^^^ 1if_;V: -'ifV' e il.-^ ^ JErs-^' ■,.><-, ^^%. ^^? ~ £ 3 \ '^ L \ . i ^ Q : ^ THE CANADIAN NATURALIST AND ^Maft«);ty journal ot ^dmtt WITH THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF MONTREAL: CONDUCTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIETY, NEW SEEIES-Vol. 6. MONTREAL : DAWSON BKOTHERS, Nos. 159 and 161 ST. JAMES STREET. Jr>' 1872. .^P* The Editors of this Journal are responsible only for such communications as bear their names or initials. EDITING COMMITTEE. Acting Editor. — J. F. Whitbaves, F.G.S J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.K.S. T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D., F.K.S C. Smallwood, M.D., LL.D., D.C.L E. Billings, F.G.S. P. P. Carpenter, B.A., Ph. D. David A. P. Watt. J. B. Edwards, Ph. D., D.C.L., Chairman. CORRESPONDING EDITORS. Halifax, N. S.— Prof. G. Lawson, Ph. D., LL.D. St. Johns, N.B.— G. F. Matthew, F.G.S. : London, Ont. — W. Saunders. Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy-two, by Dawson Brothers, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture. INDEX. Page Agassiz, Prof. L., Expedition of 356 " " on a Fish Nest in Sea AVeed 354 " *' on an existing Crustacean allied to the Trilobites 358 Agraulos ajffinis, species described 473 " socialis " " 472 Anapolenufi venustus " 474 Anderson Dr., on the Whale of the St. Lawrence 203 Andrews T., President's Address by 160 Arthraria antiquata, species described 467 Asindella terranovica " " 478 Bailey Prof. L. W., on the Geology of the Grand Manan 43 Balsena mysticetus 206 Barrande's " Colonies " reviewed by Dr. Nicholson 188 " Letter on Vermont Trilobites 460 " Letter on the Point Levis Fossils 462 Billings E., on the Taconic Controversy 313 " additional notes on 460 " on a Question of Priority 330 '' on a Fossil in the AVinooska Marble 351 " on the genus Obolellina 326 " on Primordial Fossils from Newfoundland 465 " new species of Fossils 213 Boulder-clay, Dawson on the 24 British Association. — See Contents. Cambrian and Silurian, History of, by Dr. T. S. Hunt 281 " Upper, " 281 " Middle and Lower " 294 " in North America, " 417 Chironectes pictus, nest of 356 Coal in Nova Scotia 61 Crinoids, Wy\'ille Thomson on 345 Cruziana similis, species described 469 Carpenter Dr. P. P. on Choristes 392 Choriates elegans, Carpenter, new genus and species described 392 Dana, J. D., on the Legs of Trilobites 348 " " award of the Wollaston Medal to 363 " " on the true Taconic 479 Dawson Dr. J. W., Annual Address by 1 " " on the Post-pliocene of Canada 19, 166, 2il, 369 Vol. VI. X No. 4. 482 INDEX. Page Darwin Charles, the Origin of Species reviewed 9 Dithyrocaris Belli 19 Dredging in Lake Superior by S. J. Smith 362 " in Gulf of St. Lawrence by J. F. Whiteaves 351 Emmons, letter on the Taconic 325 Echinodermata, of the Post-pliocene 258 Eophyton Linnseanum 462 " Jukesi, species described 467 Fish nest in Sea-weed, by Agassiz 354 Fishes, the Food of Marine 107 Food of Marine Fishes, Verrill on 107 " Salmon '. Ill Ford S. W., on Primordial Rocks 209 Geographical Science in Schools 121 Geological Survey, Reports for 1866-69 noticed 60 Geology of the Island of Grand Manan 43 '' New Brunswick, Matthew on 89 Glacial Epoch in New Brunswick 89 Grand Manan, Bailey on the Geology of the 43 Hall Prof. J., on the Fossils of the Red Sandrock 323 Hartley Edward, Obituary notice of 1, 119 Hisinger, on the Swedish Palaeozoic Rocks 295 Hitchcock C, first observations of Fossils in the Red Sandrock 323 Hunt, Dr. T. S., History of the names Cambrian and Silurian 281 " " on Oil-bearing Limestone 54 " " Obituary notice by 119 Hydrozoa of the Post-pliocene 258 Hyolithes, new species of 213 " excellens, species described 471 Hyolithellus micans, Billings 240 Iphidea bella, new genus and species described 477 Iron-sands in Canada 79 Jeffreys, J. Gwjti, on Waldheimia septigera and Terebratula septata 368 Johnston Dr. Keith, Obituary notice of 122 Lamellibranchiata of the Post-pliocene 374 Leda Clay, Dawson on the 34 Limestones, Hunt on Oil-bearing 54 Lingula Murrayi, species described 467 Lingulella ? affinis, " " 468 " spissa 468 Logan, Sir W. E., letter on the Quebec Group 324 Macfarlane T., on Crystalline Rocks 259 Matthew G. F., Surface Geology of New Brunswick 89 Meteorology of Montreal for 1871, by Dr. Smallwood 334 Mitchell Hon. P., letter from on Dredging 341 Mivart St. George, the Origin of Species reviewed 9 Monomerella, new species of 220 INDEX. 483 Page Murchison Sir R. J., Obituary notice of 234 '^ " on the Quebec Grroup 324 Natural History Society.— See Contents. New Brunswick, Matthew on the Geology of 89 Newberry on the ancient Lakes of America . . • 112 Nicholson Dr. H. A., on the "' Colonies " of Barrande 188 " " on Sexual Selection in Man 449 Obolella, new species of 217 " miser, species described 468 Oholellina Canadensis 326 " Galtensis 329 (( magnifica 329 Palaeozoic Rocks of England and America, by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt 312 Paradoxides tenellus, species described 476 " decorus 476 Plants, the popular names of 231 Platyceras jJ'rimsevum 220 Post Pliocene of Canada, by Dr. J. W. Dawson 19, 341, 371 " Protozoa, " 353 " Hydrozoa, " 258 " Echinodermata, " 258 '' Heterobranchiata, " 370 " Brachiopoda, " 373 " Lamellibranchiata, " 374 " Gasteropoda, " 386 " Annulata, " 400 " Crustacea, " 401 " Vertebrata, " 403 " Fossil Plants, " 404 " Summary of Fossils, " 405 Primordial Rocks, fossils from 209 Red Sandrock, determination of the age of 320 " on Fossils of, by Prof. J. Hall 321 Ritchie A. R., obituary notice of 1 Rocks, Classification of, by T. Macfarlane 259 " Mineralogical constitution of — 259 " Essential Minerals of 261 '' Accessorial Constituents of 267 " Order of Development 271 " Specific gravity of 277 Salt Regions of Canada 70 Saxicava Sand, Dawson on the 37 Scenella reticulata 479 Sexual Selection in Man, Dr. Nicholson on 449 Silurian and Cambrian in Great Britain, Dr. Hunt on 281 Smallwood Dr., Meteorological Results for Montreal, 1871 334 Smith S. J., on Lake Superior Dredging 362 484 INDEX. Page Solar Chemistry 132 Solenopleura communis 474 Species, on the Origin of 9, 145, 150 Spectrum Analysis 129 Stenotheca pauper 479 Straparollina remota 471 Taconic Controversy, Billings on 313, 460 " System, Dana on 479 Terebratula neptatn 368 Thompson, Prof. Allan, Address by 146 Thompson, Sir Wm., Address before the British Association 129 Thomson, Prof. Wyville, on Palaeozoic Crinoids 345 Trilobite, a new Canadian 227 Verrill, on the Food of Marine Fishes 107 Whale of the St. Lawrence, Dr. Anderson on 203 Whiteaves, on Dredging in the Gulf 351 Waldheimia septigera 368 Woodward Henry, a new Devonian Fossil .... 18 " " on the Legs of Trilobites 350 Wollaston Medal, award of to Prof. J. D. Dana 363 Zoology and Botany.— See Contents. Published August, 1872. MITCHELL & WILSON, PRINTERS, 192 ST. PETER STREET, MONTREAL. CONTENTS. Page Annual Address of the President of the Natural History Society of Montreal. 1 The Origin of Species 9 On a new Fossil Crustacean from the Devonian Rocks of Canada. By Henry Woodward, F.G.S., F.Z.S '. 18 The Post-Pliocene Greology of Canada. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S- • • 19 On the Physiography and Geology of the Island of Grand Manan. By Prof. L. W. Bailey 43 On the Oil-bearing Limestone of Chicago. By T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D., F.R.S. 54 Geological Survey of Canada 60 On the Surface Geology of New Brunswick. By G. F. Matthew 89 On the Food and Habits of some of our Marine Fishes. By Prof. A. E.Verrill 107 Abstract of Proceedings of the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1871 129 The Post-Pliocene Geology of Canada. Part 2. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D. . 166 On the " Colonies " of M. Barrande. By Prof. H. A. Nicholson, M.D 188 The Whale of the St. Lawrence. By Dr. J. W. Anderson 203 Notes on the Primordial Rocks in the vicinity of Troy, N. Y. By S. W. Ford 209 On some new species of Palaeozoic Fossils. By E. Billings, F.G.S 213 The Post-Pliocene Geology of Canada. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D 241 On theOrigin and Classification of Original or Crystalline Rocks. By Thos. Macfarlane 259 History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology. By T. Starry Hunt, LL.D 281 Remarks on the Taconic Controversy. By E. Billings, F.G.S 313 On the Genus Obolellina. By E. Billings, F.G.S 326 Meteological Results for Montreal for the year 1871. By C. Small wood, M.D. 334 The Post-pliocene Geology of Canada. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D 369 History of the Names Cambrian and Silurian in Geology, By T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D t*. 417 Sexual Selection in Man. By Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson, M.D 449 Additional Notes on the Taconic Controversy. By E. Billings, F.G.S 460 On some Fossils from the Primordial Rocks of Newfoundland. By E. Billings, F.G.S 464 What is True Taconic ? By Prof. James D. Dana 479 Geology and Mineralogy :— The Ancient Lakes of Western America 112 On the Canadian Trilobite with Legs 227 On the Structure of the Palaeozoic Crinoids 345 On the supposed Legs of the Trilobite, Asaphus platycephalus 348 Supposed Legs of Trilobites 350 Note on the discovery of Fossils in the Winooski Marble at Swanton, Vt. 351 11. CONTENTS. Page British Association :— The President's Address for 1871 129 Prof. Thomson's do 146 Mr. Andrew's do 160 Botany and Zoology :— Popular Names of Plants 231 Deep-Sea Dredging in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 351 Fish Nest in the Sea-weed of the Sargasso Sea 354 Prof. Agassiz's Expedition 356 Agassiz's Deep-Sea Explorations 358 Dredging in Lake Superior under the direction of U. S. Lake Sun^ey 361 Miscellaneous :— Obituary Notice of Mr. Edward Hartley 119 " " Dr. Keith Johnston 122 " " Sir Roderick J. Murchison, Bart., K. C. B 234 Geographical Science 120 Award of the WoUaston Medal to Prof. J. D. Dana 363 Additional Notes on Obolellina 365 Letter from J. Gwyn Jeflfreys 368 Natural History Society : Annual Address of President 1 Papers presented to 2 Annual Meeting 124 The Field-day for 1871 222 Index 481 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST AND ^luailfvly ^ouviml of f dcuft ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF MONTREAL, PRINCIPAL DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S. Delivered May l^th, 1871. The first duty which devolves upon me in this address is a mournful one — that of referring to the departure from among us of two of our youngest and yet most useful and promising mem- bers, Mr. Alexander S. Ritchie, and Mr. Edward Hartley. Mr. Ritchie died in December list, at the age of 34. He had been connected with the Society for six years, and had contribu- ted to our proceedings seven origin-d papers on Entomology and Microscopy. His papers were characterized by minute and pains- taking research, and the facts which he studied were presented in a distinct and lucid manner and often very effectively. He was for some time a member of the Council and of the Editing Com- mittee, and at the time of his death occupied the honourable and useful position of Chairman of the Council. In Mr. Ritchie we have lost a man always ready for any useful work, and whilo active and enthusiastic, most gentle and unobtrusive in his man- ner, and thoroughly to be relied on for the performance of all that he undertook to do. Mr. Edward Hartley was a still younger man, and for a shor- ter time a member of this Society. He was born in Montreal, but received his scientific education at the Sheffield School of Yalo College, and was for some time engaged in mineral surveys in the Vol. VI. A No. X. 2 TH£ CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. United States. He subsequently became attached to the Geologi- cal Survey of Canada, and was employed more especially in the coal-fields of Nova Scotia, on which he prepared two elaborate and most valuable reports : one on the structure of a part of the Pictou coal-field, the other on the quality of the coals of Pictou. While in the midst of these useful labors he was suddenly struck down by disease, at the early age of 23. Mr. Hartley was a Fellow of the Greological Societies of London and of France, a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers of Scotland, and of the Institute of M in in 2: Eno-ineers of the North of Enuland, and of various local societies. His attainments in Mineralogy, in Geo- logy and in Mming Engineering were extraordinary for his years and gave promise of a brilliant career. Science in Montreal can little afford to lose two such men. THE SCIENTIFIC PAPERS PRESENTED to the Society in the past year have been numerous and valuable and most of them have been printed in full in our journal, the Canadian Naturalist. The following may be especially men- tioned : "Aquaria Studies," Part 2d, by Mr. A. S. Ritchie ; " On a specimen 0? Beluga recently discovered at Cornwall, Ontario," byE. Billings, Esq., F. G. S. '-On the Earthquake of October 20th, 1870, " by Principal Dawson, F. R. S. ; '■' On Canadian Phosphates, in their application to x\griculture, " by Gordon Broome, F.G.S. ; '• On the Origin of Granite," by G. A. Kinahan, Esq., of Dublin ; '-' Notes on Vegetable Productions, ; by Major G. E. Bulger; "On the species of Deer inhabiting Canada," by Prof. R. Bell, F. G. S. ; " On the Sanitary Condition of Mont- real," by Dr. P. P. Carpenter; '-'On the Foraminifera of the Gulf and River St. Lawrence, " by G. M. Dawson ; " On Cana- dian Foraminifera, " by J. F. Whiteaves, F. G. S. ; "' On some New Facts in Fossil Botany, " by Principal Dawson, F. R. S. ; "On the occurrence of Diamonds in New South Wales, " by Mr. Norman Taylor, and Prof. A. Thompson; communicated by A. R. C. Selwyn Esq., F. G. S. ; "' On the Structure and affinities of the Brachiopoda," by Prof. Morse; '-'On a Mineral Silicate injecting Palaeozoic Crinoids, " by Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, F. R. S. " On the Origin and Classification of Crystalline Rocks, " by Mr. Thomus Macfarlane ; "On the Plants of the West Coast of New- foundland, " by John Bell, M. A., M. D. ; " On Canadian Diato maceae, " by Mr. W. Osier ; " On the Botany of the Counties of Hastings and Addington," by B. J. Harrington, B, A. No. 1.] THE president's ADDRESS. 3 Beside these, we have reprinted in the Naturalist several im- portant papers by Dr. Hunt, Mr. Billings, and others, with the view of making them more fully known to students of nature in Canada. ERRONEOUS PUBLIC OPINIONS. Of the scientific value of these papers, and of the amount of original work which they evince, it is unnecessary that I should speak ; but it is sometimes alleged that societies of this kind are of no practical utility ; that their labours are merely the indus- trious idleness of unpractical dreamers and enthusiasts. Nothing' could be more unjust than such an assertion. Science, cultivated for its own sake, and without any reference to practical applica- tions, is a noble and elevating pursuit, full of beneficial influence on mental culture, and by the training which it affords, fitting- men for the practical business of life better than most other studies. Further, it is by this disinterested pursuit of science, for its own sake, that many of the most practically useful arts and improvements of arts have had their birth. Besides this, most of the investiji-ations of the naturalist have a direct bearins; on uti- litarian pursuits. In illustration of this statement I need go no further than our own last volume. An eminent example is afforded by the paper of Mr. Gordon Broome on Canadian phosphates. Here we have set before us three pregnant classes of facts : First — Phosphates are essential ingredients of all our cultivated plants, and especially of those which are most valuable as food. In order that they may grow, these plants must obtain phosphates from the soil, and if the quantity be deficient so will the crop. Of the ashes of wheat, 50 per cent consist of phosphoric acid, and without this the wheat cannot be produced ; nor if produced would it be so valuable as food. Second — The culture of cereals is constantly abstracting this valuable substance from our soils. The auilyses of Dr. Hunt have shown long ago that the principal cause of the exhaustion of the worn-out wheat lands of Canada is the with- drawal of the phosphates, and that fertility cannot be restored without replacing these. In 292,533 tons of wheat and wheaten flour exported from Montreal in 1869, there were, according to Mr. Broome, 2,340 tons of phosphoric acid, and this was equal to the total impoverishment of more than 70,000 acres of fertile land. To replace it would require, according to 31r. Broome, 5,850 tons of the richest natural phosphate of lime or 13,728 tons of super-phosphates as ordinarily sold, at a cost of more than 4 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 6480,000. These facts become startling and alarming when we consider that very little phosphoric acid in any form is being applied to replace this enormous waste. Yet so great is now the demand for these manures that super-phosphates to the value of $8,750,000 are annually manufactured in England from mineral phosphate of lime, beside the extensive importations of bones and guano. Third — Canada is especially rich in natural mineral phos- phates, as yet little utilized, and might supply her own wants, and those of half the world beside, if industry and skill were directed to this object. Putting these three classes of facts together, as they are pre- sented by Mr. Broome, we have before us, on the one hand, an im- mense abyss of waste, poverty and depopulation yawning before our agricultural interests ; and on the other, inexhaustible sources of wealth and prosperity lying within reach of scientific skill, and the conditions necessary to utilize which were well pointed out in the paper referred to. It is true that these facts and conclusions have been previously stated and enforced, but they remain as an illustration of scientific truths of important practical value still very little acted on. Naturalists are sometimes accused of being so foolish as to chase butterflies, and the culture of cabbages is not usually regarded as a very scientific operation ; yet any one who reads a paper on the Cubbjge butterfly read at one of our meetings by the late Mr. Kitche, may easily discover that there may be practical utility in studying butterflies, and that science may be applied to the culture of the most commonplace of vegetables. A valuable crop, worth many thousands of dollars, is hopelessly destroyed by enemies not previously known, and appearing as if by magic. Entomology informs us that the destroyer is a well known European insect. It tells how it reached this country and that it might have been exterminated by a child in an a hour on its first appearance. But allow it to multiply unchecked, it soon fills all our gardens and fields with its devastating multitudes, and the cultivators of cabbages and cauliflowers are in despair. But Entomology pro- ceeds to show that the case is not yet hopeless, and that means may still be found to arrest its ravages. Unfortunately, we have as yet no public oflacial bureau of En- tomology, and therefore we must be indebted for such information to men who, like our late associate Bitchie, snatch from arduous business pursuits the hours that enable them thus to benefit their No, 1.] THE president's ADDRESS. 5 country. Ontario is in advance of us in this, and has in the pre- sent year produced an important contribution to practical science in the report of the Fruit Grower's Association, which includes, among other matters, three papers on applied Entomology ; that on Insects aifecting the Apple, by Rev. C. T. S. Bethune ; that on Insects affecting the Grrape, by Mr. N. Saunders ; and that on Insects affecting the Plum, by Mr. E. B. Reed. These are most creditable productions and of much practical value. I would mention here that though we have amonii^ us several diligent and successful students of insects, yet we have no one at, present who has taken up the mantle of Mr. Ritchie as a describer of their habits. I trust that some of our younger members will at once enter on this promising and useful field. WORK DONE. Looking at the amount of work done by our Society in the course of the year, I think it will bear comparison with that of similar societies elsewhere. We have not before us so larsje an amount of matter as that accumulated by the great central societies of the Mother Country and the United States ; but we exceed in this respect most of the local societies of Great Britain, outside of London, and most of those in America with the exception of a few of the more important. With regard to the quality of scientific matter, we can boast many papers of which any society might gladly take the credit, while all of the papers which we publish are at least of local value and importance. This Society is, on this account, now recognized as the chief exponent of Canadian Natural History, and its journal is sought by all interested in the aspects of nature in this part of America. The responsibility which devolves upon us in this aspect of our work, is, I think, worthy of our consideration, with reference to our future opera- tions, and to this subject I would desire to devote the remainder of this address. One of our functions as a local society I think we have well and efficiently performed. It is that of accumulating and arranging for study the natural productions of this country. Our collec- tions of mammals, birds, insects and mollusks of Canada are now nearly complete up to the present state of knowledge, and we have also valuable collections in other departments of Zoology. Our curator, Mr. Whiteaves, has done very much to give to these collections a scientific value by careful and accurate arrangement- 6 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. "We have not specially cultivated Canadian Geology, because we cannot hope to rival in this department the admirable collection of the Geological Survey ; but we have aimed at and secured a general collection, useful in educating the public taste and for giving aid to learners. Our collections in American Ethnology are not contemptible ; and at our last annual conversazione, by laying our friends under contribution, we were able to exhibit an admirable series of illustrations of the rude and simple arts of the tribes which preceded us in the occupation of this country. Of our library I cannot speak in as high praise as of our Museum. It should undoubtedly be one function of a Society like this to collect for the use of naturalists at least those books of reference which they would require to consult, and especisUy all books of value bearing on American Natural History. It is true that the University Library and that of the Gaological Sur- vey to some extent supply this want ; but there is still a large field in this department which we might occupy, and we should at least place the scientific periodicals of the day conveniently within the reach of our members. Nor is there anything more likely to prove attractive to the public than a well-stocked library and reading room, devoted especially to the scientific subjects which we cultivate. This subject is one with reference to which the Society should move vigorously in the coming year, either by soliciting special contributions for this purpose, by increasing the amount of its annual contributions from members, or by allying itself with other societies. It seems to have been an error in the construction of our building not to have provided larger space for accommodating a library and reading room, and if possible some amendment should be eff'ected in this. In our proper scientific work a boundless field lies before us. Scarcely any department of the natural history of this country has been satisfactorily worked out, and any active naturalist can find almost anywhere the material for original investigations, the results of which we are at all times ready to o-ive to the public. I have already referred to the subject of Entomology as applied to practical purposes ; and the natural history of our spiders, millepedes, and worms, is almost an untrodden field, while our microscopists have a vast and little explored domain in Canadian waters, with their multitudes of inhabitants of the humbler grades. There is much also yet to be done in Canadian fishes and reptiles. Mr. Whiteaves has made much progress in cata- No. 1.] THE president's ADDRESS. 7 loguing Canadian mollusca, but his work is by no means com- plete ; and such groups as the Nudibranchiates, the Tunicates and the Poljzoa, still lie in a very imperfect condition, though some materials have been accumulated. In connection with this subject, I would refer to the desirableness of exploring the deeper parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in which, no doubt, many important additions to our fauna might be discovered, and which might throw much light on the post-pliocene geology of Canada. It is further much to be desired that an attempt should be made to ascertain the precise limits of the various marine animals in the brackish portions of the River St. Lawrence. In dredging in 3Iurray Bay, in the past years, I have been surprised to find so rich a boreal fauna in that part of the river, and I have no doubt that it must extend much further upward, sustained by the cold salt water which forces its way under the warmer and fresher water of the surface. It would be interesting to know how far the marine animals extend, and also what varietal changes occur in the species as they approach the fresher portions of the river. To prosecute such researches we would require public aid, and the want of this has hitherto limited our work in this direction. Last year a committee was appointed to consider the matter, but nothini;' was done. With a view to some action in the comino- summer, I have, as President of the Society, invited the attention of the Hon. the Minister of Marine to the subject, and have requested a passage for an observer appointed by the Society in one of the Government steamers or schooners. I have much pleasure in stating that he has entered heartily into my views, and that there is a prospect that, with the aid thus afforded, we may be able to reach with the dredge the deepest portions of the Gulf. Though these depths are small in comparison with those which have been reached in the Atlantic, I feel confident that they will afford a rich harvest of marine forms, not hitherto known to us, and that the results will be equally creditable to this Society and to the Government of Canada, which may thus, with little trouble and expense, emulate the Mother Country and the United States in the efforts which they are making to extend the knowledge of Marine Zoology. It is probable also that facts may ba obtained of practical value with reference to the fisheries- In Botany the two points which have chiefly engaged our at- tention are Geographical Distribution and the Cryptogamic orders. In the former, Mr. Drummond, Dr. Bell, and Mr. Matthew have 8 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. done good servicej but their labours merely sliow how much re- mains to be done. In the latter, Mr. Watt has been our prin- cipal worker; but here also, especially in the Algae and Fungi, there is scope for other observers. Some one might do a most important service by directing his attention to the Parasitic Fungi of this country. Geology, which presents the largest and most attractive field open to students of nature in Canada, has a most important public provision made for its culture in the Geological Survey. Still the function of this Society and of private workers is not unim- portant. Several of the officers of the Survey have made the journal and the meetings of this Society the vehicles of their more purely scientific researches. I need only mention the valu- able papers of Dr. T. Sterry Hunt on Chemical Geology, and those of Mr. Billings on Palaeontology, as illustrative of this. To Mr. Hartley, Mr. Robb, Mr. Vennor, Professor Bell, and Mr. Broome, we have also been indebted in this way. Mr. McFar- lane has enriched our journal with many valuable contributions, especially on the nature of rocks, and many of my own researches, especially in Post-pliocene Geology and Fossil Botany, have been published through the medium of the Society. The field for work is still, however, very wide ; more especially is there large scope for industrious collectors of fossils, if they would devote themselves to the thorough exploration of such formations as may be within their reach. PUBLIC PATRONAGE NEEDED. In conclusion, I must refer to what I regard as at present the most discouraging feature of our position. In the able address delivered last year by Br. DeSola, reference was made to the slender aid and countenance which this Society receives from the public, and the same subject is illustrated by the statistics of tlie Society in the reports of the Council for last year, and also for the present year. A Society like this, ofi'ering to the public a w-ell filled and well arranged museum, the advantage of attending its scientific meetings and public lectures, and of receiving its journal at a price little more than nominal, should need no ad- vertisement ; and this more especially when its working members are kbouring so successfully in enlarging the boundaries of know- ledge and promoting its .practical applications. Those of our citizens who are not themselves naturalists, should on these No. 1.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 9 grounds be members and contributors to its funds, merely as a public institute, creditable and useful to the city. But this is not all : they should also take an interest in its work. Nearly all the subjects which engage its attention possess some interest to any intelligent mind ; and I believe that it is much more from want of knowledae of that which we are doino', or from want of thought, than from any other causes, that so many fail to take advantage of the privileges which we offer. I am sure that there is no intellio'ent man who will not find in the advantao-es to which I have referred much more than an equivalent for his annual, subscription. Experience has, however, shown us that we cannot reckon on a work so unobtrusive as ours securing the attention it deserves. It will, therefore, be incumbent on the new Council to take steps as soon as possible for enlarging our membership by a direct appeal to the public. I trust that this will be successful, and that next year we shall be able to report that we have not only done useful work, but that our list of members has been greatly enlarged. THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.^ (^From the New York " Kation.") The author of the '' Origin of Species " is more widely known, more eagerly read, more cordially admired, and more emphatically denounced than any other scientific man of the day. The inte- rest in him is in great measure due to the natural desire of humanity to penetrate that " mystery of mysteries " — its origin ; encomiums which even his warmest opponents (excepting those who are filled with the odium theologicuni) have bestowed upon him, are just tributes to his long and faithful labours, and to the modesty which has compelled others to award to him some of the credit he seemed loth to claim ; but much, if not all, of the in- dignation which many good persons feel towards him arises from misconceptions of his ideas respecting the Creator, which have * " The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, By Charles Darwin, F. K. S." Fifth edition. (Am. reprint.) New York : D. Appleton & Co. 1871. Pp. 447, 8vo. " The Genesis of Species. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S." London and New York ; Macraillan & Co. 1871. Pp. 296 (with illustrations). 10 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [A^ol. vi. their origin not in his own works, but in those of certain advo- cates of his general views. In truth, the candid reader of Darwin's own works can find little fault with his conceptions of the Creator so far as regards their sincerity, although it is evident that he regards the origin of species as a legitimate subject of scientific enquiry, and ignores, as well he may, the vain attempts to reconcile the conclusions to which he is led with the commonly received interpretation of Scripture. So does the author of the '•' Genesis of Species," who is, however, a professedly devout man, and gives many arguments and quotations, especially in the chapter on " Theology and Evo- lution," to show that neither '' Darwinism " nor any other deriva- tive theory necessarily conflicts in the least degree with the most orthodox relio-ious convictions. This leads to the needed correction of another grave miscon- ception — that " Darwinism " is synonymous with '' derivation " or ''evolution," and that either of these terms is equivalent to " transmutation." This idea has not only crept into the book catalogues, where all works upon the origin of species are grouped together under the title " Darwinismus," as if they treated of merely local varieties of the same intellectual epidemic, but it has also caused many who feel that Darwin's particular theory is wrong, to oppose all theories whatsoever involving the derivation of higher forms from lower. A sketch of the views which preceded his own is prefixed, by Darwin, to the later editions of his work ; but we have nowhere met with any grouping of these and subsequent theories which exhibits their relative nature. Such a classification we venture to oficr here, admitting the impossibility of more than indicating the salient points of each theory and the names of a few of its more zealous advocates. "We have also thought it best to omit the hypothesis of " acceleration and retardation," * recently pro- posed by Professor Cope, and spoken of by Principal Dawson as, in his view, " the most promising of all." f * " The Hypothesis of Evolation." University series. New Haven : C. C. Chatfield & Co. t For farther notice of the hypothesis here referred to, see Dr. Dawson's paper on " Modern Ideas of Derivation,'' in the Canadian A^f^wra^^s/; for June, 1869, page 134, and also the American Natural i&V for June, 1870, pp. 230-237, where, in a review of Dr. Dawson's paper, Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, of Boston, refers to an essay by himself " On the No. 1.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 11 Family. Gemjs. Species. Supporters. (T 1 „,^ i«r,<- S Pi'Otluction of adults Milton. inaepentlent ^ production of eggs Swedenborg. ^i„ „.- (Production (Transmutation — Lamarck. Creation - ) nf J v Dirwin I Derivative f ^^-^ '^ies ^^'^tural selection I^,F™. IDemative I p- Vestiges." I ( Production \ O^din-'^n' Genesis \ ? J/|««^- W of j I Mivart. ( Species 1. Parthenogenesis . . • Ferris. The above will explain itself to those who are already familiar with the subject, but a few words may be added for others. If the species of animals and plants were created independently of all other species, then they must have been made as either perfect and fully formed individuals or as seeds and eggs. The former view is here ascribed to Milton rather than to Moses or Scripture, because most intelligent people now admit that the earlier chap- parallelism between the different stages of life in the individual and those in the entire group of the molluscous order Tetrabranchiata." (Mem. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. Vol. I, part ii, 1867.) Prof. Hyatt re- marks that Dr. Dawson has " given Prof. Cope the undivided credit of discovering the law of acceleration, whereas the memoir referred to above, which has escaped Dr Dawson's notice, "will remove all doubt that the aim of a large part of the observations there recorded, is identical with those of Prof. Cope's more elaborate es^aj\ We have no desire for controversy but feel that silence in the present instance would place in a false light the object of these in- vestigations, and vitiate the original value of the results of much labour not yet published." (Loc. cit. 234.) We may add that Prof. Hyatt's paper was read Feb. 21, 18CG, and Prof. Cope's on the Cyprinoid Fishes, in which his views were first enunciated, in Oct. 19 of the same year, though only published in the Trans. Amer, Philos. Soc, vol. 13, in 1869, after hi« elaborated views on the origin of species had appeared in the Proc. Phil. Acad. Sciences for 1868. No one who knows Prof. Cope can doubt that he, like Dr. Dawson and the author of the review here copied from The Nation, was unacquainted with the views of Prof. Hyatt. In justice to the latter, however, as an independent w^orker in this field, it is well to put these facts on record to avoid any future misconceptions. It should perhaps be explained that Dr. Dawson's reasons for pre- ferring the theory of Messrs. Hyatt and Cope did not imply any ad- hesion on his part to the hypothesis of derivation, but was based merely on the circumstance that the possibility of the passage of an animal from one genus to another by acceleration or retardation of development, seems to be proved by at least a few though perhaps (exceptional facts, open to observation ; while the change of one spe- cies into another is totally destitute of any observed examples or positive proof. — Eds. Canadian Naturalist. 12 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. tt'i's of Genesis cannot reasonably be interpreted in their literal sense ; so that for a distinct statement of this view we must look to the great English poet, who, however, was not a scientific man.'-"^ The idea that orscanisms were created as es-^s, which have a sim- pier structure, is less difficult to comprehend than the foregoing, but it is not easy to see how this could occur with the higher animals whose young are born alive, and not in the form of eggs. A rather vague enunciation of this idea is contained in a little work by Swedenborg,-]- which is probably to be regarded as purely j)hilosophical and not as one of his theological works. The second and more numerous family of theories is called " Derivative," because they all involve the supposition that in some way the lower and earlier forms have served as the means of producing higher and later ones. But it will be seen that they differ essentially as to the manner of this derivation. La- marck was impressed with the amount of variation in size and form which the parts of an animal may undergo in consequence of their use or disuse, and so indirectly from any desire or " appe- tency " which the animal experienced, e.g., a fish might thus become a quadruped if forced to live upon the land, and an ape might become a man. The amount of change in any one genera- tion might be very slight, but the next generation would inherit, increase, and perpetuate the transformation. In the endeavour to eive a concise statement of Darwin's own theory, we sufi"er from an " embarras de richesses ;" for not only is his own work one long presentation of it in many different aspects, but each later writer upon the subject has given his par- ticular version, and from a different stand-point. Summary ex- pressions of the theory are given by our author on pages 40, 70, 178, 412, 437 ; but a more diagrammatic enunciation is that of Wall-ace, who not only presented publicly an independent theory of natural selection at the same time with Darwin (1858), but has since paid a warm tribute to the latter' s work, while expres- sing a doubt respecting the sufficiency of that theory for the pro- duction of man. With a few unimportant changes, his presenta- tion is as follows : % * " Paradise Lost," Book VI. f '< Worship and Love of God," Section 3. X " Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection." London and New York : 1870. Pp. 302. No. 1.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 13 "1. Tendency of individuals to increase in number, while yet the actual number remains stationary. " 2. A struggle for existence among those which compete for food and endeavour to escape death. "3. Survival of the fittest; meaning that those which die are least fitted to maintain their existence. ''4. Hereditary transmission of a general likeness. " 5. Individual diSerences among all. •' 6. Change of external conditions universal and unceasing. '' 1. Changes of organic forms to keep them in harmony with the changed conditions : and as the changes of condition are per- manent, in the sense of not reverting back to identical previous conditions, the changes of organic forms must be in the same sense permanent, and thus originate species." The following passages from the " Origin of Species " may aid the comprehension of what the author admits to be a complex hypothesis : " There is a struggle for existence leading to the preservation of profitable deviations of structure and insects" — (p. 412.) '• Natural selection acts solely through the preservation of advan- tageous variation, and it acts with extreme slowness, at long- intervals of time, and only on a few inhabitants of the same region " (p. 108.) ''It is not probable that variability is an in- herent and necessary contingent under all circumstances ; varia- bility is governed by many unknown laws (p. 50). "We are profoundly ignorant of the cause of each slight variation or indi- vidual difference (p. 192). "Nature gives successive variations ; mem adds them up in certain directions useful to him " (p. 40). We italicise man because ^we are convinced that the grand fallacy in Darwin's theory lies just here, in the assumption that the selection and propagation of useful variations by Dian is in any way comparable to what takes place in nature. AYhat is proved by all his works is this : that, so far as experience goes, no two created things are identical ; that in many cases naturalists differ in their estimate of the value of the distinctions existiug between individuals, so that what some call varieties others re2;ard as species (a mighty question, which can only be decided by comparing great numbers of individuals of an undoubted species, and especially the progeny of a single pair) ; that by constant attention, by saving such as meet his wants and rejecting the 14 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI, rest, man has produced very strongly marked varieties, whicli continue "permanent " so long as this care is given, but which, the instant it is relaxed and a free crossins; with other breeds is allowed, show that they are only varieties and not true species by reverting to the original stock. It may also be admitted that in nature a somewhat similar selection takes place, especially under the form of " sexual selection," but there is as yet no evidence whatever that natural species can be compared to the breeds of domesticated animals ; and to ascribe to "selection " of any kind the power of originating species merely because it can preserve useful individual varieties^ is as illogical as — if so homely a simile is allowable — to suppose that the man who is able to manage his own house is, therefore, competent to "keep a hotel." Natural selection may be a true cause, but it is not shown to be a sufficient cause. It may here be noted that reversion is not mentioned in any of the statements of the theory of natural selection by either Dar- win or Wallace. Yet the former treats of the subject at length, and even depends upon its agency, after the lapse of thousands of years, to account for the sudden reappearance of otherwise inex- plicable structures ; so that, if we give to reversion the weight which Darwin himself allows it when it favours his views, his ar- guments against its action (pages 28 and 160) do not remove what is really a very serious objection to the theory of natural selection as applied to the production of specific forms in nature. This whole subject is well presented by Mivart in the chapter on "Specific Stability;" and we have alluded to it here because it has always seemed to us to involve a fundamental fallacy which the author of "Natural Selection" is bound to remove. The object of the "Genesis of Species" is "to maintain the position that natural selection acts, and, indeed, must act; but that still, in order that we may be able to account for the pro- duction of known kinds of animals and plants, it requires to be supplemented by the action of some other natural law or laws, as yet undiscovered" (page 5). This is, we may remark, but one of the numerous evidences that, while the general theory of "derivation" has been steadily gaining adherents even from among its original opponents, yet "natural selection" — Darwin- ism " pure and simple" — has been, and is still, losing ground even with those who were inclined to adopt it. Huxley " adopts it Xo. 1.] THE ORIGIN OP SPECIES. 15 ouly provisionally."* McCoshf admits that • it contains much truth, but not all, and overlooks more than it perceives." Les- ley! says, "All agree that it is true if kept within the regions of variety^ but it is disputed whether it be true for actual sj^ecific differences." Wallace denies its sufficiency in the case of man, and Darwin himself has modified his views somewhat in this last edition of the " Origin of Species;" furthermore, he admits "the existence of difficulties so serious that he can hardly reflect on them without being staggered" (p. 167) ; and that "scarcely a single point is discussed on which facts cannot be adduced oftep apparently leading to conclusions opposite to mine" (p. 18). Indeed, with characteristic candour, he specifies certain ideas which if proved, would be fatal : " If it could be proved that any part of the structure of one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory" (p. 196). We may, for example, yet learn the use which the "rattle" and the expanded hood have for the rattlesnake and the cobra, but Mivart is inclined to believe they are rather injurious, since they warn the prey (p. 50). Another such "' fatal idea" is the doc- trine that "many structures have been created for beauty in the eye of man or for mere variety" (p. 194). And here our author seems to contradict himself when, upon the same page, he admits that " many structures are now of no direct use to their posses- sors, and may never have been of any use to their progenitors" — a subject which has been well discussed by the Duke of Argyll. § The theory of natural selection im.plies that all changes are minute and gradual ; and also that only useful structures are preserved and augmented. Prof. Mivart points out the difficulty of explaining the origin of the unsymmetrical form of the floun- ders, etc. (p. 37), of the limbs of animals which, in their earliest and minutest form, must have been mere buds or roughnesses, and thus rather impediments to the progress of our ancient aqua- tic progenitor (p. 39). Darwin further admits that "it is im- possible to conceive by what steps the electric organs of fishes were produced (p. 184), also that the absence of imperfectly organized forms in the lowest strata of the earth's crust is inex- • " Man's Place in Nature," p. 128. t Report of recent lectures. t " Man's Origin and Destiny." § " Roign of Law," seventh edition, p. 230. 16 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. plicable" (p. 292) ; and his explanation of the absence of the transitional forms which must have existed, according to his theory of "minute modifications in time," between such forms as the elephant, the giraffe, the galeopithecus, the bats, and the or- dinary quadrupeds, is very unsatisfactory. His theory of rudi- mentary organs, also, is extremely imperfect. He accounts for all such from the disuse of previous jperfeet organs (p. 408) ; but he nowhere hints at the far more essential question as to how these original organs became perfect ; for upon his own general hypothesis they must have been rudimentary in the beginning. With regret, and after the closest and most sincere examination of all his remarks upon this subject, we confess that we have rarely seen such an absolute lack of logical argument as is evinced in the section upon rudimentary and functionless structures. In fact, the immense amount of evidence which he has collected does not seem to us to bear upon the main point, the origin of sjjecies, at all, but only upon the preservation of favourahle individual variations. We have not space for further presentation of our own difficul- ties or those which others have urged against the theory of natural selection, and will simply quote the general grounds upon which Prof. Mivart has been led, with no prejudice against it, to regard that theory as playing only a subordinate part in the pro- duction of new species (p. 21) : " Natural selection is incompetent to account for the incipient stages of useful structures. It does not harmonize with the co- existence of closely similar structures of diverse origin." " Certain fossil transitional forms are absent which miaht have been expected to be present ; and some facts of geographical dis- tribution supplement other difficulties. There are many remark- able phenomena in organic forms upon which natural selection throws no lio-ht whatever." " Still other objections may be brought against the hypothesis of ' pangenesis'-'^ which, professing as it does to explain great dif- ficulties, seems to do so by presenting others not less great — almost to be the explanation of ohsaunim 2^€r ohscuriusy These difficulties, which are set forth with equal cogency and fairness in the earlier chapters of the " Genesis of Species," have * Propounded at the close of the work upon '• Variation under Domestication." Xo. 1.] THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 17 led its author to a view which he alludes to throughout his work, but presents in detail in the chapter entitled " Specific Genesis." ''Accordino- to this view, an internal law presides over the actions of every part of every individual, and of every organism as a unit, and of the entire oriranic world as a whole. It is believed that this conception of an internal innate force will ever remain necessary, however much its subordinate processes and actions may become explicable. That by such a force, from time to time, new species are manifested by ordinary generation, these new forms not bein->; monstrosities, but consistent wholes. That these 'jumps' are considerable in comparison with the minute variations of ' natural selection' — are, in fact, sensible steps, such as discriminate species from species. That the latent tendency which exists to these sudden evolutions is determined to action by the stimulus of external condition." The part assigned to natural selection is stated as follows : " It rigorously destroys monstrosities, favours and develops useful variations, and removes the antecedent species rapidly when the new one evolved is more in harmony with surrounding conditions." Professor Mivart has so frankly admitted the essential coin- cidence of the above view with the one expressed by Professor Owen in 1868,* that we do not hesitate to call his attention to the similar views previously advanced by Professor Parsons, of Harvard University, and by the anonymous author of "Vestiges of Creation;" believing that his own conclusions were reached in entire independence of all of them, as is said of Professor Owen's. The author of the " Vestiges " expresses himself as follows : f " My idea is, that the simplest and most primitive type, under a law to which that of like-production is subordinate, gave birth to the type next above it, that this again produced the next higher, and so on to the very highest, the stages of advance being in all cases veiy small, namely, from one species only to another. Yet in another point of view, the phenomena are wonders of the highest kind, in so far as they are direct effects of an Almighty will, which had provided beforehand that everything should be very good." • " Comp. Anat. and Phys. of Vertebrates," vol. iii. p. 808. t " Vestiffes of the Natural History of Creation," tliird edition, p. 170. Vol. XI. B No. 1, 18 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. Professor Parsons^' writes as follows : '' Suppose the time to have come when there is to be a new creation, and it is to be a dog, or rather two dogs, which shall be the parents of all dogs. How shall they be created ? . . . . The fifth view is, they will be created by some influence of varia- tion acting upon the ova of some animal nearest akin — a wolf, or a fox, or a jackal — and the brood will come forth puppies, and grow up dogs to become dogs." B3sides the above, several other authors (Gray, J Argyll, J and Nealeg) had already hinted at the necessity of admitting the sud- den production of new specific forms, in some cases at least ; and Darwin himself, as we shall see hereafter, appears to have a dim idea that something of the kind might happen in defiance of natural selection. Nothing like direct evidence can be given in support of this theory of '-specific genesis;" but the question really is, as stated by Parsons, whether, as a provisional hypothesis, it is not on the whole, less improbable than any other, and open to fewer objec- tions. Those who, like Spencer, are unwilling to admit the action of any but known physical laws and agencies, may say, and truly, that the supposition of an ''innate internal tendency" only removes the difficulties one step further back, and is at best merely re-stating the case in a general way ; but little more can be said of the theory of gravitation. ON A NEW FOSSIL CRUSTACEAN FI103I THE DEVONIAN EOCKS OF CANADA. Extract from a pai^er in the Geological Marjazine, Vol. 8, No. 3, "ow some new Phyllopodous Crustaceans from the Palaeozoic MucJcs. By Henry Woodward, F.G.S., F.Z.S. Amonost a series of Crustacean remains, from the collection of Prof. Bell, of Canada, obtained in the Middle Devonian of G-asp^, and left with me for examination by the kindness of Principal Dawson, F.R.S., of McGill College, Montreal, is a portion of a * American Journal of Science, July J 1860. t Am. Jovrn. of Science, March, 1860 ; Atlantic Monthly, July, Aug., Oct., 1860. ; " Reign of Law" p. 237. § Froc. Zool. Sac. of London, Jan. 18, 1861. No. 1.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 19 valve of Bithyrocaris? most beautifully sculptured, of which the following is a description. The specimen is eleven lines in breadth, and probably measured, when entire, nearly two inchcfe in length. The dorsal border is rounded in a corresponding degree with the ventral border ; a small rostrum is observable at the anterior end, from which two prominent ridges also take their rise and pass over the side, one arching towards the dorsal, the other bending towards the ventral line, but uniting again on the centre of the valve at one inch from the anterior end. The fine striae above and below these prominent ridges are parallel, but ' those inclosed in the central elliptical space cross one another so as to form a finely reticulated pattern on its surface. The eye spot is distinct and prominent at the anterior end, near the inter- section of the two curved ridges. Other slight, scarcely visible, folds traverse the carapace parallel to the ventral and dorsal border, indicating that the original shell was of extreme tenuity, like that of the recent Ajnis and Estheria. Should the discovery of other and more perfect specimens prove this to be a true Dithyrocaris, it will be the first specimen of this ccenus met with in rocks of Devonian aire. I had proposed to call this form D. striatus,^ but as there is already a D. tenuisfriatus, it will be better not to give it so in- distinct a name. I therefore beg to name it Dithyrocaris f Belli. after its discoverer. THE POST-PLIOCENE GEOLOGY OF CANADA. By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S. Introductori/ . When in 1855 the writer, in consequence of accepting the office of Principal of McGill College, was removed from the Carboniferous Districts of Nova Scotia, and thus to some extent debarred from the prosecution of his researches in the carbonifer- ous rocks of that Province and their fossil plants, he determined, with the advice of Sir W. E. Logan, then Director of the Geo- logical Survey of Canada, to take up as an occasional pursuit the study of the Drift Deposits of Canada, a work which had, at ♦ British Association Reports. Section C, Liverpool, 1870. 20 THE CANADIAN NATUltALIST. [Vol. vL least, this link of connection with previous occupations, that it related in part to marine animals, "with which his Zoological studies on the sea coast had made him familiar. The results of these studies have, in part, been published in the following papers : — (1.) On the Newer Pliocene and Post-Pliocene of the Vicinity of Montreal. — Canadian Naturalist, 1857. (2.) Additional Notes on the Post-Pliocene Deposits of the St. Lawrence Valley. — lb. 1859. (3.) On the climate of Canada in the Post-Pliocene Period. — lb. 1860. (4.) On Post-Tertiary Fossils from Labrador. — lb. 1860. (5.) On the Geology of Murray Bay (Part 3, Post-pliocene deposits) — lb. 1861. (6.) Address as President of the Natural History Society of Montreal.— 76. 1864. (T.) On the Post-pliocene Deposits of Riviere du Loup and Tadoussac, — lb. 1865. (8.) Comparison of the Icebergs of Belle-isle and the Glaciers of Mont Blanc, with reference to the Boulder-clay of Canada.— /Zy. 1866. (9.) On the Evidence of Fossil plants as to the Post-pliocene climate of Canada. — lb. 18(?6. In addition to these papers I placed in the hands of Sir W. E, Logan, all my notes and lists of fossils up to 1863, for his Report of that year ;^^ and gave a resume of the subject, in so far as the Post-pliocene of the Acadian Provinces is concerned, in the second edition of my "Acadian Geology," published in 1868. Much of the matter contained in these detached publications now requires revision, more especially the lists of fossils; and many additional facts have accumulated. I purpose therefore now to summarize the facts and conclusions of my previous papers and to unite them with the new facts, so as to present as complete a view as possible of the geology of the superficial deposits of Can- ada. I shall also prepare a complete list of the fossils up to date, with revised nomenclature and synonymy. In this last part of the work I have been aided by Dr. P. P. Carpenter and Mr. Whiteaves. I have had the benefit, in the case of several critical species, of the advice of Mr. J. G. Jeffreys, and Mr. R. Macxln- * Quoted in this paper as the " Geology of Canada,'' No. 1.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 21 dreAv of Loudon. I am also indebted to Mr. G. S. Brady for determining the Ostracoda, to the Rev. H. W. Crosskey for op- portunities of comparing specimens with those of the Clyde Beds, and to Prof. T. R. Jones and Dr. Parker and Mr. Gr. M. Dawson for help with the Foraminifera. The present memoir will, I am sure, be welcomed by all who are engaged in the study of the subject to which it relates, if for no other reason, because the Post-pliocene deposits of Canada from their great extent and perfect development, are well fitted to throw light on many of the controversies which are now agi- tated with regard to these deposits. It may be proper here to indicate the nomenclature which will be followed. When the whole oeolooical series is divided into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, the deposits to which this paper relates are usually named Post-tertiary or Quaternary. These terms are, in my judgment, unfortunate and misleading. If we take the relations of fossils as our guide, then, as Pictet has well remarked, whether we regard the land or the sea animals, there is no decided break between the Newer Pliocene and the Post-pliocene, the changes not being greater than those between the Pliocene and the older Tertiary ages. There is, therefore, uo such thing in nature as a Quaternary time distinct from the Tertiary, as the Tertiary is distinct from the Secondary. Where therefore the terms Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary are used, the latter should include the whole time from the Eocene to the modsrn, inclusive, unless indeed the advent of man be considered ^ K^\<:v rriassic Trajt. W/ /M 2Ictaniorpliic Jiocks. No. 1.] BAILEY — GRAND MANAN. 43 ON THE PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF THE ISLAND OF GRAND MANAN. By Prof. L. W. Bailey. The Island of Grand Manan, near the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, though so long and so well-known for its picturesque scenery and from the richness of the surrounding waters as a fishing-ground for marine invertebrates, has received compara- tively little attention at the hands of the geologist. Statements bearing more or less directly upon its geological structure have indeed appeared from time to time, but since the date of Dr. Gesner's first exploration of the island (in 1838) no examinations with a special view to the determination of that structure have been made until quite recently. The most discordant views have in consequence been entertained with reference to the age of its rock formations. A visit, of some four days duration, made during the summer of 1870, in pursuance of duties connected with the Geological Survey of Canada, having enabled me to examine a considerable portion of the island and to compare its rocks with those recognized upon the main-land of New Brunswick, I propose to give here some of the conclusions at which I have arrived. The general form of the island of Grand Manan is that of an irregular elongated oval, of which the greater diameter is about fifteen and the shorter about seven miles. Its surface, for pur- poses of description, may conveniently be divided into two distinct regions, contrasted equally in their physical and in their geolo- gical features. Of these the westerly and more extensive tract, embracing more than two-thirds of the main island, has the character of a somewhat elevated plateau, traversed in a direction parallel to its length by a series of minor ridges and depressions, and exposing upon the western shore, which is remarkably uni- form and entirely free from islands, a series of bold bluff's, vary- ing from two to four hundred feet in elevation.^ This plateau is for the most part well wooded (with birch, maple, beech, &c.,) ♦ Among flowering plants observed on the island (August 22nd) were Asters and Solidagots of several species, Scutellaria galericulata^ Potentilla fruticosa^ Campanula rotundifolia^ Epilohium angustifolium^ Sedum rhodiola, &c. 44 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. except near the surfaces of exposed cliffs or upon rocky ledges which are often densely covered with a low growth of Juniper (Juniperus.) The descent from this plateau to the lower lands which form the eastern side of the island, though less abrupt than that just alluded to, is nevertheless everywhere well defined, much of the last named region, including nearly all the settled portions of the island, being commonly not above a height of twenty or thirty feet above tide-level, and often much less.* This side of the island is further contrasted with that which forms its western half in its great irregularity of outline and in the numerous islands, of greater or less size, by which it is bordered. The many harbours which indent this shore afford a safe refuge to those engaged in the pursuit of fishing, an occupation to which the inhabitants of the island are almost solely devoted. The first published observations on the geology of Grand Manan are those of Dr. Gesner, who in his first report to the legislature of New Brunswick (1838) describes at some length its general topographical and mineralogical features. The two reo'ions above contrasted were recosrnized, and described as con- sisting, the one of trap and the other of slates (talcose, hornblen- dic and chloritic) and quartz rock, intersected by trappean dykes ; but beyond an allusion to the resemblance of the first named rocks in general aspect and in the contained minerals to those of Blomidon in Nova Scotia, no attempt at determining the age of either of these formations was made. In the geological map of Dr. Eobb, which was for the most part based upon the observa- tions of Dr. Gesner, the belt of rocks last mentioned is simply indicated as trappean, while those of the eastern coast are colored as of Cambrian age. From this time until the appearance of the second edition of the Acadian Geology of Dr. Dawson, no pub- lished references to the geology of Grand Manan appear to have been made. In an Appendix, however, to the last named work a summary of some observations bearing upon this subject is given by Prof. A. E. Verrill, who, though visiting the island chiefly for zoological purposes, had at the same time been able to devote some attention to its o-eolosrical structure. The formations * An exceiDtion to this low and level character occurs at the north- eastern end of the island, where the large peninsula separating Whale Cove and Flag's Cove is somewhat high and broken. No. 1.] BAILEY — GRAND MANAN. 45 distinguished by Prof. Verrill, and described as being unconform- able, correspond to the two belts recognized by Dr. Gesner, and to which allusion has already been made in describing the physi- cal features of the island. That which forms its eastern side, and which was supposed to be the oldest, was found to consist of talcose and clay slates, mostly grayish, but sometimes black, cal- careous grits, altered grey sandstones, the latter by induration sometimes becoming quartzites, or (when impure) imperfect syenites, and at some points black fissile carbonaceous shales ; — the series, as a whole, being highly altered and disturbed, with numerous immense dykes and masses of trap. The sandstones in one case are described as containing vegetable traces. These rocks were found to occupy not only the belt of low land skirting the eastern border of the main island, but also (as far as examined) the adjacent islands, excepting Inner Wood Island, composed in part of conglomerates and red sandstones, possibly of more recent origin, and the outer of the Three Islands, wherein were found beds of crystalline limestone.''"^ The second series, embracing the trappean belt which forms the western side and the major portion of the main island, is described by Prof. Verrill as consisting of thick-bedded, regularly stratified massive rocks of various composition, but mostly amygdaloidal, trap ash, and com- pact quartzose rocks, the beds being in some places nearly hori- zontal, and in others dipping to the W. or S. W. > 10*^ to 20*^. The traps at some points were found to be columnar, while from the cavities of the amygdaloids were obtained calcite, stilbite, apophyllite and other zeolitic minerals. With regard to the age of the two formations thus distinguished. Prof. Verrill makes no reference to that of the former beyond the statement that it is apparently the older of the two, but offers the conjecture that the latter, judging from the fqypearance of the rocks alone, may be of Devonian age. In commenting on these observations the author of the Acadian Geology thinks it probable that the outer and older series above mentioned may be either the equivalent of the St. John group (Primordial) or of the Kingston series (at that time supposed to be of Upper Silurian age), and that the traps, with some asso- ciated sandstones, might be Devonian or Upper Silurian. In the geological map accompanyinsj this work these formations are re- * Observed also by Dr. Gesner. 46 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vl. presented in accordance with one of these conjectures, the one as of Lower and the other as of Upper Silurian age. That the great belt of trappean rocks which form so marked a feature both in the physical structure and in the geology of Grand Manan, is of much more recent date than is supposed in the above observations, will, I think, with a full knowledge of the facts, scarcely admit of doubt. After a careful examination of a considerable part of their area, both as exposed in the shore cliffs and over the interior, I have no hesitation in re-affirming the comparison, long since made by Dr. Gesner, between these rocks and those of the North Mountains of Nova Scotia. So far as I have had an opportunity of examining the latter, their resem- blance to those of Grand Manan is very striking, as well in their composition as in their general aspect, while both are quite unlike anything met with among the older recognized formations of New Brunswick. These traps at Grand Manan, though largely strati- jfied, have evidently come up through the older metamorphic rocks of the island (which are at some points, as at the Swallow Tail Light, intersected by large dykes of exactly similar character), and were probably contemporaneous with the similar outflows at Blomidon and elsewhere, but whether the period of this eruption is to be assigned to the Triassic or to a still more recent epoch, is as yet undetermined. As tending to confirm the view of the Mesozoic age of these rocks, I was fortunate in being able to examine in situ the sandstones referred to, but not seen by Prof. Verrill, as sometimes occurring with them. These are rarely met with, (at least in that part of the island visited by me) being ex- ceedingly soft and easily worn away except where protected by overlying masses of harder trap. They may, however, be seen near the entrance of Dark Harbor, the principal and almost the only break in the continuity of the western shore, and are said to be exposed at other points as well. In their features of softness and incoherence, as well as in their peculiar light red colour, these sandstones resemble very closely those of the Annapolis and Corn- wallis valleys in Nova Scotia, or those which, at Quaco and else- where on the southern coast of New Brunswick, have been refer- red to the New Bed Sandstone Era.^ * G. F. Matthew — Observations on the Geology of St. John County, N.B. Also, Bailey and Matthew— Observations on the Geology of Southern New Brunswick. No. 1.] BAILEY — GRAND MANAN. 41 Another feature in which these red sandstones resemble those of the province of Nova Scotia, is to be found in their apparent relations to the associated trap. At Dark Harbor the first named rocks form a low terrace along and below the trappean bluffs, which here form an almost precipitous wall of over four hundred feet, and at their outer edge may be seen to dip towards the lat- ter at an angle of about 20^^. The direct superposition of the traps upon the arenaceous beds is not seen at this point, but I am told that further South the line of contact between the two is visible for some distance along the face of the shore-bluffs. * In reference to the nature and composition of the trappean rocks in question, I have little to add to what has already been stated by Dr. Gesner and Prof. Verrill. The best view to be had of their structure is that furnished in the sea-cliffs which inter- vene between Whale Cove and Long Eddy Point, constituting what is known as the Northern Head of Grand Manan. Along the western of the first-named indentation, these cliffs, having a maximum elevation of about 240 feet, may be seen to consist of alternating beds, from five to ten in number and varying from ten to twenty feet in thickness, the thicker beds being composed of a hard grey and greenish compact trap, which is sometimes colum- nar, while the softer intervening beds are amygdaloidal. These amygdaloids vary a good deal in texture as well as in colour, being sometimes fine grained and sometimes coarse, and exhibiting various shades of grey, green, red or purple. Their contained minerals are calcite and the ordinary zeolites, frequently with a considerable admixture of deep green chloritic matter, and more rarely scales of black mica. Native copper is sometimes met with, and considerable masses of this mineral are said to have been found at different times in the superficial drift of the islands. The zeolites are less perfect and in less variety than those of Nova Scotia. Between the head of Whale Cove and Eel Brook the trappean beds form a low synclinal, distinctly visible at a considerable dis- tance from the shore. Northward of this brook, the stratifica- f These red sandstones of Grand Manan in some parts contain considerable quantities of copper ores, which were examined and described by Prof. E. J. Chapman of Toronto in a report with a sec- tion, published in 1869. In this he refers the sandstones with their associated traps to the Triassic or New Red Sandstone period.— Eds. Can. Nat. 48 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. tion is less evident, the high bluffs of the Northern Head (300 to 350 feet) consisting for the most part of columnar trap ; but West- ward of this Head the beddins: is a 20*^), and a breadth of over one-eighth of a mile.^ It rests upon soft dark green shales, and with these extends through the length of the island, reappearing in Grull Rock and in Chalk Cove towards the northern end of Ross Island. This large island, as well as the shore from Wood- ward's Cove to Grand Harbour, I had not leisure to examine, but in passing around the shore of the last named haven, and thence along the beach to Red Head, was enabled to obtain a fair idea of the structure of the remaining portion of the metamor- phic belt. Along the western side of Grand Harbour the strata exposed to view, near its head, are greenish-grey chloritic and grey feld- spathic schists, and grey feldspathic sandstones, with a strong slaty cleavage and variable dip ; while nearer its entrance there are with these fine-grained greenish and purplish rocks, containing epidote, and more or less amygdaloidal. A few beds of fine- grained grey felsite, or felsite with an admixture of quartz and chlorite, or talcoid mica, are intercalated with these. The dip here is N. 60 to 70 E. > 30^ to 50°. Similar beds, but with a larger proportion of shales, sometimes purple and sometimes dark green with films of chlorite, skirt the shore westward of the entrance of the harbour, forming the promontories of Mike's and Oxnard's Points. A long curving beach, broken at intervals by beds of yellowish-grey slaty felsite, separates this point from a line of low bluffs running out and terminating in the promontory of Red Head, The beds exposed in these bluffs bear much re- semblance to some of those described above, as seen upon the shores of Flag's Cove, towards the head of the island. They are grey and bluish-grey (sometimes purple or black) fine-grained beds, conspicuously ribbon-banded and thrown into innumerable sharp corrugations. With these are grey feldspathic sandstones, coated M'ith specular iron, and coarse green chloritic beds, simi- larly plicated, but having a general northerly dip at an angle of about 30°. Towards the head the finer beds predominate, be- coming soft and rubly and conspicuously stained with red oxide * The quartz rock is here associated with dark grey fissile shales and green chloritic schists, dipping S. 40 W. > 30. It has almost the aspect of a white quartz vein. Similar rocks form conspicuous cliff.i on the western side of' Whitehead Island but have not been visited by me. 52 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. of iron J having evidently suggested the name by which the pro- montory is known. The latter, as stated in a preceding para- graph, marks the southern limit of the metamorphic belt, the contact of this with the Mesozoic traps being well exposed in a small cove upon its western side. The red slates last described, dipping northward, here meet and are covered by a coarse con- glomerate made of dark trap pebbles, which in turn underlies and passes into coarsely columnar trap, these being the first of a suc- cession of such beds forming the northern shore of Benson's Cove. Several small groups of islands lie to the south and east of the promontory last described. These I have only partially examined, but as they exhibit some features not met with upon the main- land, they may be briefly alluded to here. The first of these groups is that known as the Wood Islands, distinguished as the Inner and Outer Wood Islands. Upon the former the rocks bear much resemblance to those seen alone; the western side of Grand Harbour, described above. They are rather fine grained rocks, of bright green, red, and purple colours, often diversified with paler bands and blotches, and more or less filled with amygdules of calcite and epidote. These beds are associated with sandstones (and some conglomerates) of deep red and purplish red colours, sometimes finely banded and alternating with thinner beds of pale grey feldspathic schist and impure dolomite. These rocks, with occasional masses of trap, form nearly the whole of the wes- tern side of the island, as well as its northern extremity, their dip being somewhat variable, but where most regular, about N. 20 to 60*^ E. :>► 40*^. The sandstones are at some points very curiously and conspicuously marked by narrow veins (one-fourth of an inch wide) of fibrous calcite or satin spar, which fill short lenticular cavities arranged in parallel and overlapping lines, at right angles to the bedding of the rock. Outer Wood Island, at the only point seen by me (on its eastern side), is composed of hard greenish-grey siiico- feldspathic rocks, with very obscure stratification. The group of the Three Islands lies to the south and east of that last described, and with the exception of Gannet Rock, on which a light-house is built, is the most southerly of the chain of islands about the entrance of the Bay of Fundy. On the larger island of this group, known as Kent's Island, are beds of crystal- line limestone. They are mostly light coloured but mottled with shades of green, grey, or pink, and are rendered impure by a No. 1.] BAILEY — GRAND MANAN. 53 considerable admixture of quartz. The associated rocks are pale grey light weathering feldspathic grits, somewhat granitoid in aspect, grey feldspathic quartzites, and greenish and purplish altered schists, all much broken and disturbed. The other islands in this group I have not examined. With reference to the age of the metamorphic rocks described above, I can only add to the various conjectures already made by other authors. In doing so, however, I may say that I have had the advantage of being able to compare them directly with the formations of the mainland, and thus of arrivins; at a more probable estimate of their true position than is likely to be obtained from the mere study of the rocks themselves. Of the recognized formations in New Brunswick, they bear no resem- blance to either the Laurentian, Primordial, Upper Silurian, or Carboniferous. They are equally unlike the Devonian rocks, so far as these have been clearly determined on palseontological evidence. They do, however, bear much resemblance to an as- semblage of strata met with at various points along the southern coast of the Province as well as in the interior, and to a portion of which a Devonian age has been assigned in earlier publications. The rocks in question, embracing like those of Grand Manan a series of coarse red sediments, grey clay slates, chloritic slates and grits, with some limestones and dolomites, were at some points found to rest upon undoubted Devonian beds, and were for this reason referred to that horizon. It is not yet certain that such is not their age, but a careful study of the district having shewn the existence therein of several great faults and overlaps, it is possible that the beds in question, notwithstanding the super- position referred to, are really much more ancient. If this is the case, there can be no doubt that they are to be looked ujDon as a subordinate division of the great Huronian series, to the other members of which, as recognized in southern New Brunswick, they bear much resemblance. The metamorphic rocks of Grand Manan have been compared by Dr. Dawson (from Prof Yerrill's description) with what has been termed the Kingston series on the mainland of the Province. They differ from these latter in some respects, but as these Kingston rocks are now also believed to be a subdivision of the Huronian system, (and not Upper Silurian, as at one time supposed) this comparison may be taken as an additional argument in support of the view here advocated. Prof. Verrill has suggested that possibly more than one group 54 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. may be represented among tlie metamorphic rocks of Grand Manan. I also incline to this opinion (more particularly as regards the strata first described between Whale Cove and Pette's Cove as compared with those on the coast and islands southward of the latter,) but think that neither will be found to be more recent than the earliest Primordial Silurian. The accompanying map is a copy of the Admiralty chart of Grand Manan, slightly modified to show the position and extent of its geological formations. ON THE OIL-BEARING LIMESTONE OF CHICAGO. By T. Sterry Hunt, LL.D., F.E.S. (Read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science,, at Troy, August, 1870.) When in 1861,^ I first published my views on the petroleum of the AYest, I expressed the opinion that the true source of it was to be looked for in certain limestone formations which had long been known to be oleiferous. I referred to the early ob- servations of Eaton and Hall on the petroleum of the Niagara limestone, to numerous instances of the occurrence of this sub- stance in the Trenton and Corniferous formations and, in Gaspe, in limestones of Lower Helderberg age. Subsequently, in this Journal for March, 1863, and in the Geology of Canada, I insisted still farther upon the oleiferous character of the Corniferous limestone in south-western Ontario, which appears to be the source of the petroleum found in that region. I may here be permitted to recapitulate some of my reasons for conclud- ing that petroleum is indigenous to these limestones, and for rejecting the contrary opinion, held by some geologists, that its occurrence in them is due to infiltration, and that its origin is to be sought in an unexplained process of distillation from pyroschists or so-called bituminous shales. These occur at three distinct horizons in the New York system, and are known as the Utica slate, immediately above the Trenton limestone, and the Mar- cellus and Genesee slates which lie above and below the Hamilton shales, the latter being separated from the underlying Corniferous limestone by the Marcellus slate. * Montreal Gazette, March 1, and this Journal, July, 1861. No. 1.] HUNT— OIL-BEARING LIMESTONE. 55 First, these various pyroschists do not, except in rare instances, contain any petroleum or other form of bitumen. Their capa- bility of yielding volatile liquid hydrocarbons or pyrogenous oils, allied in composition to petroleum, by what is known to chemists as destructive distillation, at elevated temperatures, is a property which they possess in common with wood, peat, lignite, coal, and most substances of organic origin, and has led to their being- called bituminous, although they are not in any proper sense bituminiferous. The distinction is one which will at once be obvious to all those who are familiar with chemistry, and who know that pyroschists are argillaceous rocks containing in a state of admixture a brownish insoluble and infusible hydrocarbonace- ous matter, allied to lignite or to coal.^ Second, the pyroschists of these different formations do not, so far as known, in any part of their geological distribution, whether exposed at the surface or brought up by borings from depths of many hundred feet, present any evidence of having been sub- mitted to the temperature required for the generation of volatile liydrocarbons. On the contrary they still retain the property of yielding such products when exposed to a sufficient heat, at the same time undergoing a charring process by which their brown colour is changed to black. In other words these pyroschists have not yet undergone the process of destructive distillation. Third, the conditions which the oil occurs in the limestones, are inconsistent with the notion that it has been introduced into these rocks by distillation. The only probable or conceivable source of heat, in the circumstances, being from beneath, the process of distillation would naturally be one of ascension, the more so as the pores of the underlying strata would be filled with water. Such being the case, the petroleum of the Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian limestones must have been derived from the Utica slate beneath. This rock, however, is ualtered, and more- over, the intermediate sandstones and shales of the Loraiue, Me- dina and Clinton formations, are destitute of petroleum, which must, on this hypothesis, have passed through all these strata to condense in the Niagara and Corniferous limestones. More than this, the Trenton limestone which, on Lake Huron and elsewhere, has yielded considerable quantities of petroleum, has no pyroschists beneath it, but on Lake Huron rests on ancient crystalline rocks, * Silliman's Journal, II, xxxv, 159-lGl. 56 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. with the iutervention only of a sterile sandstone. The rock-for- mations holding petroleum are not only separated from each other by great thicknesses of porous strata destitute of it, but the dis- tribution of this substance is still farther localized, as I many years since pointed out. The petroleum is in fact in many cases, confined to certain bands or layers in the limestone, in which it fills the pores and the cavities of fossil shells and corals, while other portions of the limestone, both above, below, and in the prolongation of the same stratum, though equally porous, contain no petroleum. From all these facts the only reasonable conclu- sion seems to me to be that the petroleum, or rather the materials from which it has been formed, existed in these limestone rocks from the time of their first deposition. The view which I put forward in 1861, that petroleum and similar bitumen have re- sulted ftom a peculiar " transformation of vegetable matters, or in some cases of animal tissues analogous to those in composition," has received additional support from the observations of Lesley,^ in West Virginia and Kentucky, and from the more recent ones of Peckham.f The objection to this view of the origin and geological relations of petroleum, have been for the most part founded on incorrect notions of the geological structure of southwestern Ontario, which has afforded me peculiar facilities for studying the question. In this region, it has been maintained by Winchell that the source of the petroleum is to be sought in the Devonian pyroschists. I however showed in 1866, as the result of careful studies of the various borimrs : first, that none of the oil-wells were sunk in the Genesee slates, but along denuded anticlinals where these rocks have disappeared, and where, except the thin layer of Marcellus slate sometimes met with at the base of the Hamilton shales, no pyroschists are found above the Trenton limestone. Second, that the reservoirs of petroleum in the wells sunk into the Hamilton shales are sometimes met with in this formation, and sometimes, in adjacent borings, only in the underlying Corniferous. Examples of this have been cited by me in wells in Enniskillen, Bothwell, Chatham, and Thamesville, where petroleum has first been found at depths of from thirty to one hundred and twenty feet in the * Rep. Geol. Canada, 1866, 240 ; and Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. x, 33, 187. t Ibid, X, 445. No. 1.] HUNT — OIL-BEARING LIMESTONE. 51 Corniferous limestone, in all of these places overlaid by the Ha- milton shales. It was also shown, that in two localities in this region, viz. in Tilsonburg and at Maidstone, where the Cornifer- ous is covered only by quaternary clays, petroleum in considerable quantities has been obtained by sinking into the limestone.^ That the supplies are less abundant than in parts where a mass of shales and sandstones overlies the oil bearing limestone is ex- plained by the fact that both the pores and the fissures in the superior strata serve to retain the oil, in a manner analogous to the quaternary gravels in some parts of this region, which are the sources of the so-called surface oil-wells. It is therefore not surprising that examples of pyroschists impregnated with oil should sometimes occur, but the evidence of the existence of in- digenous petroleum, which is so clear in the various limestones, is wanting in the case of the pyroschists ; although concretions hold- ing petroleum have been observed in the Marcellus and the Genesee slates of New York. There is, however, reason to believe, as I have elsewhere pointed out, that much of the petro- leum of Pennsylvania, Ohio and the adjacent regions, is indigen- ous to certain sandbtone strata in the Devonian and Carboniferous rocks. f At the meetinc; of the x\merican Association for the Advance- ment of Science at Chicago, in August, 18G8, in a discussion which followed the reading of a paper by myself on the geology of Ontario, J it was contended that, although the various lime- stones which have mentioned are truly oleiferous, the quantity of petroleum which they contain is too inconsiderable to account for the great supplies furnished by oil-producing districts, like that of Ontario for example. This opinion being contrary to that which I had always entertained, I resolved to submit to examin- ation the well-known oil-bearinci; limestone of Chicacco. This limestone, the quarries of which are in the immediate vicinity of the city, is so filled with petroleum that blocks of it which have been used in buildings are discoloured by the exuda- tions, which mingled with dust, form a tarry coating upon the exposed surfaces. The thickness of the oil-bearing beds, which * Silliman's Journal II, xlvi, 360 ; and Report Gcol. Canada. 1866, pp. 241-250. t Ibid, 240. X Silliman's Jour. II, xlvi, 355. 58 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. are massive and horizontal, is, according to Prof. Worthen, from thirt^^-five to forty feet, and they occupy a position about mid- way in the Niagara formation, which has in this region a thick- ness of from 200 to 250 feet. As exposed in the quarry, the whole rock seems pretty uniformly saturated with petroleum, which exudes from the natural joints and the fractured surfaces, and covers small pools of water in the depressions of the quarry. I selected numerous specimens of the rocks from different points and at various levels, with a view of getting an average sample, although it was evident that they had already lost a portion of their original content of petroleum. After lying for more than a year in my laboratory they were submitted to chemical examin- ation. The rock, though porous and discoloured by petroleum, is, when freed from this substance, a nearly white, granular, crys- talline and very pure dolomite, yielding 54*6 p. c. of carbonate of lime. Two separate portions, each made up of fragments obtained by breaking up some pounds of the specimens above mentioned, and supposed to represent an average of the rock exposed in the quarry, were reduced to coarse powder in an iron mortar. Of these two portions, respectively, 100 and 138 grammes were taken, and were dissolved in warm dilute hydrochloric acid. The tarry residue which remained in each case, was carefully collected and treated with ether, in which it was readily soluble with the exception of a small residue. This, in one of the samples, was found equal to -40 p. c, of which -13 was volatilized by heat with the production of a combustible vapour having a fatty odour ; the remainder was silicious. The brown etherial solutions were evaporated, and the residuum freed from water and dried at lOO'^C, weighed in the two experiments equal to 1-570 and 1-505 per cent, of the rock, or a mean of 1-537. It was a viscid red- dish-brown oil, which, though deprived of its more volatile por- tions, still retained somewhat of the odour of petroleum which is so marked in the rock. Its specific gravity as determined by that of a mixture of alcohol and water, in which the globules of the petroleum remained suspended, was -935 at 16'*'C. Estimat- ing the density of the somewhat porous dolomite at 2-600, we have the equation -935 : 2-600 : : 1-1537 : 4-26; so that the volume of the petroleum obtained equalled 4-26 per cent of the rock. This result is evidently too low for two reasons ; first, because the rock had already lost a part of its oil, while in the No. 1.] HUNT — OIL-BEARING LIMESTONE. 59 quarry, and subsequently, before its examination ; and secondly, because the more volatile portions had been dissipated in the process of extraction just described. In assuming 100-00 parts of the rock to hold 4*25 parts by volume of petroleum, we are thus below the truth in the following calculations. A layer of this oleiferous dolomite one mile (5280 feet) square, and one foot in thickness will contain 1,184,832 cubic feet of petroleum, equal to 8,850,069 gallons of 231 cubic inches, and to 221-247 barrels of forty gallons each. Taking the minimum thickness of thirty- five feet, assigned by Mr. Worthen to the oil-bearing rock at Chicago, we shall have in each square mile of it 7,743,745 barrels, or in round numbers seven and three quarter millions of barrels of petroleum. The total produce of the great Pennsylvania oil-region for the ten years from 1860 to 1870 is estimated at twenty-eight millions of barrels of petro- leum, or less than would be contained in four square miles of the oil-bearin2; limestone band of Chicao-o. It is not here the place to insist upon the geological conditions which favour the liberation of a portion of the oil from such rocks, and its accumulation in fissures along certain anticlinal lines in the broken and uplifted strata. These points in the geological history of petroleum were shown by me in my first publications already referred to, March and July, 1861, and indejDendently, about the same time, by Prof. E. B. Andrews in this Journal for July, 1861.^'^ The proportion of petroleum in the rock of Chicago may be exceptionally large, but the oleiferous character of great thick- ness of rock in other regions is well established, and it will be seen from the above calculations that a very small proportion of the oil thus distributed would, when accumulated along lines of uplift in the strata, be more than adequate to the supply of all the petroleum wells known in the regions where these oil-bearing rocks are found. With such sources existing ready formed in the earth's crust, it seems to me, to say the least, unphilosophical to seach elsewhere for the origin of petroleum, and to imagine it to be derived by some unexplained process from rocks which are destitute of the substance. * Sill. Jour. II, xxxii, 85. See also papers on the subject by him and by Prof. Evans, Ibid. II, xl. 33, 334 ; and one by the author, II, XXXV, 170 ; also Report Geol. Survey of Canada, 1866, pp. 256-257. 60 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADx\. Alfred K. C. Selwyn, Director. The Report of Progress from 1866 to 1869 is a bulky volume of 475 pages, with five maps, containing the results of a large amount of work ranging over the whole vast territory from Lake Superior to Nova Scotia inclusive. It embraces the following documents : 1. Letter of Mr. Selwyn introducing the Report. 2. Report of Sir W. E. Logan on part of the Coal-field of Pictou, Nova Scotia. 3. Report of Mr. Edward Hartley on part of the same Coal- field. 4. Report of Mr. R. Bell on the Manitoulin Islands. 5. Report of Mr. James Richardson on the South Shore below Quebec. 6. Report of Mr. Henry G. Vennor on Hastings County, Ontario. 7. Report of Mr. Charles Robb on part of New Brunswick. 8. Report of Dr. T. Sterry Hunt on the Goderich Salt Re- gion, and on Iron and Iron Ores. 9. Report of Mr. James Richardson on the North Shore of the Lower St. Lawrence. 10. Report of Mr. Robert Bell on Lakes Superior and Nipi- gon. 11. Reports of Mr. Edward Hartley on the Coals of Nova Scotia. 12. An Appendix, containing lists of Plants by Dr. John Bell, and a Note on the Nipigon Region by Sir W. E. Logan. Out of such a mass of matter it would be almost in vain to attempt to select specimens of each of the separate treaties of which the Report consists. A melancholy interest attaches to that part of it which bears the name of Mr. Edward Hartley, a young man of great ability and information, and high promise, and whose work in this Report would alone be sufficient to give him a permanent place among our scientific men, but who was cut off by death in the midst of his practical and useful labours. From his elaborate survey of part of the great Pictou coal-field, we may extract the part having reference to areas, in which Ca- nadian capitalists are largely interested : No. 1.] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP CANADA. 61 " The Acadia Coal Company own tliree mining rights, which are as follows : The Fraser area, south of the General Mining Association's area; the Carmichael area, southwest of the General Mining Association's area; and No. 3 area, Ij'ing to the south of the Fraser area. ERASER AREA. Workings have been carried on for many years upon the Fraser area ; first by the General Mining Association, and more lately by Mr. J. D. B. Fraser, of Pictou, from whose possession it passed by lease to the present company. Attempts have been made by former owners to work the Deep Seam on the western portion of the area at the McKenzie pit, and a slope has also been driven some distance on the crop of the Third coal seam, both of which workings are now abandoned, and therefore require no special description. The present workings are confined to the McGregor seam and two openings on the Oil- coal. McGregor Colliery. In the McGregor colliery the openings consist of No. 1, an adit, No. 2, a slope, and No. 3, a pair of slopes. Adit No. 1 was opened by the General Mining Association on the left bank of Coal Brook, near the crossing of the Middle Biver road, and driven N. W. a distance of about 800 yards. The seam was irregularly worked by the General Mining Asso- ciation and Mr. Fraser, but is, I believe, for the present aban- doned. Slope No. 2 is a single slope to the lower level of No. 3 slopes, and was formerly the working slope, but is now used only as a travelling way. It stands on the left bank of Coal Brook near the mouth of No. 1. Slopes No. 3 are the principal working. Their situation is 170 yards S. E. of No. 2, on the right bank of the brook. Their total depth is 510 feet. Main levels extend 260 yards N. W. and but 20 yards in the contrary direction. The dimensions of the slope are : Drawing slope (a double rail- way track) 9 feet post, 9 feet cap and 14 feet ground sill. The tracks are all of T iron 25 lbs. to the yard. The second slope, a travelling way for horses and men, is separated from the draw- 62 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. ing slope by a 14 feet barrier of coal ; its height is the same as that of the drawing slope, with 6 feet cap and 8 feet ground sill. A temporary engine is of 14 nominal English horse-power, with a horizontal single cylinder, driving the hoisting drum by shaft- ing with clutch gearing; and also pumping through the Fleming pump pit by a wire rope running over sheave pullies to the pump bob. In working the McGregor seam the upper coal (included in the upper six feet of the seam) is the only portion taken out, the lower bench being unsaleable. The seam is found to rapidly improve going west, as will be seen from the following sections : McGregor seanij upper coal. At No. 2 slope. At western face. Ft. In. Ft. In. Good coal 19 2 9 Arenaceous fire-clay parting. . 10 6 Good coal 3 4 5 9 7 3 Near the western face, the bord and pillar system with incline gate roads has been commenced. Elsewhere in the working the back -balance system is used. Oil-coal WorJcings, Two slopes have been sunk upon the oil-coal seam, namely the Fraser mine on Coal Brook, near No. 3 slopes, and the Stellar mine on McCulloch's Brook. The principal value of this seam consists in the large quantity of oil contained in the bench men- tioned as oil-coal in the general section, which in former years was extensively worked, the oil-coal or steUarite, as it has been named by Professor Henry How, who first described it, selling for a high price for gas-making and distillation. The present low price of coal- oil from the extensive working of petroleum in this country and the United States, combined with the high tarifi" on imported coal imposed by the United States, have com- bined to render the working of this seam unprofitable, and both workings are for the present abandoned. As the quality of this peculiar coal will receive especial atten- tion in the Appendix to this report, I will merely state in conclu- sion that from the large content of oil this seam must at some time prove of considerable value. From pits sunk by the Acadia Coal Company it would appear that the size and quality of the No. 1.] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 63 Oil-coal bench improves towards the east, the greatest thickness (1 foot 10 inches) being procured in a pit sunk at the corner of Grove street and Pennsylvania avenue in Acadia village, which coal produced 120 gallons of crude oil to the ton; the average obtained from the Fraser mine being about from GO to 65 gallons per ton. CARMICHAEL AREA. For many years no workable coal was known to exist to the west of the McCulloch -brook fault, on which the Albion coal seams are lost ; and though many attempts were made to ascer- tain the position of these seams no coal was found until the 18th April, 1865, when Mr. Truman French, in prospecting for the Nova Scotia Coal Company, discovered the fine seam of coal now known as the Acadia seam, and presumed to be equivalent to the Main seam of the Albion mines. The first opening of this seam was on the area under consideration, near its western boundary, from which point it was traced north and south, as described in treating the general distribution of the coal seams. Acadia Colliery, The Acadia colliery, locally known as the Acadia west slope^ is situated near the south-western corner of the Carmichael area, and within the village of "Westville. Two slopes, corresponding in dimensions to the No. 3 McGregor slopes, have been sunk on the Acadia seam to a depth of about 140 yards from the crop. The section of this seam and the strata immediately overlying, as measured in the air shaft of this colliery, is as follows : Ft. In. Brown carbonaceous shale 4 6 Black bituminous oil shale 7 Brown carbonaceous shale 6 6 Ft. In. Good coal, (1st bench) ^^^^ ^^^^ 2 9 Good coal, (2nd bench) / ' 3 6 Light arenaceous fireclay or holing 3 Good coal (3rd bench) Coarse hard coal with iron pyrites, easily separated by dressing from the other coals Good coal (4th bench) Coarse coal of fair quality Coarse coal not taken out y Bench coal 3 8 1 3 3 2 4 2 4 18 2 29 9 64 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. Above tlie section given, no details for a column of strata can be procured, no record having been preserved of the numerous pits in the overlying measures. The remains from these pits, however, will enable me to state that at this colliery the seam is overlaid with a great mass of barren measures, consisting of black and brown carbonaceous and argillaceous shales, with occasional bands of dark arenaceous shale, and at least two thin bands of thinly laminated sandstones of a general white colour, with black partings, as in the sandstones described in the Foster pit section. Under the seam there is a yellowish-drab Stig^iiaria underclay of at least four feet in thickness. The measures are then concealed for forty -two feet, at which point a heavy bedded sandstone ap- pears, of a light brownish-drab colour, containing, where exposed in a quarry near the Acadia slope, large Stigniaria roots well preserved, as well as occasional stems of Lepidodendron. At this colliery the seam has been proved to be without fault, by the main level, which now extends about 500 yards south and 400 yards north, the exact direction across the area being N. 41° W., (or N. 18° W. magnetic) corresponding to the dip of the seam, N. 49° E. (or N. 72° E. magnetic), which varies only in inclination, being 19° at the surface and about 23° at the lowest level. The under-ground workings are on the counter-balance system, and are remarkably regular and well laid out. Counter- balances are driven 15 feet wide and 100 yards apart, throughout the workings. An air course 8 feet wide is also driven up at 10 yards to the left of each counterbalance. Working bords are 15 feet in width, with 15 feet of pillar, 75 feet of barrier being left above the main level. Machinery. The platforms at the head of the slope are roofed in. They extend from the mouth of the slope to the banks, and also to the shutes over the railway track. At this mine the fine slack is not sold, being carefully screened out, the rest of the coal being- divided into two sizes, round and chesnut. The drawing engines were built in New York, and are fair specimens of the best type of American engines, being compact and easily handled, with none of the slightness of design usually observable in American machinery. They are horizontal high-pressure connected engines, 16 by 48 inch cylinders, working by a 24-inch pinion into a 16- feet spur-wheel on a 14-feet drum. The engine house is of brick No. 1.] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 65 and cut stone, with a corrugated iron roof. Pumping is effected by a small donkey engine, which is also arranged to hoist bank coal to the screening platform, the quantity of water in this mine being so insignificant that a two-inch column-pipe is sufficient to deliver it. Second Seam, The discovery of the Acadia seam was followed by the discovery of a second seam, underlying at about 160 feet, by Capt. Blacker of the Acadia colliery. At the pit sunk by him the following thickness was found : Ft. In. Slialy coal 3 10 Good coal 7 8 11 6 The bench known as good coal seems, from the specimens I have seen, to be of a shaly character, and none that has come before me would be saleable. On the Carmichael area this is opened by only one trial-pit, now filled up. AREA NO. 3. Upon the No. 3 Acadia area no coal has been found, but from the presence, as proved by trial-pits, of the black shales overlying the Main seam, it is probable that the representatives of this and underlying seams occur beneath a portion of this area to the west of the McCulloch-brook fault. Of the size or character of the coal no information can be obtained without extensive prospecting. The only opening which is near this area is the Culton adit, and from the strike of the Culton seam at that point, it may be pre- sumed that it will continue on to No. 3 area. Railway. The Acadia Coal Company have built a fine single-track rail- way of about three and a-half miles in length, the main line ex- tending from the west slope to the track of the government railway at a point near Coal Mines station, and passing through the Acadia village near the McGregor colliery, with which it is con- nected by sidings. From the junction at the railway station the coal is conveyed over the government railway to the Acadia loading ground at Fisher's Grant, on the east side of Pictou har- bour, near the entrance. The shipping wharf extends into the Vol. VI. B No. 1. 66 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. harbour 850 feet to 26 feet of water at low tide. It is a well- built structure, 20 feet in height, with shutes at both sides and end, empty trains being made up on a centre track. Buildings. Thirty double houses have been provided for miners and la- bourers at the Acadia village, which is very tastefully laid out in regular streets and avenues, the houses being very substantially built, and of a much better class than it is usual to provide for like purposes. The rest of the plant at both slopes, including the blacksmith and machine shops, office building and overmen's houses, is very complete. INTERCOLONIAL COAL MINING COMPANY OF MONTREAL. Two mining areas are owned by this company, the Bear Creek area to the south of the Carmichael area of the Acadia Coal Company, and the Sutherland area, which lies to the north of the area of the General Mining Association. BEAR CREEK AREA. The Acadia seam was opened upon this area soon after its dis- covery in 1865, at a point known as Campbell's pit, near the north line of the area, and from this pit, as worked by the then owners of the area, and subsequently by the agents of this com- pany, a considerable amount of coal was taken for consumption in the immediate neighbourhood. After a careful survey by Mr. William Barnes of Halifax, a competent mining engineer (which survey will again be alluded to) the company decided upon the location of the present colliery. Drummond Colliery. The erection of buildings and machinery at this colliery and the first work at the present slopes was commenced about Novem- ber 1867, since which time works of considerable importance have been erected, a railway has been built, and a large amount of coal (about 70,000 tons) has been shipped. The section of the Acadia seam at this point is as follows, the measurement being taken in the air shaft of the colliery : No. 1.] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 67 Ft. In. Good coal with a smooth parting two feet nine inches from the bottom, (^fuU coal) 5 9 Light gray soft fireclay ; it varies slightly in thickness ; (holing) 3 Good coal, top bench 1 5 6 Gray hard coal, giving a pink ash. [ 6 Good coal, second bench Coarse coal, not worked )■ 4 6 2 1 18 7' Underground Worhings. The present workings consist of two working slopes driven about 900 feet from the crop of the seam, the dip being about 16^ at the surface, decreasing to 14^ at the lower level, at 730 feet from the surface. The size of these slopes is 9 by 9 feet, with a central barrier of coal between them of 28 feet, each slope having a single track and travelling-way. Main levels for two lifts have been driven from the slopes north and south upon the seam, the north levels being worked from No. 1 slope and the south from No. 2 ; thus far I believe the lower levels have been most extensively worked, a considerable amount of coal being left near the crop for safety. I have not had an opportunity of ex- amining a detailed plan of the workings, but my inspection of them would lead me to believe that the system of pillarage is planned with more than usual regard for safety. Both the post and stall and counterbalance systems of getting the coal were at first tried with a view of ascertaining their comparative economy, and I believe that Mr. Dunn has selected the counterbalance system for the future working of the mine. But little water has as yet been met with, and it is at present raised by water cars, no pump having been found necessary. Over-ground Works, The arrangements at the surface seem exceptionally well plan- ned and have given great satisfaction. At the head of the slopes a large heapstead or covered screening platform is erected for the separation of different sizes and qualities of coal, and for banking- out. The coal boxes are drawn on to this platform in trams of from five to twelve (holding from 500 to GOO pounds each) and thence delivered by dumps on to the screens, where the coal is separated, as at the Acadia colliery, into three sizes : round coal, 68 THE CANADtAM NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. nut coal and slack. The platform extends over eight railway tracks, four for each slope ; its floor is level with the top of the bank, for banking out, and in shipping bank-coal a railway track is run along the foot of the bank, and from this level the bank cars are raised to the main platform in a cage lifted by a small donkey engine, which is also arranged to drive a circular saw for the car shop of the colliery. The drawing engines are horizontal connected engines of about 50 nominal English horse-power ; they are of Scotch manufac- ture, and are fitted with an extremely ingenious arrangement of friction gearing, by means of which the two slopes may be worked independently, by one engine, a matter of great convenience. Railway. The railway of this company extends from the Drummond colliery to their shipping wharf at Granton on the Middle River, near Abercrombie Point, the position of which will be seen on a map. The main line of single track railway is laid with 56. pound rails, with the new steel scabbard joint, which has proved so successful on the Pictou and Truro branch of the Nova Scotia railway. This railway was built in 1868 by Mr. Joseph B. Moore, contractor, in the most complete manner, the track being well ballasted with broken sandstone and a coarse conglomerate from the cuttings near Waters's Brook, the culverts of cut stone, and the bridge of trestlework with cut stone foundations. The rolling stock of this railway consists of three locomotives, miscellaneous platform and construction cars, and sixty new coal waggons carrying from six to seven tons of round coal each, twenty of which were built at the Drummond colliery car shop. In con- nection with the railway are provided at the colliery, car shops, locomotive-sheds and weigh-houses. The length of the main line of railway from the colliery to the wharf is about seven and one quarter miles, which, with sidings, turn outs and standing tracks at the colliery, will probably raise the total length of single track to about ten miles. The shipping wharf of the Intercolonial Coal Company is a fine structure of wood upon stone and crib work piers, extending in a curve into the channel of the Middle Biver to about 22 feet of water. The arrangement at the platform of the wharf is such that there is a slight incline of one track downward from the shore to the end of the wharf, and thence a further down grade 1^0. 1.] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP CANADA. 69 ~ 7 7 7 was educated at the Edinburgh High School. He was intended for the medical profession, but after a time he gave up the course of study which he was pursuing for this purpose, and learned the art of engraving, which was subsequently turned to such good account. But his early predilection for geographical studies having increased with his years, and being animated with a strong desire to accomplit«h something better than had hitherto been attempted in his own country, he determined to make geography his profession, and to devote his whole energies to the prosecution of the absorbing pursuit on which he resolved to enter. Dr. Johnston's first great work was his ' National Atlas,' in folio, which was published, after five years' incessant labour, in 1843. Most of the maps were projected and drawn by himself, and nearly all the names written with his own hand. This work went through many editions, and secured for the author the appoint- ment of Geographer-Royal for Scotland. Humboldt having ex- pressed a wish for an English Physical Atlas, Dr. Johnston resolved to construct one on the scale required. He visited Ger. many in 1842, for the purpose of collecting materials and making other necessary arrangements, and on his return he laid his plans before the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society. At that period physical geography was scarcely taught in any of our schools ; hence there was but little prospect of any early pecuniary return for the immense labour which would have to be bestowed on such a work as that in contemplation. But these were pre- No. 1.] MISCELLANEOUS. 123 cisely the circumstances under which Dr. Johnston would be likely to distinguish himself. His own passionate devotion to geographical science induced the determination to make the study take its place among the necessary branches of a liberal educa- tion. He received the warmest encouragement from the Koyal Geographical Society, from Karl Eitter, and from Humboldt, — a special interview with the latter having taken place in Paris in Paris in 1845, on the subject of the Physical Atlas ; while the former geographer explained the original merits of the work at a meeting of the Geographical Society of Paris. This Atlas was at first intended to be founded mainly on the great work of Berg- haus : but, as its construction proceeded, the number of additions and improvements that were found necessary caused the abandon- ment of this intention, and Dr. Johnston's Atlas became essen- tially an original work. It was published in 1848, and was wel- comed by all competent authorities, not only because it was a valuable contribution to the study of physical geography, but because it embodied within convenient limits the results which had been secured by the observations of numerous scientific tra- vellers on the geology, meteorology, climatology, and hydrography of the globe. The Geographical Society of Berlin having awarded its Honorary Diploma to Dr. Johnston, Karl Bitter, the Presi- dent, took the opportunity of once more acknowledging the merits of the Atlas. Berlin was not alone in determining to do honour to the great geographer. The Boyal Society of Edinburgh spon- taneously conferred on him the honours and privileges of Fellow- ship; while the leading Geographical Societies of Europe, America, and India, elected him to Honorary and Corresponding Fellowships. The University of Edinburgh also, after the lapse of years, gave him, in 1865, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws — the highest honour of the kind that the University could bestow. In 1855 he commenced his ' Boyal Atlas of Modern Geography,' in which he may be said to have embodied the results of the arduous studies which he had prosecuted for a quarter of a century. The late Prince Consort took a deep inte- rest in this splendid work, the progress of which he carefully watched, and every sheet of which he criticised as it came out. During recent years Dr. Johnston devoted himself mainly to the publication of maps and other works for educational purposes, and to bringing the results of his previous labours before the public in comparatively cheap forms. — Condensed from The Athe- nceum. 124 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. The annual meeting of the Society was held at its rooms on May 19th, the President, Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S.. in the chair. Mr. J, F. Whiteaves, the Recording Secretary, read the minutes, after which the President delivered the annual address. The Chairman of the Council, Mr. O. L. Marler, then read his report, of which the following is an abstract : — The Council in making its report for the past year, does so with feelings both of pleasure and regret; with pleasure in having to acknowledge the many valuable scientific contributions which have been placed on the Society's records, to which the President has already alluded ; and with regret that the Society has lost many of its members, the number of which is becoming less every year. This decrease is to be attributed to various causes, chiefly, however, to the fact, that the Committee wiiose special duty it is to solicit and canvas for new members, has ceased its exertions, and that the work of the Society and its valuable contributions to science are not so generally known as they should be. During the last year the Society has lost by death, resignation, or removal, nineteeen members. Eiuht new ones have been added; the net loss on the year is thus eleven. An appeal should therefore be made to the present subscribers to induce their friends to join the Society. Your Council begs leave to suggest one means whereby its sphere of usefulness would be enlarged, to wit, by aflSliating other Societies, and by bringing into one place the different Libraries now existing in this city. The Society should especially urge upon the Trustees of the Eraser Institute the advantages that would accrue to both parties by such an affiliation. Not only is the position of your building most excellent, but the vacant ground adjoiniiig, belonging to the McGill College, also makes the idea very practicable; and although affiliated the institutions would be distinct. The annual Conversazione again failed to draw as many per- sons as we could have wished, notwithstandinii; the exertions of the Committee in whose hands the matter had been left. Yet your Council cannot but think that such reunions have a beneficial tendency, that much Vi'Juable knowledge is derived from them, Isfo. 1.] ifATtRAL HISt6nY SOCIETY. 12 *> and that even though there be a loss in a pecuniary point of view, we must resjard them as affording- valuable knowledj^e of things and objects which would be otherwise unknown. Your Council, therefore, recommend that they be continued. The Council desires to draw the attention of members to the collection of shells belonging to 3Ir. Whiteaves, your industrious Curator, which he is now engaged in classifying ; they are so admir- ably arranged that their inspection will be useful and interesting to members of the Society and to students. Thanks are due Mr. Whiteaves for the duplicates of the collection which he has kindly presented to the 3Iuseum. Your Council have to report that the post of Taxidermist and Janitor, left open by the resignation of the late Mr. Hunter, whom the Society had some difficulty in replacing, has been well and efficiently filled by 3Ir. Passmore. Mr. Whiteaves also read his report as Scientific Curator, of which the followino: is an abstract : — Owing to the protracted ill health of our late deeply rco-retted taxidermist, it was found that moths were makin"- havoc amono* the birds and mammals. The case beins: ur2:ent, 3Ir. Crai^- was called in, and we did our best to remedy the evil. On Mr. Pass- more's arrival, I called his attention to this circumstance, and he lost no time in making a searching examination into all the cases, and did all that could be done in the way of applying" the necessary remedies. Mr. Passmore and myself have also studied closely our series of Canadian birds, have weeded out several specimens which we have good reason to suppose are not American examples at all, and have rectified some errors in the previous nomenclature. The series is now in good order, and none but authentic specimens are included in that part of the collection. In the department of mammalia but one new species has been added, namely, a noble example of the grizzly bear of the Rocky Mountains. In ornithology, however, we have made much more progress. Mr. A. Jowitt has given us thirty-nine specimens of English birds, Major G. E. Bulger seven rare exotic species, but we have only added twelve specimens to our collection of Canadian birds. We have not to go far for a reason for this. When Mr. Passmore arrived, ornithologists here thought that we now had another 126 THE CA?;rADlAN NATtlRALIST. [Vol. VI. active and able naturalist resident on the premises, our collection of birds and mammals would rapidly increase. A special appli- cation was made to the Minister of AsTriculture of the Province of Quebec for a license to enable Mr. Passmore to procure birds, for the museum, which was not granted, probably owing to a mis- apprehension. From the Smithsonian Institute at Washinirton we have received a large and valuable series of North American birds' eggs, con- sisting of ninety-one species, many of them of considerable rarity. Among the more interesting^ of these are the ea'o-s of the Golden eagle, American pelican, King eider and Pacific eider duck, Velvet duck and Surf Scoter, Canvas-backed and Red-headed ducks, Gambel's and Hutchins' geese, Pacific diver. Western grebe, American oyster catcher, California gull, and other rare eggs from xirctic America and the Pacific coast. We have also added Canadian examples of the eggs of the Eed-shouldered buzzard (Buteo lineatus), and of the Long-eared owl (^Otus Wihonianus) to our collection. A description of the nidification of "each of these species, and a list of all the rare birds that have been recently obtained in the Provinee (at least of all those of which I could get any definite information) has been published in The Naturalist. The birds' eggs received during the past year have been labelled and arranged in drawers in the museum. Major Bulger has presented a miscellaneous collection of objects of interest, mostly from the East Indies; a detailed catalogue of some of which has been published in the Society's Journal. Thirty-six species of fossils, several corals, and an example of the Glass-rope sponge {Hyalonema Sieholdii'), have been also added to the Museum. Many of these were received in exchange for shells dredged in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I have steadily worked at the preparation of my own private collection of shells and fossils for exhibition in the Museum, with the following general results : about 3000 species have been par- tially grouped, of which about 1000 have been attached to proper tablets. Where a name has been ascertained with tolerable cer- tainty, a pen and ink label on white paper has been permanently attached, but where the identification is doubtful, the name and locality of the species is only written in pencil on the blue tablet. Of those mounted permanently 411 species are marine gasteropods (univalve), 300 species and upwards are land or fresh-water gasteropods, 324 species are lamellibranchiate bivalves ;— I esti- No. 1.] NATURAL msTORY SOCIETY. I2t mate those remaining unmounted at about 2500 species. With regard to the scientific arrangement to be ultimately adopted, there are some difficulties in the way. Dr. Woodward's manual, though excellent as far as it goes, represents only the state of our knowledge of the subject some fifteen or twenty years ago. On the other hand the Messrs. Adams and Dr. Gray in their elaborate treatises unfortunately disregard the well-known and well-estab. lished laws of zoological nomenclature. In the meantime, until the whole collection is mounted, the arrangement is one of mere convenience. When mounting my own shells, all the duplicates were put into the Society's collection, and in this way over fifty species have been added to it. The work of editing the Society's Journal has led this year to a much larger amount of general correspondence than Jast, which has taken up time that would otherwise have been devoted to work in the Museum. Under many disadvantages and diffi- culties, and with many deficiencies and shortcomings to regret, it is yet hoped that the work done during the past session has not been altogether barren of results but that it may have tended in some small degree to help to popularize the study of. the natural sciences in the city. The various reports were ordered to be printed, the usual votes of thanks to the retiring officers duly passed, and the meeting proceeded to elect officers for the current year with the following result : OFFICERS FOR THE YEAR 1871-T2. President. — Mr. Principal Dawson (re-elected). Vice-Presidents. — Dr. Hunt, Rev. Dr. De Sola, Sir W.Logan, Dr. Carpenter, Messrs. Billings, Selwyn, Leeming and Barnston, Dr. Smallwood. Treasurer. — Mr. J. Ferrier, jun. (re-elected). Cor. Secretary. — Prof. Darey (re-elected). Rec. Secretary. — Mr. Whiteaves (re-elected). Council. — Messrs. Marler, Watt, McCord, B. Bell, Shelton, Edwards, Drummond, Murphy and Joseph. After naming the sub-committees, the meeting adjourned. 12§ THE CANAftlA:;r NATtyRAtiSI^. O ►-5 H O o u u -0 o o I— I O O >^ o CO I— ( w Eh < u la o i- CO o o o CM C<1 o o ro -^i fO CO rq r— « o •i- -H 1—1 r^ o r— 1 o lO €/^ CM Ul (O o o -*^ CJ 'o o X in ~t'^ o - ^ = S X "^ "*^ be a CJ i^ W -J G > « ^ ►-I --' f^ 1-5 I— ( O '5 - - - " >■• : i =3 . ■d d O -3 in P^ o O O — ( 1—1 •k* i>4 ^< "I O J— cc CO o &I o o CJ • CO C o CO s o -c a CO o u t-t P5 f-3 -a o 00 03 CO C3 a o c c-1 t}' CO O O CM 1— 1 >^ o o •* in O O CO C-l O CO •^ 1 CM O O C/3 w h-i w 1— 1 H o f=< W O S-4 CO • o W r— > 1—1 00 1— 1 ^ hH ^ cc K-] ^H t/J 4J t—i ^ C 3 WW '■— ' 3 1—1 3 CJ h-i « c3 ^ so -:o o EH o o 813 :?5 o O rO f=) M ~ ^ a —1 OD '■^ Eiq o o £ ^ 4^pq3 H o en and " helium " No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 137 round the sun. (Frankland and Lockyer find the yellow promi- nences to give a very decided bright line not far from D, but hitherto not identified with any terrestrial flame. It seems to indicate a new substance, which they propose to call Helium.) I believe I may say, on the present occasion, when preparation must again be made to utilize a total eclipse of the sun, that the British Association confidently trusts to our Government exercis- ing the same wise liberality as heretofore in the interests of science. The old nebular hypothesis supposes the solar system and other similar systems through the universe which we see at a distance as stars, to have originated in the condensation of fiery nebulous matter. This hypothesis was invented before the discovery of thermo-dynamics, or the nebulas would not have been supposed to be fiery ; and the idea seems never to have occurred to any of its inventors or early supporters that the matter, the condensation of which they supposed to constitute the Sun and stars, could have been other than fiery in the beginning. Mayer first sug- gested that the heat of the Sun may be due to gravitation ; but he supposed meteors falling in to keep always generating the heat which is radiated year by year from the Sun. Helmholtz, on the other hand, adopting the nebular hypothesis, showed in 1854 that it was not necessary to suppose the nebulous matter to have been originally fiery, but that mutual gravitation between its parts may have generated the heat to which the present high tempera- ture of the Sun is due. Further, he made the important obser- vations that the potential energy of gravitation in the Sun is even now far from exhausted ; but that with further and further shrinking*; more and more heat is to be 2:enerated, and that thus we can conceive the Sun even now to possess a sufficient store of energy to produce heat and light, almost at present, for several million years of time future. It ought, however, to be added that this condensation can only follow from cooling, and therefore that Helmholtz's gravitational explanation of future Sun-heat amounts really to showing that the Sun's thermal capacity is enormously greater, in virtue of the mutual gravitation between the parts of so enormous a mass, than the sum of the thermal capacities of separate and smaller bodies of the same material and same total mass. Reasons for adopting this theory, and the con- sequences which follow from it, are discussed in an article ' On the Age of the Sun's Heat,' published in Mdcm'dUnis Magazine for March, 18G2. 138 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. For a few years Mayer's theory of solar heat had seemed to me probable ; but I had been led to regard it as no longer tenable, because I had been in the first place driven, by consideration of the very approximate constancy of the Earth's period of revolu- tion round the Sun for the last 2,000 years, to conclude that " the principal source, perhaps the sole appreciably effective source of Sun-heat, is in bodies circulating round the Sun at present inside the Earth's orbit " ; and because Le Verrier's researches on the motion of the planet Mercury, though giving evidence of a sensible influence attributable to matter circulatino; as a great number of small planets within his orbit round the Sun, showed that the amount of matter that could possibly be assumed to circulate at any considerable distance from the Sun must be very small ; and therefore, " if the meteoric influx taking place at j^resent is enough to produce any appreciable portion of the heat radiated away, it must be supposed to be from matter circulating round the Sun, within very short distances of his surface. The density of this meteoric cloud would have to be supposed so great that comets could scarcely have escaped as comets actually have escaped, show- ing no discoverable efi'ects of resistance, after passing his surface within a distance equal to one-eighth of his radius. All things considered, there seems little probability in the hypothesis that solar radiation is compensated to any appreciable degree, by heat generated by meteors falling in, at present ; and, as it can be shown that no chemical theory is tenable, it must be concluded as most probable that the Sun is at present merely an incandescent liquid mass cooling." Thus on purely astronomical grounds was I long ago led to abandon as very improbable the hypothesis that the Sun's heat is supplied dynamically from year to year by the influx of meteors. But now spectrum analysis gives proof finally conclusive against it. Each meteor circulating round the Sun must fall in along a very gradual spiral path, and before reaching the Sun must have been for a long time exposed to an enormous heating efiect from his radiation when very near, and must thus have been driven into vapour before actually falling into the Sun. Thus, if Mayer's hypothesis is correct, friction between vortices of meteoric vapours and the Sun's atmosphere must be the immediate cause of solar heat; and the velocity with which these vapours circulate round equatorial parts of the Sun must amount to 435 kilometres per No, 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 139 second. Thespectrumtestof velocity applied by Lockyer showed but a twentieth part of this amount as the greatest observed relative velocity between different vapours in the Sun's atmos- phere. 5. NEBULiE, COMETS, AND METEORS. At the first Liverpool Meeting of the British Association (1854), in advancing a gravitational theory to account for all the heat, light, and motions of the universe, I urged that the immediately antecedent condition of the matter of which the Sun and Planets were formed, not being fiery, could not have been gaseous ; but that it probably was solid, and may have been like the meteoric stones which we still so frequently meet with through space. The discovery of Huggins, that the light of the Nebulas, so far as hitherto sensible to us, proceeds from incandescent hydrogen and nitroo-en s-ases, and that the heads of comets also give us light of incandescent gas, seems at first sight literally to fulfil that part of the Nebular hypothesis to which T had objected. But a solution, which seems to me in the highest degree probable, has been sug- gested by Tait. He supposes that it may be by ignited gaseous exhalations proceeding from the collision of meteoric stones that nebulae and the heads of comets show themselves to us; and he suggested, at a former meeting of the Association, that experi- ments should be made for the purpose of applying spectrum analysis to the light which has been observed in gunnery trials, such as those at Shoeburyness, when iron strikes against iron at a great velocity, but varied by substituting for the iron various solid materials, metallic or stony. Hitherto this suggestion has not been acted upon; but surely it is one the carrying out of which ought to be promoted by the British Association. Most important steps have been recently made towards the discovery of the natv .-e of comets ; establishing with nothing short of certainty the trut^ . of a hypothesis which had long appeared to me probable, — that they consist of groups of meteoric stones ; accounting satisfactorily for the light of the nucleus, and giving a simple and rational explanation of phenomena presented by the tails of comets which had been regarded by the greatest astrono- mers as almost preternaturally marvellous. The meteoric hypo- thesis to which I have referred remained a mere hypothesis, (I do not know that it was ever even published,) until, in ]8G(3, Schiaparelli calculated, from observations on the August meteors, an orbit for these bodies which he found to agree almost perfectly 140 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. with the orbit of the great comet of 1862, as calculated by Oppolzer ; and so discovered and demonstrated that a comet con- sists of a group of meteoric stones. Prof. Newton, of Yale Col- lege, United States, by examining ancient records, ascertained that in periods of about thirty-three years, since the year 902, there have been exceptionally brilliant displays of the November meteors. It had lono- been believed that these interestins; visi- tants came from a train of small detached planets circulating round the Sun, all in nearly the same orbit, and constituting a belt analogous to Saturn's ring ; and that the reason for the com- paratively large number of meteors which we observe annually about the 14th of November is, that at that time the earth's orbit cuts through the supposed meteoric belt. Prof. Newton concluded from his investigation that there is a denser j)art of the group of meteors which extends over a portion of the orbit so great as to occupy about one-tenth or one-fifteenth of the periodic time in passing any particular point, and gave a choice of five difierent periods for the revolution of this meteoric stream round the sun, any one of which would satisfy his statistical result. He further concluded that the line of nodes, that is to say, the line in which the plane of the meteoric belt cuts the plane of the earth's orbit, has a progressive sidereal motion of about 52"-4 per annum. Here, then, was a sj)lendid problem for the physical astronomer ; and, happily, one well qualified for the task took it up. Adams, by the application of a beautiful method invented by G-auss, found that of the five periods allowed by Newton, just one per- mitted the motion of the line of nodes to be explained by the disturbing influence of Jupiter, Saturn, and other planets. The period chosen on these grounds is 33^ years. The investigation showed further that the form of the orbit is a long ellipse, giving for shortest distance from the sun 145 million kilometres, and for longest distance 2^895 million kilometres. Adams also worked out the longtitude of the perihelion and the inclination of the orbit's plane to the plane of the elliptic. The orbit which he thus found agreed so closely with that of Temple's Comet I. 1866, that he was able to identify the comet and the meteoric belt.^^ The same conclusion had been pointed out a few weeks * Signer Schiaparelli, Director of the Observatory of Milan, wiio, in a letter dated 3lst of December, 1866, pointed out that the elements of the oi-bit of the August Meteors, calculated from the observed posi- No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEiETINO. 141 earlier by Schiaparelli, from calculations by himself, on data sup- plied by direct observations on the meteors, and independently by Peters, from calculations by Leverrier on the same foundation. It is, therefore, thoroughly established that Temple's Comet I. 1866, consists of an elliptic train of minute planets, of which a few thousands or millions fall to the earth annually about the 14th of November, when we cross their track. We have probably not yet passed through the very nucleus or densest part ; but thirteen times, in Octobers and Novembers, from October 13, a.d. 902, to November 14, 1866, inclusive (this last time having been cor- rectly predicted by Prof. Newton), we have passed through a part of the belt greatly denser than the average. The densest part of the train, when near enough to us, is visible as the head of the comet. This astounding result, taken along with Huggins's spec- troscopic observations on the light of the heads and tails of comets, confirm most strikingly Tait's theory of comets, to which I have already referred; according to which the comet, a group of me- teoric stones, is self-luminous in its nucleus, on account of colli- sions among its constituents, while its " tail" is merely a portion of the less dense part of the train illuminated by sunlight, and visible or invisible to us according to circumstances, not only of tion of their radiant point on the supposition of the orbit being a very elongatedellipse, agreed very closely with those of the orbit of Comet II. 1862, calculated by Dr. Oppolzer. In the same letter Schiaparelli gives elements of the orbit of the November meteors, but these were not sufficiently accurate to enable him to identify the orbit with that of any known comet. On the 21st of January, 1867, M. Leverrier gave more accurate elements of the orbit of the November meteors, and in the Astronomische Nachrichten of January 9, Mr. C. F. W. Peters, of Altona, pointed out that these elements closely agreed with those of Temple's Comet (I. 1866), calculated by Dr. Oppolzer, and on Febru- ary 2, Schiaparelli, having re-calculated the elements of the orbit of the meteors, himself noticed the same agreement. Adams arrived quite independently at the conclusion that the orbit of 33^ years period is the one which must be chosen, out of the five indicated by Prof. Newton. His calculations were sufficiently advanced before the letters referred to appeared, to show that the other four orbits offered by Newton were inadmissible. But the calculations to be gone through to find the secular motion of the node in such an elongated orbit as that of the meteors, were necessarily very long, so that th^y were not completed till about March, 1867. They were communicated in that month to the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and in the month fol- lowing to the Astronomical Societv. i42 THU CANAI^iAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vL density, degree of illumination, and nearness, but also of tactic arrangement, as of a flock of birds or the edge of a cloud of tobacco smoke ! What prodigious difficulties are to be explained? you may judge from two or three sentences which I shall read from Herschel's Astronomy, and from the fact that even Schia- parelli seems still to believe in the repulsion : '' There is, beyond question, some profound secret and mystery of nature concerned in the phenomena of their tails. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that future observation, borrowing every aid from rational speculation, grounded on the progress of physical science generally (especially those branches of it which relate to the ethereal or imponderable elements), may enable us ere long to penetrate this mystery, and to declare whether it is really r.Mtter in the ordinary acceptation of the term which is projected from their heads with such extraordinary velocity, and if not impelled^ at least directed, in its course, by reference to the Sun, as its point of avoidance." "In no respect is the question as to the materiality of the tail more forcibly pressed on us for consideration than in that of the enormous sweep which it makes round the Sun in periJielio in the manner of a straight and rigid rod, in defiance of the law of gravitation, nay, even, of the received laws of motion." " The projection of this ray. ... to so enormous a length, in a single day, conveys an impression of the intensity of the forces acting to produce such a velocity of material transfer through space, such as no other natural phenomenon is capable of exciting. It is clear that if we have to deal her e^ with matter, such as we conceive it, viz., p>ossessing inertia — at all, it must be under the dominion of forces incomparably more energetic than gravitation, and quite of a diffi3rent nature." Think now of the admirable simplicity with which Tait's beautiful ''sea-bird analogy," as it has been called, can explain all these phenomena. 6. BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. The essence of science, as is well illustrated by astronomy and cosmical physics, consists in inferring antecedent conditions, and anticipating future evolutions, from phenomena which have actu- ally come under observation. In biology the difficulties of suc- cessfully acting up to this ideal are prodigious. The earnest naturalists of the present day are, however, not appalled or para- lyzed by them, and are struggling boldly and laboriously to pags No. 2.] BRiTisit Association meeting. 143 out of the mere " Natural History stage " of their study, and bring zoology within the range of Natural Philosophy. A very ancient speculation, still clung to by many naturalists (so much so that I have a choice of modern terms to quote in expressing it) supposes that, under meteorological conditions very different from the present, dead matter may have run together or crystallized or fermented into "germs of life."' or "organic cells," or "proto- plasm." But science brings a vast mass of inductive evidence against this hypothesis of spontaneous generation, as you have heard from my predecessor in the Presidential chair. Careful enough scrutiny has, in every case up to the present day, discovered life as antecedent to life. Dead matter cannot become living without coming under the influence of matter previously alive. This seems to me as sure a teaching of science as the law of gra- vitation. I utterly repudiate, as opposed to all philosophical uniformitarianism, the assumption of "different meteorological conditions" — that is to say, somewhat different vicissitudes of temperature, pressure, moisture, gaseous atmosphere — to produce or to permit that to take place by force or motion of dead matter alone, which is a direct contravention of what seems to us biolo- gical law. I am prepared for the answer, " our code of biologi- cal law is an expression of our ignorance as well as of our know- ledge." And I say, yes; search for spontaneous generation out of inorganic materials ; let any one not satisfied with the purely negative testimony of which we have now so much against it, throw himself into the inquiry. Such investigations as those of Pasteur, Pouchet, and Bastian are among the most interesting and momentous in the whole range of Natural History, and their results, whether positive or negative, must richly reward the most careful and laborious experimenting. I confess to being deeply impressed by the evidence put before us by Prof. Huxley, and I am ready to adopt, as an article of scientific faith, true through all space and through all time, that life proceeds from life, and from nothins; but life. 1. origin of life. How, then, did life originate on the earth? Tracing the phy- sical history of the earth backwards, on strict dynamical princi- ples, we are brought to a red-hot melted globe, on which no life could exist. Hence when the earth was first fit for life, there was no living thing on it. There were rocks solid and disinte- 144 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. grated, water", air all round, warmed and illuminated by a brilli- ant sun, ready to become a garden. Did grass and trees and flowers spring into existence, in all the fulness of ripe beauty, by a fiat of Creative Power? or did vegetation, growing up from seed sown, spread and multiply over the whole earth ? Science is bound, by the everlasting law of honour, to fiice fearlessly every problem which can fairly be presented to it. If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power. When a lava stream flows down the sides of Vesuvius or Etna it quickly cools and becomes solid ; and after a few weeks or years it teems with vegetable and animal life, which for it originated by the transport of seed and ova and by the migration of individual living creatures. When a volcanic island springs up from the sea, and after a few years is found clothed with vegetation, we do not hesitate to assume that seed has been wafted to it through the air, or floated to it on rafts. Is it not possible, and if possible, is it not probable, that the beginning of vegetable life on the earth is to be similarly explained ? Every year thousands, pro- bably millions, of fragments of solid matter fall upon the earth — whence came these fragments ? What is the previous history of any one of them ? Was it created in the beginning of time an amorphous mass ? This idea is so unacceptable that, tacitly or explicitly, all men discard it. It is often assumed that all, and it is certain that some, meteoric stones are fragments which had been broken ofi" from greater masses and launched free into space. It is as sure that collisions must occur between great masses moving through space as it is that ships, steered without intelligence directed to prevent collision, could not cross and re- cross the Atlantic for thousands of years with immunity from collisions. When two great masses come into collision in space it is certain that a large part of each is melted ; but it seems also quite certain that in many cases a large quantity of debris must be shot forth in all directions, much of which may have experi- enced no greater violence than individual pieces of rock experi- ence in a land-slip or in blasting by gunpowder. Should the time when this earth comes into collision with any other body, com- parable in dimensions to itself, be when it is still clothed as at present with vegetation, many great and small fragments carrying seed and living plants and animals would undoubtedly be scattered through space. Hence and because we all confidently believe that No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 145 there are at present, and have been from time immemorial, many worlds of life besides our own, we must regard it as probable in the hio'hest dec-ree that there arc countless seed-beariuii; meteoric stones moving about through space. If at the present instant no life existed, upon this earth, one such stone falling upon it might, by what we blindly call natural causes, lead to its becom- ing covered with vegetation. I am fully conscious of the many scientific objections which may be urged against this hypothesis, but I believe them to be all answerable. I have already taxed your patience too severely to allow me to think of discussing any of them on the present occasion. The hypothesis that life origi- nated on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may seem wild and visionary; all T maintain is that this is not unscientific. 8. THE DARWINIAN THEORY. From the Earth stocked with such vegetation as it could receive meteorically, to the Earth teeming with all the endless variety of plants and animals which now inhabit it, the step is prodigious; yet, according to the doctrine of continuity, most ably laid before the Association by a predecessor in this chair (Mr. Grove), all creatures now living on earth have proceeded by orderly evolu- tion from some such origin. Darwin concludes his great work on ' The Origin of Species ' with the following words : — " It is in- teresting to contemplate an entangled bank clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with vari- ous insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so diflerent from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us." . . . "There is grandeur in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one ; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and are being evolved." With the feeling expressed in these two sentences I most cordially sympathize. I have omitted two sentences which come between them, describing briefly the hypothesis of " the origin of species by natural selec- tion," because I have always felt tliat this hypothesis does not contain the true theory of evolution, if evolution there has been, Vol. VI. B No. 2. 146 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. in biology. Sir John Herscliel, in expressing a favourable judg- ment on the hj23othesis of zoological evolution, with, however, some reservation in respect to the origin of man, objected to the doctrine of natural selection, that it was too like the Laputan method of making books, and that it did not sufficiently take into account a continually guiding and controlling intelligence. This seems to me a most valuable and instructive criticism. I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. Reaction against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on Paley's ' Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect in turnins; attention from the solid and irrefraoable aro-ument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all round us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one ever-actino- Creator and Ruler. The Biological Section was presided over by Prof. Allan Thompson, who delivered the following address : — I must content myself with endeavouring to express to you some of the ideas which arise in my mind in looking back from the present upon the state of Biological science at the time, forty years since, when the meetings of the British Association com- menced — a period which I am tempted to particularise from its happening to coincide very nearly with the time at which I be- gan my career as a public teacher in one of the departments of biology in this city. In the few remarks which I shall make, it will be my object to show the prodigious advance which has taken place not only in the knowledge of our subject as a whole, but also in the ascertained relation of its parts to each other, and in the place which this kind of knowledge has gained in the estimation of the educated part of the community, and the consequent increase in the freedom with which the search after truth is now asserted in this as in other departments of science. And first, in connection with the distribution of the various subjects which are included under this section, I may remark that the general title under which the whole section D has met since 1866, viz, Biology, No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MfiETINCJ. 147 seems to be advantageous both from its convenience, and as tcnd- .inir to promote the great consolidation of our science, and a justcr npjircciation of the relation of its several parts. It may be that looking merely to the derivation of the term, it is strictly more nearly synonymous with physiology in the sense in which that word has been for a long time employed, and therefore designating the science of life, rather than the description of the living beings in which it is manifested. But until a better or more comprehen- sive term be found we may accept that of biology under the general definition of " the science of life and of living beings," or as comprehending the history of the whole range of organic nature — vegetable as well as animal. The propriety of the adoption of such a general term is further shown by a glance at the changes which the title and distribution of the subordinate departments of this section have undergone during the period of the existence of the Association, HISTORY OF THE SECTION, During the first four years of this period the Section met under the combined designation of Zoology and Botany, Physio- logy and Anatomy — words sufficiently clearly indicating the scope of its subjects of investigation. In the next ten years a connection with Medicine was recognised by the establishment of a sub- section or department of Medical Science, in which, however, scientific anatomy and physiology formed the most prominent topics, though not to the exclusion of more strictly medical and surgical or professional subjects. During the next decade, or from the year 1845, we find along with Zoology and Botany a sub-sec- tion of physiology, and in several years of the same time alouu" with the latter a separate department of Ethnology. But in the eleven years which extended from 1855 to 1865, the branch of Ethnology was associated with Geography in Section F. And more recently, or since the arrangement which was commenced in 1866, the section Biology has included, with some slight variation, the whole of its subjects in three departments. Under one of these are brought all investigations in Anatomy and Physiology of a general kind, thus embracing the whole range of these sciences when without special application. A second of these sub -sections has been occupied with the extensive subjects of Botany and Zoology; while the third has been devoted to the subject of Anthropology, in which all researches having a special reference 148 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. to the structure and functions or life history of man have been received and discussed. Such I understand to be the arrano-ement under which we shall meet on this occasion. At the conclusion of my remarks, therefore, the sub-section for Anatomy and Physi- ology will remain with me in this room ; while the sub-section of Zoology and Botany, on the one hand, and of Anthropology on the other, will adjourn to the apartments which have been provided for them respectively, ANTHROPOLOGY. With regard to the position of Anthropology, as including Ethno- logy, and comprehending the whole natural history of man, there ma}' be still some differences of opinion, according to the point of view from which its phenomena are regarded : as by some they may be viewed chiefly in relation to the bodily stucture and func- tion of individuals or numbers of men ; or as by others they may be considered more directly with reference to their national cha- racter and history, and the affinities of languages and customs ; or by a third set of inquirers, who are inclined to devote their prin- cipal attention to the facts and views bearing upon the origin of man and his relation to animals. As the first and third of these sets of topics entirely belong to Biology, and as those parts of the second set which do not properly fall under that branch may with propriety find a place under Geography or Statistics, I feel inclined to adhere to the distinct reco2;nition of a sub-section — Anthro- pology, in its present form ; and I think that the suitableness of this arrangement is apparent, from the nature and number of the communications properly falling under such a sub-section which have been received under the last distribution of the sub- jects. CONDITION OF BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH. The beneficial influence of the British Association in promoting biological research is made apparent by the number and import- ance of the reports on various subjects, as well as of the commu- nications to the sections. Of the latter, the number received annually has been nearly doubled in the course of the last twenty years. Nor can it be doubted that this influence has been ma- terially assisted by the contributions in money made by the Association in aid of various biological investigations ; for it appears that out of the whole sum of nearly £34,500 contributed by the Association to the promotion of scientific research, about No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 149 £2800 has been devoted to biological purposes, to which it would be fair to add a part at least of the grants for Palgeontological researches, many of which must be acknowledged to stand in close relation to Biology. The enormous extent of knowledge and research in the various departments of Biology has become a serious impediment to its more complete study, and leads to the danger of confined views on the part of those whose attention, from necessity or taste, is too exclusively directed to the details of one department, or even, as often happens, to a subdivision of it. It would seem, indeed, as if our predecessors in the last genera- tions, possessed this superior advantage in the then existing nar- rower boundaries of knowledge, that they were able more easily to overtake the contemplation of a wider field, and to follow out researches in more than one of the sciences. To such combina- tion of varied knowledge, united with their transcendent powers of sound generalization and accurate observation, must be ascribed the wide-spread and enduring influence of the works of such men as Haller, Linnaeus, and Cuvier, Yon Baer and Joannes Miiller. There are doubtless brilliant instances in our own time of men endowed with similar powers ; but the difficulty of bringing these powers into eifectual operation in a wide range is now so great, that while the amount of research in special biological subjects is enormous, it must be reserved for comparatively few to be the authors of great systems, or of enduring broad and general views which embrace the whole rano-e of biolo;2;ical science. It is in- cumbent on all those, therefore, who are desirous of promoting the advance of biological knowledge to combat the confined views which are apt to be engendered by the too great restriction of study to one department. However much subdivision of labour may now be necessary in the origin, investigation, and elaboration of new facts in our science (and the necessity for such subdivision will necessarily increase as knowledge extends), there must be se- cured at first, by a wider study of the general principles and some of the details of collateral branches of knowledge, that power of justly comparing and correlating facts which will mature the judgment and exclude partial views. To refer only to one bright example, I may say that it can scarcely be doubted that it is the unequalled variety and extent of knowledge, combined with the faculty of bringing the most varied facts together in new combina- tion, which has enabled Dr. Darwin (whatever may be thought otherwise of his system) to give the greatest impulse which has 150 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. been felt iu our own times to the progress of biological views and thought ; and it is most satisfactory to observe the effect which this influence is already producing on the scientific mind of this country, in opposing the tendency perceptible in recent times to the too restricted study of special departments of natural history. I need scarcely remind you that for the proper investigation and jndgmeut of problems in physiology, a full know^ledge of anatomy in general, and much of comparative anatomy, of histology and embryology, of organic chemistry, and of physics, is indispensable as a preliminary to all successful physiological observation and experiment. The anatomist again, who would profess to describe rationally and correctly the structure of the human body, must have acquired a knowledge of the principles of morphology de- rived from the study of comparative anatomy and development, and he must have mastered the intricacies of histological research. The comparative anatomist must be an accomplished embryolo- gist in the whole range of the animal kingdom, or in any single division of it which he professes to cultivate. The zoologist and the botanist must equally found their descriptions and systematic distinctions on morphological, histological, and embryological data. And thus the whole of these departments of biological science are so interwoven and united that the scientific investiga- tion of no one can now be regarded as altogether separate from that of the others. It has been the work of the last forty years to brins: that intimate connection of the biological sciences more and more fully into prominent view, and to infuse its spirit into all scientific investigation. But while in all the departments of biology prodigious advances have been made, there are two more especially which merit particular attention as having almost taken their origin within the period I now refer to, and as having made the most rapid progress in themselves, and have influenced most powerfully and w^idely the progress of discovery, and the views of biologists in other departments — I mean histology and embry- ology. HISTOLOGY. I need scarcely remind those present that it was only within a few years before the foundation of the British Association that the su<>i>estions of Lister in res-ard to the construction of achro- matic lenses brought the compound microscope into such a state of improvement as caused it to be restored, as I might say, to the place which the more imperfect instrument had lost in the pre- No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 151 vious century. The result of this restoration became apparent in the foundation of a new era in the knowleds-e of the minute cha- racters of textureal structure, under the joint guidance of R. Brown and Ehrenbers:, so as at hist to have entitled this branch of inquiry, to its designation, by Mr. Huxley, of the exhaustive investigation of structural elements. All who hear me are fully aware of the influence which, from 1838 onwards, the researches of Schwann and Schleiden exerted on the progress of Histology and the views of anatomists and physiologists as to the structure ' and development of the textures, and the prodigious increase which followed in varied microscopic observations. It is not for me here even to allude to the steps of that rapid progress by which a new branch of anatomical science has been created ; nor can I venture to enter upon any of the interesting questions presented by this department of the microscopic anatomy ; nor attempt to discuss any of those possessing so much interest at the present moment, such as the nature of the organised cell or the properties of protoplasm. I would only remark that it is now very generally admitted that the cell wall (as Schwann indeed himself pointed out) is not a source of new production, though still capable of considerable structural change after the time of its first formation. The nucleus has also lost some of the importance attached to it by Schwann and his earlier followers, as an essential constituent of the cell, while the protoplasm of the cell remains in undisputed possession of the field as the more immediate seat of the pheno- mena of growth and organisation, and of the contractile property which forms so remarkable a feature of their substance. I cor- dially agree with much of what Mr, Huxley has written on this subject in 1853 and 1869, The term physical basis of life may perhaps be in some trifling respect objectionable, but I look upon the recognition of protoplasm, as a general term indicating that part of the tissue of plants and animals which is the constant seat of the growing and moving powers as a most important step in the recent progress of histology. To Maechel the fuller history of this in lowest forms is due. To Dr. Beale we owe the fullest investi- gation of these properties by the use of magnifying powers be- yond any that had previously been known, and the successful employment of re-agents which appear to mark out distinction from the other elements of the textures. I may remark, however, in passing, that I am inclined to regard contractile protoplasm, whether vegetable or animal, as in no instance entirely amorphous 152 THE CA>'ADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. or houjogeneous, but rather as always presenting some minute molecular structure which distinguishes it from parts of glassy clearness. Admitting that the form it assumes is not necessarily that of a regular cell, and may be various and irregular in a few exceptional instances, I am not on that account disposed to give up definite structure as one of the universal characteristics of or- U'anisation in livino; bodies. T would also suirsrest that the term formative and nonformative, or some others, should be substituted for those of living and dead, employed by Dr. Beale to distin- guish the jDrotoplasm from the cell-wall or its derivation, as those terms are liable to introduce confusion. EMBRYOLOGY. To the discoveries in embryology and development I might have been tempted to refer more at large, as being those which have had, of all modern research, the greatest effect in extending and modifying biological views, but I am warned from entering upon a subject in which I might trespass too much on your pati- ence. The merits of Wolff as the great first pioneer in the ac- curate observation of the phenomena of development were clearly pointed out by Mr. Huxley in his presidential address of last year. Under the influence of Bollinger's teaching, Pander, and afterwards Yon Baer and Rathke established the foundations of the modern history of embryology. It was only in the year 1827 that the ovum of mammals was discovered by Yon Baer; the segmentation of the yolk, first observed by Prevost and Dumas in the frog's ovum in 1824, was ascertained to be 2;eneral in sue- ceeding years ; so that the whole of the interesting and important additions which have followed, and have made embryological de- velopment a complete science, have been included within the event- ful period of the life of this Association. I need not say how distinguished the Germans have been by their contributions to the history of animal development. The names of Bischoff, Beichart, Kolliker, and Remak are sufficient to indicate the most important of the steps in recent progress, without attempting to enumerate a host of others wdio have assisted in the great work thus founded. I am aware that the mere name of development suggests to some ideas of painful nature as associated with the theory of evolution recently promulgated. To one accustomed during the whole of his career to trace the steps by which evwy living being, including man himself, passes from the condition of No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 153 an almost imperceptible germ, through a long series of clianges of form and structure into their perfect state, the name of develop- ment is rather sucirestive of that which seems to be the common CO history of all living beings ; and it is not wonderful therefore that such a one should regard with approval the more extended view which supposes a process of development to belong to the whole of nature. How far that principle may be carried, to what point the origin of man or any animal can by history, facts or reasoning be traced in the long unchronicled history of the world, and whether living beings may arise independently of parents or germs of previously existing organisms, or may spring from the direct combination of the elements of dead matter, are questions upon which we may expect this section may endeavour to guide the hesitating opinion of the time. I cannot better express the state of opinion in which I find myself than by quoting the words of Professor Huxley from his address of last year, p. Ixxxiii. : — " But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly (viz., the occurrence of abiogenesis), I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis ever has taken place in the past, or ever will take place in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, and physiology yet in their infancy, and every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height of presumption for any man to say that the conditions under which "matter assumes the properties we call 'vital,' may not some day be artificially brought together. And again, if it were given me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time, to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from living matter." I will quote further a few wise words from the discourse to which many of you must have listened last evening with admiration. Sir Wm. Thomson said — " The essence of science, as is well illustrat- ed by astronomy and cosmical physics, consists in inferring ante- cedent conditions, and anticipating future evolutions, from pheno- mena which have actually come under observation. In biology, the difficulty of successfully acting up to this ideal are prodigious. Our code of biological law is an expression of our ignorance as as well as of our knowledge. Search for spontaneous generation out of inorganic materials; let any one not satisfied with the 154 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. purely negative testimony, of whicli we have now so much against it, throw himself into the inquiry. Such investigations as those of Pasteur, Pouchet and Bastian are among the most interesting and momentous in the whole range of natural history ; and their results, whether positive or negative, 'must richly reward the most careful and laborious experimenting." The consideration of the finest discoverable structures of the organised parts of living bodies is intimately bound up with that of their chemical composition and properties. The progress which has been made in organic chemistry belongs not only to the knowledge of the composition of the constituents of organised bodies, but also in the manner in which that composition is chemically viewed. Its peculiar feature, especially as related to biological investigation, consists in the results of the introduction of the synthetic method of re- search, which has enabled the chemist to imitate or to form artifi cially a greater and greater number of the organic compounds. In 1828 the first of these substances was formed by Wohler, by a synthetic process, as cyanate of ammonia ; and still, though some no doubt entertained juster views, the opinion prevailed among chemists and physiologists that there was some great and fundamental difference in the chemical phenomena and laws of organic and inorganic nature. But now this supposed barrier has been in a great measure broken down and removed, and chemists, with almost one accord, regard the laws of combination of the elements as essentially the same in both classes of bodies, what- ever differences may exist in actual composition, or in the reaction of organic bodies in the more complex and often obscure condi- tions vitality, as compared with the simpler and, on the whole, better known phenomena of a chemical nature observed in the mineral kingdom. Thus, by the synthetic method, there have been formed among the simpler organic compounds a great num- ber of alcohols, hydrocarbons, and fatty acids. But the most re- markable example of the synthetic formation of an organic com- pound is that of the alkaloid conia, as recently obtained by Hugo Schiffby certain reactions from butyric aldehyde, itself an artificial product. This substance, so formed, and its compounds, possess all the properties of the natural conia — chemical, physical, and physiological — being equally poisonous with it. The colouring- matter of madder, or alizarine, is another organic compound which has been formed by artifical processes. It is true that the organ- ised or containing solid, either of vegetable or animal bodies, has No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 155 not as yet yielded to the iDgenuity of chemical artifice ; nor, in- deed, is the actual composition of one of the most important of these, albumen and its allies, fully known. But as chemists have only recently began to discover the track by which they may be led to the synthesis of organic compounds, it is warrantable to hope that ere long cellulose and lignine may be found ; and, great as the difficulties with regard to the albumenoid compounds may at present appear, the synthetic formation of these is by no means to be despaired of, but, on the contrary, may with confidence be expected to crown their efforts. From all recent research, it ap- pears to result that the general nature of the properties belonging to the products of animal and vegetable life, can no longer be regarded as different from those of minerals, in so far at least as they are the subject of chemical investigation. The union of elements and their separation, whether occurring in an animal, a vegetable or a mineral body, must be looked upon as dependent on innate powers or properties belonging to the elements themselves ; and the phenomena of change of composition of organic bodies occurring in the living state are not the less chemical because they are different from those observed in ors-anic nature. All chemical actions are liable to vary according to the conditions in which they occur, and many instances might be adduced of most remarkable variations of this kind, observed in the chemistry of dead bodies from very slight changes of electrical, calorific, mechanical, and other conditions. But because these conditions are infinitely more complex and far less known in living bodies, it is not necessary to look upon the actions as essentially of a different kind, to have recourse to the hypothesis of vital affinities, and still less to shelter ourselves under the slim curtain of ignorance implied in the ex- planation of the most varied chemical pheuomena by the influence of a vital principle. EVOLUTION OF SPECIES. On the subjects of zoological and botanical classification and anthropology, it would be out of place for me now to make any observations at length. I will only remark, in regard to the first, that the period now under review has witnessed a very great mo- dification in the aspect which the affinities of the bodies belong- iuir to these two ^reat kingdoms of nature bear to each other, and the principles on which in each groups of bodies are associa- ted together in classification ; for, in the first place, the older 156 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. view has been abandoued that the complication of structure rises in a continually increasing and continuous gradation from one kingdom to the other, or extends in one line from one group to an- other in either of the kingdoms separately. Evolution into a gradually increasing complexity of structure and function no doubt exists in both, so that types of formation must be acknow- ledged to pervade, accompanied by typical resemblance of the plan of formation of a most interesting nature ; but it has become more and more apparent in the progress of morphological research that the different groups form rather circles, which touch one another at certain points of greatest resemblance, rather than one continu- ous line, or even a number of lines, which partially pass each other. Certain simpler bodies of the two kingdoms^of nature thus exhibit the increasing resemblance to each other, until at last the differ- ences between them wholly disappear, and we reach a point of contact at which the properties become almost indistinguishable, as in the remarkable Protista of Haeckel and others. I fully agree, however, with the view stated by Professor Wyville Thom- son in his introductory lecture, that it is not necessary on this account to recognize with Haeckel a third intermediate kingdom of nature. Each kingdom presents, as it were, a radiating expan- sion into groups for itself, so that the relations of the two king- doms might be represented by the divergence of lines spreading in two different directions from a common point. Recent observa- tions on the chorda dorsalis of some Ascidians (or supposed no- tochord) tend to revive the discussion at one time prevalent, but long in abeyance, as to the possibility of tracing a homology be- tween the vertebrate and invertebrate animals ; and, should this correspondence be confirmed and extended, it may be expected to modify greatly our present views of zoological affinities and classi- fication, and be an additional proof of the importance of minute and embryological research in such determinations. The recog- nition of homological resemblance of animals, to which in this country the researches of Owen and Huxley have contributed so largely, form one of the most interesting subjects of contemplation in the study of comparative anatomy and zoology in our time ; but I must refrain from touching on so seductive and difficult a subject. NATURAL SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS. There is another topic to which I can refer with pleasure as connected with the cultivation of biological knowledge in this No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 157 country, and that is the introduction of instruction in natural science into the system of education of our schools. As to the feasibility of this in the primary schools, I believe most of those who are intimately acquainted with the management of these schools have expressed their decidedly favourable opinion — it being found that a portion of the time now allotted to the three great requisites of a primary education might with advantage be set apart, for the purpose of instructing the pupils in subjects of com- mon interest, calculated to awaken in their minds a desire for knowledge of the various objects presented by the field of nature around them. As to the benefit which may result from this measure to the persons so instructed, it is scarcely necessary for me to say anything in this place. It is so obvious that whatever knowledge, though easily acquired, and even of the most elemen- tary kind, tends to enlarge the range of observation and thought, must have some efiect in removing its recipients from grosser in- fluences, and may even give information which may prove useful in social economy and in the occupations of labour. Nor need I point out how much more extended the advantages of such in- , struction may prove if introduced into the system of our secondary schools, and more freely combined than heretofore with the two exclusively literary and philosophical study which has so long pre- vailed in the approved British education. Without disparage- ment to those modes of study as in themselves necessary and use- ful, and excellent means of disciplining the mind to learning, I cannot but hold it as certain that the mind which is entirely with- out scientific cultivation is but half prepared for the common pur- poses of modern life, and is entirely unqualified for forming a judg- ment on some of the most difiicult and yet most common and im- portant questions of the day, afiecting the interests of the whole community. I refer with great pleasure to the cogent arguments addressed yesterday by Dr. Bennet to the medical graduates of the University, in favour of the establishment of physiology as a subject of general education in this country with reference to sani- tary conditions. It is gratifying, therefore, to perceive that the suggestions made some time ago in regard to this subject by the British Association, through its committee, have already borne good fruit, and that the attention of those who preside over edu- cation in this country, as well as of the public themselves, is more earnestly directed to the object of securing for the lowest as well as the highest classes of the community that wholesome combination 158 THE CANADIAN NATURALtsT. [Vol. Vi. of knowledge derived from education, whicli will duly cultivate all the faculties of the mind, and thus fit a greater and greater number for applying themselves with increased ability and know- ledge to the purposes of their living and its improved condition. If the law of the survival of the fittest be applicable to the men- tal as well as to the physical improvement of our race (and who can doubt that it must be so), we are bound by motives of inter- est and duty to secure for all classes of the people that kind of education which will lead to the development of the highest and most varied mental power. And no one who has been observant of the recent progress of the useful arts and its influence upon the moral, social, and political condition of our population, can doubt that that education must include instruction in the pheno- mena of external nature, including, more especially, the laws and conditions of life ; and be, at the same time, such as will adapt the mind to the ready reception of varied knowledge, "It is obvi- ous too, that while this more immediately useful or beneficial effect on the common mind may be produced by the diff"usion of natural knowledge among the people, biological science will share in the gain accruing to all branches of natural science, by the greater favour which will be accorded to its cultivators, and the increased freedom from prejudice with which their statements are received and considered by learned as well as by unscientific per- sons. SPIRITUALISM. I cannot conclude these observations without adverting to one aspect in which it might be thought that biological science has taken a retrograde rather than an advanced position. In this, I do not mean to refer to the special cultivators of biology in its true sense, but to the fact that there appears to have taken place of late a considerable increase in the number of persons who be- lieve, or who imagine that they believe, in the class of phenome- na which are now called spiritual, but which have been long known — since the exhibitions of Mesmer, and indeed, long before his time — under the most varied forms, as liable to occur in persons of an imaginative turn of mind and peculiar nervous susceptibility. It is still more to be deplored that many persons devote a large share of their time to the practice — for it does not deserve the name of study or investigation — of the alleged phenomena, and that a few men of acknowledged reputation in some departments of science have lent their names, and surrendered their judgment, No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING}. 159 to the countenance and attempted authentication of the foolish dreams of the practitioners of spiritualism, and similar chimeri- cal hypotheses. The natural tendency to a belief in the marvel- lous is sufficient to explain the ready acceptance of such views by the ignorant ; and it is not improbable that a higher species of similar credulity may frequently act with persons of greater cul- tivation, if their scientific information has been of a partial kind. It must be admitted, further, that extremely curious and rare, and to those who are not acquainted with nervous phenomena, appa- rently marvellous phenomena, present themselves in peculiar states of the nervous system — some of which states may be induced through the mind and may be made more and more liable to re- cur, and greatly exaggerated by frequent repetition. But making the fullest allowance for all these conditions, it is surprising that persons otherwise appearing to be within the bounds of sanity, should entertain a confirmed belief in the possibility of phenomena, which, while they are at variance with the best established physi- cal laws, have never been brought under proof by the evidences of the senses, and are opposed to the dictates of sound judgment. It is so far satisfactory in the interests of true biological science that no man of note can be named from the long list of thoroughly well-informed anatomists and physiologists, who has not treated the belief in the separate existence of powers of animal magnet- ism and spiritualism as wild speculations, devoid of all foundation in the carefully tested observation of facts. It has been the habit of the votaries of the systems to which I have referred to assert that scientific men have neglected or declined to investigate the phenomena with attention and candour ; but nothing can be far- ther from the truth than this statement. Not to mention the admirable reports of the early French academicians, giving the account of the negative result of an examination of the earlier mesmeric phenomena by men in every way qualified to pronounce judgment on their nature, I am aware that from time to time men of eminence, and fully competent, by their knowledge of biologi- cal phenomena, and their skill and accuracy in conducting scien- tific investigation, have made the most patient and careful exami- nation of the evidence placed before them by the professed believers and practitioners of so-called magnetic, phreno-magnetic, electro- biological, and spiritualistic phenomena ; and the result has been uniformly the same in all cases when they were permitted to secure conditions by which the reality of the phenomena, or the justice 160 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. of their interpretation, could be tested — viz., either that the ex- periments signally failed to educe the results professed, or that the experimenters were detected in the most shameless and deter- mined impostures. I have myself been fully convinced of this by repeated examinations. But were any guarantee required for the care, soundness, and efficiency of the judgment of men of science on these phenomena and views, I have only to mention, in the first place the revered name of Faraday, and in the next that of my life- long friend Dr. Sharpley, whose ability and candour none will dispute, and who I am happy to think, is here among us, ready from his past experience of such exhibitions, to bear his weighty testimony against all cases of Zeyi^a^WTi, or the like, which may be the last wonder of the day among the mesmeric or spirit tual pseudo-physiologists. The phenomena to which I have at present referred, be they false or real, are in great part dependent upon a natural principle of the human mind, placed, as it would appear, in dangerous alliance with certain tendencies of the nervous system. They ought not to be worked upon without the greatest caution, and they can only be fully understood by the accomplished physiologist who is also conversant with psychology. The ex- perience of the last hundred years tends to show that there will always exist a certain number of minds prone to adopt a belief in the marvellous and striking in preference to that which is easily understood and patent to the senses ; but it may be confidently expected that the diffusion of a fuller and more accurate knowledge of vital phenomena among the non-scientific classes of the commu- nity may lead to a juster appreciation of the phenomena in ques- tion, and a reduction of the number among them who are believ- ers in the impossible. As for men of science who persist in sub- mitting to such strange perversion of judgment, we can only hope that the example of their less instructed fellow-countrymen may lead them to allow them themselves to be guided more directly by the principles of common sense than by the erratic tendencies of a too fervid imagination. Extracts from the President's (T. Andrews, F.R.S.) Address in the Chemical Section on the PROGRESS OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH. Proceeding to touch on questions of general chemistry at pre- sent attracting attention, the learned Professor spoke first of the No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 161 relations which subsist between the chemical composition and re- fractive power of bodies for light. He then proceeded — A happy modification of the ice calorimeter has been made by Bunsen. The principle of the method — to use as a measure of heat the change of volume which ice undergoes in melting — had already occurred to Herschel, and, as it now appears, still earlier to Her- mann ; but their observations had been entirely overlooked by physicists, and had led to no practical results. Bunsen has, in- deed, clearly pointed out that the success of the method depends upon an important condition, which is entirely his own. The ice to be melted must be prepared with water free from air, and must surround the source of heat in the form of a solid cylinder frozen artificially in situ. Those who have worked on the subject of heat know how difl&cult it is to measure absolute quantities with certainty, even where relative results of great accuracy may be ob- tained. The ice calorimeter of Bunsen will therefore be welcomed as an important addition to our means of research. Roscoe has prosecuted the photo-chemical investigations which Bunsen and he began some years ago. For altitudes above 10 degrees, the rela- tion between the sun's altitude and the chemical intensity of lio-ht is represented by a straight line. Till the sun has reached an al- titude of about 20 degrees, the chemical action produced by difi"u- sed daylight exceeds that of the direct sunlight ; the two actions are then balanced, and at higher elevations the direct sunlight is superior to the diffused light. The supposed inferiority of the chemical action of light under a tropical sun to its action in higher latitudes proves to be a mistake. According to Boscoe and Thorpe, the chemical intensity of light at Para, under the equator, in the month of April, is more than three times greater than at Kew in the month of August. Hunter has given a great extension to the earlier experiments of Saussure on the absorptive power of char- coal for gases. Cocoanut charcoal, according to Hunter's experi- ments, exceeds all other varieties of wood charcoal in absorptive power, taking up at ordinary pressures 170 volumes of ammonia and 69 of carbonic acid. Methylic alcohol is more largely ab- sorbed than any other vapour at temperatures from 90*^ to 127^^, but at 159^^ the absorption of ordinary alcohol exceeds it. Cocoa- nut charcoal absorbs 44 times its volume of the vapour of water at 127^. The absorptive power is increased by pressure. Last year two new processes for improving the manufacture of chlorine at- tracted the attention of the section ; one of them has already proved Vol. VI. c No. 2. 162 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. to be a success, and I am glad to be able to state that Mr. Deacon has recently overcome certain difficulties in his method, and has obtained a complete absorption of the chlorine. May we hope to see oxygen prepared by a cheap and continuous process from at- mospheric air ? With baryta the problem can be solved very per- fectly, if not economically. Another process is that of Tessier de Mothay, in which the manganate of potassium is decomposed by a current of superheated steam, and afterwards revived by being heated in a current of air. A company has lately been formed in New York to apply this process to the production of a brilliant house light. A compound Argand burner is used, having a double row of apertures — the inner row is supplied with oxygen, the other with coal gas or other combustible. The applications of pure oxygen, if it could be procured cheaply, would be very numerous, and few discoveries would more amply reward the inventor. Among other uses, it might be applied to the production of ozone, free from nitric acid by the action of the electrical discharge, and to the introduction of that singular body in an efficient form into the arts as a bleaching and oxidising agent. Tessier de Mothay has also proposed to prepare hydrogen gas on the large scale by heat- ing hydrate of lime with anthracite. We learn from the history of metallurgy that the valuable alloy which copper forms with zinc was known and applied long before zinc itself was discovered. Nearly the same remark may be made at present with regard to manganese and its alloys. The metal is difficult to obtain, and has not in the pure state been applied to any useful purpose ; but its alloys with copper and other metals have been prepared, and some of them are likely to be of great value. The alloy with zinc and copper is used as a substitute for German silver, and possesses some advantages over it. Not less important is the alloy of iron and manganese prepared according to the process of Hen- derson, by reducing in a Siemens' furnace a mixture of carbonate of manganese and oxide of iron. It contains from 20 to 80 per cent, of manganese, and will doubtless replace to a large extent the spiegeleism now used in the manufacture of Bessemer steel. The classical researches of Roscoe have made us acquainted for the first time with metallic vanadium. Berzelius obtained brilliant scales which he supposed to be the metal, by heating oxychloride in ammonia, but they have proved to be a nitride. Roscoe prepared the metal by reducing its chloride in a current of hydrogen, as a light gray powder, with a metallic lustre under the microscope. It has a remarkable affinity both for nitrogen and silicon. Like phos- No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 163 phorus, it is a pentad, and the vanadates correspond in composition to the phosphates, but differ in the order of stability at ordinary temperatures, the soluble tribasic salts being less stable than the tetrabasic compounds. Sainte Claire Deville, in continuation of his researches on dissociation, has examined the conditions under which vapour of water is decomposed by metallic iron. The iron, main- tained at a constant temperature, but varying in different experi- ments, from 150*^ C. to 1600° C, was exposed to the action of, the vapour of water of known tension. It was found that for a given temperature the iron continued to oxidise till the tension of the hydrogen formed reached an invariable value. In these ex- periments, as Deville remarks, the iron behaves as if it emitted a vapour (hydrogen), obeying the laws of hygometry. An inter- esting set of experiments has been made by Lothian Bell on the power possessed by spongy metallic iron of splitting up carbonic oxide into carbon and carbonic acid, the former being deposited in the iron. A minute quantity of oxide of iron is always formed in this reaction. In organic chemistry, the labours of chemists have been of late birgely directed to a group of hydrocarbons, which were first discovered among the products of the destructive distillation of coal or oil. The central body round which these researches have chiefly turned is benzol, whose discovery will al- ways be associated with the name of Faraday. Baeyer has pre- pared artificially picoline, a base isomeric with aniline, and dis- covered by Anderson in his very able researches on the Pyridine series. Of the two methods described by Baeyer, one is founded on an experiment of Simpson, in which a new base was obtained by heating tribromallyl with an alcoholic solution of ammonia. By pushing further the action of the heat, Baeyer succeeded in expelling the whole of the bromine from Simpson's base, in the form of hydrobromic acid, and in obtaining picoline. The same chemist has also prepared artificially collidine, another base of the Pyridine series. In this list of remarkable synthetical dis- coveries, another of the highest interest has lately been added by Schifi" — the preparation of artificial coniine. He obtained it by the action of ammonia on butyric aldehyde. The artificial base has the same composition as coniine prepared from hemlock. It is a liquid of an amber-yellow colour, having the characteristic odour and nearly all the usual reactions of ordinary coniine. Its physiological properties, so far as they have been examined, agree with those of coniine from hemlock, but the artificial base has not yet been obtained in large quantity, nor perfectly pure. 164 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. Valuable papers on alizarine have been published by Perkin and Scliunk. The latter has described a new acid — the anthraflaric — which is formed in the artificial preparation of alizarine. Madder contains another colouring principle, purpurine, which, like alizarine, yields anthracene when acted on by reducing agents, and has also been prepared artificially. These colouring princi- ples may be distinguished from one another, as Stokes has shown, by their absorption bands ; and Perkin has lately confirmed by this optical test the interesting observation of Schunk that fin- ished madder prints contain nothing but pure alizarine in combi- nation with the mordaunt employed. Hofmann has achieved another triumph in a department of chemistry which he has made peculiarly his own. In 1857, he showed that alcohol bases, analogous to those derived from ammonia, could be obtained by replacement from phosphuretted hydrogen, but he failed in his attempts to prepare the two lower derivatives. These missing links he has now supplied, and has thus established a complete parallelism between the derivatives of ammonia and of phosphu- retted hydrogen. The same able chemist has lately described the aromatic cyanates, of which one only — the phenylic cyanate — was previously known, having been discovered about twenty years ago by Hofmann himself. He now prepares this compound by the action of phosphoric anhydride on phenylurethane, and by a similar method he has obtained the tolylic, xylylic, and napthylic cyanates. Stenhouse had observed many years ago that, when aniline is added to furfurol, the mixture becomes rose-red, and communicates a fugitive red stain to the skin, and also to linen and silk. He has lately resumed the investigation of this sub- ject, and has obtained two new bases — furfuraniline and furfur- tolnidine — which like rosaniline, form beautifully coloured salts, although the bases themselves are nearly colourless, or of a pale brown colour. The interesting work of Dewar on the oxi- dation of picoline must not be passed over without notice. By the action of the permanganate of potassium on that bod^?, he has obtained a new acid, which bears the same relation to pyri- dine that phthalic acid does to benzol. Thorpe and Young have published a preliminary notice of some results of great promise which they have obtained by exposing paraffin to a high temper- ature in closed vessels. By this treatment it is almost completely resolved into liquid hydrocarbons whose boiling points range from 18° C. to 300° C. Those boiling under 100° have been exam- ined, and consist chiefly of olefines. In connection with this No. 2.] BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING. 165 subject, it may be interesting to recal the experiments of Pelouze and Cahours on the Pennsylvanian oils, which proved to be a mixture of carbolizdrogers belonging to the marsh gas series. An elaborate exposition of Berthelot's method of transforming an organic compound into a hydrocarbon containing a maximum of hydrogen, has appeared in a connected form. The organic body is heated, in a sealed tube with a large excess of a strong solution of hydriodic acid, to the temperature of 275°. The pressure in these experiments Berthelot estimates at 100 atmos- pheres, but apparently without having made any direct measure- ments. He has thus prepared ethyl hydride from alcohol, alde- hyde, &c., hexyl hydride from benzol. Berthelot has submitted both wood charcoal and coal to the reducing action of hydriodic acid, and among other interesting results, he claims to have ob- tained in this way oil of petroleum. By the action of chloride of zinc upon codeia, Matthiessen and Burnside have obtained apocodeia, which stands to codeia in the same relation as apomor- phia to morphia, an atom of water being abstracted in its forma- tion. Apocodeia is more stable than apomorphia ; but the action of reagents upon the two bases is very similar. As regards their physiological action, the hydrochlorate of apocodeia is a mild emetic, while that of apomorphia is an emetic of great activity. Other bases have been obtained by Wright by the action of hydrobromic acid on codeia. In two of these bases, bromotetra- codeia and chlorotetra-codeia, four molecules of codeia are welded together, so that they contain no less than seventy-two atoms of carbon. They have a bitter taste, but little physiological action. The authors of these valuable researches were indebted to Messrs. Macfarlane for the precious material upon which they operated. We are indebted to Crum Brown and Fraser for an important work on a subject of great practical, as well as theoretical, inte- rest — the relation between chemical constitution and physiological action. It has long been known that the ferrocyanide of potas- sium does not act as a poison on the animal system ; and Bunsen has shown that the kakodylic acid, an arsenical compound, is also inert. Crum Brown and Fraser found that the methyl compounds of strychnia-brucia and thebaia are much less active poisons than the alcoloids themselves; and the character of their physiological action is also different. The hypnotic action of the sulphate of methyl-morphium is less than that of morphia. But a reverse result occurs in the case of atropia, whose methyl and ethyl deri- vatives are much more poisonous than the salts of atropia itself. 166 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. THE POST PLIOCENE GEOLOGY OF CANADA, By J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S. PART II. — LOCAL DETAILS. Before entering into the special consideration of this Second Part of the subject, I desire to call attention to some additional facts bearing on two of the most remarkable properties of the Post-pliocene deposits of the Northern Hemisphere, namely their general similarity of arrangement, and their local diversities. In the first part of this memoir, taking the Post-pliocene of the Lower St. Lawrence as a type, I showed that it has its paral- lel, with but slight general diiFerence, in the wide-spread superficial deposits of the interior of North America surrounding the great lakes, and that the Post-pliocene deposits of Scotland and Scan- ditiavia almost precisely resemble those of Canada in the general sequence of deposits. Since that part was published, additional illustrations have been afforded by papers in the Geological Maga- zine by Mr. Hull, and Mr. Mackintosh, by papers and discussions on the Eskers of Ireland, at the meeting of the British Associa- tion, and by an able monograph on the Estuary of the Forth, by Mr. David Milne Home. Mr. Hull, who is a " Land Glacia- list," arranges the deposits of the Drift Period in the British area in the following three groups, in descending order, in accordance with Prof. Ramsay's observations in England, and his own in Ireland. 1. Upper Boulder-clay, which he regards as " generally mar- ine." In Canada, this is represented by the loose boulders and partial boulder deposits of the Upper Saxicava Sand. 2. Shelly marine sands and gravels belonging to the greatest depression of the land, and representing our Saxicava Sand and Leda Clay. 3. Lower Boulder-clay, which represents the true or principal Boulder-clay of Canada. This Mr. Hull attributes " chiefly to land ice." In Ireland, it would thus seem that the principal sub-divisions of the Post-pliocene can be recognized, and Mr. Kinahan has described the remarkable ridges of gravel called eskers which run No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 167 across the country in a North-east and South-west direction. Like our Canadian eskers or " Boar's backs," they are now admitted to be of marine origin, and are attributed to current action and to the waves, though floating ice has no doubt, as in Canada, contri- buted in some cases to their formation. Mr. Milne Home gives a graphic description of the Post-plio- cene deposits in the neighbourhood of the Frith of Forth, and many of his numerous sections might have just as well been taken from Canadian deposits. He thus sums up the causes of the phe- ' nomena, assuming that at the beginning of the period the land was submerged. " The ocean over and around Scotland was full of icebero-s and shore ice, which spread fragments of rocks over the sea bottom and often stranded, ploughing through beds of mud, sand, gravel, and blocks of stone, and mingling them together in such a way as to form the ' Boulder-clay.' The land thereafter gradually emerged, during which time the long ridges or embankments of gravel called 'kames' were formed." Mr. Mackintosh's observations go mainly to show that in Eng- land, as in Canada, even the lower drift and rock striation are due to a great extent to floating ice and not to glaciers, and he extends this conclusion even into the lake district of England. It is also worthy of remark that the long-received doctrine that glaciers are powerful eroding agents, which the author showed in a paper in this journal, in 1866, to be without foundation, is only now beginning to be discredited in England. I shall refer to this in the sequel, and in the meantime may direct attention to an in- teresting paper on the subject by Mr. Bonney, F.Gr.S., in the Journal of the Geological Society for August, 1871. It would further appear that, after the glacial period, in the Post-glacial, the British land rose to a level higher than that which it at present exhibits, then sunk again, and re-emerged in the modern period. Evidences of this later submergence have not been recognized in Canada, but in the inland area they have been detected by Hilgard and by Andrews. Since the publication of the first part of this memoir. Prof. Hilgard has discussed the subject of the southern drifts of the Mississippi valley at the meeting of the American Association at IndianajDolis ; and I am indebted to that gentleman and to Prof. Andrews, of Chicago, for much information on these deposits and their relation to those of more northern regions. 168 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. It appears that the oldest Post-pliocene deposit in the south is that called by Prof. Hilgard the " Orange Sand." This deposit is spread over the States of Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and parts of Louisiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, and in some places attains an elevation of 700 feet. It contains water-worn frag- ments of northern rocks, and is supposed by Prof. Hilgard to have been deposited by rapid currents of water, possibly fresh, as the deposit contains no marine fossils. Above this, according to Prof. Hilgard, is found in places a swamp, lagoon or estuary formation designated the " Port Hudson group." Succeeding this is the " Bluff or Loess " group, a deposit of fine silt, limited almost or entirely to the Valley of the Missi- sippi. Its maximum thickness is seventy-five feet. On this rests a very widely distributed bed, the " Yellow Loam," not more than twenty feet thick, but much more exten- sively distributed laterally than the former, and reaching an ele- vation of 700 feet. Under the names of "Second Bottoms or Hummocks," and " First Bottoms," are known terraced deposits of clay belonging to the present river valleys, but indicating in the case of the Second Bottoms a greater amount of water than at present. It is obvious that all of the above are aqueous deposits, and there seems to be no evidence whatever in the region referred to, of the action of land ice, though the stones and few boulders in the Orange sand are very probably due to floating ice. There seems reason to believe that the Orange sand is continuous with the Boulder-drift of the north-west ; and if this is, as stated by Newberry and others, a later deposit than the Erie clay, then it is probable that no representative of the latter exists to the south- west, or that the Orange sand represents the whole of the northern deposits. In any case it represents northern currents of water, though whether salt water admitted by the depression of the land, or fresh water resulting from the melting of glaciers, it is not easy to decide, as very great difficulties attend either view in the present state of our knowledge of the deposit. What- ever the conditions of deposit of the Orange sand, it would seem to have been succeeded by a land surface, and this by a depression to the extent of 700 feet or more, before the modern elevation of the land. If this last elevation corresponds with that of the terraces of the St. Lawrence, then the former one must have occurred in the St. Lawrence valley in the interval No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 169 between the deposit of the Leda clay and the close of the Post- pliocene. This question we shall have occasion to consider in the sequel, in connection with the second depression of the European land above referred to. Since the publication of the first of these papers, Dr. Newberry has kindly sent me a paper of his published as early as 1862, in which he states the remarkable fact, quoted above from his more recent Report on Ohio, that the drainage of the great lake basins, open in the early Post-pliocene period, was obstructed by the gla- cial deposits, and has been only partially restored. He also desires me to state that he refers the old drainage not exclusively to the action of glaciers, but to the " ice period, or an earlier epoch." I am happy to make .these corrections; the latter more especially, as it brings our theoretical views more into harmony. Dr. Newberry, however, for whose conclusions on such subjects I have the highest respect, still, in his latest expressions of opinion, adheres to the action of land ice in producing the glacial striation, which from his descriptions is, I should suppose, quite as definite and strongly marked as that in the St. Lawrence valley. The grand series of Post-pliocene changes was thus uniform in Europe and America, pointing to great general causes of subsi- dence and re-elevation ; but locally there is the most extreme irregularity in these deposits, giving great uncertainty to their arrangement. Some of these difi'erences we shall have occasion to notice under the following geographical subdivisions. 1. Newfoundland and Labrador. In the Journal of the Geological Society of London, for Feb- ruary, 1871, is a communication from Staff-commander Kerr, R. N., of the Coast Survey, in which he gives the directions of twenty- eight examples of grooved and scratched surfaces observed in the southern part of Newfoundland. The course of the majority of these is N.E. and S.W., ranging from N.8" E. to N. 64° E. The remainder are N.W. and S.E.,most of them with a predomi- nating Easterly direction. Boulders are mentioned, but no marine beds. The author refers the glaciation to land ice, supposing certain submerged banks across the mouths of the bays to be terminal moraines. The latest information on the Post-pliocene of Labrador is that given in a paper by Dr. Packard in the memoirs of the Boston Society 170 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Yol. vi. of Natural History for 1867. The deposits are said to consist of boulders, Leda clay and sand, and raised beaches, which, on the authority of Prof. Hind, are stated to reach an elevation of 1200 feet above the sea. The hills to a height of 2500 feet are roun- ded as if by ice action. Some higher hills present a frost-shat- tered surface at their summits. No directions of striae are given, and they appear to be rare. Mr. Campbell, author of '' Frost and Fire," mentions examples with course N. 45^ E. in the Strait of Belle Isle. It is remarkable that true Boulder-clay is rare in Labrador, though loose boulders are abundant in the valleys and on the inland table land. Dr. Packard attributes the absence of Boulder-clay to denudation. This may be the cause, but it is to be observed that, on that view of the origin of Boulder-clay which attributes it to ice-laden arctic currents, there must always have been in the course of such currents areas of denudation as well as areas of deposition, and an elevated table-land like that of Labra- dor, in a high northern latitude, may well have been of the former character. The Leda clay occurs in several places. In 1860, 1 published a list of species collected by Capt. Orlebar; and Packard has greatly added to the number, giving a list which will be referred to farther on. Dr. Packard very truly remarks that the fauna of the Labrador clays is very similar to that now found on the coast, and called by him the Syrtensian fauna. In the latter we have a few southern forms, absent in the clay, but this is all. Further, the Labrador Post-pliocene fauna is identical or nearly so with that of similar deposits in South Greenland, described by MoUer and Rink. Thus the climatal conditions of the arctic current on the coast of Labrador seem to have in no respect diifered in the Post-pliocene from those which obtain at present. The I^eda clay with its chariicteristic fossils is found as high as 500 feet above the level of the sea. Raised beaches and terraces, whethei'cut into sand and clay or the hard metamorphic rocks of the coast, are as common in Lab- rador as alono; the shores of the River St. Lawrence. Their precise altitudes are not given, but they appear to be very nume- rous and to rise to a great height above the sea. One feature of some interest is their consisting in some places of large stones and boulders, evidencing very powerful action of coast ice and currents. Packard speaks of many of these beaches as moraines modified by the sea, but he gives no reason for this except the general No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 171 belief that extensive glaciers existed in Labrador in the Post-plio- cene, of which, however, there seems little direct evidence. From the descriptions of Prof. Hind,* however, it would seem that traces of local glaciers in the river valleys, similar to those referred to above in the case of the Saguenay and the Murray River, exist, and these might now be restored by a slight increase of cold and a moderate elevation of the land. On the island of Anticosti, Messrs. Hyatt, Verrill and Shaler found Saxicava arctica in clay at an elevation of fifteen feet above the level of the sea. Before proceeding up the St. Lawrence Valley into Canada proper, I may cross to the south side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and notice the drift deposits of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and their connection with those of the State of Maine. 2. Prince Edward Island. The Triassic and Upper Carboniferous rocks of this island consist almost entirely of red sandstones, and the country is low and un- dulating;, its hi2:hest eminences not exceeding 400 feet. The prevalent Post-pliocene deposit is a Boulder-clay, or in some places boulder loam, composed of red sand and clay derived from the waste of the red sandstones. This is filled with boulders of red sandstone derived from the harder beds. They are more or less rounded, often glaciated, with striae in the direction of their longer axis, and sometimes polished in a remarkable manner, when the softness and coarse character of the rock are considered. This polishing must have been effected by rubbing with the sand and loam in which they are embedded. These boulders are not usually large, though some were seen as much as five feet in length. The boulders in this deposit are almost universally of the native rock, and must have been produced by the grinding of ice on the outcrops of the harder beds. In the eastern and middle portion of the Island, only these native rocks were seen in the clay, with the exception of pebbles of quartzite which may have been derived from the Tri- assic conglomerates. At Campbellton, in the western part of the Island, I observed a bed of Boulder-clay filled with boulders of metamorphic rocks similar to those of the mainland of New Brunswick. * Trans. Gtol. Society, 1864. 172 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. Striae were seen only in one place on the North-eastern coast and at another on the South-western. In the former case their direction was nearly S.W. and N.E. In the latter it was S. 70° E. No mariilie remains were observed in the Boulder-clay ; but at Campbellton, above the Boulder-clay already mentioned, there is a limited area occupied with beds of stratified sand and gravel, at an elevation of about fifty feet above the sea, and in one of the beds there are shells of Tellina Grcenlandica. On the surface of the country, more especially in the western part of the island, there are numerous travelled boulders, sometimes of considerable size. As these do not appear in situ in the Boul- der-clay, they may be supposed to belong to a second or newer boulder drift similar to that which we shall find to be connected with the Saxicava sand in Canada. These boulders being of rocks foreign to Prince Edward Island, the question of their source be- comes an interesting one. With reference to this, it may be stated in general terms, that the majority are Granite, Syenite, Diorite, Felsite. Porphyry, Quartzite and coarse slates, all identical in mineral character with those which occur in the metamorphic districts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, at distances of from 50 to 200 miles to the South and South-west; though some of them may have been derived from Cape Breton on the East. It is further to be observed that these boulders are most abun- dant and the evidences of denudation of the Trias greatest in that part of the Island which is opposite the deep break between the hills of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, occupied by the Bay of Fundy, Chiegnecto Bay and the low country extending thence to Northumberland Strait, an evidence that this boulder drift was connected with currents of water passing up this depression from the South or South-west. Besides these boulders, however, there are others of a different character ; such as Gneiss, Hornblende schist, Anorthosite and La- bradorite rock, which must have been derived from the Laurentian rocks of Labrador and Canada, distant 250 miles or more, to the Northward. These Laurentian rocks are chiefly found on the North side of the island, as if at the time of their arrival the island formed a shoal, at the North side of which the ice carrying the boulders grounded and melted away. With re- ference to these boulders, it is to be observed that a depression of four or five hundred feet would open a clear passage for the arctic current entering the Straits of Belle Isle, to- No. 2,] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 173 the Bay of Fundy ; and that heavy ice carried by this current would then ground on Prince Edward Island, or be carried across it to the Southward. If the Laurentian boulders came in this way, their source is probably 400 miles distant in the Strait of Belle Isle. On the North shore of Prince Edward Island, except where occupied by sand dunes, the beach shows great numbers of peb- bles and small boulders of Laurentian rocks. These are said by the inhabitants to be cast up by the sea or pushed up by the ice in spring. Whether they are now being drifted by ice direct from the Labrador coast, or are old drift being washed up from the bottom of the gulf, which north of the island is very shallow, does not appear. They are all much rounded by the waves, differing in this respect from the majority of the boulders found inland. The older Boulder-clay of Prince Edward Island, with native boulders, must have been produced under circumstances of power- ful ice-action, in which comparatively little transport of material from a distance occurred. If we attribute this to a sclacier, then as Prince Edward Island is merely a slightly raised portion of the bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, this can have been no other than a gio-antic mass of ice filling the whole basin of the gulf, and without any slope to give it movement except toward the centre of this great though shallow depression. On the other hand, if we attribute the Boulder-clay to floating ice, it must have been produced at a time when numerous heavy bergs were disengaged from what of Labrador was above water, and when this was too thoroughly enveloped in snow and ice to afford many travelled stones. Farther, that this Boulder-clay is a sub- marine and not a subaerial deposit, seems to be rendered probable by the circumstance that many of the boulders of sandstone are so soft that they crumble immediately when exposed to the wea- ther and frost. The travelled boulders lying on the surface of the Boulder-clay evidently belong to a later period, when the hills of Labrador and Nova Scotia were above water, though lower than at present, and were sufl&ciently bare to furnish large supplies of stones to coast ice carried by the tidal currents sweeping up the coast, or by the Arctic current from the North, and deposited on the surface of Prince Edward Island, then a shallow sand-bank. The sands with sea-shells prob.ibly belonged to this period, or perhaps to the later part of it, when the land was gradually rising. Prince 174 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. Edward Island thus appears to have received boulders from both sides of the gulf of St, Lawrence during the later Post-pliocene period ; but the greater number from the South side, perhaps be- cause nearer to it. It thus furnishes a remarkable illustration of the transport of travelled stones at this period in different directions, and in the comparative absence of travelled stones in the lower Boulder -clay, it furnishes a similar illustration of the homogeneous and untravelled character of that deposit, in circum- stances where the theory of floating ice serves to account for it, at least as well as that of land-ice, and in my judgment greatly better. 3. Nova Scotia and New Brunsicich. [n these Provinces the circumstances are entirely different from those in Prince Edward Island, the country consisting of Carboni- ferous and Triassic plains, with ranges of older hills, often meta- morphic, and attaining elevations of 1200 feet or more. It may, perhaps, be best in the first instance to present a summary of the phenomena, as I have given them in my Acadian Greology, and to add such additional facts and inferences as the present state of the subject may require. The beds observed may be arranged as follows, in descending order. 1 . Gravel and sand beds, and ancient gravel ridges and beaches, indicating the action of shallow water, and strong currents and waves. Travelled boulders occur in connection with these beds. 2. Stratified clay with shells, showing quiet deposition in deeper water. 3. Unstratified Boulder-clay, indicating, probably, the united action of ice and water. 4. Peaty deposits, belonging to a land surface preceding the deposit of the Boulder-clay. As the third of these iormations is the most important and generally diffused in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, we shall attend to it first, and notice the relation of the others to it. The Unstratified Drift or Boulder clay varies from a stiff clay to loose sand, and its composition and colour generally depend upon those of the underlying and neighbouring rocks. Thus, over sandstone it is arenaceous, over shales argillaceous, and over conglomerates and hard slates pebbly or shingly. The greater No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 175 number of the stones contained in the drift are usually, like the paste containing them, derived from the neighbouring rock for- mations. These untravelled fragments are often of large size, and are usually angular, except when they are of very soft mate- rial, or of rocks whose corners readily weather away. It is easy to observe, that on passing from a granite district to one composed of slate, or from slate to sandstone, the character of the loose stones changes accordingly. It is also a matter of ftimiliar obser- vation, that in proportion to the hardness or softness of the pre- vailing rocks, the quantity of these loose stones increases or dimi- nishes. In some of the quartzite and granite districts of the Atlantic coast, the surface seems to be heaped with boulders with only a little soil in their interstices, and every little field, cleared with immense labour, is still half-filled with huge white masses popularly known as "elephants." On the other hand, in the districts of soft sandstone and shale, one may travel some distance without seeing a boulder of considerable size. The boulders are as usual often glaciated or marked with ice-striae. Though the more abundant fragments are untravelled, it by no means follows that they are undisturbed. They have been lifted from their original beds, heaped upon each other in every variety of position, and intermixed with sand and clay, in a manner which shows convincingly that the sorting action of running water had nothing to do with the matter ; and this applies not only to stones of moderate size, but to masses of ten feet or more in diameter. In some of the carboniferous districts where the Boulder-clay is thick, as for example, near Pictou Harbour, it is as if a gigantic harrow had been dragged over the surface, tear- ing up the outcrops of the beds, and mingling their fragments in a rude and unsorted mass. Besides the untravelled fragments, the drift always contains boulders derived from distant localities, to which in many cases we can trace them ; and I may mention a few instances of this to show how extensive has been this transport of detritus. In the low country of Cumberland there are few boulders, but of the few that appear some belong to the hard rocks of the Cobe- quid hills to the Southward ; others may have been derived from the somewhat similar hills of New Brunswick. On the summits of the Cobequid hills and their Northern slopes, we find angular fragments of the sandstones of the plain below, not only drifted from their original sites, but elevated several hundreds of fee 176 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. above them. To the Southward and Eastward of the Cobequids, throughout Colchester, Northern Hants, and Pictou, fragments from these hills, usually much rounded, are the most abundant travelled boulders, showing that there has been great driftage from this elevated tract. Near the town of Pictou, where a thick bed of a sandy boulder deposit occurs, this is filled with large masses of sandstone derived from the outcrops of the beds on higher ground to the north ; but with these are groups of travel- led stones often in the lower part of the mass. Near the steam ferry wharf, in the town of Pictou, I observed one such group, consisting of the following, all large boulders and lying close to- gether — two of red syenite, six of gray granite, one of compact grey felsite, one of hard conglomerate, two of hard grit. The two last were probably Lower Carboniferous, the others derived from the altered Silurian deposits. All may have been drifted by one berg or ice-floe from the flanks of the Cobequid range of hills. In like manner, the long ridge of trap rocks, extending from Cape Blomidon to Briar Island, has sent off great quantities of boul- ders across the sandstone valley which bounds it on the South and up the slopes of the slate and granite hills to the Southward of this valley. Well characterized fragments of trap from Blomi- don may be seen near the town of Windsor ; and I have seen un- mistakeable fragments of similar rock from Digby neck, on the Tusket Biver, thirty miles from their original position. On the other hand, numerous boulders of granite have been carried to the Northward from the hills of Annapolis, and deposited on the slopes of the opposite trappean ridge ; and some of them have been carried round its Eastern end, and now lie on the shores of Lon- donderry and Onslow. So also, while immense numbers of boul- ders have been scattered over the South coast from the granite and quartz rock ridges immediately inland, many have drifted in the opposite direction, and may be found scattered over the coun- ties of Antigonish, Pictou, and Colchester. These facts show that the transport of travelled blocks, though it may here as in other parts of America, have been principally from the Northward, has by no means been exclusively so ; boulders having been car- ried in various directions, and more especially from the more ele- vated and rocky districts to the lower grounds in their vicinity. Professor Hind has shown the existence of a similar relation be- tween the boulders of New Brunswick and the hilly ranges of that country. No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 177 The following are the directions of the diluvial scratches in a number of localities in different parts of Nova Scotia : — Point Pleasant and other places near Halifax, exposure south, very dis- tinct stri^, . . . S. 20° E. to S. 30° E. Head of the Basin, exposure south, but in a valley, . . . E. & W. nearly. La IJave River, exposure S.E., . S. 20° W. Petite River, exposure S. . . S. 20° E. Bear River, exposure N., . S. 30° E. Rawdon, exposure N., . . S. 25° E. The Gore Mountain, exposure N., two sets of stri^, respectively, . S. 65° E. & S. 20° E. Windsor Road, exposure not noted, S.S.E. G-ay's River, ex^Dosure N., . Nearly S. & N. Musquodoboit Harbour, exposure S., Nearly S. & N. NearPictou, exposure E., in a valley. Nearly E. & W. Poison's Lake, summit of a ridge, . Nearly N. & S. Near Guysboro', exposure not noted, Nearly S. & N. Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, expo- sure S S. 30° W.* The above instances show a tendency to a Southerly and South- easterly direction, which accords with the prevailing course in most parts of North-eastern America. Local circumstances have, however, modified this prevailing direction ; and it is interesting to observe that, while S.E. is the prevailing direction in Acadia and New England, it is exceptional in the St. Lawrence valley, where the prevailing direction is S.W. Professor Hind has given a table of similar striation in New Brunswick, showinc: that the direction ranges from N. 10° W. to N. 30° E., in all except a very few cases. On Blue Mountains, 1650 feet above the sea, it is stated to be N. and S. As in Nova Scotia, N. W. and S. E. seems to be the prevailing course. In a paper published in the Canadian Naturalist, Vol. VI., No. 1, Mr. Matthew gives a table of striation in the southern part of New Brunswick, in which the South-east direction is decidedly predominant, though there are also some in the South west direction. In this paper will also be found many interesting facts as to the Boulder-clay of NewBruns- * The above courses are magnetic, the average variation being about 18° W. Vol. VI. D No. 2. 178 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST, [Vol. vi. wick, though the agency of a continental glacier is invoked to explain some fjicts which in the sequel we shall find to admit of a different interpretation. The travelled and un travelled boulders are usually intermixed in the drift. In some instances, however, the former Jippear to be most numerous near the surface of the mass, and their hori- zontal distribution is also very irregular. In examining coast sections of the drift, we may find for some distance a great abun- dance of angular blocks, with few travelled boulders, or both varie- ties are equally intermixed, or travelled boulders prevail; and we may often observe particular kinds of these last grouped together, as, for instance, a number of blocks of granite, greenstone, syen- ite, etc., all lying together, as if they had been removed from their original beds and all deposited together at one operation. On the surface of the country where the woods have been removed, this arrangement is sometimes equally evident ; thus hundreds of granite boulders may be seen to cumber one limited spot, while in its neighbourhood they are comparatively rare. It is also well known to the farmers in the more rocky districts, that many spots which appear to be covered with boulders have, when these are removed, a layer of soil comparatively free from stones beneath. These appearances may in some instances result from the action of currents of water, which have in spots carried off the sand or clay, leaving the boulders behind ; but in many cases this is mani- festly the original arrangement of the material, the superficial layer of boulders belonging to a more recent driftage than that of the underlying mass in which boulders are often much less abun- dant. Boulders or travelled stones are often found in places where there is no other drift. For example, on bare granite hills, about 500 feet in height, near St. Mary's River, there are large angular blocks of quartzite, derived from the ridges of that material which abound in the district, but which are separated from the hills on which the fragments lie by deep valleys. In Nova Scotia I have observed no beds with marine shells, though the Boulder-clay is often covered with beds of stratified sand and gravel ; and the only evidence of organic life, during the boulder period, or immediately before it, that I have noticed, is a hardened peaty bed which appears under the Boulder-clay on the North-west arm of the River of Inhabitants in Cape Breton. It rests upon gray clay similar to that which underlies peat bogs. No. 2.] DAWSON — POST- PLIOCENE. 179 and is overlaid by nearly twenty feet of Boulder-clay. Pressure has rendered it nearly as hard as coal, though it is somewhat tougher and more earthy than good coal. It has a shining streak, burns with considerable flame, and approaches in its characters to the brown coals or more imperfect varieties of bituminous coal. It contains many small roots and branches, apparently of conifer- ous trees allied to the spruces. The vegetable matter composing this bed must have flourished before the drift was spread over the surftice. In New Brunswick, stratified clays holding marine shells have been found overlying the Boulder -clay, or in connexion with it, especially in the Southern part of the Province, where deposits of this kind occur similar to those found in Canada and in Maine, though apparently on a smaller scale. These deposits, as they occur near St. John, consist of gray and reddish clays, holding fossils which indicate moderately deep water, and are, as to species, identical with those occurring in similar deposits in Canada and in Maine. They would indicate a somewhat lower temperature than that of the waters of the Bay of Fundy at present, or about that of the Northern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In Bailey's Report on the G-eology of Southern New Brunswick, Professor Harlt has given a list of the fossils of these beds, as seen at Lawlor's Lake, Duck Cove, and St. John, which I re_ published with some additions in Acadian Geology. These New Brunswick beds are strictly continuous with, and equivalent to those which extend along the coast of New England, and thence ascend into the Valley of Lake Champlain, while on the other side they may be considered as perfectly representing in character and fossils the Leda clay of Eastern Canada. They are remarkably like both in mineral character and fossils to the Clyde beds of Scotland, which are probably their equivalents^ The points of resemblance of the Leda clay of the coast of Maine, and that of the St. Lawrence, and Labrador, were noticed by me in my paper of 1860, already referred to, and have been more fully brought out by Dr. .Packard, who describes the Leda clay as it occurs at several localities from Eastport to Cape Cod. Along this whole coast it retains its Labradoric or Gulf of St. Lawrence aspect, though with the introduction of some more Southern species, and the gradual failure of some more arctic forms. South of Cape Cod, as in the modern sea, the Post-plio. cene beds assume a much more Southern aspect in their fossils. / 180 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. the boreal forms altogether disappearing. For a very full exhi- bition of these facts, I may refer to Dr. Packard's paper. The stratified sand and gravel of Nova Scotia rests upon and is newer than the Boulder-clay, and is also newer than the strati- fied marine clays above referred to. Its age is probably that of the Saxicava Sand of the St. Lawrence valley. The former rela- tion may often be seen in coast sections or river banks, and occa- sionally in road cuttings. I observed some years ago an instruc- tive illustration of this fact, in a bank on the shore a little to the Eastward of Merigomish harbour. At this place the lower part of the bank consists of clay and sand with angular stones, prin- cipally sandstones. Upon this rests a bed of fine sand and small rounded gravel with layers of coarser pebbles. The gravel is separated from the drift below by a layer of the same sort of an- gular stones that appear in the drift, showing that the currents which deposited the upper bed have washed away some of the finer portions of the drift before the sand and gravel were thrown down. In this section, as well as in most others that I have ex- amined, the lower part of the stratified gravel is finer than the upper part, and contains more sand. In some cases we can trace the pebbles of the gravels to ancient conglomerate rocks which have furnished them by their decay; but in other instances the pebbles may have been rounded by the waters that deposited them in their present place. In places, however, where old pebble rocks do not occur, we sometimes find, instead of gravel, beds of fine laminated sand. A very remark- able instance of the connexion of superficial gravels with ancient pebble rocks occurs in the county of Pictou. In the coal forma- tion of this count}^ there occurs a very thick bed of conglomerate, the outcrop of which, owing to its comparative hardness and great mass, forms a high ridge extending from the hill behind New Glasgow across the East and Middle Rivers, and along the South of the West River, and then, crossing the West River, re-appears in Rogers' Hill. The valleys of these three rivers have been cut through this bed, and the material thus removed has been heaped up in hillocks and beds of gravel, along the banks of the streams, on the side toward which the water now flows, which happens to be the North and North-east. Accordingly, along the course of the Albion Mines Railway and the lower parts of the Middle and West Rivers, these gravel beds are everywhere exposed in the road-cuttings, and may in some places be seen to rest on No. 2.] ' DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 181 the Boulder- clay, showing that the cutting of these valleys was completed after the drift was produced. Similar instances of the connexion of gravel with conglomerate occur near Antigonish, and on the sides of the Cobequid mountains, w^here some of the val- leys have at their Southern entrances immense tongues of gravel extending out into the plain, as if currents of enormous volume had swept through them from North to South. The stratified gravels do not, like the older drift, form a con- tinuous sheet spreading over the surface. They occur in mounds and lono: ridges, or eskers, sometimes extending' for miles over the country. One of the most remarkable of these ridges is the "Boar's Back," which runs along the West side of the Hebert River in Cumberland. It is a narrow ridge, perhaps from ten to twenty feet in height, and cut across in several places by the channels of small brooks. The ground on either side appears low and flat. For eiirht miles it forms a natural road. rouo;h in- deed, but practicable with care to a carriage, the general direction being nearly North and South. What its extent or course may be beyond the points where the road enters on and leaves it, I do not know ; but it appears to extend from the base of the Cobe- quid mountains to a ridge of sandstone that crosses the lower part of the Hebert river. It consists of o-ravel and sand, whether stratified or not I could not ascertain, with a few large boulders. Another very singular ridge of this kind is that running along the West side of Clyde river in Shelburne county. This ridge is higher than that on Hebert river, but, like it, extends parallel to the river, and forms a natural road, improved by art in such a manner as to be a very tolerable highway. Along a great part of its course it is separated from the river by a low alluvial flat, and on the land side a swamp intervenes between it and the higher ground. Shorter and more interrupted ridges of this kind may also be seen in the country Northward and Eastward of the town of Pictou. In sections they are seen to be stratified, and they generally occur on low or level tracts, and in places where if the country were submerged, the surf or marine currents and tides might be expected to throw up ridges. The presence of boulders shows that ice grounded on these ridges, and it, probably by its pressure, in some instances, modified their forms. These eskers, or " horse-backs," must not, however, be confounded with glacier moraines, to which in structure they bear no resemblance what- ever. D* 182 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. ' [Vol. VI. It is probably to this more modern part of the Post-pliocene, if not to a more recent period following the elevation of the land, that the bones of the mastodon found in Cape Breton, and des- cribed in " Acadian Geology," belong. For many additional facts relating to the Post-pliocene of New Brunswick, I may refer to the valuable paper by Mr. Matthew, already mentioned. 4. Lower St. Lawrence — North Side. Descriptions of the Post-pliocene deposits of this region are contained in several of my papers above cited, but I shall here give a summary of these, with the corrections and additional fjicts obtained within the past few years. Sagueiiay River. — I have already, in part first, referred to the glacial striation of this region, and perhaps no better example could be found of those lateral valleys along which ice seems to have been poured into the St. Lawrence from the North. The gorge of the Saguenay is a narrow and deep cut, running nearly N.W. and S.E., or at right angles to the course of the St. Law- rence, and of the Laurentian ridges. It extends inland more than forty-five miles, and then divides into two branches, one of which is occupied by the continuation of the river to Lake St. John, the other by Ha-Ha Bay and a valley at its head. In the lower part of its course, as far as Ha-Ha Bay, this gorge is from 50 to 140 fathoms deep, below the level of the tide in the St. Lawrence, and in some places the cliffs on its banks rise abruptly to 1 500 feet above the water level, so that its extreme depth is nearly 2400 feet, while its width varies from about a mile to a mile and a- half. The striated surfaces and the roches moutonnees seen in this gorge and on the hills on its sides, to a height of at least 300 feet, shew that in the glacial period a powerful stream of ice must have flowed down this gorge into the St. Lawrence, thouijh whe- O CD / ~ ther it was occupied by a glacier or constituted a fiord leading from one, like many in Greenland, or was a strait traversed by bergs, does not appear. Possibly, with different levels of the land, these conditions may have alternated. I cannot imagine anything more like what the Saguenay may have been at this time, than the view of Franz Joseph Fiord in East Greenland, brought home by the second German expedition to that country, in the present year,* and which, with other discoveries of that * Copied in the << Leisure Hour" for November, 1871. No. 2.] DAWSON — POST PLIOCENE. 183 expedition soon to be published by Dr. Petermann, will go far to re- move the prevailing error as to Greenland being covered with a universal glacier ; whereas it seems to be a rocky and mostly snow-clad country, wath very large glaciers in its valleys. The strikes of the gneiss on the opposite sides of the Saguenay indicate that it occupies a line of transverse fracture, constituting a weak portion of the Laurentian ridges, and this has evidently been smoothed and deepened by water and ice under conditions different from the present, in which it is probable that the chan- nel is being gradually filled with mud. Its excavation must have taken place before the deposition of the thick beds of marine clay (Leda clay) which appear near its mouth and in its tribu- taries, sometimes passing into Boulder-clay below, and capped by sand and gravel. It is indeed not improbable that in the later Post-pliocene it was in great part filled up with such deposits, which have been swept away in the course of the re-elevation of the land. At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, where the under- lying formation is the Laurentian gneiss, the Post-pliocene beds attain to great thickness, but are of simple structure and slightly fossiliferous. The principal part is a stratified sandy clay with few boulders, except in places near the ridges of Laurentian rocks, when it becomes filled with numerous rounded blocks and pebbles of gneiss. This forms high banks eastward of Tadoussac. It contains a few shells of Tellina Grcenlandica and Leda trnncata, and a little inland, at Bergeron River, it also contains Cardium Islaiidicum, Astarte dliptica, and Rhynclionella psittacea. It resembles some of the beds seen on the South side of the river St. Lawrence, and has also much of the aspect of the Leda clay, as developed in the valley of the Ottawa. On this clay there rest in places thick beds of yellow sand and gravel. At Tadoussac these deposits have been cut into a succession of terraces which are well seen near the hotel and old church. The lowest, near the shore, is about ten feet high ; the second, on which the hotel stands, is forty feet; the third is 120 to 150 feet in height, and is uneven at top. The highest, which consists of sand and gravel, is about 250 feet in height. Above this the country inland consists of bare Laurentian rocks. These terraces have been cut out of deposits, once more extensive, in the process of elevation of the land ; and the present flats off the mouth of the Saguenay, would form a similar terrace as wide as any of the others, if the country were to experience another elevatory move- 184 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. ment. On the third terrace I observed a few large Laurentiau boulders, and some pieces of red and gray shale of the Quebec group, indicating the action of coast-ice when this terrace was cut. On the highest terrace there were also a few boulders; and both terraces are capped with pebbly sand and well rounded gravel, indic'itino- the lono;-continued action of the waves at the levels which they represent. Murray Bay, &c. — At Murray Bay, Petit Mai Bay, and Les Eboulements, as noticed above, the system of Post-pliocene ter- races is well developed. On the West side of Murray Bay, the Silurian rocks of White Point, immediately within the pier, form a steep cliff, in the middle of which is a terraced step marking an ancient sea level. At the end nearest the pier the sea has again cut back to the old cliff, leaving merely a narrow shelf; but toward the inner side this shelf rapidly expands into the sandy flat along which the main road runs, and which is continuous with the lower plain extending all the way to the head of the bay. In this flat the upper portion of the Post-pliocene deposit seems to consist principally of sand and gravel, resting on stony clay. In the former, which corresponds to the Saxicava sand of Montreal, I found only a few valves of Tellica G7'oenlandica which is still the most abundant shell on the modern beach. In the latter, corresponding to the Leda clay, which is best seen in some parts of the shore at low tide, I found a number of deep water shells of the following species, all of which, except Spirorbis spirillum and Aphrodite Grcenlandica , have been found in these deposits at Quebec and Montreal. Fusus tornatus. Trophon Scalarifo rme. Ma rgarifa helicina . Cylichna occulta. Pecten Islcmdicus. Tellina calcarea. Leda truncata. Saxicava rugosa. Aphrodite Groenlandica. Myfilus edulis. My a arenaria . Balanus Hameri. Spirorbis spirillum. S. vitrea. Serpula vermicularis. w 3 ■♦-' Pi >4 T ■" 'J ?i C; i-i^ ' -M <^C/i« Cl 5i s<::i U* c; o rd 2 oo '^ rf c ^ > 1 ^ 5C '-A -q^ 0^ % 3 GC o r/? -4— ' • H =i Oi ^^ rt ^— < O r^ ri VC 1— < &> rJ r— 1 ^ ^ i/iH ri i- vv^. 1 ^■:i^^^/r^ H -t3 f3 f -•■V\ll i '? f--v. H ? '/[ g: O ■^■ o re! R No. 2.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 185 These shells imply a higher beach than that of this lower flat, which is not more than 30 feet above the present sea level. Ac- cordingly above this are several higher terraces, the heights of which on the west side of bay are given in Section I. The second principal terrace, which forms a steep bank of clay some distance behind the main road, is 116 feet in height, and is of considerable breadth, and has on its front in some places an im- perfect terrace at the height of 81 feet. It corresponds nearly in height with the shoulder over which the road from the pier passes. Upon it, in the rear of the property of Mr. Du Berger? is a little stream which disappears under ground, probably in a fissure of the underlying limestone, and returns to the surface only on the shore of the bay. Above this is a smaller and less distinct terrace 139 feet high. Beyond this the ground rises in a steep slope, which in many places consists of calcareous beds, worn and abraded by the waves, but showing no distinct terrace ; and the highest distinct shore mark which I observed, is a narrow beach of rounded pebbles at the heifiht of more than 300 feet ; but above this there is a flat at the heioht of 448 feet. This beach appears to become a wide terrace further to the North, and also on the opposite side of the bay. It probably corresponds with the highest terrace observed by Sir W. E. Logan, at Bay St. Paul, and estimated by him at the height of 360 feet. As already stated, three of the principal terraces at Murray Bay correspond nearly with three of the principal shore levels at Montreal ; and in various parts of Canada, two principal lines of old sea beaches occur at about 100 to 150 feet, and 300 to 350 feet above the sea, though there are others at different levels. In the Post-pliocene period the valley of the Murray Bay river has been filled, almost or quite to the level of the highest terrace, witli an enormously thick mass of mud and boulders, washed from the land and deposited in the sea bed during the long period of Post-pliocene submergence. Through this mass the deep val- ley of the river has been cut, and the clay, deprived of support and resting on inclined surfaces, has slipped downward, forming strangely shaped slopes, and outlying masses, that have in some instances been moulded by the receding waves, or by the subse- quent action of the weather, into conical mounds, so regular that it is difficult to convince many of the visitors to the bay that they are not artificial. Sir W. E. Logan in his report on the district has in my view given the true explanation of these mounds, which 186 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. may be seen in all stages of formation on the neighbouring hill sides. Their effect to a geological eye is to give to this beautiful valley an unfinished aspect, as if the time elapsed since its eleva- tion had not been sufficient to allow its slopes to attain to their fully rounded contour. This appearance is no doubt due to the enormous thickness of the deposit of Post-pliocene mud, to the uneven surfaces of the underlying rock, and possibly also in part to the earthquake shocks which have visited this region. At the mouth of the Murray Bay River, the Boulder-clay, which rests directly on the striated rock surfj;ices, and which is a true till, filled with the Laurentian stones and boulders of the inland hills, though resting on Silurian limestone, is evidently marine, since it contains shells of Lecla truncata ; and many of the stones are coated with Bryozoa and Spirorhes. It is also ob- servable that on the N.E. sides of the limestone ridges the boul- ders are more numerous and larger. Above the Boulder-clay may in some places be seen a stratified sandy clay, which further up the river attains to a great thickness. It contains Saxicava rugosa, TeUina Grcenlandica, and Tellina calcarea, as well as Leda truncata. The most recent deposit is a sand or gravel, often of con- siderable thickness, and in some of the beds of gravel the pebbles are more completely rounded than those of the modern beach. I have already, in Section I, stated my reasons for believing that the upper part of the valley of the Murray Bay River may have been the bed of a glacier flowing down from the inland hills toward the St. Lawrence. N.W. and S.E. ktrige attributable to this glacier were seen at an elevation of 800 feet, and the marine beds were traced up to almost the same height, above which, to a heidit of about 1200 feet, loose boulders were observed and glaciated rock surfaces, but no marine deposits. It is probable, therefore, that at a time when the sea extended up to an elevation of 800 feet, the higher part of the valley may have been filled with land ice. Whether the bergs from this, drifting down to- ward the St. Lawrence, produced the N.W. striation observed at a lower level, or whether at a previous period, when the land was higher, the ice extended farther down, may admit of doubt. Certainly no land ice has extended to a lower level than about 800 feet, since the deposition of the marine boulder and Leda clay. Very large boulders occur in this vicinity. One observed on the beach on the east side of the Bay, is an oval mass of lime felspar, thirty feet in circumference, lying like most other large boulders in this region, with its longer axis to the N.E. No. 1.] DAWSON — POST-PLIOCENE. 18T Les Eboulements. — At this place the Laurentiaii hills rise to a great height near the shore, and the Post- pliocene beds present the exceptional feature of resting on soft decomposed Silurian shale (Utica shale). This rock might indeed be mistaken for drift, but for its stratification, and it must have been decomposed to a great depth by subaerial action and subsequently submerged and covered by the Post-pliocene beds. Its preservation is the more remarkable that the clay overlying it contains very large Laurentian boulders, which must have been quietly deposited by floating ice. Only a few shells of TelJlna Gnenlandica were observed in these clays. The remarkable series of terraces seen at this place, and noticed in part first, rising to 900 feet in height, are all cut out of the Post-pliocene beds and decomposed shale, and even the highest presents large boulders. In examining such terraces it is always necessary to distinguish between the clays out of which the ter- races have been cut and the more modern deposits resting on the terraces. Both may contain fossils, but those of the original clay are in this region mostly of deeper water species than those in the overlying superficial beds. I attribute the preservation of the thick beds of Boulder-clay and the decomposed shale at Les Eboulements, to the fact that no transverse valley exists here, and that a point of high Lauren- tian land projects to the North-East, so as to shelter this place from forces acting in that direction. I have observed this appear- ance on the lee or South-west side of other projecting masses of hard rock, and as the decomposed shale must be a monument remaining from the Pliocene elevation of the land, it shews that no powerful eroding force had acted between that time and the period of the N. E. arctic ice-laden currents. It is perhaps deserving of notice that the thick beds of soft material at Les Eboulements have been cut into many irregular forms by modern subaerial causes of denudation, and also by landslips, which last have been in part connected with the earth- quake shocks with which this part of the coast has been visited more than any other district of Canada. Above Les Eboulements, Bay St. Paul presents features simi- lar to those of Murray Bay, and then the Laurentian land of Cape Tourment comes boldly forward to the shore of the River. Above this the conditions are similar to those observed in the neighbourhood of Quebec. (^To be continued.) 188 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. ON THE " COLONIES " OF M. BAREANDE. By Henry Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D.Sc, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S E., F.G.S., &c. Professor of Natural History and Botany in Univer- sity College, Toronto. The doctrine of " Colonies," propounded by M. Barrande, has been long before the palgeontological world, and is known, at any rate by name, to all students of geology. It is doubtful, however, if there is as clear a comprehension of this subject as its import- ance would render desirable ; and it may, therefore, be of inte- rest to discuss briefly the leading facts upon which this theory is based. In so doing, I shall take the necessary details from M. Barrande's " Defense des Colonies," published in 1870, one of the most valuable of the many palgeontological works of this dis- tinguished observer, and I shall confine myself chiefly to a rtsumi of the facts therein recorded and the deductions drawn therefrom. I. Sub-divisions of the Silurian Rocks of Bohemia. The Silurian Rocks of Bohemia are described by M. Barrande as occupying an elliptical basin, the long axis of which has a N.E., and S.W. direction, and a length of 148 kilometres. The breadth of the basin increases gradually in passing from the N.E. to the S.W., its minimum breadth being about 30 kilometres, and its maximum about 74 kilometres. The Silurians of this basin repose upon granitic and gneissic rocks, and dip inwards towards a central line. The fossiliferous beds of the entire basin occupy a far from considerable superficial area ; and their extent — supposing them not to have been much denuded — would assign to the Silurian sea of Bohemia an area not exceeding 1-60 of the superficies of the Adriatic. The Silurian rocks of the entire basin admit of separation into two primary divisions, an Inferior and a Siqjerior division, cor- responding respectively to the Lower and Upper Silurian Rocks of Sir Roderick Murchison. The Inferior Division is composed principally of schists and quartzites ; or, as we should say, slates and grits or graywackes, and is wholly destitute of calcareous No. 2.] THE "colonies" of m. barrande. 189 matter, except occasional concretions of carbonate of lime. The Superior Division is composed almost entirely of calcareous mat- ter, with merely subordinate bands of schists and quartzites. Each division can be satisfactorily broken up into four sub-divi- sions (etages), grounded solely upon the characters of their con- tained fossils, and lettered in ascending order : — The dtages of the Inferior Division are A., B., C, D. The dtages of the Superior Division are E., F., G., H. Each of the fossiliferous sub-divisions can be further broken up into minor groups or " bands," distinguished by the smaller letters of the alphabet, as shown in the annexed table. Etages A. & B., the lowest of the Inferior Division^ are com- posed of semi-crystalline rocks and conglomerates, and are unfos- siliferous. They are termed by Barrande the "Azoic Etages," and are considered by him as forming the base of the Silurian Series. It is, however, more probable that they should be re- garded as being truly of Lower Cambrian age, Etages C. D. E. F. G. & H. are fossiliferous. Etage C. is the well-known " Primordial Zone " of Bohemia, corresponding with the Menevian beds of Britain, and characterized by primordial trilobites of the genera Faradoxides, Olenus, Conocori/phe, Ellip- tocephalus, &c. It should probably be regarded as Upper Cam- brian. Etage D. contains Barrande's so-called " faune second " or second fauna, and must correspond with the Llandeilo and Cara- doc beds of Britain. Etages E. F. G. & H. are characterized by a single fauna termed by Barrande the " faune troisieme " or third fauna ; and they correspond collectively to the Upper Silurian Rocks of Britain. The precursors (" avanteureurs ") of this "third fauna" in the last portions of the period of the " second fauna " are termed by Barrande the " colonies." They are in the form of bands which are enclosed in the mass of (^tage D towards its higher part, and which are thus stratigraphicallij Lower Silurian, but which, nevertheless, contain a predominance of fossils characteristic of the "third fauna," and thus comQ palceontologically to belong to the Upper Silurian series. They abound especially in the band d 5, occurring also in d 4, and about twenty of them are known in all. The subjoined table shows in a summary form the general subdivisions and lithology of the rocks of the Bohemian basin, with the principal characteristic fossils: — 190 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. P5".,— IC^JCO •* lO r— l(Mi— iClr-lClCOr-^C^lCO "^ "^ i» iu ^^ '^. ^ c; fe ■< -ii; 1^ ope 6c fc€ O, ^ ^v ,, ^: =3 "^'S]^ ' ' ' • ^" .S o-;;^ ® © ® ® s-< ^St:! bo Ui ^ ^ = WhE pq h W W O £1 O OQ No. 2.] THE "colonies" of m. barrande. 191 II. Distribution of the Colonies. The colonial zone occupies a great part of the superficial area and vertical thickness of the band d 5, forming an elliptical zone or belt concentric with the calcareous rocks of the Upper Silurian basin. From this basin the colonial zone is generally separated by schists and quartzites, which form the summit of d 5, and which contain no fossils of an animal nature. On the surface of this zone the colonies are distributed in concentric but discon- tinuous lines, with irregular intervals between. Each colony is in the form of a lenticular mass, of which the length enormously exceeds the breadth and thickness ; and the phenomena of their distribution and their relations to the surrounding rocks prove plainly that they cannot be explained by invoking the agency of mechanical disturbance or faults. Several interbedded traps are found in the colonial zone, regu- larly interstratified with the colonies, and similar beds are found in band e 1 at the base of Etage E. They all have the form of elongated lenticular masses thinning out at both extremities. As the Silurian rocks of Bohemia form a basin, the colonies are, as a matter of course, found on both sides of the central group of calcareous rocks (Upper Silurian). With the exception of the " Colony Zippe," which is found in cZ 4, all the colonies are found in the lower portion of c? 5 ; and, like the rocks amongst which they are situated, they dip inwards towards the axis of the basin. III. — LiTHOLOGY OF THE COLONIES COMPARED WITH THAT OF BANDS e 1, e 2, c? 4, & 6? 5 : A. Band, e 2. — This band is the second subdivision of Etage E., and is composed mainly of continuous beds of limestone, often fetid, almost black in colour, and chiefly composed of the debris of Crinoids. The beds of limestone are separated by thin courses of impure shales containing a few graptolites. Lithologically e 2 difi'ers most markedly botli from band e 1 and from the colonies ; but nevertheless the palaeontological relationships of the colonial zone are far stron";er with e 2 than with e 1, though the mineral characters of e 1 are identical with those of the colonies. B. Band e 1 : — Band e 1 constitutes the stratigraphical base of Etage E. or of the Upper Silurian Series of Bohemia. It consists wholly of Graptolitic Schists, enclosing calcareous spher- 192 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. oids or " antbracolites" and having intercalated beds of trap. Its thickness is very variable, sometimes exceeding 600 metres, and it is always much thicker than band e 2. Lithologically, therefore, as well as in possessing interbedded traps, e 1 differs greatly from e 2. In the same way, the palaeon- tological differences between the two are sufficiently well marked, though they are united by many specific connexions. Each, how- ever, has its own fauna, and the richness of the two is very unequal. Thus, e 1 possesses but 15 Trilobites, whilst e 2 has 81 species ; e 1 has yielded no more than 149 Cephalopods, whilst e 2 has yielded the extraordinary number of 665 species ; and sim- ilar differences are found in the Gasteropods, Bivalves, and Brachiopods. Still, the propriety of retaining e 1 and e 2 on the same stratigraphical horizon is shown by numerous palgeontologi- cal relationships, amongst which may be mentioned the fact that 68 Cephalopods are common to the two divisions. C. Band d 5 : — Band d 5 underlies band e 1, and forms the summit of Etaii'e D., or the hio;hest division of the Lower Silurian Series of Bohemia. Its upper portion has a thickness of 100 metres and is composed of alternating thin beds of gray schist and quartzite (graywacke). It is remarkable in being wholly desti- tute of fossils of an animal nature, having yielded nothing more than a few ^'Fucoids". This thick deposit, therefore, corresponds with a prolonged and total intermission of the Silurian fauna of the Bohemia area. The thickness of this unfossiliferous formation might serve as an approximate measure of the time which elapsed between the last appearance of the colonial fauna and the definitive appear- ance of the "third fjiuna" (Upper Silurian fauna). In certain localities, however, this unfossiliferous mass appears to have un- dergone partial denudation^ prior to the dcp>osition of e\. It may be remarked here that the above observation ofM. Barrande would seem to indicate a want of conformity between Etage D. and Etage E., such as is found in many other countries between the Lower and Upper Silurian rocks. If this be so, the interval between the colonial fauna and the introduction of the third fauna may have been indefinitely Ion 5, and cannot even be approximately measured by the thickness of the upper part of db. Below this unfossiliferous series, band c? 5 is composed of masses of argillaceous schist of different tints, sometimes with subordi- No. 2.] THE •• COLONIES ■' OF M. BARRANDE. 193 nate beds of quartzite. Id all cases, witli the exception of the colony Zippe, the colonies are intercalated in this portion of fZ 5 ; and there are also numerous beds (" coulees '') of trap at various horizons. As will be seen immediately, this portion of d 5 is chiefly distinguished from the beds of the colonies by the fact that the schists are almost wholly destitute of graptolites. D. The Colonies. — The colonies, as just remarked, are situated in the schistose lower portion of d 5, and they are lithologically absolutely undistinguishable from band e 1, consisting of grapto- litic schists with calcareous concretions and interbedded traps. The following distinctions, however, may be noted as compared with el: — 1. The thickness of the colonies is always much less than that of band e 1 ; and there are fewer alternations of the graptolitic schists with the traps. 2. Certain colonies are composed entirely of schists without traps. 3. In some colonies (e. g. Colony Haidinger and Colony Cotta) there are bands of gray schists and quartzites like those of d 5. 4. The calcareous concretions are generally rarer in the colonies than in the band e 1, and they even appear to be wanting in some colonies, especially in the deepest {e. g. m the Colony Haidinger.) E. Bund fZ, 4: — This band is composed of impure schists, which are always highly micaceous and deeply coloured, brown, gray or black. Though fissile, they are niuch less homogeneous and papery ('' feuilletes ") than those which constitute the supe- rior band d 5. Sometimes there are intercalated beds of quartz- ite, and occasionally there are interbedded sheets of trap. There is only one colony in d 4, namely the Colony Zippe, situated with- in the ramparts of Prague. This colony differs from all the rest by its being entirely composed of a lenticular mass of limestone, about 25 centimetres thick, intercalated in the midst of regular alternations of schist and quartzite. IV. Pal^ontological Relations of the Colonies. From what has preceded, it is evident that stratigraphically the colonies belong to the Lower Silurian series, and we have now to enquire what relationships can be shown to subsist between the colonial fauna and the second and third fauna respectively. The specific connexions of the colonial fauna, when examined in de- VoL. VI. K No. 2. 194 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. tail, will then be found to be most close and intimate with the first phases of the third fauna (Upper Silurian), so that palaeon- tologically the colonies must be regarded as truly Upper Silurian. This result will be brought out by a comparison of the fauna of the colonies with that of the Lower and Upper Silurian periods respectively : — A. Specific connexions hetwee/i the Colonies and the Second Fauna. — As yet only two colonies are known in which there is any intermixture of the characteristic forms of the second fauna (Lower Silurian) with those of the colonial fauna, i.e. with those of the third fauna (Upper Silurian). Thus, out of seventeen species in the colony Zippe, there are four species representing the second fauna, with twelve species belonging to the third fauna. On the other hand, in the colony d'Archiac there are only two species of the third fauna (viz. Cardiola interrupta and Grapto- lites p)Tiodon f). It is quite clear, therefore, that the colonial fauna, as a whole, has very slight connexion with the second or Lower Silurian fauna. B. Specific connexions between the Colonies and the Third Fauna. — In showing the specific connexions between the colonies and the third or Upper Silurian fauna, it will be advisable to review briefly the difierent orders of fossils represented in the Silurian basin of Bohemia. a. Fishes. — No traces of fishes have been detected in the colo- nies or in the whole of the Lower Silurian series, and their only indubitable remains occur in Etages F and G, which have hardly any connexion with the colonies. (Altogether five fishes have been discovered in the Upper Silurians of Bohemia, viz. Coccos- teus primus, C. Agassizi, Asterolepis Bohemicus, Gompholepis Panderi, and Ctenacanthus Bohemicus.^ h. Crustaceans. — These are principally trilobites. The trilo- bites of the colonies, not taking into account the four species of the second fauna, are referable to eight species and seven genera, all belonging to the third fauna. The trilobites are, therefore, very limited in number, and their paucity agrees perfectly with the small number of these crustaceans in the first phase of the third fauna, i. c. in e 1, in which only fifteen species are known. On the other hand d 5 and d 4 have together furnished about eighty trilobites peculiar to the last phases of the second fauna. The remaining Crustaceans of the colonial fauna are Pterygotus Bohemicus^ Ceratiocaris incequalisj Entomis migrans, and Apty- No. 2.] THE "colonies" of m. barrande. 195 chopsis (^Peltocarls) primus, all of which reappear in the third fauna. Ceratiocaris, however, occurs in d 5. Aptychopsis (or FeJtocaris, Salter, as it more probably is) occurs in the Scotch Upper Llandeilos, whereas in Bohemia it is confined to the base of the Upper Silurians (e 1 and e 2) and to the colonies, A similar, if not identical form, however, has recently been disco- vered by Mr. Lap worth in the Scotch Silurians, high up in the series, and I have found another closely similar form in the sand- stone of the Coniston series (Caradoc) of the north of England. c. Cephalopoda. — This class of fossils, as is well known, has been an object of M. Barraude's especial study, and his results are, therefore, of the highest value and interest. The Cephalo- poda are represented in the colonial fauna by thirty-six species, of which all except species of Cyrtocera are referable to the genus Orthoceras. The Cephalopods, therefore, abounded in the colo- nial fauna, and this ai»;ain ao;rees with the state of thini>s in the earlier portion of the third fauna. On the other hand, bands df) and d 4, though much thicker than the colonies, have only yielded altogether eighteen species of Cephalopoda, the paucity of these fossils thus contrasting strongly with the abundance of trilobites. It should also be remarked that the small representation of the genus Cyrtoceras in the colonies (only two species being known) contrasts very strongly with the total absence of the genus in the second fauna, and its great abundance in the earlier phases of the third fauna, twenty -six species occurring in e 1, and no less than 201 species in e 2. Lastly, of the thirty-six species of Cephalo- poda in the colonies, not one is specifically identical with any form known in the second fauna. On the contrary, thirty -one species reappear on difi"ereut horizons in the third fauna, the remaining five species being peculiar to the colonies. d. Pteropoda. — Only two species of Hyolithes occur in the colonies, and both reappear in the first phase of the third fauna. Neither occur in ;rations must have jiiven rise to colonies, which are placed on the same horizon, and consist of graptolitic schists, almost always accompanied by flows of trap, and often containing; calcareous concretions. In consequence of inauspicious conditions, and from the cessa- tion of these schistose and calcareous deposits, all the colonies must have enjoyed a relatively short existence during the period that the Bohemian area was occupied by the second fauna. The appearance of the colonies coinciding constantly with the graptolitic deposits, we are compelled to attribute both equally to the influence of currents arising in the same quarter. The introduction of intermittent currents into the isolated basin of Bohemia seems to have been caused by oscillations of the land, connected with the production of the traps which occur so frequently in bands d 5 and e 1. In all cases, the colonial species appeared on difibrent horizons without being able to establish themselves permanently in Bohe- mia during the last phase of the second fauna. After the complete extinction of the second fauna, however, and after a prolonged intermission, during which the Bohemian basin appears to have been deserted, a new immigration, arising from the same foreign centre, must have invaded the Bohemian sea, and must have succeeded in permanently establishing itself there. (I may remark here that few palaeontologists would admit that the presence of a considerable mass of unfossiliferous beds in the midst of a fossiliferous series, necessarily implies a period in which life did not exist, as above assumed by M. Barrande. More probably the local conditions were such as to cause a local migration of the existent fauna, or such as not to allow of their preservation in a fossil condition. There certainly do not seem to be sufficient grounds for the assumption that the whole of the second fauna of Bohemia died out during the deposition of the upper part of d 5, and the absence of fossils might be partially accounted for by the lithological nature of the deposits in ques- 2(12 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. tion. which are stated by Barrande to consist chiefly of gray- wackes and grits (" qiiartzites "). Lastly, there are indications that e 1 is superimposed nnconformably upon d 6, in which case the intervitl between the second and third faunas may have been an enormously long one, and some intermediate deposits may be missing.) The above definitive introduction, constituting the first phase of the third or Upper Silurian fauna, must have taken place during the deposition of the band e 1, the basement band of the superior division, which agrees lithologically wdth the colonies in being composed of graptolitic schists with calcareous concretions, alternating with sheets of trap. It is clear that the interpretation of the facts rests chiefly on the hypothesis of migrations. Most geologists now admit the doctrine of migrations, and Bohemia more than any country pre- sents us with proofs of its truth. Thus, M. Barrande has shown that the Bohemian basin of Silurian times was separated by natural barriers from the con- temporaneous ocean which covered the great northern zone of Europe and America. This is shewn by the specific differences between many of the forms (such as the Ceplialo2Joda] of these areas ; but the occurrence of some species common to Bohemia and Northern Europe has also shown that there must have existed temporary communications between these diff'erent regions. Fur- ther, M. Barrande has shown [Mem. sur hi Reapparition dit genre Aretliusinii, 1868,1 that although the colonies are the most striking examples of the intermittent appearance of species in Bohemia, there exists besides in the same b i«iii a considerable number of species equally intermittent, and belonging to difi"erent classes of fossils. This was particularly shown by the occurrence of four Trilobites and one Cephalopod, which existed in c/ 1, at the commencement of the second fauna, completely disappeared during d 2, d 3, and d 4, a.nd reappeared in d 5 at the close of the second fauna, their re ippearance coinciding precisely with the introduc- tion of the colonies into the basin. Both these circumstances can be explained by the same hypo- thesis, namely by supposing a temporary communication to be formed between the Bohemian basin and other seas. This hypo- thesis would not only explain the reappearance of the above-men- tioned species after the lapse of a vast period of time, but would also allow of the almost inevitable introduction of various other new forms into the same basin at the same time. No. 2.] THE WHALE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 203 We have, then, oi> tlie one liand, the fact tliat the Silurian basin of Bohemia was isohited and separated from other reuions, over which successively existed the three general faunas chnrac- teristic of the Silurian period (with the Upj)er Cambrian i. On the other hand, divers well established facts demonstrate the co- existence of a certain number of identical species on corresponding horizons in countries geographically widely removed from one another. This co-existence can only be explained by the effect of miiirations. We may suppose, therefore, that the repeated introduction into Bohemia of species which are equally characteristic of the colo nies and of the third fauna, may be explained by having recourse to the phenomenon of migrations. We may ;dso suppose that the intermittent appearance of the colonies may be attributed to oscillations of the land during the last phases of the second fauna, the occurrence of such oscillations being testified by the frequent intercalation of traps in the beds in question (viz. in d b). Lastly, we may define the phenomena of "" colonies ' as con- sisting in '' the co existence of two ijeneral fauna), which, con- sidered in their entirety, are nevertheless successive." THE WHALP] OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 1!\- Di!. .1. W. Am)KI!S()n, I'rcsidciit of the I^itoiarN' and Historical Society ol' QucIk-c. In the early history of Canada, the whale and walrus fishery of the Gulf of St, Lawrence was of no inconsiderable influence, giving employment to many of the Basque and Breton fishermen, and being one of the best nurseries for French seamen In later times when the walrus had become entirely extinct, the whale fishery was prosecuted with energy by the Canadians, especially of the District of is})e ; and Bouchette, writing in 1882, says: " The whale fishery is carried on witli some success by a few active and enterprising inhabitants, who are almost exclusively employed in this kind of fishery. Four or five schooners, manned each with from eight to twelve able and skilful persons, are occu- pied in whaling during the summer months. This business yields about 18.00(1 gallons of oil. which is principally sent to Quebec. 204 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. VI. The number of hands employed in reducing the blubber to oil, preparing casks, and other incidental labour, may amount to about 100." Mr. Frank Austin, a few years ago, read a paper to the Lite- rary and Historical Society of Quebec, on " Some of the Fishes of the St. Lawrence." In this paper, published in the "Tran- sactions" for 1866, it is stated that it gave profitable employ- ment to a good many schooners of from seventy to eighty tons burthen, each manned by eight men. Each schooner carried two boats, twenty feet long, narrow and sharp, with a pink stern. There were two hundred and twenty fathoms of line to each boat, and the proper supply of harpoons and lances. The .species caught was that commonly called the Humi^hach^ and each on an average produced three tons of oil. The mode of capture was somewhat different from that practised by the w^halers who resort to Davis' Straits and Greenland, and it is said that any active man, accus- tomed to the management of boats, could soon become proficient. When approaching the whale in the boats, the men used paddles instead of oars, finding that less noise was made, and that they were thus surer of their prey. It would appear that the whale of the St. Lawrence was even more easily captured than that of Greenland, being if anything more timid and stupid w^hen once harpooned, for sometimes within fifteen minutes after they had been struck, their huge bodies rolled like helpless logs on the water. The oil-yielded in 1864 by the Gaspe fishery was of the value of $17,000. We have no means at hand to say what the returns have been since then, but we have reason to fear that like the porpoise fishery, the capture of the whale has not received that attention which it deserved, nnd that unless new life be im- parted, it will altogether cease to be prosecuted as a regular and remunerative branch of national industry. The valuable walrus fishery was lost by ignorance, which led to the complete extinc- tion of the animal in the St. Lawrence. The whale fishery stands a chance of abandonment from apathy. We were struck on reading Sir Richard Bonnycastle's book, published in 1845, by remarkiog the number of whales which he saw on his voyage up and down the St. Lawrence, between Gaspe and Kamouraska. Certainly they do not now frequent the St. Lawrence in such abundance. In the Canadian 3Iagazlnc, vol. 1, page 283, will be found as follows : — " About the middle of September (1823) a large whale No. 2.] THE WHALE OF THE ST. LAWRENCE. 205 found its way up the St. Lawrence till nearly opposite the village of Montreal, where it continued to play itself for several days^ not being able, from the shallowness of the water, to navigate its way down the river. Having attracted the notice of" the inhabi- tants, several enterprising individuals put off in boats with some whale-fishing materials in pursuit of it ; and at last after nearly a week's exertion it was harpooned by Captain Brush of the Tow steamboat. It was immediately dragged ashore, and exhibited in a booth fitted up lor the purpose, for the gratification of the in- habitants. It was found to measure forty-two feet eight inches in length, six feet across the back, and seven feet deep. It has since been conveyed to Three Rivers and Quebec for the same purpose." Early in August of this year (1871) two whales were seen sporting on the shores of the Gulf, and a Mr. Chabot. and an Englishman, who claim to have invented a gun harpoon (on Capt.. Manby's principle), brought their gun to the shore and discharged the harpoon. As the whale instantly disappeared, and as the rope returned to the shore without the harpoon, they were under the impression that the whale had been struck. Some days after- wards, the government steamer ' Druid ' being down the North Channel, saw something on the beach at St. Joachim, which they thought at first was a boat, but on nearer approach it was dis- covered to be a whale. Ropes were attached to the jaw and tail^ and the huge animal was towed to the Police Wharf at Quebec, where for a few days it was visited by thousands, but becoming extremely offensive, and the weather being very hot, the Mayor very properly ordered it to be removed. It was sold by auction, and purchased by Mr. Gregor}' for $2G0, and was then towed to ' Patrick's Hole,' close to tlie Church of St. Laurent, where Wolfe's