158 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Jan. 7, 



ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING. 



John Daglish, Esq., Hetton, Durham; Griffith Davies, Esq., 17 

 Cloudesley Street, Islington; John Walter Lea, Esq., B.A., The 

 Grange, Shepperton Green, Chertsey ; and Henry Michael Jenkins, 

 Esq., Assistant-Secretary of the Geological Society, 22 St. George's 

 Road, London, were elected Fellows. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Lower Carboniferous Brachiopoda o/Nova Scotia. 

 By Thomas Davidson, Esq., E.B.S., F.G.S., &c. 



[Plate IX.] 



At the request of Dr. J. W. Dawson, F.R.S., E.G.S., Principal of 

 M c Gill University, Montreal, I have examined the Brachiopoda col- 

 lected by him from the Lower Carboniferous formation of Nova 

 Scotia, as well as those obtained by Sir C. Lyell during his first 

 journey in America, and I now submit the result of this examination 

 to the Geological Society. 



The geology of Nova Scotia has already received the attention of 

 several distinguished observers ; and I may mention that, although 

 prior to Sir C. Ly ell's visit to the country in question Mr. R. Brown 

 had described the limestone of East Biver and Cumberland as Lower 

 Carboniferons, the limestones of Windsor and Shubenacadie were at 

 that time regarded as " New Bed Sandstone " or " Permian." Sir 

 C. Lyell was the first to maintain that the whole was of Carboni- 

 ferous age ; and, by so doing, he unravelled a complication which 

 might for a time have involved the geology of the country in much 

 confusion. He may therefore justly claim to have been the first 

 geologist who was able to determine the geological age of the Gypsi- 

 ferous strata of Nova Scotia, which he considered to be a member of 

 the Carboniferous group instead of the Triassic or the Permian, or 

 both of them, as previously conjectured*. Dr. Dawson informs me 

 that his first papers on the subject were the results of investigations 

 which he made to test Sir C. Lyell's views, and that Mr. Brown and 

 he followed up these observations, and accumulated a vast number 

 of facts subsequently published in his ' Acadian Geology,' and from 

 which I extract the following synopsis of the Carboniferous rocks of 

 Nova Scotia f, in order to point out the horizons at which the Bra- 

 chiopoda have been obtained. 



Upper or Newer Coed- formation. 



Greyish and reddish sandstones and shales, with beds of conglo- 

 merate, and a few thin beds of limestone and coal ; the latter not of 

 economic importance. Thickness, 3000 feet or more. 



Fossils : — Coniferous wood, Catamites, Ferns, &c. 



* See Sir C. Lyell's ' Travels in North America, with Geological Observa- 

 tions on the United States. Canada, and Nova Scotia,' vol. ii. p. 204, 1845. 



f " An Account of the Geological Structure and Mineral ^Resources of Nova 

 Scotia." &c. 1855. 



