CONTRIBUTIONS TO TALiEONTOLOGY. 101 



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 

 limestone. Above the great limestone are beds of a hard grey metamorphic 

 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 southeast at 

 angles of 50° to 70"^. In some of the beds there are great numbers of Lin- 

 GUL^, which have not as yet been identified with any described species. 

 There are also trails of Worms, and scratches which may have been pro- 

 duced by the feet of Crustaceans or the fins of Fishes. 



The comparative 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 an- 

 thracitic 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 diff"erent 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 presenting the appearance of a compact trap or. 

 amygdaloid. This rock usually presents an appearance of greater alteration 

 than the neighboring beds, and contains veins of epidote, quartz 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 tu- 

 faceous or volcanic ash rock, except in a few places, where it is either an 

 amygdaloid 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. 



Reposing on the rocks last described is the most interesting member of 

 the series, consisting of hard buflf and grey sandstones, with black and 

 dark grey shales. The sandstones contain numerous coniferous trunks ; and 

 the shales, which are sometimes highly graphitic, abound in delicate vege- 

 table remains, often in a very perfect state of preservation. These rocks 



* Gesner's Second Report. 



