﻿256 Trof. Milne and Alex. Murray — Roc^s of Newfoundland. 



diorites about 1000 feet in thickness. As these serpentines and 

 diorites, which represent the Lauzon or middle division of the 

 Quebec group, are, from an economical point of view, perhaps the 

 most important series in the island, I will consider them at greater 

 length than. I have the others. Their importance lies in the fact of 

 their being repositories of metallic ores, a character which they bear 

 not only in Newfoundland, but in all our transatlantic colonies and 

 the United States. 



In Newfoundland this formation has a considerable development. 

 On the eastern side of the island we see it occupying the valley of 

 Grander Eiver, a great portion of the shores and islands of Notre 

 Dame Bay, and farther to the north in the vicinity of Hare Bay. 

 On the west coast it crops out at many points, as at Cow Harbour, 

 Bonne Bay, Bay of Islands, and Bluff Head. On the south we see 

 it in Despair Bay, and extending northwards up Conne Eiver towards 

 the head waters of the above-mentioned Gander Eiver. 



All these districts, with the exception of Gander Valley, I visited, 

 and from various points collected several hundreds of rock and 

 mineral specimens. In the fall of 1874 Gander Valley was explored 

 by my friend Mr. Murray, and to him I am indebted for a collection 

 of rocks from that locality.^ They consisted of many schists, most 



1 I made a very Ml report upon the Quebec Group in 1874, the result of my own 

 observations in 1873, and of my assistant's survey by my direction in 1874 ; to which 

 I beg to refer for my views of the structure. At page 52 of the said Report I have 

 expressed myself thus: "The facts ascertained, as ah-eady represented in the descrip- 

 tion of the coast and river sections on the east side of Port-a-Port Bay, seem to point 

 to the conclusion that the Silurian formations are arranged in a series of sharp 

 anticlinal and synclinal folds, ranging generally about N. 22° E., S. 22° W. ; the 

 whole mass of strata having, towards the close of the later deposits or subsequently, 

 been affected by vast igneous intrusion, and become much dislocated by great parallel 

 or nearly parallel faults, the ground trend of which is N.E. and S.VV. At the 

 summit of the whole series is a great volume of igneous and magnesian rocks, consist- 

 ing of various diorites, serpentines, and chlorites, which our evidences seem to 

 indicate to be lapped over the inferior strata unconformably, and to come in contact 

 with different members at different places." In Sir William Logan's investigations 

 in Canada, the great mass of sandstone and conglomerate, displayed so largely at 

 Sillery and other parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, were provisionally placed at the 

 summit of the Quebec Group, and as overlying the metamorphic and igneous rocks 

 with serpentines and metallic ores, etc. ; but our evidences in Newfoundland seem to 

 point to a somewhat different conclusion — unless, indeed, there may happen to 

 be two great sandstone formations, one of which is absent in this island. The 

 description of the rock of the St. Lawrence applies in nearly every particular to the 

 rock here ; but while we find it to succeed the Levis formation with perfect regularity, 

 although with numerous folds and twists, in every case it seems to pass hdow the 

 serpentines, wherever a contact has been seen ; and moreover to pass below them 

 unconformably. The Long Point of Port-a-Port Bay contains fossils recognized by the 

 late Mr. Billings as not older than the Bird's Eye and Black River, and may he near 

 the base of the Hudson River Group ; and these strata are comparatively un- 

 disturbed; but they are brought down by a fault against older rocks, at the base 

 of which the sandstones are displayed in great disturbance. Having weighed all the 

 evidences with great care, I have come to the conclusion tliat the great igneous intru- 

 sion, of which mention is made in the above extract, must be nearly of the age of the 

 Chazy, or perhaps later; that it has been the metamorphosing agent, and that 

 the altered strata consisting of chloritic slates, serpentines, melaphyres, diorites, etc., 

 belong to a horizon somewhere intermediate between the Chazy and the Hudson 

 River Group. — A.M. 



