﻿Pre-Camhrian Fossils especially in Canada. 157 



Pre-Cambrian Fossils Especially in Canada. 



(Abstract of a paper by Sir W. Dawson, LL. D., F.R.S. Read in 

 the Geological Section of the British Association, Liverpool Meeting, 

 September, 1896.) 



The paper was intended to be introductory to the 

 exhibition by the lantern of specimens of Eozoon Canadense, 

 for the purpose of showing its structures to geologists who 

 may not have had opportunities of seeing authentic or 

 perfect specimens. Canadian examples of the rocks and 

 fossils were referred to, because that country possesses the 

 greatest areas and the best exposures of Pre-Cambrian 

 rocks, because in that country large portions of them have 

 been well explored and mapped, and because, in Canada^ 

 Eozoon was first discovered. 



The base of the Cambrian system may, for the present, 

 be fixed at the lower limit of the Olenellus fauna, now 

 recognized in Newfoundland and in the western part 

 of Canada, as well as in the United States. With this the 

 Protolenus horizon of Matthew in Southern New Bruns- 

 wick should probably be associated ; and there,- as well as 

 in Newfoundland, the lowest bed of the series is marked 

 by a barren sandstone.-^ The Olenellus Zone affords, 

 according to Walcott, 165 species, representing all the 

 leading types of Marine Invertebrate life.^ 



Beneath this, in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, 

 is a great thickness of red and greenish slates or shales, 

 resting on a base of conglomerate, which lies uncon- 

 formably on the Huronian system (Coldbrook Series), 

 of whose debris it is, in part, composed. It contains, as 

 far as known, no Trilobites, but has a few fossils referred 

 to Ostrocods, MoUusks, Worms, Brachiopods, Cystideans, 

 and Protozoa. Matthew has named this group in New 

 Brunswick the Etcheminian system. He regards it as 

 Pre-Cambrian, but still Palseozoic. It seems to correspond 



1 Matthew, Protolenus Fauna, Trans. Acad. Science, N.Y., March, 1895. 



2 Memoir on Lower Cambrian, U.S. Geol. Survey. 



