THE 



CANADIAN 



MTUEALIST AND GEOLOGIST. 



Volume II. DECEMBER, 1857. Number 6. 



ARTICLE XXXVI. — On the JSTewer Pliocene and Post Pliocene 



Deposits of the Vicinity of Montreal, with notices of 



fossils recently/ discovered in them. By J. W. Dawson, 



L.L.D., F.G.S., Principal of McGill College. 



(Read before tlie Natural History Society of Montreal, Nov. 30, 1857.) 



The deposits to which this paper relates, belong to that wide 



spread sheet of superficial detritus, by which the greater part of 



the northern hemisphere was covered at the close of the tertiary 



and commencement of the recent period. This formation, as it 



occurs in the lower part of the valley of the St. Lawrence, has 



been described by Dr. Bigsby, Rear Admiral Bayfield, Sir C. 



Lyell, Sir W. E. Logan, and Professor Emmons. More recently 



an excellent summary of the previous pubhcations, with many 



new facts, was given by Mr. Billings in this Journal ; and a paper 



by the writer on additional fossils recently discovered, was read 



before the American Associatior(j^t its late meeting in Montreal.* 



* Annals of New York Lyceum, 1st series. Transactions Geological 

 Society, 1839 ; Proceedings Geological Society, 1851 ; Lyell's Travels 

 in North America; Reports of Canadian Survey ; Emmons' Report on 

 Geology of New York ; Canadian Naturalist, vol. 1. The few pages 

 devoted to Montreal in Lyell's Travels, contain a remarkably graphic and 

 accurate view of these deposits as they occur here, and will enable any 

 one not familiar with the subject, much more readily to comprehend the 

 additional details given in this paper. 



