probably their 
homotaxial equivalent. 
Immediately above the Stringocephalus 
zone in Manitoba there are beds which 
may possibly represent the Cuboides zone, 
although Rhynchonella, or, as it is now 
called, Hypothyris cuboides, has not yet been 
found in them. The prevalent fossils in 
these beds are Cyathophyllum dianthus and 
C. vermiculare, var. precursor (teste Frech); 
Chonetes Logani var. Aurora, Productella sub- 
aculeata, Orthis striatula, Stropheodonta arcu- 
ata, and Cyrtina Hamiltonensis, which the 
Rev. G. F. Whidborne has recently asserted 
is the same as the European C. heteroclita. 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Von. X. No. 248. 
Regarding the fossils of the Manitoba 
Devonian as a whole, it is to be noted that 
it is not the corals, nor the polyzoa (or 
bryozoa), nor the brachiopoda that have as 
yet yielded the largest number of species 
(as they have in Ontario), but the gastero- 
poda and pelecypoda. 
From the northern end of Lake Winni- 
pegosis the Devonian rocks extend into the 
immediately adjacent district of Saskatche- 
wan. 
It has long been known that the eastern 
ranges of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta 
are mainly composed of Carboniferous or 
Devonian, or perhaps of Carboniferous and 
Devonian, limestones and shales. These 
rocks were examined in 1858 and 1859 by 
Sir James Hector, who writes as follows in 
regard to them : 
“These limestones are of dark and light blue 
colour, crystalline, compact or cherty, with fossils 
that are either of Carboniferous or Devonian age, the 
principal of which are Spirifer, Orthis, Chonetes, Conu- 
laria, Lonsdalia, Cyathophyllum, Lithostrotion, ete.”’ 
* * * “ Along with them are softer beds of gritty, 
sandy shale, generally of a dull red or purple 
colour.’’? * * * ‘Tn the second range we have the 
same limestones and shales repeated as in the first, 
but at the base I observed traces of a magnesian 
limestone of a buff colour, containing Atrypa reticu- 
laris, a true Devonian fossil.”’+ * * * “On the 
Kicking Horse River, in the third range, we have the 
mountains again formed of blue limestone, along 
with a compact blue schist with red bands, giving a 
curious striped aspect to the rocks.’’ ¢ 
In reference to these remarks, Dr. G. 
M. Dawson, who made a geological exami- 
nation of the South Kootanie Pass and its 
vicinity, in 1874, adds the following com- 
ments : 
“Dr. Hector is not very clear as to the separation 
of the supposed Devonian and Carboniferous lime- 
stones, and they may indeed very probably belong to 
* Palliser’s Explorations in British North America, 
1863, p. 239. 
t Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of 
London, Vol. XVII., 1861, p. 443. 
t Palliser’s Explorations in British North America, 
p. 239. 
e 
