136 Mr. Lyell on Fossil and Recent Shells 



" The tertiary strata," says Captain Bayfield, " contain numerous boulders of primary rocks, which 

 occur at different levels, not resting upon each other, but as if they had been dropped there at widely 

 different times during a long period in which a quiet deposition of clay, sand and gravel had been 

 going on, and in which the various genera of Testacea had lived and died. Of course some of the shells 

 are broken, and some of the valves separate, as is found in the bottom of the present sea ; but many have 

 both valves together as they lived, although they separate when taken up, because the ligament no longer 

 exists. But all idea of these shells, together with the clay, sand, gravel and boulders having been drifted 

 together into their present position by a violent current or rush of water, must be given up at once when 

 I state the fact, that the Terebratula psittacea, which you know are so fragile that the smallest stones 

 would be sufficient to destroy them if carried along even with a moderate degree of violence by moving 

 water, are found with their valves together, and their long and brittle teeth entire as when they were 

 living. The whole of the facts lead me to infer, that these numerous erratic blocks have been carried by 

 ice, and dropped from time to time on the bed of the tertiary sea" — (^Extract from letter, dated Wth 

 November, 1835.) 



Deposits containing the same fossil shells were also found at Port Neuf, forty 

 miles above Quebec, in terraces of clay and sand, which rise to different levels 

 above the St. Lawrence, and parallel to its course. They occur at heights vary- 

 ing from 50 to 200 feet above the river. 



When I first received these fossil shells from Captain Bayfield, I was struck 

 with their great resemblance to those which I had collected at Uddevalia, in 

 Sweden ; and this similarity was confirmed by Dr. Beck, after a minute examina- 

 tion. The Saxicava rugosa, so predominant at Uddevalia, is particularly mentioned 

 by Captain Bayfield as the most numerous shell in all the deposits, and the Natica 

 clausa and Pecten islandicus are very common, as at Uddevalia. On the other hand, 

 the fossils at Beauport, considered as a whole, by no means agreed with the marine 

 shells now inhabiting the Gulf of St. Lawrence. For the names of most of the 

 Beauport shells in the following list, I am indebted to Dr. Beck, who determined, 

 in 1836, all that I had then received. 



1. List of Fossil Shells from Beauport, near Quebec. 



1. Tritonium Anglicanum, a Newfoundland and Greenland species, or variety, according to some au- 



thors, of Buccinum undatum. See PL XVI. figs. 1 , 2. No. 2 has the ridges less prominent. 



2. T.fornicatum, Fabric. Fauna Groenlandica, 399. It is the Fusus carinatus, Lamk. (See PI. XVI. 



fig. 3.) Recent from Bic, Canada. Dr. Loven has it recent from Finmark. T.fornicatum is 

 considered by most authors as a variety o^ Fusus despectus, a Greenland species or variety, but 

 which seems also undistinguishable from one now recent at Cork, in Ireland, and which is also 

 found fossil at Dalmuir, in the Firth of Clyde. 



3. Natica clausa (N. septentrionalis, Beck), Brod. and Sow., Zoological Journal, vol. i v. p. 372. Beechey's 



Appendix, PI. XXXIV. fig. 3, and PI. XXXVII. fig. 6, a species still living in Greenland, the 

 North Sea, and North America. Very common at Uddevalia. 



4. Scalaria borealis, Philosophical Transactions, 1835, PI. II. figs. 11, 12. Living in Greenland seas, 



according to Beck. 



5. S. Groenlandica, var. ? (PI. XVI. fig. 4.) Dr. Beck was of opinion that this might be the same as 



