THE 



CANADIAN RECORD 



OF SCIENCE. 



VOL. VI. OCTOBER, 1894. NO. 3. 



Notes on the Bivalve Shells of the Coal- 

 Formation of Nova Scotia. 



By Sir William Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S. 



The abundant occurrence of shells of bivalve mollusks in 

 the beds associated with coal has long attracted the atten- 

 tion of collectors on both sides of the Atlantic, and various 

 opinions have been entertained as to the affinities of these 

 animals, the nature of their habitat, whether freshwater or 

 marine, and the manner in which they became associated 

 with the coal and its accompanying beds. They occur in 

 extreme abundance in some of the beds of bituminous and 

 carbonaceous shale and in bituminous limestones, and more 

 sparingly in argillaceous and arenaceous shales, throughout 

 the coal-fields of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, and natur- 

 ally excited the interest of the writer in his earliest explor- 

 ations of these beds. It is to be observed also that they 

 not infrequently occur plentifully in the roof-shales of 

 beds of coal. 



They were noticed in one of my earliest papers on the 

 coal formation of Nova Scotia in the Journal of the Geo- 



