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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



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existed at an earlier period in the maritime provinces in eastern 

 North America. The problem is to reconcile this diversity of evi- 

 dence without contradiction, and it is believed that a solvent will 

 be found in Dr Clarke's recent determination of the Gaspe sand- 

 stones as of later than Oriskanian age. 



In his sketch of the geology of Perce, published in 1904, Dr Clarke 

 declared that the fairly rich marine fauna of the lower beds about 

 Gaspe Basin reveals evidence of both early and late Devonic age, 

 and that the prevailing sedimentation is of the same aspect as 

 characterizes both in New York and Europe the deposits of the 

 Devonic or Old Red lakes and lagoons. This preliminary statement 

 strikes at the root of the whole matter, and sounds the keynote of 

 an interpretation which has since been more fully evaluated by the 

 skilful New York State Geologist. The results of his extended 

 investigation of the invertebrate paleontology of the Gaspe Devonic 

 remain as yet unpublished, but an idea of their general import may 

 be gathered from the following extract from a private communica- 

 tion, which we are enabled to present here through the courtesy of 

 Dr Clarke : 



" The profusion of evidence that has been obtained from a study 

 of invertebrate paleontology seems indubitably to indicate that the 

 Gaspe sandstones are not of the geological age assigned to them 

 by Logan and the Canadian geologists generally. That is to say, 

 they are not Oriskanian, for, though they contain certain Oriskany 

 species, these are the survivors of the earlier limestone faunas of 

 that region persisting during the incursion of a distinctively Ham- 

 ilton Lamellibranch and Brachiopod fauna from the southwest. 



Dawson subdivided the Gaspe sandstone into three parts : the 

 lower division coordinated with the Oriskany and Onondaga ; the 

 middle, equivalent to the Hamilton group; and an upper conceived 

 to be equivalent to the Chemung. This entirely arbitrary subdivi- 

 sion was based upon the distribution of the terrestrial flora, and is 

 not, I think, in any way borne out by the present evidence. The 

 weakness of the comparison lies in the attempt to correlate with 

 true marine deposits the very heavy mantle of sands of telluric, 

 delta or lagoon origin conformable in every way physiographically 

 to the Old Red deposits elsewhere, the few marine fossils which it 

 contains being the accumulation of overwash from outside during 

 times of stress. Ells and Low have suggested the probability that 

 the fish-bearing beds at Scaumenac and Campbellton were laid down 

 in an area separated from the more northerly region by barriers of 

 old land, and in my judgment this is an entirely probable condition, 

 not eliminating the possibility of connection between the two basins 

 at some point further westward." 



Indeed, as early as 1883, it was noted by R. W. Ells that a number 

 of invertebrate fossils from the northern limit of the Gaspe Devonic 

 were " strongly typical of the Hamilton formation," thus leading to 

 the inference that '' the Gaspe sandstone series, of the coast, is 

 probably of the same age, though the absence of typical shells in 

 a large portion of it makes their separation more difficult." The 



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