217 
[Selwyn. 
6. Would Mr. Marcou state where I have ever called the break 
synclinal. 
7. When did I say, or even imply that T could “ almost point 
out what part of the northern coast of the St. Lawrence and Lab- 
rador they came from as boulders ?” 
I am in no way responsible for the work or the conclusions of my 
predecessors, which Mr. Marcou, however, very rashly and incor- 
rectly criticises while mixing them with mine. 
As regards his criticism of the maps I have published, Mr. Mar- 
cou ought to know that a preliminary map always differs more or 
less from one in which the details of distribution have been worked 
out, and that the amount of detail that can be shown on a map de- 
pends on the scale used, and on the closeness with which the ground 
has been examined. 
I can only regret that Mr. Marcou does “not know with any de- 
gree of certainty what Mr. Selwyn intends by using the English 
names.” (p. 67.) It only shows he has never looked at my scheme 
of coloring and nomenclature, published in the Report of the Can- 
adian Survey 1880-81-82, where my meaning is fully explained, 
though certainly without reference to the name Laconic, which I am 
free to confess I never understood ; its distribution never, so far as 
I know, having been mapped or defined in America or elsewhere. 
There appeared to me to be no need for the name, the more widely 
known terms I have used meeting all requirements apart from those 
of a purely personal nature. 
That “Mr. Selwyn is the only one who continues to maintain that 
the primordial fossils, etc.” (p. 68), is a statement entirely in- 
correct. It would perhaps be more nearly correct to say that Mr. 
Marcou is the only one who maintains otherwise. 
The fossils, graptolites, etc., not in the pebbles are not primor- 
dial. 
The statement that in the eastern townships the Cambrian does 
not contain fossils (p. 68) is another rash and unauthorized state- 
ment ; that they have not been found is no proof that they are 
not there. 
Indeed some forms not unlike Oldhamia have been found there 
and doubtless others will be found sooner or later in these lower 
Cambrian slates. 
There are in Mr. Marcou’s paper a great many more inaccura- 
cies, misstatements and partial references to what I have written 
on the geology of Quebec, especially the omission of any refer- 
