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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



of the mass forms a strong contrast. Of course the age of the 

 fish beds depends on the age of the youngest fossil to be found 

 in the boulders of these underlying beds and as yet I have seen 

 nothing later than the Helderbergian. It is therefore possible 

 that the sedimentation of the fish beds began before the opening 

 of the stage we should elsewhere characterize as Upper Devonic. 

 An additional supplementary fact is worthy of record. A large 

 angular block of highly argillaceous black limestone, with a 

 weight of several tons lying on the Migouasha beach above the 

 reach of high tide, has every appearance of having been derived 

 from the rocks of these near-by escarpments. This block con- 

 tains in some abundance a brachiopod of the genus Schuchertella, 

 and though I have not been able to identify it with species known 

 to me, it is evidently of early Devonic type. Figures of this 

 species are here introduced and the distinctive characters may be 



Schuchertella sp. Ventral and dorsal valves with enlargement of the surface. 

 From the shore at Migouasha 



given as the coarse, wide apart, rounded ribs, with flat inter- 

 spaces divided in later growth by intercalary ribs, all the inter- 

 spaces being traversed by fine longitudinal lines. 



IV 



HISTORICAL NOTE ON THE LEAD MINES OF GASPE BASIN 



In my writings on the geology of Gaspe, reference has been made 

 to recent and present attempts on the peninsula of the Forillon to 

 exploit for galena and silver the little calcite seams which fill the 

 joint crevices of the Lower Devonic Grande Greve limestone beds. 

 These efforts began far back in the history of New France and the 

 most serious of them, as well as the most productive, was at Little 

 Gaspe close to the contact line of the limestones with the overlying 

 Gaspe sandstone. It is a singular illustration of the undying per- 

 sistence of legend in the face of well-established fact that a forlorn 

 hope early dismantled should have revived and been persistently 

 pursued for well nigh 250 years. 



