6o JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



OPENING ADDRESS. 



Read before the Geological Section, November 2nd, iSg4. 

 BY COL. C. C. GRANT. 



A good many new Graptolites have been obtained since the 

 stone crusher has been at work in the corporation quarry here ; 

 several were forwarded, by request, to the Geological Survey Office, 

 Ottawa, and a still greater number to the United States Survey, the 

 authorities at Washington's intention being to publish a work on this 

 class of organic remains. In a paper read to this section on, a former 

 occasion, I stated that there were about 76 in our local rocks 

 undescribed by Dr. Spencer. I have now come to the conclusion 

 that I then underestimated the number. This opinion I communi- 

 cated to Dr. R. R. Gurley, F. C. S. A., of Washington, a leading 

 authority on the graptolites, who has been selected to describe the 

 Niagara ones. In many instances I succeeded in obtaining the 

 Radix, or initial point, a circumstance of much importance. 



Strange to say, the reticulated species, Dictyonemce (Hall) are 

 furnished, with bases widely differing — the cup-shaped — with a short 

 Stalklike process not unlike the shortened stem of a wine glass. 

 It was probably buried in muddy sediment, and does not appear 

 to have been attached to other objects, indeed, none of the graptolites 

 here were obtained presenting this appearance, except in a few in- 

 stances only. 



The Dictyonemce generally had spreading rootlets, Inocaules 

 (Hall) and Rhizograptus (Spencer), bulbous ones ; Callograptus and 

 Callyptograptus slight single stems. 



Since I forwarded my last parcel to Washington, I succeeded 

 in obtaining a new species of the former by splitting the upper 

 glaciated chert bed in which the base is well defined. The free 

 graptolites, of course, display no attachment process. These are not 

 unlike the forms described and figured by Hall, from Quebec, and 

 were probably direct descendants, or at least closely allied varieties 



