COASTS VISITED BY THE AECTIC EXPEDITION. 633 



Cape Joseph Henry and Feilden Isthmus, at Ravine, Dana Bay, head 

 of Porter Bay (82° 42'), and apparently faulted against the Cape- 

 Rawson series. The fades of the few species occurring differs 

 essentially from the Carboniferous, but they are not numerous 

 enough to allow of generalization or correlation ; still undoubtedly 

 they are of American affinities. The want of fossil Invertebrata in 

 the Scotch Old Red Sandstone at once removes them from com- 

 parison or correlation with that area ; only to the Worth- American 

 types therefore can we compare them, where a magnificent marine 

 fauna exists equivalent to the Devonian of Devonshire, Rhenish 

 Prussia, Belgium, and Prance, intervening between the summit of 

 the Silurian and the base of the Carboniferous rocks. The typical 

 Devonian rocks of Europe, Britain, and North America are the deep- 

 sea deposits of the Devonian period ; whereas the Old Red Sandstones 

 of Britain, and the corresponding Gaspe group of Eastern Canada, 

 may be the shallow- water or near-shore deposits of the same period. 

 I have no means of determining to which section of the Devonian 

 series our few specimens belong ; but the Spiriferce would lead me to 

 infer that they were Upper Devonian. There is no evidence of 

 Heer's " Ursa stage " above these, and no plant-remains of any kind 

 have occurred. This is the first notice of the probable existence of 

 a Devonian fauna so far north. Heer's determination of the Ursa- 

 stage flora within the Arctic zone, at Bear Island, and the age of 

 the sandstones of Parry and Melville Islands*, tend to show how 

 widely the Upper Devonian series is distributed, when it embraces 

 the Irish, Rhenish, and St. John's, New Brunswick, floras of a 

 group of rocks below the Carboniferous Limestone, or even the Cal- 

 ciferous series of Scotland. We are able to trace this same group 

 of either Upper Devonian or Lower Carboniferous rocks, which Heer 

 denominated the Ursa stage, over nearly thirty degrees of latitude. 



Class BRACHIOPODA. 



Spieifeea allied to S. pennata, D. Owen, Geol. Rep. of Wisconsin, 

 Iowa, and Minnesota, p. 585, t. 3. f. 3, 4, 8 ; Hall, Geol. of 

 Iowa, vol. i. pt. 2, p. 510, t. 5. f. 1. (PI. XXIX. fig. 1.) 



We possess only the ventral valve of this shell ; it is certainly 

 closely allied to Dale Owen's species. Owing to the removal of 

 much of the shell, the number and condition of the ribs on either 

 side of the mesial fold and sinus cannot be satisfactorily determined. 

 I am obliged to depend more upon the figure than the description, 

 owing to its generalities. The aspect of this shell, with a few others 

 from the same locality and horizon, strongly impresses me with their 

 Devonian facies. The presence of wings or extensions on either side 

 of the median sulcus allies it to the convoluta-grouj) in the Carbo- 

 niferous Limestone ; indeed many forms of Spirif era convoluta closely 

 resemble the shell I have referred to Spirifera pennata; never- 

 theless I cannot refer it to Spirifera convoluta. All the forms which 



* Heer, " Carb. Flora of Bear Island," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxviii. 

 pp. 161-169 (1872). 



