182 Canadian Record of Science. 
(From the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, May 23, 1888). 
(ABSTRACT). 
“On the Eozoic and Paleozoic Rocks of the Atlantic coast of 
Canada in comparison with those of Western Europe and the In- 
terior of America.” By Sir J. W. Dawson, LL.D,, F.R.S., F.G.S. 
The Author referred to the fact that since 1845 he had contributed 
to the Proceedings of the Geological Society a number of papers on 
the geology of the eastern maritime provinces of Canada, and it 
seemed useful now to sum up the geology of the older formations 
and make such corrections and comparisons as seemed warranted 
by the new facts obtained by himself, and by other observers of 
whom mention is made in the paper. 
With reference to the Laurentian, he maintained its claim to be 
regarded as a regularly stratified system probably divisible into 
two or three series, and characterized in its middle or upper portion 
by the accumulation of organic limestone, carbonaceous beds, and 
iron-ores on a vast scale. He also mentioned the almost universal 
prevalence in the northern hemisphere of the great plications of 
the crust which terminated this period, and which necessarily 
separate it from all succeeding deposits. He next detailed its 
special development on the coast of the Atlantic, and the similarity 
of this with that found in Great Britain and elsewhere in the west 
of Europe. 
The Huronian he defined as a littoral series of deposits skirting 
the shores of the old Laurentian uplifts, and referred to some rocks 
which may be regarded as more oceanic equivalents. Its characters 
in Newfoundland, Cape Breton, and New Brunswick were referred 
to and compared with the Pebidian, &c.,in England, The ques- 
tions as to an Upper Member of the Huronian or an intermediate 
series, the Basal Cambrian of Matthew in New Brunswick, were 
discussed. 
The very complete series of Cambrian rocks now recognized on 
the coast-region of Canada was noticed, in connection, with its 
equivalency in details to the Cambrian of Britain or Scandinavia, 
and the peculiar geographical conditions implied in tne absence of 
the Lower Cambrian over a large area of inferior America. 
In the Ordovician age a marginal and a submarginal area existed 
on the east coast of America. The former is represented largely by 
bedded igneous rocks, the latter by the remarkable series named by 
Logan the Quebec Group, which was noticed in detail in connexion 
with its equivalents further west, and also in Europe. 
