The Devonian System in Canada. — Whiteaves. 225 
limestones are Upper Silurian (Lower Helderberg), the middle 
880 feet passage beds, and the upper 800 feet Devonian. 
At the other end of the province a small area of rocks on 
the Famine river, in Beauce county, and another on the west 
side of lake Memphremagog, in the county of Brome, were 
recognized as Devonian by Logan in 1863.* 
Quite recently, too, a re-examination by Mr. Schuchert, of 
some of the brachiopoda from the small masses of limestone on 
St. Helen's island, opposite Montreal, has shown that these 
limestones are probably the equivalent of part of the Hamil- 
ton formation of Ontario and New York, and not of the Lower 
Helderberg. 
Although the Devonian system is pre-eminently the age of 
fishes, yet for many years scarcely any remains of fossil fishes 
had been found in the Devonian rocks of Canada, that are at 
all closely comparable with those of the old red sandstone of 
Scotland and Russia. As early as 1842, however, the rocks 
on both sides of the lower Restigouche river were examined 
by Dr. Gesner, who says that he found the "remains of fish 
and a small species of tortoise, with fossil foot-marks, "f in the 
shales and sandstones at Escuminac (now called Scaumenac) 
bay, which he supposed were of Carboniferous age. The 
statement in regard to the fossils at this locality attracted no 
particular attention at the time, but in September, 1879, Dr. 
Ells found a natural mould of the exterior of the ventral sur- 
face and one of the lateral appendages of a Pterichthys-like 
fish in a concretionary nodule at Scaumenac bay, and in June, 
1881, remains of a species of Cephalaspis in the brecciated 
limestones near Campbellton. The first of these discoveries 
led to further investigations by officers of the Canadian survey 
in 1880, 1 88 1 and 1882, which revealed the existence of a re- 
markable assemblage of fossil fishes and land plants of Upper 
Devonian age at Scaumenac bay, and of an entirely different 
series of fishes and plants, of Lower Devonian age, on the op- 
posite or New Brunswick side of the river, near Campbellton. 
Large collections were made at each of these localities, espe- 
cially of the fossil fishes, which were described by the writer 
*Geology of Canada, pages 428 and 436. 
tReport on the Geological Survey of the Province of New Brunswick , 
etc., St. John, 1843, page 64. 
