1862.] BIGSBY CAMBRIAN AND HUEONIAN. 49 



River, a distance of 42 miles. The upper group consists of sandstones, 

 limestones, indurated marls, and conglomerates, interstratined with 

 columnar trap. 



b. Norway. — Leaving without remark the deposits in Arkansas 

 and Missouri mentioned in column 12, because, although probably 

 Huronian, they require further study*, I now proceed to Europe, 

 where, at present, it is more than probable that the Huronian forma- 

 tion exists in Norway f in great quantity, and very clearly shown, 

 as well as in other parts of that quarter of the globe. 



In Norway, to a consideration of which country I shall first apply 

 myself, it has received from M. Durocher X the name of " the semi- 

 cri/stalline schists ," or " the second group of Azoic formations" the 

 lowest or first being Fundamental or Lauren tian Gneiss §. 



M. Durocher has called the first-named formation semi-crystalline 

 because in Norway, as in Canada, it consists of two associated por- 

 tions, the amorphous (sedimentary) and the crystalline (metamor- 

 phic) ; but it is a name very easily misunderstood. 



M. Durocher professes himself unable to fix upon the age of these 

 rocks with precision, but believes them to form a transition between 

 the Fundamental Gneiss and the fossiliferous palaeozoic rocks 

 (Memoire, p. 61), and that it corresponds in part to the Cambrian of 

 Sedgwick. 



This set of rocks does not, as in Canada, spread out in one mass 

 continuously to great distances, but is in distinct tracts and basins 

 within and upon the Fundamental Gneiss, which is the general base 

 of all the rocks of the north of Europe. 



There are six of these basins according to M. Durocher : viz. (1) 

 at Nummendal and Haut-Tellemark ; (2) in Central Scandinavia ; 

 (3) on the South-west coast of Norway ; (4) on the sea-coast be- 

 tween Drontheim and Sogne Fiord ; (5) in Finmark ; and (6) near 

 Tornea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. 



There is no difficulty as to the relations of this Huronian, if we 

 may so call it, to the Fundamental Gneiss. It is seen to rest on it 

 conformably in many places || ; on the gneiss of Schneehatten, in the 

 Dovrefield ; on the south side of the Sogne Fiord ; in the Fiord of 

 Urland, <fcc. And it is often unconformable, as in the valley of 

 the Beine and Elv^I, in the Fillefield, and other places; but these 



* Engelmann, Foster and Whitney's Geological Survey of Lake Superior Land 

 District, p. 31. 



f To Thomas Macfarlane, Esq., of Acton, Eastern Townships, L. C, belongs 

 the credit of associating the Huronian of Canada with the semi-crystalline schists 

 of Norway, in a most valuable memoir published, in February 1862, in the ' Cana- 

 dian Naturalist.' I have laboured independently to the same end, upon materials 

 gathered from other sources. 



\ The author of a survey of Norway, most elaborate as far as is within the 

 power of an individual. His paper in the sixth volume of the ' Memoires de la 

 Societe Geologique de France ' is a model of geological description. 



§ VonBuch, Sir B.I. Murchison, Keilhau, Kjerulf, Naumann, and Macfarlane 

 have also done good work in this country. 



|| Memoires de la Soc. Geol. de France, ser. 2, vol. vi. pp. 61, 90. 



\ Op. cit. p. 92. 

 VOL. XIX. rAET I. E 



