228 The Americmi Geologist. October. i89a 
2. Ontario and Keewatin (Hudson Bay). 
While Logan was exploring the Gaspe sandstones, in 1843, 
Mr. A. Murray, then assistant geologist to the Canadian sur- 
vey, was engaged in a "geological examination of the disfict 
lying in a general line between Georgian bay, on lake Huron, 
and the lower extremity of b.ke Erie." In his report on that 
year's operations, published in 1845, Mr. Murray correctly, 
and for the first time, regards the rocks at Port Colborne, 
Cavuga, etc., which he calls the upper limestones, as the 
equivalents of the Corniferous limestone of the state of New 
York. The black bituminous shales at Kettle point, lake 
Huron, and on the Sydenham river, that he examined in 
1848, he at first thought to be part of the Hamilton formation, 
but in 1855 he re-examined these shales and some of the ex- 
posures on the Sable river and in the township of Bosanquet, 
in company with James Hall, upon whose authority the former 
were decided to represent the lowest member of the Portage 
and Chemung group and the latter the Hamilton formation. 
But this statement was not published until 1857. 
The discovery of the Oriskany sandstone at Cayuga would 
seem to have been made, or rather first recorded, by E. Bil- 
lings in May, i860. For, in the preface to his now classical 
paper "On the Devonian P^ossils of Canada West," Mr. Bil- 
lings says that the "Devonian rocks of Canada West consist of 
portions of the Oriskany sandstone, Schoharie grit, Onondaga 
limestone, Corniferous limestone. Hamilton. Portage and Che- 
mung groups." This paper was originally published in four 
parts, and in the third and fourth parts, fourteen of the species 
of Brachiopoda therein emmierated or described are said to 
occur in the Oriskany. The "Geology of Canada," published 
in 1863. contains a list of thirty species of fossils from the 
Ontario Oriskany, most of which, in the museum of the geo- 
logical survey at Ottawa, are labelled as having been collected 
by J. De Cew. In that publication it is stated that only the 
lowest of the three divisions of this formation extends into 
Ontario, that it occupies only a few small areas in the townships 
of Dunn, Oneida and Cayuga, as a "very narrow border" to 
the Corniferous, and that it "seldom exceeds about six feet in 
thickness." A "list of the fossils occurring in the Oriskany 
sandstone of Maryland, New York and Ontario," by Mr. 
