174 



Scudder — Fossil Insects of North America. 



Compact, flaggy sandstone 



No fossils 



6 ft. 10 in. 



" Plant Bed No. 2." Shales, variable 

 in character, sometimes very com- 

 pact and hard, light-lead coloured, 

 slate-like and arenaceous; at other 

 times very soft and fissile and of 

 a very black colour 



Calamites (two sp.), Asterophyllites 

 (four sp.), Annularia, Finnularia, 

 Fsilophyton (two sp.), Cordaites^ 

 Cyclopteris (three sp.), Neurop- 

 teris (three sp.), Splienopteris (five 

 sp.), Eymenophyllites (three sp.), 

 Fecopteris (two sp.), Trichoma- 

 nites, Cardiocarpon (two sp.), and 

 Trtgonocarpon ; also Eurypterus, 

 Amphipeltis, Trilobita, and Spi- 

 rorbis. Insects : Gerephemera 

 simplex and Xenoneur a antiquorum 



1ft. 



Very soft, dark, lead-coloured shales 



Fragments of plants 



Remains of T^lants— Calamites, etc. 



4 ft. 



Compact, flaggy, grey sandstone 



2 ft. 



Black, arenaceous shales 



No fossils 



11 in. 



Grey sandstones and flags 



Calamites, Cordaites, Asterophyl- 

 lites, and SternbergicB 



21 ft. 



"Plant Bed No. 1." Black, arena- 

 ceous shales, varying from a fissile 

 sandstone to a semi-papyraceous 

 shale, very fine-grained and very 

 fissile 



Rich in plants. Calamites, Astero- 

 phyllites, (four sp.), Sphenophyl- 

 lum, Fecopteris, Sphenopteris, Car- 

 diocarpon, and Fsilophyton. 



1ft. 



These sandstones and shales rest immediately upon another series 

 of rocks consisting of heavy beds of grey Sandstones and flags, esti- 

 mated to be 300 feet thick. 



This latter series of rocks has been termed ''Dadoxylon Sandstone," 

 while the former series — represented by the section — belongs to the 

 " Cordaite Shales" of the provincial geologists. Together, they form 

 the little river group of Matthew^ or Nos. 2 and 3 of the Series given 

 by Dr. Dawson in his paper on Devonian plants.^ In other parts of 

 New Brunswick, these rocks are of much greater importance, the 

 Dado xy Ion Sandstones attaining a thickness of 2,800 feet, and the 

 Cordaite shales of 2,400 feet, together with the Mispeck group, 

 which overlies them, and the Bloomsbury group, upon which they 

 rest, they constitute the upper portion of the Devonian formation. 

 The appearance of insects on our globe is thus carried back a whole 

 geological epoch, and is made synchronous with that of land plants. 



Fortunately no substantial doubt rests upon the declared age of 

 these rocks. Dr. Geinitz, indeed, believes them to be Carboniferous,^ 

 but he has based his opinion upon an examination of a single speci- 

 men of one of the insects which I showed him ; this was accompanied 

 by a fern which he considered CyatMtes plumosus Artis, and which is 

 characteristic of the Carboniferous formation. 



If, however, Dr. Geinitz's determination of this species were cer- 

 tainly correct, it would not invalidate the statements of geologists 



^ Can. Nat. vol. viii., p. 244. 2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. xviii., p. 303. 

 3 Sitzungsb. der Naturh. Gesellsch. Isis. Dresden, 1866 : 22. 



