QEOLQGIOAL SURVEY OF OAITADA. 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO CANADIAN PAL/EONTOLOGY 



VOLUME I. 



BY J. P. WHITEAVES. 



6. TJie FossiJs of the Devonian Rocks of the islands, sliores or immediate 

 ■vicinity of Lakes Manitoba and Winnepegosis. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The northern extremity of Lake Winnepegosis, it may be well to pre- 

 mise, is in the District of Saskatchewan, but by far the larger portion of 

 that lake and the whole of Lake Manitoba are in the province of Mani- 

 toba. The shores of the southern portion of Lake Manitoba are so low 

 and flat as to exhibit no rock exposures, and the area from which the 

 fossils referred to in this report are collected is included between latitudes 

 Sr and 53° N, and longitudes 98° 30' and 101° 10' W. 



Prior to the year 1888 but little was known of the fauna of the Devo- 

 nian rocks of the islands and shores of Lakes Manitoba and Winnepeg- 

 osis, or of the geographical distribution and stratigraphical relations of 

 these rocks. Up to that date, the little that was known on either of 

 these topics is to be found in Professor H. Youle Hind's oihcial " Pieport 

 on the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Exploring Expedition," published 

 at Toronto by the Ontario Government in 1859, and in Air. (now Dr.) 

 J. W. Spencer's " Report on the country between the Upper Assiniboine 

 River and Lake Winnepegosis and Manitoba," published at Montreal in 

 1875, in the Report of Progress of the Geological Survey of Canada for 

 187i-75. 



In the earlier of these two publications the existence in Manitoba of 

 rocks of Devonian age was first announced by Mr. E. Billings, on the 

 evidence of a few fossils collected by Prof. Hind at Snake Island, Lake 

 Winnipegosis, and at Manitolja Island, Lake Manitoba, which were pre- 

 sented by or through him to the Museum of the Survey. The fossils from 

 Snake Island, as identified or described by Mr. Billings in the twentieth 

 chapter of Prof. Hind's report, are as follows : Atrypa reticularis, L., and 

 its var. aspera ; Orthis lowensis, Hall ; " two small species of Prodnctns :" 

 " Lucina ejliptica, Conrad ;" Lucina occidentalis, BilHngs (sp. nov.) ; two 

 species of Euomphcdii,s , " a fragment of a Loxonenia, most probably i. 

 nexilis" ; " fragments of Orthoceras, Gomphoceras, and a species of Jian- 



September, 1892. 



