1863.] . DAWSON DEVONIAN PLANTS. 459 



them in my former paper. These supplementary facts I now pro- 

 pose shortly to state. 



§ II. Perry, Maine. 



With respect to the geological relations of the rocks at this place, 

 I have little to add to the descriptions of Professor Hitchcock, re- 

 ferred to in my former paper. The beds at Pigeon Hill and its 

 vicinity, referred by him to the Upper Silurian, consist of hard, grey 

 and reddish shale and sandstone, overlain by trappean or trap- ash 

 beds, and traversed by trap-dykes. They are somewhat, but very 

 unequally, hardened and altered, and are inclined at high angles, 

 with prevailing dips to the north-east. They contain abundance of 

 Lingulaz, and of small Lamellibranchiate Shells which have been 

 referred to the genus Modiolopsis. Mr. Billings regards the Lingula 

 as an undescribed species, and it appears to differ from that found at 

 St. John. I think it quite possible, however, that these beds at 

 Perry may be the equivalents of the St. John slates ; and from their 

 relation to other beds at Pembroke which contain fossils of Lower 

 Helderberg age, and identical in many species with my " Arisaig 

 group " in Nova Scotia, I cannot doubt that they are of Upper Silu- 

 rian date, unless indeed they may be Lower Devonian. 



Upon these beds repose, in an unconformable manner, the Devonian 

 red conglomerates. In their lower part they contain thick beds of 

 coarse breccia, containing angular fragments of the harder members 

 of the underlying series, sometimes 3 feet in length. These beds 

 are well seen at the mouth of the Little River of Perry, near Point 

 Pleasant. Above these are red conglomerates, with rounded pebbles 

 of quartzite, syenite, and other hard rocks. The pebbles are of mo- 

 derate size ; and there are interstratified beds of bright red sand- 

 stone, with green spots and stains, and occasional thin grey layers. 

 The thickness of these beds exposed on the south side of Little River 

 is about 1300 feet. They are probably the equivalents of the upper 

 part of the St. John series and the Upper Red Sandstones of Gaspe ; 

 and it is worthy of note, as suggesting a caution to explorers of those 

 regions, that these rocks strikingly resemble in their mineral cha- 

 racter the Lower Carboniferous red sandstones and conglomerates 

 of some parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and also the pro- 

 bably Mesozoic " New Red Sandstones " of these provinces. 



The fossil Plants occur most abundantly in a layer of grey sand- 

 stone, about 2 feet thick, and apparently of small horizontal ex- 

 tent, in the upper part of the red conglomerate. This little bed is 

 filled with fragments of Plants, and probably occupies a spot where 

 a stream running from neighbouring land emptied itself into the 

 sea. It is rather a portion of the red sandstone bleached by the 

 deoxidizing and solvent action of the vegetable matter, than a distinct 

 bed ; and the same remark applies to the numerous grey spots and 

 thin layers in other parts of the series. A very pretty illustration 

 of this occurs in a bright-red, fine-grained sandstone farther up the 

 Little River, in which Mr. Jethro Brown, of Perry, has found fronds 

 of Cyclopteris Jacksoni, and branches of Psihjhyton, which have im- 



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