252 General Netes. [ March, 
moved it perceptibly until a few years ago, when, during a mid- 
winter flood, a great ice gorge formed against it and a very high 
dam soon extended to a considerable distance on each side of the 
river. When, at last, the ice rushed downwards with irresistible 
force it wrenched the offending rock from its bed in the till, 
pushed it up a steep bank twelve feet high, and left it two hun- 
dred feet back from the river, together with large piles of stones 
and boulders. The flood platn, being frozen, suffered but little 
erosion. Many similar facts have since been observed. Evident- 
ly if blocks of granite ten or more feet in diameter can be tossed 
about like this, then in the case of narrowish valleys subject to 
floods and ice gorges, the presence in the valley drift of erratics 
and masses resembling moraines is to be received with great cau- 
tion as a proof of glacial conditions, unless the deposits are very 
abundant and continuous, or are supplemented by striz or other 
positive indications. So also the development of the aasar or 
kames seems to show the frequency and great transportive power 
of ice gorges in the channels of the glacial rivers. During the 
decadence of the great glacier, transportation of this kind would 
probably be active all along the line of the terminal moraine, 
more particularly in the valleys of those streams whose head- 
waters were in the region covered by the ice, such, for instance, 
as the valleys of the Delaware, Susquehanna and Allegheny. At 
least they deserve careful investigation for such deposits.—George 
ff, Stone, Kent's Fill, Maine. 
Extincr PaLazozoic FisHes FRoM CaNADA.—Ata recent meeting 
of the Natural History Society of Montreal, Mr. Whiteaves read a 
paper on “Some new and remarkable fossil fishes from the De- 
vonian rocks of the northern side of the Baie des Chaleurs.” He 
commenced by remarking that until last year a long strip of the 
northern side of the bay had been mapped as belonging to the 
conglomerates of the Bonaventure formation, which form the 
base of the Carboniferous system. Last year, however, Mr. R. 
W. Ells, of the Geological survey, discovered a fine specimen of 
a fossil fish belonging to the genus Prerichthys, of Agassiz, in 
Escuminac bay,a discovery which led to a careful re-examination 
of the locality by Messrs. R. W. Ells, T. C. Weston, and A. H. 
Foord. From the researches of these gentlemen, we now know 
that at this point Devonian rocks crop out from under the Bona- 
venture conglomerates, and further, that these Devonian rocks 
hold a rich and extremely interesting series of fossil plants and 
fishes. The vegetable organisms will be described by Principal 
Dawson at some future time, but the fossil fishes, of which many 
specimens were exhibited at the meeting, were showg to belong 
to the following genera and species:—1. Prerichthys. A fine species, 
supposed to be new, which has been described in the August 
number of the American Fournal of Science as Pterichthys cana- 
densis. 2. Diplacanthus ; a cluster of fin rays only, of a small 
