PAL.^iOZOIC TERRANE BENEATH CAMBRIAN. 49 



and similar deposits occur in the Protolenus zone at Manuel's 

 Brook. 



It will readily be seen that a careful discrimination must be 

 exercised in separating the fossils occurring in the limestone 

 boulders from those that belong to the paste of the conglom- 

 erate, otherwise the fossils of the Etcheminian terrane will be 

 accredited to the Cambrian system. This commingling of 

 species is less likely to mislead in the conglomerates of the Para- 

 doxides zones, where the paste is usually gray, than in the Pro- 

 tolenus zone, where it is usually red, and paste and pebble seem 

 of equal antiquity. Still more misleading are the conditions 

 when, as is frequently the case, the limestone blocks are imper- 

 fectly rounded, and seem portions of a limestone paste formed 

 in situ. 



The two Eopalseozoic basins in Smith Sound are separated 

 by a wide area of strata of the Intermediate (Huronian) series, 

 chiefly the slates of the " d" division, and the sandstones or 

 quartzites of the " e" division. The whole of this system was 

 injected with trap and greatly eroded before the Etcheminian 

 time. Resting upon these gray beds on their eastern side 

 is a comparatively narrow band of tough, feldspathic, red (and 

 greenish), heavy bedded sandstones and slates, which separate 

 the gray beds from the lowest recognizable Etcheminian ; these 

 are perhaps a part of " f" of the Intermediate system. They 

 are mentioned here because their red beds seem to have fur- 

 nished the numerous fragments of red slate, which, in this basin 

 of Palaeozoics, form the bulk of the basal conglomerate of the 

 Cambrian part of the deposit. This conglomerate is much 

 heavier than that of corresponding age in the western basin, and 

 is exposed for hundreds of yards along the shores of the sound. 



It would thus appear that in both basins, at least so far as the 

 exposures along this shore of the sound give any clue to the 

 matter, the materials of the basal conglomerate were swept 

 from the westward into the basins, and were in close proximity 

 to the place of deposit. 



It is quite possible that the cause which led to the produc- 

 tion of the basal and interraned conglomerates of the Cambrian 



Annai.s N. Y. Acad. Sct, XIT, April 9, 1^99 — 5. 



