Oo4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROCHESTER MEETING 



The error of correlating the rocks of MacArras brook with those of Union has 

 led to confusion, and the paleontological evidence which has been obtained by the 

 writer in both series of strata has conclusively shown that the one (Knoydart 

 formation) indicates a typical "Old Red Sandstone" fauna that is in lowermost 

 Devonian in age, while the other formation is distinctly referable to the Middle 

 Carboniferous, being associated with and intimately related to the "rocks of 

 Riversdale," containing a typical Meso-Carboniferous flora and fauna, which 

 opinion Messrs R. Kidston, Professor David White, Dr Wheelton Hind, Professor 

 Charles Brongniart, and Dr Henry Woodward and others have shared with the 

 writer. The fact that these " rocks of Union " and the " rocks of Riversdale " had 

 for so many years been referred to the Devonian by Canadian geologists led the 

 writer to seek diligently for Devonian types and forms in those strata, and it must 

 be distinctly stated here that I utterly failed to obtain any horizon markers of 

 Devonian aspect in the true rocks of Union and of Riversdale. All types found 

 were of decidedly Carboniferous facies and well up in that system. The fossil 

 plants, the fossil fishes, the Crustacea, the insects, etcetera, all pointed to an hori- 

 zon of Meso-Carboniferous age, and there we are constrained to place them. 



I desire here to correct an error made by myself in following and accepting 

 without verification the statement made by stratigraphical geologists that the 

 " rocks of Union " and the " rocks of Riversdale" were always found overlaid by 

 the marine limestones of the " Lower Carboniferous," and were therefore older. 

 On the contrary, T find that the so-called " rocks of Union," as they are developed 

 at MacArras brook, are the only strata that can in any sense be referred to the 

 Devonian ; in which instance it so happens that these so-called " rocks of Union" 

 are not at all the same as those of the Union formation proper. This error on my 

 part in taking for granted that all the strata were one and the same formation, 

 and which had been referred to the " rocks of the Union " and the " rocks of the 

 Riversdale" as unconformably below the limestones of the Lower Carboniferous, 

 as the stratigraphical geologists had said, led me to make the further statement 

 that the "rocks of Union " and the " rocks of Riversdale " were Eo-Carboniferous 

 in age.* In referring these strata to the Carboniferous, I was guided by the fossil 

 remains entombed in them, whereas I was misled by the succession as given by 

 the stratigraphical geologists without any qualifications. It was only when the 

 faunas of the Knoydart formation from the so-called "rocks of Union" in the 

 MacArras Brook region were obtained and determined by Dr A. Smith Woodward 

 and Dr Henry Woodward and others, that the confusion that had existed was 

 evident to me, and the necessity for separating these two sets of strata became 

 apparent. This led to the separation of the Knoydart formations from their sup- 

 posed equivalents, "the red rocks of Union." I have no hesitation in saying now 

 that the Union and Riversdale formations, as they are developed at the type local- 

 ities at the Union and Riversdale in Colchester county, in Nova Scotia, are Car- 

 boniferous in age, and are Meso-Carboniferous at that. Further, it is also evident 

 that the New Brunswick equivalents of these two formations, namely, the Mispeck 

 and the Lancaster formations (the latter sometimes designated as the Little River 

 group), can not any longer be classed as Devonian, but as truly Meso-Carboniferous 

 formations, with an abundant flora found the world over, and in all countries 

 other than Canada referred to as the Middle Carboniferous. 



*See table of formations in Trans. Nova Seotian Inst. Sci., vol. x, 1900, p; 178. 



