96 Canadian Record of Science. 



the latter to the pre-Silurian is marked and general. I may 

 here add that the observations on which these conclusions 

 were based were far from being made in a day or even in a 

 single season, but involved an amount of difficult explora- 

 tion, in a region but little settled, which only those who 

 have worked in such localities can fairly appreciate. 



One point more. The authors of the " Azoic System" 

 take exception to the work of Mr. Matthew and myself for 

 introducing structural complications, such as faults, folds, 

 and overturns, merely for the purpose of satisfying certain 

 theoretical conceptions, and assert that these are entirely 

 the work of the imagination. In the face of the fact that 

 the authors referred to have probably no personal acquaint- 

 ance with the district described, it is quite as fair to reply 

 that their opinion in the matter has no solid foundation to 

 rest upon. If the occurrence of a reversed succession is 

 any proof of a reversed or folded position of the beds in 

 which it is exhibited, then the evidences of such folds and 

 reversals, as detailed in the reports, are certainly ample. 

 As to faults, the country, as in most regions of highly dis- 

 turbed rocks, is full of them, and where their existence 

 explains relations which are otherwise inexplicable, I am 

 at a loss to undersland why they should be ignored. It is 

 true that an error into which we had fallen as regards one 

 of the groups described (the Bloomsberry group), from a 

 want of knowledge of its relations to other formations be- 

 yond the district examined, was corrected by Dr. Hunt; 

 but that in the main facts, as to the age and succession of 

 the several groups and their structural relations, we were 

 subject to the "dictum " of that gentleman, is quite incorrect. 

 So far is this from being the case that the views of that suc- 

 cession as ascertained by us prior to Dr. Hunt's first visit to 

 this region, have been steadily maintained by us and by the 

 Canadian Survey, and I believe are generally accepted. 



Want of space prevents my noticing a number of miscon- 

 ceptions and some mis-statements by the authors of the 

 " Azoic System." A comparison of the recently issued 

 maps of this region with those in existence twenty years 

 ago, when our labors began, will sufficiently show how far 

 a real progress has been made. 



