wots 
* 
i 
Notes on Cambrian Faunas. 247 
Notes ON CAMBRIAN FAUNAS. 
BY G. F. MATTHEW, ST. JOHN, N.B. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FAUNA OF BAND 0 IN THE ACADIAN 
DIVISION (Div. 1) OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 
In Kastern Canada, asin many other parts of the world, the 
earliest paleozoic rocks have comparatively few and they, 
scattered relics of the life which existed on the world when 
these rocks were formed. Hence we find in the geological 
literature of fifty years ago, when the sequence of faunas 
in the so-called transition rocks had not been established, 
the assumption that the rocks which contained few fos- 
sils were Cambrian, and those in which remains of an 
abundant life existed were assumed to be Silurian. 
A problem of a similar kind awaits, or rather exercises, 
the paleontologist of the present day, for while the 
Sequence of faunas in the Paradoxides beds and above, 
where fossils are comparatively abundant, is well under- 
stood, some confusion and uncertainty surrounds the effort 
to determine accurately the succession of animals in the 
Cambrian rocks below that horizon; an uncertainty largely 
due to the scarcity of organic remains in the older sediments. 
As regards the fauna of Band 6 (Pre-Paradoxides beds) 
in this region, some information had been obtained and 
will be found on record chiefly in the Transactions of the 
Royal Society of Canada’, but in view of the fact that no 
unquestionable representative of the genus Olenellus had 
been found in these beds, | embraced an opportunity to 
send my son, W. D. Matthew, to make further explorations 
at Hanford Brook, where Band 6} is exposed, for examples 
of this genus of trilobites. Although unsuccessful in find- 
ing Olenellus he made other discoveries which are perhaps 
of more value in broadening our knowledge of the faunas 
which preceded Paradoxides, than the discovery of that 
1¥For reference to this information consult the page references in the explana- 
tion of the plates of vol. iii. sec. iv. p. 81, vol. v. sec. iv. pp. 126 and 129, vol. vii. 
sec. iv. reference at p. 161. 
