50 Canadian Record of Science. 
of these beds, that they belong to the Quebec Group of Sir 
W.E. Logan. This is, however, now known to include, on 
the Lower St. Lawrence, beds ranging from the Calciferous 
to the Trenton, and the beds are so much plicated that it is 
often difficult to unravel their complexities of arrangement.’ 
At Métis, the evidence of the pebbles in the conglomerates 
indicates that they are newer than the Middle Cam- 
brian, and the few fossils found in the sandstones and shales 
would tend to place them at or near the base of the Lévis 
division, or approximately on the horizon of the Chazy, or 
equivalent to the English Arenig. Lapworth, in his paper 
on “Canadian Graptolites,” suggests that the sandstones 
holding Retiolites are older than this; but hitherto we 
have not found at Métis the characteristic Graptolites of the 
older or Matane series, which occurs further east, and is 
probably of Calciferous or Tremadoc age. 
In the past summer, Dr. Harrington, F.G.S., was so for- 
tunate as to find a bed of black shale rich in remains of 
sponges, hitherto unknown in these rocks, and having made 
known the fact to the writer, we visited the place several 
times and made considerable collections of these interesting 
fossils, which are now in the Peter Redpath Museum. 
The locality of this discovery is the beach at the foot of 
the cliff below the Wesleyan church, where a considerable 
thickness of black shales appears well exposed. The section 
at this place is as follows, in descending order :— 
1. A thick bed of hard sandstone or quartzite and con- 
glomerate, forming the cliff immediately in front of the 
church, and shewing in some of the beds radiating mark- 
ings (Astropolithon). 
2. Black and dark gray shales, with a few calcareous 
bands—thickness about 100 feet. The black shales of this 
band hold sponges and layers of sponge spicules, with fucoids 
(Buthotrephis, of a new species,) and valves of a small Obo- 
lella. All of these fossils are usually in a pyritised state. 
1 Logan, Geology of Canada, 1863; Selwyn, Report Geol. Survey, 
1877-78 ; Ells, Ibid, 1880-82 ; Lapworth, Canadian Graptolites, Trans. 
R. 8. C., 1886. 
