40 
“The rocka of cape Macquereau and vicinity, which extend across from Port Daniel 
river, have long been classed under the general heading of the ‘Quebec Group’ [= Ordo- 
vician]. They, however, apparently consist of two distinct and unconformable seta of 
beds, which strike almost at right angles to each other. They also differ markedly in 
mineral character, the newer consisting of sandstones and shales, among which black 
graptolitic beds occur, while the older are mostly hard metamorphic rocks, quartzites, 
felsites, etc., with feldspathic and talcose schists. They have on these grounds been 
divided into two groups, the former being assigned to the Cambro-Silurian, and the latter 
to the Precambri&n”. 1 
On the North or East branch of Port Daniel river, the Macquereau 
series 
“consist principally of hard, rubbly, feldspathic and micaceous gneissic rock 
with quartzose micaceous, talcose, and chloritic schists. They [Macquereau series] are, as 
already stated, quite distinct lithologically and stratigraphically from the black slate 
(Cambro-Silurian) series of the river; the strike of the latter being southwest, while the 
older series strike northwest”. 1 
West of cape Macquereau, the Macquereau series 
“ consist of hard, dark reddish, feldspathic schist, including some thin bands of 
talcose schist. Some of the micaceous schists hold disseminated grains of clear quartz. 
About the end of the cape the rocks are hard, grey quartzites with crystalline feldspathic 
and talco-chloritic schists. They have a strike north GO degrees west* and dip at angles 
of 75 degrees to 90 degrees, and they unconformably underlie the softer brown and grey 
sandy beds seen along the coast farther east.” 2 
The present writers saw considerable of the Macquereau series to the 
north and east of the Silurian sandstones east of Gascons, both along the 
railway in its numerous cuttings, and on the shore below. It is here in its 
weathered aspect a very hard, dark purple and red series, of more or less 
schistose quartzites and sandy slates. They are wholly unlike the over- 
lying fossiliferons Palaeozoic strata, since all are considerably meta- 
morphosed and intensely squeezed and close folded. Along the shore near 
the contact with the Silurian at Anse-ft-la-Vieille, the strike is about 
south 80 degrees east. 
At the eastern termination of the Silurian, the Macquereau strata 
immediately to the north make a high, rugged country, and here these 
quartzites weather into light grey. The topography is rocky and rugged 
and the land is abundantly strewn with the loose Macquereau rocks of 
Recent and Pleistocene transportation. The scenery is very unlike that 
of the Silurian formations, which weather into rounded, hilly land with 
the higher hills always of limestones, and although the soil mantle is also 
thin, the loose rocks are mostly small. 
As no fossils were found in the Macquereau series, even though condi- 
tions looked favourable for them about Newport, we cannot date these 
strata. On the other hand they do not look like the Proterozoic strata of 
southeast Newfoundland, nor are they at all metamorphosed like Archeo- 
zoic formations. Wc rather agree, therefore, with Logan that they are 
early Paleozoic; but as yet no one can tell if they are Cambrian or earliest 
Ordovician. Since the Macquereau series resembles the Sillery-Quebec 
strata, however, the chances are best that they are of earliest Ordovician, 
namely Canadian. 
i Geol. Surv., Canada, Map 165 (marginal note). 
*Geol. Surv., Canada, Rept. of Prog. 1880-81-82, pt. D, p. 17. 
