1862.] DAWSON DEYONIAN PLANTS. 301 



angle to the south-east. Three beds of impure graphite appear in 

 its upper portion. The highest is about a foot in thickness, and rests 

 on a sort of underclay. The middle bed is thinner and less perfectly- 

 exposed. The lower bed, in which a shaft has been sunk, seems to 

 be three or four feet in thickness. It is very earthy and pyritous. 

 The great bed of limestone is seen to rest on flinty slate and syenitic 

 gneiss, beneath which, however, there appears a minor bed of lime- 

 stone. Above the great limestone are beds of a hard grey meta- 

 morphic rock, apparently an indurated volcanic ash, associated with 

 some sandstone ; and this is succeeded by the great series of grey, 

 olive, and black shales and flags which underlie the city of St. John. 

 These rocks are well exposed on both sides of Courtney Bay, in the 

 city of St. John, and in Carlton. Though somewhat contorted, they 

 have a general dip to the south-east at angles of 50° to 70°. In 

 some of the beds there are great numbers of Lingulce, which have 

 not as yet been identified with any described species. There are also 

 trails of Worms, and scratches which may have been produced by 

 the feet of Crustaceans or the fins of Pishes. 



The comparatively coarse shales above described are succeeded by 

 a thick band of black papyraceous shale, much contorted, and with a 

 few thin seams of calcareous matter arranged in the concretionary 

 form known as cone-in-cone. No fossils were found in them, but 

 two thin seams of anthracitic coaly matter are stated to have been 

 seen on their line of strike eastward of Courtney Bay*. 



Overlying these beds is a group of very different character. It 

 consists of purplish-red and green grit and shale, with beds of red 

 conglomerate and red sandstone. Interstratified with these are 

 massive beds of a greenish rock, consisting of trappean and felspathic 

 fragments, imbedded in a shining reddish paste, or sometimes pre- 

 senting the appearance of a compact trap or amygdaloid. This rock 

 usually presents an appearance of greater alteration than the neigh- 

 bouring beds, and contains veins of epidote, quaHz, and calc-spar. 

 Its hard and massive character causes it to resist denudation, and to 

 project above the surface in irregular masses. It has usually been 

 regarded as a trap ; I am disposed, however, to consider it as more 

 probably a tufaceous or volcanic ash rock, except in a few places, 

 where it is either an amygdaloidal trap or a mass of fragments of 

 such material too intimately connected to be separated from each 

 other. It is evidently a stratified member of the series, though its 

 beds are very unequal in hardness and texture, and probably also in 

 thickness. This portion of the series is well exposed on the east side 

 of Courtney Bay, in the southern part of the city of St. John, and 

 in the direction of Carlton, where its tufaceous or trappean members 

 constitute prominent elevations. It seems also to be this member 

 of the series which, turning to the south, constitutes Cape Meogenes. 



Eeposing on the rocks last described is the most interesting 



member of the series, consisting of hard buff and grey sandstones, 



with black and dark-grey shales. The sandstones contain numerous 



Coniferous trunks; and the shales, which are sometimes highly 



* Gesner's Second Eeport. 



