Acadian and St. Lawrence Water-shed. 405 
the St. Lawrence have been described under the name of 
the Levis rocks, and the latter bear a similar resemblance 
to the so-called Sillery, but it may well be doubted how far 
these and the numerous other sub-divisions adopted by 
Richardson in his report on the geology of southeastern 
Quebec, are capable of being sustained by actual facts. A 
new and good opportunity for the study of these rocks has 
recently been furnished by the line of the newly opened 
Temiscouata railway, and was availed of by the writer and 
Mr. W. McInnes during the past summer; but with the 
result of showing that along this line at least no good 
reasons exist for the adoption of such sub-divisions. It has 
been supposed by Richardson that in addition to the several 
members of the Quebec group proper (Sillery, Lauzon and 
Levis) a portion of the sandstones found at St. Antoine and 
Frazerville (Riviére du Loup) are of Potsdam age, but it is 
‘impossible to see in what respects the rocks thus referred to 
differ either in character or relations, from those elsewhere 
referred to the Sillery sandstone. The topography of the 
country underlaid by these Quebec rocks is exceedingly 
broken and rugged, the repeated alternations of hard and 
soft strata, together with excessive folding, having been 
especially favorable to the formation of steep and bold 
ridges scparated by narrow and deep valleys. ‘The massive 
sandstones, from their peculiar whiteness and absence of 
vegetation, are especially conspicuous, but are exceeded in 
elevation, as well as in the craggy character of the scenery 
which they determine, by the hard and glossy slates which 
at various points rise from beneath them. Near the axis 
of the divide the land is, as has been stated, somewhat 
flatter, but here large tracts are so thickly strewed with 
blocks of the dark grey Sillery sandstones that little else is 
visible. In all parts, except where intervales occur, the 
soils are of the most meagre character, and the settlements, 
chiefly French, of the poorest description. 
The transition from the Quebec or Cambro-Silurian rocks 
to those of the Silurian system, is everywhere well marked, 
being seen alike in the character and attitude of the beds. 
