EARLY DEVONIC HISTORY OF NEW YORK AND EASTERN NORTH AMERICA 9 1 



Plethorhyncha pliopleura Hall? 

 Rensselaeria aequiradiata Hall 

 Chonostrophia montrealensis Schuclicrt 

 In addition to these, Looan's list contained Favosites goth- 

 1 a n d i c a, L e p t a c n a r h o ni 1j o i d a 1 i s, A t h )' r i s (M e r i s t e 1 1 a^ 

 b e 1 1 a and A t r )' p a reticularis. 



Logan records the presence of the later conglomerate nearbj' at 

 Round Island and Isle Bizard ; also on the Riviere des Prairies east of the 

 latter and near St Eustache to the west, so that the middle or later Devonic 

 transgression of conglomerate appears to haAe been of considerable extent. 

 It may here be provisionally stated that there is no satisfactory evidence 

 for inferring at any date a direct connection between the small Helder- 

 berg-Oriskany basin about Montreal and the New York deposits of the 

 same period. This point will receive further consideration. 



Mines and Petroleum. The controlling impulse in all the early voyages to the 

 New World was two-fold, to find a western passage to India and the discovery of gold. 

 Gold was among the earliest (piests upon the Gaspe coast and tliough it was never found 

 yet amongst the earliest records of Gaspe is the discovery of silver-bearing lead at Little 

 Gaspe on the Forillon, and a coni])any was organized in France to exploit it. Even the 

 Jesuit missionaries seem to have become embroiled in this enterprise for the " Rela- 

 tions "record with some pathos the fact that in 1663 Father Balloquet returned from 

 (>asi)e " not having found his mine good." I suppose, perliaps, witliout final evidence, 

 that this refers to the Little Gaspe vein, which is the largest of all that are known on 

 the Forillon and the ancient tailings of which are seen today covered by the refuse of 

 later ventures, all of which have had the same outcome. But these lead-bearing veins, 

 cutting straight across the mountains along lines of slight displacement of the rock 

 masses are of frecpient occurrence along the little peninsula and there are "mines "at 

 Grande Greve, Indian Cove and St George's Cove. It is evidently of the Little Gasp^ 

 mine that Denys speaks with so much emphasis and detail: "One league further up the 

 river [Gaspe Bayl is a cove where one can set foot on the ground. On the high ground 

 is the place where it has been hoped to find a lead mine and Messieurs de la Comj)agnie 

 have paid the cost on the representations of ])ersons who had brought some fragments 

 that were veritably good but they are only from some little veins that run over the rock 

 and which the force of the sun has purified, for the whole mine is onlv antimony and 

 that not very abundant. I have known of it for more than twenty years.' If it had 

 been good I should not have let it be idle. I have found plenty of persons who were 

 ready to undertake on shares what I have seen, but I was never willing knowing well 

 that I should deceive them and that is something 1 am incapable of doing unless I were 

 myself deceived without knowing it." Between that date and this no one knows how 

 many times these old veins have been rediscovered. It is not many years since an 



'That would be at leabt as early as 1652. 



