Appalachian Geosyncline. 227 



faunas. Eastern uplands supplying waste seem to have existed 

 as far south as the latitude of Virginia and a more southwest- 

 ern passage would have apparently made it easier for southern 

 or interior faunas to invade southwestern New York. The 

 postulation of a northeastern route, on the other hand, has the 

 objection that Upper Devonian strata are unknown in the Upper 

 St. Lawrence valley. Moreover, the Middle and Upper Devonian 

 deposits which exist in Gaspe" are all or nearly all of conti- 

 nental origin, except at the base of the Middle Devonian. 

 This evidence or lack of evidence does not exclude, however, 

 the possibility of the existence in the Upper Devonian of a 

 shallow seaway over the Saint Lawrence valley or even farther 

 northwest, mantling the margin of the Canadian Shield. 



The Gaspe sandstone of Middle Devonian and early Upper 

 Devonian age shows thick outcrops eroded toward the north. 

 The crucial question here is whether the sediments came from 

 the north or south. If from the north, then a Middle Devo- 

 nian sea could not be supposed to have existed in that direction. 

 If from the south, the Gaspe sandstone, like the Catskill of 

 Pennsylvania, may have been a delta deposit built from the 

 south and facing a shallow sea to the north. Above an uncon- 

 formity, the Bonaventure formation, latest Devonian and ear- 

 liest Mississippian in age, on the eastern shores of Gaspe, is 

 regarded by John M. Clarke as a shore conglomerate. In view 

 of the crustal disturbances which affected the Maritime Prov- 

 inces in the Upper Devonian, such a sea seems as likely to have 

 entered from the north, the region of little disturbance, as from 

 the east or south, the region of orogenic and igneous activity. 



The Devonian seas extended much farther, in some cases at 

 least, than the remaining outcrops indicate. The agglomerates 

 connected with the intrusions of the Monteregian Hills show on 

 St. Helen's Island, opposite Montreal, fossiliferous masses of 

 Helderbergian and Oriskanian limestones. The highest local 

 rocks are Ordovician, and the nearest outcrops of these Devo- 

 nian horizons are more than a hundred miles distant. The 

 mixing of inclusions in the volcanic pipes has carried material 

 some thousands of feet upward from the pre-Cambrian base 

 and mixed it with other material carried several thousands of 

 feet downward from formations now completely removed from 

 the region.* 



The accidental preservation of these fragments through 

 such unusual means suggests how widely certain seas may 



*Chas. Schuchert, Am. Geologist, xxvii, 245-253, 1901. H. S. Williams, 

 Trans. Royal Soc. Canada, 3d Ser., iii, Sec. IV, 205-246, 1910. Robert 

 Harvie, Trans. Royal Soc. Canada, 3d Ser., iii, Sec. IV, 249-299, 1910. 



The evidence of this locality and its important bearing on the principles 

 of paleogeography were called to the writer's attention by Professor J. A. 

 Bancroft. 



