200 The American Geologist. March, 1892 
ing this great break, this relationship has not only been inferred, 
but the actual date of the gabbro flood has been established by 
ample field evidence, and there also the quartzyte and the lime- 
stone (which latter however is almost wanting) are the only strata 
that are overwhelmed in the eruption. The Animikie black 
slates, which are abundantly interstratified with eruptive mate- 
rials, mainly in the form of consolidated ash, making now various 
‘‘oreenstones, ’ into which the slates graduate, followed the date of 
this eruption and fade off upward into the red shales and sand-stones 
that have long been known as characteristic of the Cupriferous 
series. These red shales we consider the chronologic analogue of the 
Georgia formation of Vermont, and the upper Sillery at Quebec. 
7. The succession of geologic events and the order of stratifi- 
cation which have been worked out at St. John by Prof. Mat- 
thew, are, thanks to his statement of them, so nearly identical 
with what has been worked out in several places in the United 
States at the same geological horizon, that it seems the course of 
prudence to hesitate about continuing the old idea of the Lauren- 
tian age of those St. John limestones, The trend of evidence is 
toward placing them at the bottom of the Taconic. Whether 
they should be included in the Cambrian depends on the limits 
and definition which may be given to that term. 
Below these so-called Laurentian limestones and quartzytes 
there is to be found, if the succession in New Brunswick is iden- 
tical with that in the United States, a profound non-conformity. 
The older strata, the true Archean, are highly tilted, or vertical, 
and present their edges abruptly against the non-conformable 
overlying beds. This erosion interval has been pronounced by 
Dr. Lawson the greatest in geological history, and it is a datum 
of the first order for establishing, in North America, the base of 
the primordial series, for primordial fossils have been found in 
several localities, but little above this plane. 
IN NEED OF AN EDITOR. 
Far be it from the AMERICAN GEOLOGIST to disparage any effort, 
however humble, to spread the knowledge of any subject in the 
department in which it is itself engaged. With this feeling it 
welcomes to the field every new attempt to popularize the science 
of geology and its companion study, mineralogy. But all who 
seek to accomplish this end should themselves be at least ‘ac- 
