﻿Frof. Milne and Alex. Murray — Rocks of Newfoundland. 26 1 



Devonian. — In the vicinity of Cape Eouge and Fox we find a 

 series of plant-beai'ing sandstones, coarse conglomerates, and reddish- 

 green slates, amounting altogether in thickness to about 3700 feet, 

 which have provisionally been called Devonian, and are apparently 

 the equivalents of the Gaspe sandstones. 



Carboniferous. — The Carboniferous is the newest rock formation 

 of which Newfoundland yet boasts. It is displayed in two localities, 

 in both of which it rests upon a Laurentian base.' One of these is 

 in the central part of the island, in the vicinity of Deer Pond and 

 Grand Pond, and the other is in the S.W. part of the island round 

 St. George's Bay. Its thickness is about 64:00 feet, and it resembles 

 in every way the lower portion of the equivalent formation of Nova 

 Scotia and Cape Breton. In going up any of the rivers which 

 run at right angles to the general strike of the beds, they are seen to 

 consist of red sandstones, shales, greyish limestones, gypsum, and 

 conglomerate. The gypsum is presented at many points in masses 

 like huge cliffs of chalk. At many points where its contact with 

 the surrounding rocks is to be observed, it seems to occupy the 

 position of an intrusive rock,' those with which it is in contact being 

 contorted, broken, and turned up against its sides, as, for instance, at 

 the mouth of Kippens Brook. The conglomerate contains frag- 

 ments of rock and pebbles of magnetic iron derived from the 

 Laurentian Series, and pieces of limestone containing fossils which 

 are undoubtedly of Silurian age. Several seams of coal, one of 

 which is 3ft. Gin. in thickness, have been met with, and many others 

 in all probability remain to be discovered. 



In this series I did not observe anything which could be called an 

 igneous rock, nor do I know that any have yet been observed. Tliis 

 fact would lead to the conclusion that it was previous to this time 

 that Newfoundland sank into the tranquil state in which it now 

 exists.^ 



Drift. — Above the Carboniferous we have no other formation but 

 a covering of alluvium, which in rnauy parts of the island, from 

 the striated angular stones it contains, shows undoubted evidence of 

 glacial action. In places this Drift contains shells very similar to 

 those which are still living in the surrounding sea. These, in con- 

 junction with terraces, raised beaches, roche perche, etc., tend to show 

 that Newfoundland was at no very remote period below the present 

 level of the sea. The surface of the rocks on which the Drift rests 

 is often roundly smoothed and striated, indicating what may have 

 been glacial action. This so-called glacial action I am, however, 

 inclined to think, from what I have seen in Newfoundland and 

 Finland, is more likely to have been produced by Coast-ice acting in 



' On the north side of St. George's Bay it rests against Calciferous and Potsdam. 



- I have tried to account for this phenomenon, which I have repeatedly observed, 

 both in Canada and in Newfoundland, and a suggestion is offered at pp. 18 and 19 of 

 my Eeport for 1873. The strata of Carboniferous age on the north side of St. 

 George's Bay is almost perfectly flat. — A.M. 



^ Neither have I seen any intrusions of trap in any part of the distribution of the 

 Carboniferous ; but the formation is very much disturbed and faulted, both on 

 the south side of St. George's Bay and in the Grand Pond region, — A.M. 



