DEVONIC FISHES OF THE NEW YORK FORMATIONS I9I 



part of the Gaspe sandstones.' This opinion was based upon evidence of 

 paleobotany, and, having been confirmed a few years afterward by J, W, 

 Dawson,^ is now generally accepted. Indeed, Logan seems to have enter- 

 tained similar views as early as 1863 [Geol. Can. p. 450]. As for the 

 plant and fish bearing beds at Scaumenac bay, on the Quebec side of the 

 Restigouche, these are asserted by Dawson to be " no doubt the equivalents 

 and continuation of the upper part of the Gaspe sandstones." In the 

 absence of a more precise indication of their age, these beds are commonly 

 referred to as Upper Devonic, and their vertebrate content favors that 

 conclusion. 



In the light of Dr Clarke's coordination of the Gaspe sandstone series 

 with rocks of Postoriskanian age, we are no longer required to look in that 

 direction, nor to the probably contemporaneous Campbellton fauna for the 

 origin of the Onondaga fish fauna found in New York State. On the 

 other hand it may be conceded as rather more likely that there was some 

 movement among vertebrate organisms in the reverse direction, for such an 

 hypothesis would account for the presence of a typical Onondaga species, 

 Machaeracanthus sulcatus, at different levels in the Gaspe series 

 (Logan's Divisions i and 6).^ The genus Cephalaspis is common to both 

 the Gaspe series and Campbellton beds, and together with the majority of 

 forms from the latter horizon is indicative of Old Red sandstone conditions.* 

 Reverting now to the Hudson Bay Middle Devonic fauna, we find 

 that, as listed by Whiteaves, it is unmistakably of about the same age as 

 the Onondaga. According to Schuchert, its faunal facies " is more that of 

 the Mississippian type than any other known in America." This similarity 



^Ibid, Rep't of Progress 1879-80. p. \oD~\\D. 



2 Dawson, J. W. The Fossil Plants of the Brian (Devonian) and Upper Silurian 

 Formations of Canada. Geol. Sur. Can. pt 2. 1882. p. 49. 



3Geol.Can. 1863. p. 395; Palaeozoic Fossils. 1874. pt 1,2:3,4. Lankester, E. R. 

 Geol. Mag. 1870. 7:398, fig. 3. 



4 Concerning the supposed evidence of Cephalaspis from the Lower Old Red sandstone 

 series of Spitzbergen, see Smith Woodward's paper on " The Devonian Fish-fauna of 

 Spitzbergen," in Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1891. (6) 8:3. 



