4
A
nt
=
=
Ky
Ah 7
Hi a ny 7
oo. He
64
NS
VAI 4
DOME
SR
<< EE
BMRA 1 ae Wad di
EN my “Al LR . ee Ae wae Bek
ae Hy 1 : he .
4
He
esas
> =
aS
2.
mi co
i
|
;
NA
SS
See =. =
oe —
cS Es 2 = =
SRE Re =
= teow re SS Ss
eS = Ss eee SS
>
RSS a oS See SS
ets Sas as SE
tS
nen —
Se
=
F: ete
es, es
=
ty i)
A AAS UV ait galt or À Wit
oF ay : ( te a is
ue
‘i
wee
if à :
ae oo i
HA pany an Ben ey i
oo ae ae
a HA a an . a
a ae at Hs NAT Fils
2 ne Gn is
teeny ness
pe et ima ee
iF
we
RÉ ETS
: = =
a RES LS
eee
ee
ni
! D al nie .
in ii oe
a
oe
ay i ia
SA ae
FE
a
y Back
HY iin
RES ce A
je EE ay ea
Re ue
tay HA ee rase
ie is a
fi
eS
ee =
soe
es
oe Ses
So
=
& cae
ese
=
=e
5 . . RU o
ae
Ait
Yi
a
{ A Ms Hie
)
a co
eta
EAN
aah
Mi 1
tu
. li
8
- à
RS
=
ry CE LAMPE PPT , NAME a) teh ty
aE
PC ; ) | . ' CES La
Le it ap. A TN ORNE ORNE
a nl * È L
A + | | x if x el
du ST
SECTION IL. 1884. fos! 4 TRANS. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
V.— The Huron-Iroquois of Canada, a Typical Rare of American Aborigines.
By DANIEL Witson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., President of University College, Toronto.
(Read May 23, 1884.)
In a previous communication to the Royal Society of Canada I submitted some general
considerations of the ethnical characteristics, and of the condition and relative status, of the
aborigines of North America. In that, I aimed at a brief summary of their general aspect
as the indigenous American stock upon whom, during the last three and a half centuries
the same Aryan race has intruded, which in older and prehistoric centuries displaced
indigenous races of Europe not without some analogous results. I now propose to glance
at one of the most characteristic types of the American aborigines, which appears, according
to their own traditions, to be of Canadian origin; and which, as one important branch of
the common stock, claims our special consideration as preeminently the historical native
race of Canada.
I have already submitted the reasonings by which I have been led to the conclusion
that, throughout the whole North American continent, from the Arctic circle to the Mexican
Gulf, no trace has been recovered of the previous existence of anything that properly
admits of the term “native civilization.” The rude arts of Europe’s stone age belong to a
period lying far behind its remotest traditions : unless we appeal to the mythic allusions of
Hesiod, or to such poetic imaginings as the ‘‘ Prometheus” of Æschylus. But all avail-
able evidence thus far serves to show that the condition of the native tribes throughout
the whole area of this northern continent has never advanced beyond the stage which
finds its apt illustration in the rude arts of their stone period, including the rudimentary
efforts at turning to account their ample resources of native copper without and use
of fire.
But this uniformity in the condition and acquirements of the native tribes, and the
consequent resemblance in their arts, habits, and mode of life, have been the fruitful source
of misleading assumptions. Everywhere the early European explorers met only rude
hunting and warring tribes, exhibiting such slight variations in all that first attracts the
eye of the most observant traveller, that an exaggerated idea of their ethnical uniformity
was the not unnatural result. So soon as the systematizings of the ethnologist led to
the differentiation of races, the American type was placed apart as at once uniform and
distinctive; and, strange as it may now seem, this idea found nowhere such ready favour
as among those who had the fullest access to the evidence by which its truth could be
tested. It was the most important and comprehensive induction of the author of “Crania
Americana,” as the fruit of his conscientious researches in American craniology. The authors
of “ Indigenous Races of the Earth” and “Types of Mankind,” no less unhesitatingly
affirmed that “identical characters pervade all the American races, ancient and modern, over
56 DANIEL WILSON ON THE HURON-IROQUOIS OF
the whole continent.”! In this they were sustained by the high authority of Agassiz, who,
after discussing in his “ Provinces of the Animal World, and their relation to Types of Man,”
the fauna peculiar to the American continent, and pointing out the much greater uniformity
of its natural productions, when its twin continents are compared with those of the eastern
hemisphere, thus summed up the result of his investigations: “ With these facts before
us, we may expect that there should be no great diversity among the tribes of man inhabit-
ing this continent; and indeed the most extensive investigation of their peculiarities has
led Dr. Morton to consider them as constituting but a single race, from the confines of the
Esquimaux down to the southernmost extremity of the continent. But, at the same time,
it should be remembered that, in accordance with the zoological character of the whole
realm, this race is divided into an infinite number of small tribes, presenting more or less
difference one from another.” It was natural and reasonable that the men of the six-
teenth century should believe in Calibans, or Ewaipanoma, “the Anthropophagi, and men
whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” America was to them, in the most literal
sense, another world; and it was easier for them to think of it as peopled with such
monstrosities, than with human beings like ourselves. But it is curious to note in this
nineteenth century the lingering traces of the old sentiment; and to see men of science
still finding it difficult to emancipate themselves from the idea that this continent is so
essentially another world, that it is inconceivable to them that the races by which it is
peopled should bear any affinity to themselves or to others of the old world. American
ethnologists long clung to the idea of an essentially distinct indigenous race ; and Dr. Nott,
Dr. Meigs, and other investigators welcomed every confirmation of the view of Dr. Morton
as to the occupation of the whole American continent by one peculiar type from which
alone the Eskimo were to be excepted, as an immigrant element, possibly—according
to the ingenious speculations of one distinguished student of science,—of remotest
European antiquity. Professor Huxley in an address to the Ethnological Society in
1869, suggests hypothetically, that the old Mexican and South American races represent
the true American stock; and that the Red Indians of North America may be the product
of an intermixture of the indigenous native race with the Eskimo. It is noticeable, at any
rate, that nearly all writers, however widely differing on other points, follow Humboldt
in classing the Eskimo apart as a distinct type. He remarks in his preface to his
“ American Researches,” that “except those which border the polar circle, the nations of
America form a single race characterized by the formation of the skull, the colour of the
skin, the extreme thinness of the beard, and the straight, glossy hair.” Some of the charac-
teristics thus noted are undoubtedly widely prevalent ; but the head-form, or “ formation
of the skull,” is the most important; and a careful comparison of the skulls of different
tribes has long since modified the opinion, expressed by the great traveller and reasserted
by distinguished American ethnologists.
In reality, were the typical feature most insisted on as universal as it was assumed
to be, it would furnish the strongest argument for classifying the predominant Asiatic
and American types as one. All the points appealed to suggest affinity to the Asiatic
Mongol. But to this the Canadian race, to which attention is here specially directed,
presents a striking exception; and it is deserving of notice that the dolichocephalic head-
1 Types of Mankind, p. 291.
CANADA, A TYPICAL RACE OF AMERICAN ABORIGINES, 57
form is not only characteristic of the Huron-lroquois stock; but it is prevalent in others
of the northern tribes. Recognizing a correspondence, in this and other respects, between
the Algonkins and Iroquois, who long divided between them the area of Upper and Lower
Canada and the adjacent western territory, Dr. Latham remarks: “The Iroquois and
Algonkins exhibit in the most typical form the characteristics of the North American
Indians as exhibited in the earliest descriptions, and are the two families upon which
the current notions respecting the physiognomy, habits, and moral and intellectual powers
of the so-called Red Race are chiefly founded.” Of the former, Mr. Parkman, who has
studied their later history with the minutest care, says: “In this remarkable family of
tribes occur the fullest developments of Indian character, and the most conspicuous
examples of Indian intelligence. If the higher traits popularly ascribed to the race are
not to be found here, they are to be found nowhere.” *
The Iroquois were an important branch of the great stock which included also the
Hurons, or Wyandots, the native historical race of Canada. But divided as the two were
throughout the whole period of French Canadian history by the bitterest antagonism, it is
convenient to speak of them under the compound term of Huron-lroquois ; and to the
special history of this indigenous stock, with the more general suggestions prompted by
their peculiar characteristics as a typical race of American aborigines, attention is here
chiefly directed. In doing so it is desirable not only to note the physical geography of the
country which they occupied, as a region of forest and lakes; but, still more, to keep in
view this fact as a predominant characteristic of the continent, and as one important factor
in the evolution of whatever may seem to be peculiar in the aborigines of North America.
The effects resulting from the physical features of a country, on the development and
agere@ation, or interblending, of its races can nowhere be wisely overlooked. Even with-
in the narrow limits of the British Islands the influences of mountain and lowlands, of
the fertile stretches of Kent and the valley of the Thames, the fens of Lincolnshire, the
moorlands of Northumbria, and the Welsh and Scottish Highlands, have largely contributed
to the endurance, if not in some degree to the development, of ethnical distinctions; as
they have undoubtedly been the chief source, not only of the perpetuation, but of the
multiplication of diversities in language.
In this respect Britain is an epitome of Europe, with its great mountain ranges, and
detached peninsulas, by means of which races have been isolated within well-defined
areas, and their languages and other distinctive peculiarities preserved. Russia alone, of
all European countries, presents analogies to Central Asia as a region favourable to
nomadic life; and in so far as its history differs from that of the continent at large, it
accords with such physical conditions. Throughout the whole historic period, as doubt-
less in prehistoric times, the great chain of mountains reaching from the western spur
of the Pyrenees to the Balkans has influenced European progress; while the chief navi-
gable river, the Danube, traversing the continent through one uniform temperate zone,
has tended still further to the perpetuation of certain distinctive ethnical characteristics in
central and southern Europe. In all its most important geographical features, the
! The Jesuits in North America, p. 43.
Sec. II., 1884. 8.
58 DANIEL WILSON ON THE HURON-IROQUOIS OF
northern continent of America presents a striking contrast to this. An isosceles tri-
angle with its base within the Arctic circle, it tapers to a narrow isthmus towards the
equator. Its great mountain chain runs from north to south, and in near proximity to
the Pacific coast ; and its chief navigable river, rising within our own Canadian Dominion,
and receiving as its tributaries other rivers draining vast regions on either hand, traverses
twenty degrees of latitude before it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. Another range ot
highlands rises towards the Atlantic sea-board, and forms the eastern boundary of the
great interior plain. But the Alleghanies or Appalachian system of mountains, though
they may be said to extend from the St. Lawrence to the Mexican Gulf, rise only at a few
points, as in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, to any great elevation. They
form rather a long plateau, intersected by wide valleys; and so diversify the landscape,
without constituting strongly defined barriers or lines of demarkation. As a whole, the
continent of North America, eastward from the Rocky Mountains, may be described as a
level areasso slightly modified by any elevated regions throughout its whole extent, from
the Arctic circle to the Gulf of Mexico, as to present no impediment to the wanderings
of nomadic tribes. It is interlaced with rivers, and diversified everywhere with lakes,
alike available for navigation and for fishing; and, until the intrusion of European immi-
grants, its forests and prairies abounded with game far in excess of the wants of its
population. Everything thus tended to perpetuate the condition of nomadic hunter
tribes. This stage of native American history inevitably drew to a close under the
influence of European institutions and civilization; but it is interesting to note, that
the same absence of any well defined geographical limitations of area, which tended to
perpetuate the nomadic habits of the savage, has aided in consolidating the great con-
federacy of the United States, and maintaining an ethnical and political conformity
throughout the North American continent in striking contrast to the diversities in race
and political institutions in Europe.
History and native traditions alike confirm the idea that the valley of the St. Lawrence
was the habitat of the Huron-Iroquois stock as far back as evidence can be appealed to. The
Huron traditions tell of a time when the Province of Quebee was the home of the race
eastward to the sea; while those of three at least of the members of the Iroquois confederacy
in legendary fashion claimed their birth from the soil south of the great river. When the
French explorers, under the leadership of Jacques Cartier, first entered the St. Lawrence,
in 1535, they found at Stadaconé and Hochelaga—the old native civic sites now occupied
by the cities of Quebec and Montreal,—a population apparently of the Huron-Iroquois stock ;
and, in so far as reliance may be placed on their traditions, Canada was then populous through-
out the whole valley of the St. Lawrence with industrious native tribes, the representatives
of a race that had occupied the same region for unnumbered centuries. “Some fanciful
tales of a supernatural origin from the heart of a mountain ; of a migration to the eastern
sea-board; and of a subsequent return to the country of the lakes and rivers, where
they finally settled, comprise,” says Brownell,’ “most that is noticeable in the native
traditions of the Six Nations prior to the grand confederation.” But the value
of such traditionary transmission of national history among unlettered tribes has
received repeated confirmation; and the incidents of their own famous league, perpe-
1 The Indian Races of North and South America, p. 286.
CANADA, A TYPICAL RACE OF AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 59
tuated with circumstantial minuteness in the traditions of the Iroquois, are assignable
apparently to the earlier half of the fifteenth century. The older event of the over-
throw of the Alligéwi, in the Ohio valley, of which independent traditional records
have been handed down by the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares, and by the Iroquois,
is believed to be correctly assignable to a date nearly contemporaneous with the
assumption of the authority of bretwalda of the Heptarchy by Egbert of Wessex,—that
memorable step in the fusion of “nations” not greatly more important than those
of the Iroquois league, until their divisions in speech and polity were effaced in the
unity of the English people. As to “the fanciful tale of a supernatural origin from the
heart of a mountain,” it is simply a literal rendering of the old Greek metaphor of the
autochthones, or children of the soil, symbolized by the Athenians wearing the grasshopper
in their hair; and is by no means peculiar to the Iroquois. Mr. Horatio Hale derived from
Manderong, an old Wyandot chief, the story, as narrated to him by the Hurons of
Lorette. They took him, he said, to a mountain, and showed him the opening in its side
from whence the progenitors of the people emerged, when they “first came out of the
eround.”' The late Huron chief, Tahourenche, or Francois Xavier Picard, communicated
to me the same legendary tradition of the indigenous origin of his people; telling me,
though with a smile, that they came out of the side of a mountain between Quebec and
the great sea. My informant connected this fact with other incidents, all pointing to a
traditional belief that the northern shores of the lower St. Lawrence were the original
home of the race; and he spoke of certain ancient events in the history of his people
as having occurred when they lived beside the big sea. The earliest authentic reference
to this tradition occurs in the “ Relations” for 1636, where Brebeuf, after a brief allusion
to certain of their magical songs and dances, says: “The origin of all such mysteries is
assigned by them to a being of superhuman stature, who was wounded in the forehead
by one of their nation, at the time when they lived near the sea.’ The reference to a
migration from the sea-board obviously points to one of those incidents in the life of the
nation which marked for them an epoch like the Hegira of the Arabs. When Champlain
followed Cartier nearly seventy years later he found only a few Algonkins in their
birch-bark wigwams, where the palisaded towns of the Huron-[roquois had stood.
But no Algonkin legend claims this as their early home. The invariable tradition of the
Ojibways points to the Lake Superior region and the country stretching towards Hudson
Bay, as the ancestral home of the Algonkin tribes.
Such information as can thus be gleaned from many independent sources, as from
the somewhat confused yet trustworthy narrative of David Cusick, the Tuscarora his-
torian, and from Peter Dooyentate, the Wyandot historian, all leads to the same
conclusion. From remote and altogether pre-Columbian centuries, the Hurons and
other allied tribes—the occupants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of
various detached portions of the country north of the St. Lawrence and eastward of the
Georgian Bay,—appear to have been in possession of the whole region to which their oldest
traditions pointed as the cradle of the race; while nations of the Algonkin stock lay
beyond them to the north-west. The great river and the lakes from whence it flows into
the lower valley formed a well-defined southern boundary for affiliated tribes ; but the
first Dutch and English explorers of the Hudson, and of the tract of country which now
1 Magazine of American History, vol. x., p. 479.
60 DANIEL WILSON ON THE HURON-IROQUOIS OF
constitutes the western part of the State of New York, found the river valleys and lake
shores in occupation of the Iroquois confederacy, then consisting of Mohawks, Oneidas,
Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. These constituted the five nations of the famous
Troquois league. But the Hurons of Canada, with whom they were latterly at deadly
feud, appear to have been the oldest representatives of the common race, and were still in
occupation of their ancestral home when Cartier first explored the St. Lawrence. The
same race had spread far to the south; and its representatives, in detached groups, long
continued to perpetuate its influence. These included the Conestogas or Andastes, the
Andastogues, the Carantouans, the Cherohakahs or Nottoways, the Tuscaroras, and others,
under various names. It is not always easy to recognize the same tribe under its widely
dissimilar designations. The Susquehannocks of the English and the Minquas of the
Dutch, appear to be the Andastes under other names, and Champlain’s Carantouans
may have been the Eries. Under those and other names the Huron-Iroquois stock
extended to the country of the Tuscaroras in North Carolina. Still farther south
Gallatin surmised, from linguistic evidence, a connection between the Cherokees and
the Iroquois.! This fact Mr. Hale has placed beyond doubt; and having detected in the
language of the former a grammatical structure mainly Huron-Iroquois, while the vocah-
ulary is toa great extent foreign, he is inclined to think that we thus recover traces of
a people, far south in Alabama and Georgia, the descendants of refugees of the
conquered Alligéwi, adopted into one of the nations of their Iroquois conquerors.”
From one after another of the outlying southern offshoots of the common stock, addi-
tions were made from time to time, to restore the numbers of the decimated Iroquois.
Westward of the confederacy was the country of the Eries, an offshoot of the Seneca
nation, occupying the southern shore of the great lake which perpetuates their name.
Immediately to the north of the Eries, within the Canadian frontier, the Attiwendaronks,
or Neuters, occupied the peninsula of Niagara, while the Tiontates or Petuns, and other
tribes of the same stock, were settled in the fertile region between Lakes Erie and Huron.
In 1714, the Tuscaroras, when driven by the English out of North Carolina, were wel-
comed by their Iroquois kinsmen, and received into the league which thenceforth bore
the name of the Six Nations. Towards the middle of the same century the waste of war
made them ready to welcome any additions to their numbers; and the Tuteloes and Nan-
ticokes, both apparently Algonkin, furnished fresh accessions to the diminished numbers
of the confederacy, but without taking their place as distinct nations.
But of all the nations of the stock thus widely spread westward and southward, the
Hurons are the native historical race of Canada, intimately identified with incidents ofits
early settlement, and of friendly intercourse with La Nouvelle France. Their language is
now recognized as the oldest form of the common speech of the Huron-Iroquois, and it is not
creditable to Canadian philologists that its grammar still remains unrepresented in any
accurate printed form. The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec did, indeed, pub-
lish in its Transactions, in 1831, the translation of a Latin MS., compiled with much
industry by a missionary who had laboured among the Hurons of Lorette, and whose
anonymous work was found amongst the papers of the mission. But it is the production
1 Archeeologia Americana, vol. ii., p. 173.
? Indian Migrations, p. 17.
‘à = od
J
CANADA, A TYPICAL RACE OF AMERICAN ABORIGINES, 61
of one ignorant of the science of language, and gives no adequate idea either of the gram-
matical structure or of the variety and richness of the Huron tongue.
The languages or dialects spoken by many native Indian tribes have undoubtedly
perished with the races to which they pertained; but the numerous Huron-lroquois
dialects still existing, not only in written form, but as living tongues, afford valuable
materials for ethnical study. The history of other Indian tribes abundantly accounts for
the multiplication of a minute diversity of languages so specially characteristic of the
American continent, with the endless subdivisions of its indigenous population into
petty tribes, kept apart by internecine feuds. The number of native American languages
is estimated by Vater, in his Linguarum Totius Orbis Index, at about five hundred. But
the question forthwith arises: What shall be regarded as constituting a language? For,
in the wanderings of little bands of Indian nomads, dialects multiply indefinitely. Nearly
six hundred of such are catalogued by Mr. Bancroft, in his “ Native Races of the Pacific
States,” as spoken between Alaska and the Isthmus of Panama.
Here then is a field for much useful research, with the promise of valuable results.
The subject is rendered more attractive owing to the fact that, of nearly all the nations
of the North American continent, their languages are ithe only surviving memorials
of the race. Already, under the efficient supervision of the Ethnographic Bureau of the
United States, systematic contributions are being secured for this important branch of
knowledge, so far as their own geographical area is concerned.
I A
\ À 4 74 if : IQ ; \
\ ù j
\ a Soler :
\ 2020 YY. }
sete 1
BPORATED 1803. 7%
~ ——
tar
ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA.
TRANSACTIONS
SECTION III.
MATHEMATICAL, PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL SCIENCES.
PAPERS FOR 1884.
SECTION III., 1884. pants | Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
I.—The Origin of Crystalline Rocks.
By Tuomas Sterry Hunt, MA, LL.D. (Cantab.), FRS.
(Presented May 20, 1884.)
L—Historical and Oritical.—The schools of Werner and of Hutton. The chaotic, metamorphic, metasomatic, ther-
mochaotic, endoplutonic and exoplutonic or volcanic hypotheses. Conditions of the problem. The cre-
nitic hypothesis stated.
TL—The Development of « New Hypothesis—The history of the growth of the crenitic hypothesis.
W1I.—Tlustrations of the Crenitie Hypothesis—The history of zeolitic and feldspathic minerals ; of the principal
protoxyd-silicates, and of other rock-forming silicates. The artificial production of mineral silicates. The
conditions of the crystallization of minerals.
IV.— Conclusions ; followed by an analysis of the contents of sections, and a note.
I.—HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL.
§ 1. The problem of the origin of the crystalline rocks which cover so large a part of
the earth’s surface is justly regarded as one of fundamental importance to geology, and
its solution has been attempted during the past century by many investigators, who have
advanced widely different hypotheses. These, it is proposed to review briefly in a
historical sketch before proceeding to suggest a new one, which it is the object of the
present memoir to bring forward. Without going back to the speculations of the ancient
philosophers, we find those of the last two centuries, Newton, Descartes, Leibnitz and
Buffon, among others, accepting the hypothesis of a former igneous condition of our
planet. Starting from this basis, the phenomena of volcanoes, and the resemblances
between their consolidated lavas and many of the crystalline rocks, naturally gave rise to
the notion of the igneous origin of these, which was formulated in the hypothesis that all
such rocks, whether massive or schistose, were directly formed during the cooling and
consolidation of a molten globe.
§ 2. Playfair, in his “ Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth,” tells us that
it was Lehman, who, in 1756, first distinguished by the name of Primitive the ancient
crystalline rocks, described by him as arranged in beds, vertical or highly inclined in
attitude, and overlaid by horizontal strata of secondary origin. These primitive rocks
were by Lehman regarded “as parts of the original nucleus of the globe, which had
undergone no alteration, but remained such as they were first created.” This view was
shared by Pallas and by De Lue, the latter of whom at one time considered the primitive
rocks “as neither stratified nor formed by water,’ though as Playfair informs us, De
Lue subsequently admitted “their formation from aqueous deposition, as the neptunists
do in general.” !
1 John Playfair, loc. cit. pp. 160,162. The Theory of the Earth, by James Hutton, first appeared in 1785, and in
a second edition in 1795. Playfair’s celebrated exposition of it, here quoted, was published in Edinburgh in 1802,
Sec. III, 1884, 1,
2 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
Pallas held a similar view, and according to Daubrée, both Pallas and Saussure
“admitted, as Linnæus had done, that all the terranes have been formed by the agency of
water, and that volcanic phenomena are but local accidents.” Pallas published his
“Observations on Mountains” in 1777, and Saussure the first volume of his “ Voyages
dans les Alpes” in 1779. It was about 1780 that the celebrated professor of Freiberg
began, in his lectures, the exposition of his views, called by Playfair “the neptunian system
as improved by Werner ;” though his Classification of the Rocks, in which these views were
finally embodied, dates only from 1787.
§ 8. According to Werner, the materials which now form the solid crust of the
globe were deposited from the waters of a primeval ocean, in which the elements of
the crystalline rocks were at one time dissolved, and from which they were separated
as chemical precipitates. The granite, which he regarded as the fundamental rock, was
first laid down, and was closely followed by the gneisses and the hornblendic and micaceous
schists, When the dissolving ocean covered the whole globe to a great depth, and its
waters were tranquil and pure, the rocks deposited were exclusively crystalline and, like
the ocean, they were universal. These he distinguished as the Primitive rocks.
At a later period, the depth of the ocean was supposed to have been diminished by the
retreat of a portion of the waters to cavities within the globe; a notion apparently
borrowed from Leibnitz, who imagined caverns, left by the cooling of a formerly fused
mass, to have subsequently served as reservoirs for a part of the universal ocean. In this
second period, according to Werner, a chemical deposition of silicates still went on, but
dry land having been exposed and shallows formed, currents destroyed portions of the
previously deposited masses, which were also attacked by atmospheric agents. By these
actions were formed mechanical sediments, which became interstratified with those of
chemical origin. It was during this period of co-incident chemical and mechanical
deposition that were formed the Intermediate or Transition rocks of Werner, which, from
the conditions of their formation, necessarily covered only portions of the universal
Primitive series. At a still later period, marked by a farther diminution of the superficial
waters, were laid down the Secondary rocks of Werner, at a time when the sea no longer
produced mineral silicates, and had assumed essentially its present composition.
§ 4. The Primitive rocks, according to this hypothesis, were those composed entirely
of chemical deposits, which are either crystallized or have a tendency to crystallization,
and in which the action of mechanical causes cannot be traced. In the Transition series,
the products of chemical and mechanical processes are intermingled, and materials derived
from the disintegration and decay of Primitive rocks are present ; while the rocks of
the Secondary series were formed from the ruins alike of the Primitive and the Transition
series. During the process of their consolidation, the various strata having been broken,
fissures were formed through which the surplus waters retired to the internal cavities,
depositing on the walls of the fissures through which they descended, the various matters
still held in solution. In this way were formed metalliferous and other mineral veins.
The aqueous solution in which all these crystalline rocks were at first dissolved was
described by Werner and his disciples as a chaotic liquid, and he even designated the
rocks themselves as chaotic, “ because they were formed when the earth’s surface was a
chaos.” These Primitive rocks, consisting of the granite and the overlying crystal-
line schists, covered the whole earth, and their geographical inequalities were due to
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 3
the original deposition, which did not yield a regular surface, but presented elevations,
upon the slopes of which were subsequently laid down the Transition strata.
Such, according to Werner, was the origin of all rock-masses except recent alluvions,
deposits of obviously organic origin, and the ejections of volcanoes, which he conceived to
be due to the subterraneous combustion of carbonaceous deposits. In the earlier ages of
the world there were, according to him, no volcanoes and no evidences of subterranean heat.
Neither in the formation of granite, of basalt, of the crystalline schists, or of mineral veins,
or in the displacements of the strata to be seen in the deposits of various ages, did he
recognize any manifestations of an internal activity of the earth.”
§ 5. We now pass to the consideration of the rival geological theory of Hutton, which
was developed at the same time with that of Werner. Saussure, as early as 1776, had
ascribed to aqueous infiltration the granitic veins in the Valorsine, and others near Lyons—
a view which was shared by Werner, who, from their similar constitution, conceived that
the formation of massive and stratiform granitic rocks had taken place under conditions like
those which gave rise to the veins in question, and then extended this view to other
veins and masses of what we must regard as injected or irrupted rocks, including not only
granites but dolerites and basalts.
Hutton and his interpreter, Playfair, on the other hand, regarded all granitic veins as
having been filled by injection with matter in a state of igneous fusion, repudiating the
notion of Saussure and of Werner that such materials could be formed by crystallization
from aqueous solutions. Granitic veins, according to Hutton, are in all cases but ramifi-
cations of great masses of granite, themselves often concealed from view. “In Hutton’s
theory, granite is regarded of more recent formation than the strata incumbent upon it; as
a substance which has been melted by heat, and which, forced up from the mineral
regions, has elevated the strata at the same time.” * From this condition of igneous liquid-
ity, he supposed, had crystallized alike quartz and feldspar, as well as tourmaline and the
other minerals sometimes found in granitic veins. Granite is elsewhere declared by him
to be matter fused in the central regions of the earth.
S6. With Werner, granite was the substratum underlying all other rocks simply
because it had been the first deposit from the chaotic watery liquid, and it was said to pass
into or to alternate with the distinctly stratiform or schistose crystalline rocks. In this
view of its geognostical relations, Werner was strictly correct, if by granite we understand
the massive or indistinctly stratiform aggregate which makes up what some would
call granite and others fundamental granitoid gneiss. This is what I have called an
INDIGENOUS rock, which may be with or without apparent stratification. We must, how-
ever, distinguish, besides this first type of crystalline rock,—the underlying granite of
Werner,—two others which, though mineralogically similar, and often confounded, are
geognostically distinct. Of these, what I have called EXOTIC rocks consist apparently of soft-
ened and displaced portions of aggregates of the first type, and are met with alike in
? In preparing the foregoing synopsis of the views of Werner, I have followed, in part, the exposition of his
system given by Murray in his Review of Playfair’s Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, published anonymously
in Edinburgh in 1802 ; in part the statements to be found in Playfair, in Bakewell, in Lyell, and in Naumann ; and
also the excellent analysis given by Daubrée in his Etudes et Expériences Synthétiques sur le Métamorphisme,
et sur la Formation des Roches Cristallines ; Paris, 1860,
* Playfair, Illustrations, etc., p. 89,
À DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
dykes and in masses of greater or less size, intruded or irrupted among the stratified or
indigenous rocks. These are the typical granites of Hutton. The third type includes
those concretionary masses of granitic material formed in fissures or cavities, which are
evidently deposits from aqueous solutions. These are the infiltrated veins of Saussure
and of Werner, and are what I have designated ENDOGENOUS rocks.
S 7. By keeping in view this threefold distinction between indigenous, exotic and
endogenous granitic aggregates, as I have long since endeavored to show, the obscurities
and apparently contradictory views of different observers are easily explained. These
distinctions are recognized in other crystalline rocks than granite. Under the name of
crystalline limestones, as is well known, have been included both indigenous and endoge-
nous masses. The question whether or not certain crystalline silicated rocks are to be
regarded as eruptive, is seen to be of minor importance,when we consider that it is possible
for indigenous crystalline deposits to appear in the relation of exotic masses ; whether dis-
placed in a softened and plastic condition, as more generally happens, or else forced, in
rigid masses, among softer and more yielding strata, as appears, from the observations
of Stapff, to be the case of the serpentines of St. Gothard. *
§ 8. Werner argued, and as we shall endeavor to show, correctly, from their analogies
with concretionary granitic veins, that all granitic rocks were deposited from water, and
are consequently indigenous or endogenous in origin. He denied the existence of exotic
and of igneous rocks. Hutton, on the contrary, from the phenomena of exotic granites,
and the analogies observed between these and basalts and modern volcanic rocks, was led
to assume an igneous and exotic origin for all save the clearly stratiform crystalline rocks.
Metalliferous lodes, also, he supposed to have been formed, like granitic veins, by igneous
injection from below. While the disciples of Werner denied the igneous origin of basalts,
and even of obsidian, Hutton and his school, on the other hand, maintained that the agates
often found in erupted rocks were formed by fire. Playfair reasons :—“The fluidity of
the agate was therefore simple and unassisted by any menstruum ;” that is, it was due to
heat, and not to solution ; while, in the case of mineral veins, their closed cavities were held
to “ afford a demonstration that no chemical solvent was ever included in them.”* These
cavities were regarded as due to the contraction consequent on the cooling of injected
igneous material.
§ 9. The basic rocks, included by Hutton under the common names of basalt and whin-
stone, are regarded by him as similar in origin to granite, and called “ unerupted lavas.”
He elsewhere says that “ whinstone is neither of volcanic nor of aqueous, but certainly of
igneous origin,” that is to say plutonic. Playfair distinguishes between what he calls the
volcanic and the plutonic theory of basalt.
But while Hutton ascribed a plutonic origin to basalt and to granite, he did not, as
some have done, assign a similar plutonic origin to gneiss and other crystalline schists.
These were by Werner declared to result from a continuation of the same process which
gave rise to granite, and to graduate into it. Gneiss is held both by Wernerians and by
modern plutonists to be but a stratiform granite, and both of these rocks are believed by
the one school to be aqueous and by the other to be igneous in origin.
*See Trans. Royal Soc. Canada, vol. i, part iv, page 212.
5 Playfair, Illustrations, ete., pp. 79 and 260.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 5
In the system of Hutton, however, a wide distinction is made between the two rocks.
Gneiss was no longer a primitive or original rock, as taught by Lehman and by Werner,
but, like the other crystalline schists, designated by Hutton as Primary, was supposed to be
“formed of materials deposited at the bottom of the sea, and collected from the waste of
rocks still more ancient.” In his system “ water is first employed to arrange, and then fire
to consolidate, mineralize, and lastly to elevate the strata; but with respect to the unstra-
tified or crystallized substances the action of fire alone is recognized.” ° Hutton also con-
ceived the pressure of the waters of a superincumbent ocean to exert an important influ-
ence in the consolidation of the sediments. He is thus a plutonist only so far as regards
granite and other unstratified rocks, while in maintaining a detrital origin for the crystal-
line schists he, as Naumann has remarked, may be regarded as the author of the so-called
metamorphic hypothesis of their origin. Playfair himself declares of Hutton’s system :
“We are to consider this theory as hardly less distinguished from the hypothesis of the
vulcanists, in the usual sense of this appellation, than it is from that of the neptunists or
disciples of Werner.” ?
§ 10. It was no part of Hutton’s plan to discuss the origin of those more ancient rocks,
which had, according to him, furnished by their disintegration materials for the primary
stratified rocks. It was, in the language of Playfair, a system “where nothing is to be seen
beyond the continuation of the present order.” “His object was not... like that
of most other theorists to explain the first origin of things.” This system, as interpreted
by his school, asserts the conversion of detrital rocks into masses indistinguishable from
those of truly igneous origin, which were the sources of the first detritus. The changes
which it assumed to be wrought by the alternate action of water and fire on the earth’s
crust were not supposed to be limited by any external conditions in the nature of things,
and were compared by Playfair to the self-limited perturbations in the movements of the
heavenly bodies, in which, as in the geological changes of the earth’s crust, “ we discern
no mark either of the commencement or termination of the present order.”
§ 11. Hutton’s system is thus concisely resumed by Daubrée :—“ The atmosphere is the
region in which the rocks decay ; their ruins accumulate in the ocean, and are there mine-
ralized and transformed, under the double influence of pressure and the internal heat, into
crystalline rocks haying the aspect of the older ones. These re-formed rocks are subse-
quently uplifted by the same internal heat, and destroyed in theirturn. The disintegration
of one part of the globe thus serves constantly for the reconstruction of other parts, and the
continued absorption of the underlying deposits produces incessantly new molten rocks,
which may be injected among the overlying sediments. We have thus a system of
destruction and renovation of which we can discern neither the beginning nor the end.” *
§ 12. It was this perpetual round of geological changes, which took no account either of
a beginning or an end, that led the theologians of his day to oppose the system of Hutton.
On the other hand, in the system of Werner, which taught the fashioning of the present
order of our globe from a primeval chaos beneath the waters of a universal ocean, they saw
a conformity with the Hebrew cosmogony which recommended to them the neptunian
5 Playfair, Illustrations, etc., pp. 12 and 131.
7 Biography of Hutton ; Playfair’s Works, vol. iv., p. 52.
* Daubrée, Etudes et Expériences, ete., p. 12.
6 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
hypothesis. Hence the theological element which, as is well known, entered so largely
into the controversies of the vulcanists and the neptunists at the beginning of this century,
and the suspicion with which the partisans of Hutton were then regarded by the
Christian world.
The extreme neptunian views of Werner, however, soon fell into disfavor. The
visible evidences of the extrusion of trappean rocks in a heated and softened state, obser-
vations showing the augmentation of the temperature in mines, and the phenomena of
thermal springs and volcanoes, soon turned the scale in favor of Hutton’s views. There
were not wanting those who attempted to unite the Wernerian hypothesis with that of an
igneous globe, and who supposed a primeval chaotic ocean, to the waters of which, heated
by the mass below, and kept at a high boiling-point by the pressure of an atmosphere of
great density, was ascribed an exalted solvent power.
§ 13. Such a modified neptunian view was advanced by Delabeche. In his “ Researches
in Theoretical Geology,” published in 1837, he favored the notion of an unoxydized nucleus,
as suggested by Davy, and held to a solid crust resting on a liquid interior, and presenting
from the first, irregularities of surface. He then speaks of “the much debated question ”
whether the crystalline stratified rocks “have resulted from the deposit of abraded por-
tions of pre-existing rocks mechanically suspended in water, or have been chemically
derived from an aqueous or an igneous fluid in which their elements were disseminated.”
We have in this paragraph three distinct hypotheses presented. Two years later he clearly
declared for the second of them.
While admitting the crystallization of detrital matter in proximity to intrusive rocks.
Delabeche objected to what he called the “ sweeping hypothesis ” of Hutton and his school,
He supposed that, in the cooling of our planet from an igneous fluid state, “there must
have been a time when solid rock was first formed, and also a time when heated fluids
rested upon it. The latter would be conditions highly favorable to the production of crys-
talline substances, and the state of the earth’s surface would then be so totally different
from that which now exists, that mineral matter, even when abraded from any part of the
earth’s crust which may have been solid, would be placed under very different conditions
at these different periods.” He suggests that there would be “a mass of crystalline rocks
produced at first, which, however they may vary in minor points, should still preserve a
general character and aspect, the result of the first changes of fluid into solid matter,
crystalline and sub-crystalline’ substances prevailing, intermingled with detrital portions
of the same substances abraded by the movements of the heated and first-formed aqueous
fluids. In the gneiss, mica-slate, chloritic-slate and other rocks of the same kind, associated
together in great masses, and covering large areas in various parts of the world, we seem to
have those mineral bodies which were first formed. The theory of a cooling globe, such as
our planet, supposes a transition from a state of things highly favorable to the production
of crystalline rocks, to one in which masses of these rocks would be more rarely formed.
Hence we could never expect to draw fine lines of demarcation between the products of
one state of things and those of the other.” ° \
$ 14. Still later, in 1860, we find a similar view suggested by Daubrée as a probable
hypothesis. He goes back in imagination to a time when the waters of our planet, as yet
® Delabeche, Geology of Cornwall and Devon, pp. 33-34; also Researches in Theoretical Geology.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 7
uncondensed, surrounded the globe with a dense envelope estimated to equal 250 atmos-
pheres. “The surface of the earth was at this time at a very high temperature, and if
silicates then existed they must have been formed without the co-operation of liquid
water. Later, however, when it began to assume a liquid state, the water must have
reacted upon the pre-existing silicates upon which it reposed, and then have given rise to a
whole series of new products. By a veritable metamorphic action, the water of this primi-
tive ocean, penetrating the igneous masses, caused their primitive characters to disappear,
and formed, as in our tubes, crystallized minerals from the matters which it was able to
dissolve. These matters, formed or suspended in the liquid, would then be precipitated,
and give rise to deposits presenting different characters as the temperature of the liquid
diminished.” He then inquires: “ Were these different periods of chemical decomposition
and recomposition, in which aqueous action (la voie humide) intervenes under extreme con-
ditions which approach those of igneous action (/a voie séche),the era of the formation of
granite and of the azoic and crystalline schists? We cannot affirm this in an absolute
manner, but we may presume it, especially when we consider that on this hypothesis there
must have been formed two principal products, the one massive and the other presenting
evidences of sedimentation, passing into each other gradually, as is the case with granite
and gneiss. In any case, it cannot be contested that if there was a time when the rocks
were exclusively under the dominion of fire, they passed under that of water at an epoch
much more remote than we have hitherto admitted. The influence, now established, of
water in the crystallization of silicates, no longer permits any doubt on this point. We
cannot perhaps now find anywhere upon the globe rocks of which it may be affirmed with
certainty that they have been formed by igneous action, without the intervention of
water.” ”
§ 15. To give some notion of the temperature of the first water precipitated on the
earth’s cooling surface, Daubrée calculates that the waters of the present ocean, estimating
their mean depth at 3,500 metres, would, if spread uniformly over the earth’s surface, have
a thickness of 2,563 metres, which, if converted into vapor, would correspond to a pressure
of 248 atmospheres, a weight which would be augmented by the presence of other vapors
and gases. “No liquid water could therefore rest upon the earth until its temperature
had fallen below that which would give to the vapor of water a tension of 250 atmos-
pheres,” at least. When we consider that a tension of only fifty atmospheres of steam
corresponds, according to Arago and Dulong, to a temperature of 265°89 centigrade, we can
form some conception of that corresponding to a tension five times as great ; which would,
on this hypothesis, have been the temperature of the first waters precipitated on the cool-
ing planet, realizing many of the conditions attained by this ingenious experimenter when
he subjected mineral silicates to the action of water in tubes, at temperatures of from
400° to 500° centigrade.
It is unnecessary to point out that Daubrée here attempts to adapt Werner’s neptunian
hypothesis to that of a once-fused and cooling globe, and to find, like Delabeche, in the
highly-heated primeval ocean, the chaotic liquid which, according to the master of Freiberg,
was the menstruum which at one time held in solution the elements of the primitive
rocks. The experiments of Daubvée in his tubes, above referred to, are of great impor-
1 Daubrée, Études et Expériences Synthetiques, etc., pp. 121, 122.
8 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
tance in this connection, and will be considered farther on, in the third part of this
paper.
§ 16. The Huttonians early borrowed the notion of a granitic substratum from
Werner, and supposed the earth when first cooled to have had a surface of granite. Hutton,
true to his thesis, avoided the question of the primal rock. His reasonings, according to
Playfair, “leave no doubt that the strata which now compose our continents are all formed
from strata more ancient than themselves,” '' while, as we have seen, the intruded granites
were looked upon as but fused and displaced portions of underlying strata. The granitic
character of the rocks which antedated aqueous disintegration was, however, a matter of
legitimate inference, and his disciple, Macculloch, supposed the earth when first cooled to
have been “a globe of granite.” Later, in 1847, Elie de Beaumont, starting from the
hypothesis of a cooling liquid globe, imagined it “a ball of molten matter, on the surface
of which the first granites crystallized.” ”
§ 17. It should here be mentioned that Poulett Scrope, in 1825, put forth what he
called “A New Theory of the Earth,” in which he supposes “the mass of the globe, or at
least its external zone to a considerable depth, to have been originally (that is at or before
the moment in which it assumed the position it now holds in the planetary system) of a
granitic composition, composed probably of the ordinary elements of granite, and having a
very large grain; the regular crystallization having been favored by the circumstances
under which it previously took place, though, as to what these circumstances were, I do
not venture to hazard a supposition.” He farther says, “If then we imagine a general
intumescence of an intensely heated bed of granite, forming the original surface of the
globe, to have been succeeded by a period in which the predominance was acquired by the
repressive force occasioned by the condensation of the waters on its surface, and the depo-
sition from them of various arenaceous and sedimental strata (the transition series), the
structure of the gneiss-formation is at once simply explained. This structure may have
been subsequently increased by the friction of the different laminæ against one another
as they were urged forward in the direction of their plane surfaces, towards the orifice of
protrusion, along the expanding granite beneath; the laminæ being elongated, and the
crystals forced to arrange themselves in the direction of the movement.” This implies an
exoplutonic origin of gneiss.
Later in the same essay, however, Scrope supposes an intensely heated ocean, holding
in solution great amounts of silica, and haying, at the same time, suspended in its waters,
feldspar, quartz and mica, derived from the disintegration of the underlying granite.
These suspended materials were deposited and consolidated into gneiss, and later the
dissolved silica, precipitating with some enclosed mica as the ocean cooled, gave rise to
mica-schists. In this last, we see the germ of the thermochaotic hypothesis, while in
preceding statements of Scrope, we have outlined the early volcanic and metamorphic
hypothesis of Dana, to be noticed farther on.” ‘
© Playfair’s Biography of James Hutton, in Playfair’s complete works, 4 vols, Edinburgh, 1822; see vol. iv.
pp. 33-81. His Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory will there be found reprinted in vol. i.
” Sur les Emanations Volcaniques et Métallifères. Bull. Soc. Geol. de Fr. (2) iv.
# Scrope, Considerations on Volcanoes, etc., 1825, pp. 225-228. The cosmogony of Scrope was fantastic in the
extreme ; he conjectured the solid granitic earth to have been detached from the sun as an irregular mass, and
compared it to an aérolite.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 9
§ 18. That such a primitive granite had been the source of gneiss, was taught by Berol-
dingen, “ who maintained that all the rocks of granitic character having an appearance of
stratification, are granites of secondary formation, or regenerated granites, similar in their
origin to sandstones ; ’ # who
held, as we have seen, to the neptunian theory of the origin of these rocks. The detrital
hypothesis, which he opposed, was however strenuously defended by Hutton and his
school, and especially by Boué and by Lyell. To the former belongs the first definite
attempt to explain how uncrystalline sediments like graywacke and clay-slate might be
changed into crystalline rocks such as gneiss and micaeschist. Of his views, put forth in
1822 and 1824, Naumann remarks, “ Boué first understood how to bring this theory into
more decided harmony with the details of geological phenomena, and besides invoking the
internal heat, brought to his assistance emanations of gases and vapor from the earth’s
interior to explain the alteration of sedimentary slates into gneiss and mica-schist.” He
imagined under these conditions “a sort of igneous liquefaction, followed by a cooling
process, which permitted a crystalline arrangement, and a development of new mineral
species, without destroying or deranging notably the original laminated structure.” ©
§ 19. These views were adopted in 1833, in his “ Principles of Geology,” by Lyell,
who designated strata supposed to have been thus transformed by the name of hypogene
metamorphic rocks, a title intended to indicate a metamorphism which took place in the
depths of the earth’s crust, and proceeded from below upwards. Under this name, Lyell
first popularized the Huttonian view as extended by Boué, which may be conveniently
designated as the METAMORPHIC hypothesis of the origin of crystalline rocks.
Its plausibility has led to the adoption of this theory by many geologists during the past
fifty years. Some, unwilling to admit the influence of a high temperature in such change,
have imagined it to result from causes operating at ordinary temperatures during very long
periods. As regards “the nature of these transforming processes, Gustaf Bischof and
Haidinger were inclined to suppose that a long-continued percolation of water through the
rocks produced an alteration of their substance, and a recrystallization, in the same way as
must have taken place in the production of certain pseudomorphs by alteration.” Hence
the significance of the often repeated dictum that “metamorphism is pseudomorphism on
a broad scale.”
By a further application of the notions derived from the study of epigenic or replace-
ment-pseudomorphs, which show in many cases the partial or even the total replace-
ment of the original elements of a mineral species, constituting what has been appro-
priately designated metasomatism, a METASOMATIC hypothesis of the origin of crystalline
rocks has been arrived at, to which we shall revert farther on.
§ 20. Regarding the metamorphic hypothesis, we may remark, as Naumann has done,
that the very transformation assumed, namely that of mechanical sediments into crystalline
rocks, remains to be proved. In his “ Lehrbuch der Geognosie” in 1857, while still
admitting the metamorphic origin of certain limited areas of crystalline schists, Naumann
,
a notion which was vigorously combatted by Saussure,
4 Voyages dans les Alpes (1796), vol. vili., pp. 55, 64.
5 Bouë, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Aug., 1824, p. 417, cited by Naumann.
1° Naumann, Lehrbuch der Geognosie (1857) 2nd ed. vol. ii., pp. 160-170. We shall have frequent occasion in
these pages to quote from this section of Naumann’s Lehrbuch.
Sec, III, 1884, 2,
10 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
declared that the facts were “not all favorable to the baseless hypothesis which is now
carried to extremes.” Such an origin of crystalline rocks was denied by the neptunians,
who held to the direct crystallization of these rocks from a chaotic watery liquid, for
which reason we may conveniently and appropriately call their view the CHAOTIC
hypothesis. It is also denied by those who hold these rocks to be of simple igneous origin,
the first products of a cooling globe, a view which we may call the ENDOPLUTONIC
hypothesis ; and in part by those who advocate what we shall call the EXOPLUTONIC or
VOLCANIC hypothesis of their origin.
We have already noticed at length the chaotic hypothesis, both as originally held by
Werner, and modified by the intervention of internal heat, as taught by Delabeche and
by Daubrée, constituting what we may call the THERMOcHAOTIC hypothesis. It remains
to notice first the two plutonic hypotheses just named, and finally to consider the meta-
somatic hypothesis, both as applied to rocks consisting of crystalline silicates, and to
limestones.
§ 21. Reasoning, as Naumann has said, from “the great resemblance which gneiss and
most of the rocks accompanying it bear to granite and to other eruptive rocks; the proba-
bility that most of these eruptive rocks have been solidified from a state of igneous
fluidity ; the almost unavoidable assumption that our planet was originally in the same
state, and was only later covered with a solidified crust ; finally the fact that in the primi-
tive gneissic series, granite and gneiss are found regularly interstratified with each other,”
we are led to what we have designated the endoplutonic hypothesis, which is, that the
primitive rocks form the “ first solidified crust of our planet.” Naumann remarks of this, that
although it has “not found so many supporters as that of the metamorphic origin of the
primitive rocks, the objections against it are probably neither greater nor more numerous
than against the latter.” Of this hypothesis, he adds that “it leads necessarily to the infer-
ence that the succession of the primitive rocks downward corresponds to their age from
oldest to youngest, because it was, of course, through a solidification from without inward
that the strata in question were formed.” Those who would maintain, on the contrary,
that the succession of these in age is from below upward, must suppose, as he explains,
that the material of the younger crystalline rocks “has been protruded from the interior,
through the earth’s crust, in an eruptive form.” For these two opposite modes of forma-
tion, both essentially plutonic, we may properly adopt the names of endoplutonic, already
used above, to designate the hypothesis which supposes the rocks to be generated within
the first-formed crust; and exoplutonic, for that which conceives them to have been
formed outside of the same crust, by eruptive or what are popularly called volcanic
processes.
§ 22. The endoplutonic hypothesis has not wanted defenders, among whom are
some of the most distinguished names of geology. In 1882, we find Hébert, the eminent
professor at the Sorbonne, declaring of the ancient crystalline schists, “these mineral
masses appear to be due to a crystallization in place, consequent upon the cooling of the
fluid terrestrial globe.” “The absence from these of rolled masses or of detritus of pre-exist-
ing rocks’—assumed by him—“ indicates that water did not at that time as yet exist in
the state of a liquid mass.” This series, including various gneisses, micaceous, hornblendic
and chloritic schists, with crystalline limestones, “should form a group clearly distinct
from all others. It is anterior to granite, and constitutes a truly primitive series, which is
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 11
neither eruptive nor sedimentary, but is due to a third mode of formation which, borrow-
ing the name from d'Omalius d’Halloy, we may call crystallophyllian.”" It is difficult to
conceive that this can be any other than that imagined by Naumann, which we have called
endoplutonic.
$ 23. Thomas Macfarlane, in a learned essay in 1864, on “The Origin of Eruptive and
Primary Rocks,” “ has developed the hypothesis of the endoplutonic origin of the primitive
rocks with much ingenuity, and defends a view already suggested by Scheerer, that the
laminated structure of these rocks may have been caused by currents in the molten mass
of the globe. He further suggests that the first-formed crust may have had a different
rate of rotation from the liquid below ;" from which also would result a stratiform arrange-
ment in the elements of the solidifying layer, such as is seen in many slags, and in certain
eruptive rocks. But while he applies this view to the primitive rocks, he proposes for
the later crystalline schists one which is essentially the thermochaotic hypothesis of
Delabeche and Daubrée, ascribing their origin to the action of a highly heated primeval
ocean on the previously formed crust. The chief difficulties with which this endoplu-
tonic hypothesis has to contend, according to Naumann, “ arise from the structural rela-
tions of the primitive series, and the mineralogical characters of certain rocks belonging to
it. Whether these difficulties can be explained away by the supposition of a hydro-
pyrogenous development of the outside of the first solidified crust, as indicated by Angelot,
Rozet, Fournet, Scheerer and others, we must leave undecided in the meantime.” Such
a hydro-pyrogenous process is more clearly defined by Daubrée, when he refers the
formation of granites and crystalline schists “to aqueous action intervening under
extreme conditions, which approach igneous action,” as explained in § 14. Any modifica-
tions of the heated crust through the intervention of water must come under the
categories of what we have called the thermochaotic and the metasomatic hypotheses, or
else of that one which remains to be described in the present essay.
§ 24. In the paper already cited, Macfarlane has, moreover, discussed at length the
probable condition of the earth’s interior, beneath the crust of primitive stratiform rocks,
with especial reference to the origin of the different types of eruptive rocks. Already, in
the last century, we find Dolomieu maintaining the existence, beneath the granitic substra-
tum, of a liquid layer, from which come what he called basaltic lava-flows. A similar
view was developed later by Phillips, Durocher, Bunsen and Streng, who have imag-
ined a separation of the liquid matter at the surface of the cooling globe into two layers, an
upper acidic one, corresponding to granites and trachytes, in which, besides alumina
and an excess of silica, lime, magnesia and iron-oxyd are present in very small quantities,
and potash and soda abound; and a lower basic one, corresponding to dolerite and basalt,
in which lime, magnesia and iron-oxyd abound, with an excess of alumina, and but
little alkali. These two constitute the trachytic and pyroxenic magmas of Bunsen, who
17 Bull. Soc. Géol. de France (3) xi. 80.
8 Canadian Naturalist, volume viii.
“It is worthy of note in this connection that Halley was long ago led, from the study of terrestrial magnetism,
to adopt a similar hypothesis with regard to the earth’s interior. “He supposed the existence of two magnetic poles
situated in the earth’s outer crust, and two others in an interior mass, separated from the solid envelope by a
fluid medium, and revolving by a very small degree slower than the outer crust. The same conclusion was subse-
quently adopted by Hansteen.” (Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 60.)
12 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
endeavored to determine what he conceived to be their normal composition, and, as is
well known, sought to show that there exists such a relation between the proportions
of these various bases and the silica, that it is possible to calculate the composition of
any given eruptive rock from the amount of this element which it contains. He thence
concluded that various intermediate rocks have been produced by a mingling or amal-
gamation, in different proportions, of these two separated magmas. For the composition of
these, see farther a note to § 66. I have elsewhere discussed the history of this hypothesis,
and have given reasons for its rejection.
Sartorius von Waltershausen has also objected, from another point of view, to this
hypothesis, and, has maintained that while there is no such distinct separation of the liquid
interior, as was imagined by Phillips, Durocher and Bunsen, there is nevertheless a gradual
passage downward from a lighter acidic to a denser and more basic liquid stratum ; beneath
which still heavier metallic minerals are supposed by him to be arranged in the order of
their respective densities. This view has been adopted and extended by Mr. Macfarlane in
his paper above cited. We shall however attempt to shew in the second part of this
memoir that the observed relations of acidic and basic eruptive rocks admit of a widely
different interpretation to those above given, and one more in accordance with known
chemical and mineralogical facts ?.
§ 25. Returning from this digression on hypothetical notions of the earth’s interior, we
propose to consider the exoplutonic or voleanic hypothesis of the origin of the crystalline
stratified rocks, according to which, as concisely stated by Naumann, the material compos-
ing them “ has been projected from the interior, through the earth’s crust, in an eruptive
form.” Inasmuch as the matter discharged in subaérial or submarine eruptions appears
in part as flows of molten lava, and in part as disintegrated solid materials which, like
other detritus, may be arranged by water, it is evident that this hypothesis connects itself
with that of the Huttonian school, to which, considering the mineralogical resemblances
between volcanic and other crystalline rocks, it would make little difference whether the
sediments required for the metamorphic process came from the disintegration of older
crystalline strata, from a primeval granite, or from volcanic products. The volcanic hypo-
thesis, except so far as consolidated lava-flows are concerned, thus becomes, as we shall
see, a metamorphic or plutonic-detrital hypothesis.
As an illustration of this view, we find J. D. Dana m 1843 propounding a general
theory of crystalline rocks, which is essentially volcanic. In this he endeavours to shew,
(1) that the schistose structure of gneiss and mica-schist is not a satisfactory evidence of
sedimentary origin, inasmuch as exotic or eruptive rocks may sometimes take on a lamina-
ted arrangement ; (2) that granites without any trace of schistose structure may have had
a sedimentary origin; and (8) that the heat producing metamorphic changes in sedi-
ments did not come from below, as supposed by the Huitonians, but through the waters
of the ocean, heated by the same eruption which brought to the surface the materials
of the metamorphic rocks ; which were spread over the ocean’s bottom in a disintegrated
form. Their comminution was supposed by Dana to be effected in one of three ways ;
(1) they were ejected as pyroclastic material, in the form of a sand or ash-eruption, or (2)
# For a discussion of the views of Phillips, Durocher, Bunsen and Streng, see Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays,
pages 3-6, 66, and 284. See also Bunsen, Ann. de Chim, et de Phys. 1853, (3) xxxviii, 215-289,
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 13
were disintegrated by coming in contact with water while in a fused condition, or (3)
were broken by abrasion after consolidation. In any case, the detrital matter, as in
the Huttonian hypothesis, was supposed to be transformed into a crystalline rock by the
action of heated waters.
§ 26. After assigning such an origin to certain rocks called by him metamorphic por-
phyries and basalts, with regard to which he supposes “ every eruption produced a heated
sea around it, which hardened” the disintegrated porphyry, and recrystallized the commi-
nuted materials, Dana proceeds to say that “granite, like porphyry, is an igneous rock. In
its era, granite-sands were formed like porphyry-sands, and restored by heat to metamorphic
granite, like metamorphic porphyry. . . . I use the word granite here as a general term
for this and the associated rocks, mica-slate, syenite and hornblende-slate, etc., which, I have
shown, may also have an igneous origin. These granite-sands, like porphyry-sands, were
formed about the regions of eruption, in one of the modes pointed out, and in all proba-
bility were never clays like the alluvial deposits of the present day. . . . . With regard to
primary limestones, a general survey of the facts seems to evince that some of these were
of igneous origin like granite. If this were the case, there must have been others,
formed at the same time with the deposits of granite-sand, and through the action of
the same causes. These were recrystallized by the next discharge of heated waters.” *
Dana, forgetting the effects of the law of convection in liquids, here makes the sug-
gestion that “at no great depth the waters might be raised to the heat of ignition
before ebullition will begin, and if the leaden waters of a deep ocean . . . are for days
in contact with the open fires of submarine volcanoes, we can scarcely fix a limit to the
temperature which they would necessarily receive.”
We have thus presented a complete exoplutonic or volcanic hypothesis, and at the
same time a complete metamorphic or volcanic-detrital hypothesis, alike for porphyry, gra-
nite, syenite, gneiss, mica-schist and crystalline limestone; each and all which are
assumed to have a two-fold origin, and to appear alike in an eruptive and in a secondary
sedimentary form. A reference to the previous speculations of Scrope, already set forth in
§ 17, will show to what extent Dana was his disciple.
§ 27. Dana has since abandoned this hypothesis, so far as regards the eruptive origin of
the detrital matters. In his later writings, he sets forth the familiar view of a liquid interior
covered with a solid crust, which latter was the supposed source of the Archean or
primitive rocks. “These Archæan rocks are the only universal formation ; they extend
over the whole globe, and were the floor of the ocean, and the material of all the emerged
land, when life first began to exist.” These rocks of the first crust, disintegrated by sub-
marine and subaérial agencies, yielded beds of detritus, which, being consolidated by the
action of the heated waters, gave rise to new rocks, which would “ be much like those
that resulted from the original cooling, because chiefly made out of the latter by re-conso-
lidation and re-crystallization.” “Igneous rocks have a close resemblance to granite,
diorite, and other crystalline kinds, and hence may have proceeded from the fusion of
older kinds. But these older kinds derived their material from an older source, and
2 Dana, On the Analogies between the Modern Igneous Rocks and the so-called Primary Formations. Amer.
Jour. Science, 1843, vol. xly., p. 104-129.
14 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
originally from the fused material of the globe, so that the proof of such an origin by
re-fusion is not established beyond a doubt.”
§ 28. It is not clear whether, according to Dana, we have anywhere this hypothetical
primitive or truly Archzean rock exposed, since, speaking of the Laurentian series, which
he also calls Archæan, he says at the same time : —“ These Laurentian rocks are made out of
the ruins of older Laurentian, or of still older Archean rocks; that is to say the sands, |
clays and stones made and distributed by the ocean, as it washed over the earliest-formed
crust of the globe. The loose material, transported by the currents and the waves, was
piled into layers, as in the following ages, and vast accumulations were formed ; for no
one estimates the thickness of the recognized Laurentian beds as below thirty thousand
feet.” Lest he should be supposed to hold to his former theory of the volcanic origin
of these supposed detrital matters, which formed the Laurentian, he now declares “ They
have no resemblanct to lavas or igneous ejections.” ?
These crystalline stratified rocks are thus not that universal Archæan terrane which
was the first-formed crust of the cooling globe. The imagination is at a loss, however, to
understand the nature of the disintegrating process, or the source of the materials which
in the Laurentian period were, according to this hypothesis, spread over vast areas to a
depth of not less than thirty thousand feet, and seeks in vain for the site of the vanished
Atlantis which furnished this enormous amount of mechanically disintegrated rock.
§ 29. Clarence King, in 1878, gave us a clear and admirable discussion of the same
detrital metamorphic theory, and argued, as Dana had done before him, that the depression
of sedimentary strata below the surface of the earth, even to great depths, is not sufficient
to effect their crystallization ; since basal paleozoic beds which have been buried beneath
30,000 feet or more of sediments are now seen, when exposed by great movements of
elevation, and by erosion, to present no evidences of crystallization or so-called alteration.
King, however, did not reject volcanic action as a source of detritus, for in discussing
the origin of the great beds of serpentine and of olivine-rock which are often met with in
the older crystalline schists, he says, “ olivine-bearing rocks are among the oldest eruptive
bodies,” and then asks, “may not olivine-sands, like those now seen on the shores of the
Hawaiian Islands, have been then, as now, accumulated by the mechanical separation of
sea-currents, and subsequently buried by feldspathic and quartz-sands.” He thus looks
to volcanic eruptions for the source of olivine and serpentine beds, and adds, “I see no
reason to ask for a different origin for the magnesian silicates than for the aluminous
minerals,” © the eruptive source of which is thus implied. A similar hypothesis of the
formation of beds of olivine-rock and serpentine from accumulations of volcanic olivine-
sand, has since been maintained by Julien, whose paper is mentioned further on, § 37.
§ 30. Other geologists, besides King, have in later times advocated a similar volcanic
hypothesis of the origin of crystalline rocks. A. Kopp, in 1872, taught that granite
is an altered trachytic lava, and that gneiss may be derived from the detritus of trachyte
or of granite, while doleritic lavas in like manner give rise to the various greenstones.
The transformation of these is supposed to be effected through the intervention of
? Dana, Manual of Geology, 3rd ed. 1879, pp. 147, 154, 155, also 720.
” Geology of the Fortieth Parallel, vol. I, p. 117.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 15
heated waters, at great depths in the earth. * All this is but a repetition of the hypo-
thesis put forward forty years since by Dana, and subsequently abandoned by him.
Tornebohm has also lately advanced a similar hypothesis to explain the origin of
the primitive granite, and of the gneiss into which it seems to graduate. The material of
these rocks came up as lava now does, and a portion of it, disintegrated, rearranged by
water, and recrystallized, assumed the form of gneiss. Reusch, in like manner, according
to Marr, supposes that the gabbros, diorites, and dioritic and hornblendic-schists of the
Bergen district, in Norway, are but altered tufas and erupted rocks.
§ 31. Mr. Marr, in a recent paper, urges the claims of the volcanic hypothesis to explain
the origin of the ancient crystalline rocks, seemingly unaware of its earlier advocates. It
is apparent that if we accept the doctrine of the permanence of continents and of oceanic
depressions, the metamorphic-detrital theory of the Huttonians, which builds up series
of crystalline rocks beneath the sea from the ruins of an older land, which had itself been
formed beneath the sea, is no longer tenable. The difficulty of getting the thirty thousand
feet of sediments required to spread over a continent, as in Dana’s later hypothesis, is, as
Marr perceives, overcome if we suppose this material to have been derived not by the
superficial waste and disintegration of former land, but by ejection from reservoirs beneath
the earth’s crust. Hence, with the advocates of the doctrine of the permanence of con-
tinents, the volcanic or exoplutonic hypothesis is again coming into favor. *
Similar considerations appear to have led C. H. Hitchcock, in 1883, to a like conclusion.
The continents, in his scheme, are built up from beneath the waters of a universal ocean.
He writes :—‘“ We start with the earth in the condition of igneous fluidity. It cools so as
to become encrusted and covered with an ocean. Numerous volcanoes discharge molten
rock, building up ovoidal piles of granite [beneath the ocean], which change gradually into
crystalline schists. When the hills are high enough to overlook the water, they constitute
the beginnings of dry land.” All this is intelligible, but it seems strange to one familiar
with the geological literature of the last forty years to read, in this connection, the remark
that “few have ventured to speak of anything like volcanic action, except as it has been
manifested in the formation of dykes, in the early periods.” ”
To all of these speculations as to the exoplutonic or volcanic origin of the crystalline
rocks, the language of Naumann, in criticizing the original volcanic hypothesis of Dana, is
applicable. “The perfect and thoroughly crystalline character of the gneiss, the enormous
extent which the primitive formations occupy in so many districts, the architecture of
these great gneissic regions, and their occurrence wholly independent of larger granitic
masses, are all incompatible with this idea.”
§ 32. The view of the igneous and eruptive origin of crystalline limestone, admitted in
Dana’s former scheme, was familiar to the geologists of forty years since. Emmons and
Mather in America, and von Leonhard, Rozet and Savi in Europe, among others, then
held to the belief that many crystalline limestones were igneous, and Savi had even
attempted to point out the centres of eruption of the Carrara marbles.” It is hardly neces-
#% Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, 1872, pp. 388 and 490.
#% Marr, The Origin of Archæan Rocks ; Geological Magazine, June, 1883.
* Hitchcock, The Early History of the North American Continent.—Proc. Amer. Assoc. Ady. Science, 1883.
26 See for references Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 218; also Boué, Guide du Géologue Voyageur, ii. 108.
16 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
sary to recall the fact that serpentines, and great deposits of magnetite and specular iron,
are still by some authorities considered as eruptive rocks, and that the hypothesis of the
igneous origin of metalliferous lodes, taught by Hutton, is not yet wholly obsolete. In
1858, H. D. Rogers spoke of “the great dykes and veins of auriferous quartz” supposed to
have issued “in a melted condition through rents and fissures in the earth’s crust. Out-
gushing bodies of this quartz,” chilled by contact with the cold waters of the ocean, were
supposed by him to have furnished the material for the Primal quartzites of Pennsylva-
nia.” Still later, in 1874, we find Belt maintaining with learned ingenuity the igneous
origin and the injection of auriferous quartz veins. He insists, as I have elsewhere done, *
on the transition from veins of pure quartz, often metalliferous, to others containing feld-
spar, and thence to true granitic veins ; but instead of regarding these as aqueous and
concretionary, assumes them to be igneous, and thence concludes that the gold-bearing
quartz lodes were filled with liquid quartz by “igneous injection,” though admitting that
in these, as in granites, water helped to impart liquidity. *
§ 33. In farther illustration of the extension of the plutonic doctrine to other rock-
masses than those already mentioned, I quote from an essay by Daubrée, published in 1871.”
“The hypothesis advanced by Lazzaro Moro, in 1740, attributing an eruptive origin to rock-
salt as well as to sulphur and bitumen, was again taken up and applied by de Charpentier
(1823) to the salt-mass at Bex, which is associated with anhydrite ; and d’Alberti, in the
classic study made by him of this terrane, maintained the same hypothesis for all the rock-
salt found in the trias. Moreover, the examination of the deposits of pisolitic iron ore had,
in 1828, conducted Alexandre Brongniart to a similar conclusion, which was soon after
applied to the silicious deposits which constitute the buhrstone of the tertiary. A like
origin was by d'Omalius (1841 and 1855) ascribed to other substances, particularly to
certain clays and to certain sands, which, especially in Belgium, appear to be connected
with the formation of calamine, and which Dumont in 1854 called geyserian deposits.”
“ Tt was thus,” adds Daubrée, “that various substances belonging to sedimentary strata
were recognized as coming, or at least were supposed to come, from the lower regions
(étaient reconnues où au moins étaient supposées provenir des régions profondes.)
$ 34 The presence of water in ignited and molten rocks was shown by Poulett
Scrope in 1825 in his studies of volcanoes.” Subsequently, Scheerer, conceived that a small
portion of water, probably five or ten hundredths, might, at a low red heat, give rise toa
condition of imperfect liquidity such as he imagined for the material of eruptive granites.
Similar ideas as to the aqueo-igneous fusion of granite were at the same time adopted by
Elie de Beaumont, and are now generally admitted, the more so, as they are in accordance
with the results of microscopic study. From the presence in granitic rocks of what he
called pyrognomic minerals, like allanite and gadolinite which, by exposure to ignition
27 Geology of Pennsylvania. II. 780.
28Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 192-208, and infra Part IT.
*” Belt, The Naturalist in Nicaragua, 1874, pp. 97-100. In the pages here referred to, my friend, whose premature
death was a great loss to science, has set forth with clearness the Huttonian theory of metalliferous veins.
% Daubrée, Des terrains stratifiés considérés au point de vue de l’origine des substances qui les constituent,
etc. Bull. Soc. Géol. de France (2) xxviii, p. 307.
31 Scrope, Considerations on Volcanoes, p. 25.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS, 17
undergo permanent physical and chemical changes, Scheerer, moreover, argued that the
temperature of formation of the granitic veins holding these minerals could not have been
very high. *
This notion of hydroplutonic eruptions, thus set forth by Scrope, Scheerer and Élie de
Beaumont, has received a still farther extension of late. The hydrated rock, serpentine, is
supposed by some of those who maintain its exoplutonic derivation to have come up from
below as an anhydrous silicate, and to have been subsequently hydrated. Daubrée, how-
ever, has suggested that it had already passed into the hydrated condition before its ejec-
tion.® Akin to this is the view of some modern Italian geologists, who explain the strati-
form character of this rock by supposing that it was ejected from below as an aqueous
magma, chiefly of hydrated silicates of magnesia and iron mingled in some cases with felds-
pathic matter; from which, by crystallization and rearrangement, the masses of serpentine
and their associated euphotides have been formed, as well as the accompanying anhydrous
silicates, olivine and enstatite. By this hypothesis “the serpentines are considered as
eruptive without being truly igneous, inasmuch as they do not contain in their composi-
tion any mineral which has been submitted to igneous fusion,” though “the magma may
have had a temperature of several hundred degrees.” **
The conception of hydroplutonic eruptions, whether applied by Scrope to lavas, by
Scheerer to granites, by Belt to metalliferous quartz lodes, or by Daubrée and some Italian
geologists to serpentines and euphotides, is instructive as a phase in the development of
that geological hypothesis, according to which a volcano is a deus ex machina, which is
invoked to solve every knotty problem that presents itself in studying the origin of
rock-masses.
§ 35. Writing in 1883 of the extravagances of the exoplutonic or volcanic doctrine, I
spoke of it as “the belief in a subterranean providence which could send forth at will
from its reservoirs” alike granite and basalt, olivine-rock and limestene, quartz-rock and
magnetite.” An otherwise friendly critic” speaks of this language as “a kind of device
for producing à false impression, by associating rocks for the most part of eruptive origin
with others which are not so.” This, however, is precisely what the plutonic school in
question has done, and is still doing. Eminent teachers in geology of our time, some of
them still living, have included with granites and basalts, not only serpentines, but lime-
stones, magnetite, auriferous quartz, buhrstone, rock-salt, anhydrite, hydrous iron-ores, and
even certain clays and sands, among the substances which have been thrown up from
the depths of the earth.
The obvious question, as to the origin of these supposed accumulations of various
and unlike substances in the under-world, has been one to perplex the thoughtful geolo-
gists of this school, and for those who did not admit that such might come from buried
deposits, once superficial, presented difficulties which it was sought to overcome by a
® For an analysis of these views of Scheerer and Elie de Beaumont, and references to the controversies to
which they gave rise, see Hunt, Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 5, 6, and 188, 189.
“8 Géologie Experimentale, p. 542.
% See, for an account of this hypothesis as maintained by Issel and Capacci, Hunt, on The Geological History
of Serpentines, Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. i., part iv., p. 198.
% Ibid, vol. i., part iv., p. 206.
%6 Geological Magazine for June, 1884, page 278.
Sec. IIT., 1884. 3,
18 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
general theory of transmutation ; by which it was imagined that a part or the whole of the
original elements of a rock might be replaced, thus giving rise to new lithological spe-
cies. Such a change has been appropriately named a metasomatosis or change of body.
I have elsewhere pointed out that this view has been adopted by two distinct and, to a
certain extent, opposed schools in geology, both of which, however, agree in admitting an
almost unlimited capacity of change of substance, through aqueous agencies, in previously
solidified rocks. The first of these schools applies the doctrine of metasomatosis to silicated
and aluminous rocks, either of plutonic or plutonic-detrital origin ; the second to rocks of
generally acknowledged aqueous origin, such as limestones.”
§ 36. As regards the metasomatosis of plutonic or plutonic-detrital rocks, such as the
ordinary feldspathic types,—granites, gneisses, diabases and diorites,—we are taught the
conversion of any one or all of these into serpentine or into limestone. The integral change
of each one of these into serpentine by the complete elimination of alumina, alkalies and
lime, and the replacement of these bases by magnesia and water has, as is well known,
been maintained by many writers of repute, including Müller and Bischof, and later Dana
and Delesse. Moreover, King and Rowney have, since 1874, taught the conversion into
limestones of all the silicated rocks mentioned, and have assigned a similar origin to the
great interstratified masses of crystalline limestone which are found in the ancient gneis-
ses, alike of North America and Europe. Not content with this, they have even maintained
the conversion of serpentine itself into limestone, and have explained the existence of
ophicalcites, and of serpentine masses in limestone, as evidences of the incomplete trans-
formation of beds of serpentine, itself the product of a previous transformation of
feldspathic rocks.“ The older school of metasomatists regarded serpentine and other
hydrated magnesian silicates, on account of their insolubility, as the last term in the
metasomatic process ; but King and Rowney contend that serpentine itself is not exempt
from change.
§ 37. Among the gneisses and mica-schists of the Atlantic belt are found at many
points, especially in Pennsylvania and thence southwestward through the Carolinas into
Alabama, important masses of a rock composed essentially of a chrysolite or olivine, and
referred to dunite or lherzolite. With these are associated not only serpentine but various
hornblendic and feldspathic rocks, together with much corundum—the latter alike in
segregated veins and disseminated in the beds. These chrysolite-rocks, which, as seen in
North Carolina, were already described by the writer, in 1879, as indigenous stratified
deposits in the Montalban series,” have been made the subject of detailed studies both by
Genth and by Julien, whose published results are instructive examples of the application
of the metasomatic doctrine in the hands of its disciples. Genth supposes that, at the time
when these chrysolite-rocks were deposited, vast amounts of alumina were set free by
some unexplained process, and formed beds of corundum, and that this species, by sub-
*’ See, in this connection, Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays, pp. 316, 320, 325; also preface to the second edition
of the same, pp. xxvii-xxxi.; and farther, Trans. Roy. Soc., Can., vol. i., part 4, pp. 168-204.
Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 324; also Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.,I., part 4, p. 204; and W. King and T. H.
Rowney, An Old Chapter of the Geological Record, 1881, chaps. vii. and xii.
* See James Macfarlane’s Geological Handbook, 1879, p. 130 ; and, for some notes on the history of similar rocks,
Tran. Roy. Soc, Can., vol. i., part 4, p. 210.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 19
sequent hydration and metasomatosis, has been changed to bauxite, diaspore, spinel, opal,
and a great number of aluminiferous silicates, including various micas, probably some
feldspars, and also magnesian silicates of the chloritic group. The final result has been,
“in many instances, a pretty thorough alteration of the original corundum into micaceous
and chloritic schists or beds, or, as Prof. Dana would express it, ‘a pseudomorphism on a
broad scale.’ ” *
§ 38. Julien, who has more recently studied these rocks, adopts with regard to the
chrysolite-beds the view suggested by Clarence King, in 1878, that they were derived
from the disintegration of chrysolitic eruptive rocks, and were originally chrysolite sand-
stones. Chrysolite, according to him, and not corundum, has been the point of departure
for the various changes which have given rise to the crystalline schists in question. Thus,
while some of the chrysolite beds remain unchanged, others have been converted into
strata of cellular chalcedonic quartz, of serpentine, of steatite, of talcose actinolite-schist,
of tremolite schist, and of a diorite or gabbro made of albite and smaragdite and including
grains of red corundum, sometimes with margarite. Within these rocks are veins and
fissures of various sizes and shapes, in which are found crystallized corundum, with ensta-
tite, actinolite, tale and ripidolite, among other species. Julien, who assigns a similar
origin to the like crystalline schists found elsewhere throughout the Atlantic belt, con-
cludes that all of these various rocks have been derived from chrysolite. As regards the
hypothesis of Genth, he writes: “The view which has been suggested, founded on certain
phenomena observed in the corundum-veins, that these secondary rocks, and many schists,
have been derived from the alteration of corundum, finds not the least confirmation from
my studies, and is indeed strongly contradicted by facts observed in the field. The corun-
dum itself is, in all cases, both in the veins and in the particles found in the gabbro, a
secondary or alteration-product. All the phenomena of alteration, both in the veins and
rock-masses absolutely require, and can be simply explained by the introduction of a solu-
tion of soda and alumina into the fissures and interstices, during the period.of alteration and
metamorphism.” “ This solution, he imagines to have come from some subterranean source
# Genth, Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., Sept. 1873 and July 1874; also Amer. Jour. Sci. (3), vi., 461 and viii., 221-
223. Mr. Dana, in a notice of Dr. Genth’s conclusions, in the last citation, denounces me severely for having, on a
former occasion, cited from him the words above quoted by Genth, forgetting that it is Genth, whom he
praises, and not myself, who is thus attributing them to him,and that Genth’s conclusions, if admitted, form a
striking exemplification of that doctrine, which Dana there repudiates. In the same note, after stating that I have
declared that “the advocates of the doctrine of transmutation” have taught that “the greater part of all the
so-called metamorphic or crystalline rocks are the result of an epigenic process,’ and that “the advocates of this
doctrine maintain that a mass of granite or diorite may be converted into serpentine or limestone, and that a lime-
stone may be changed into granite or gneiss, which may in its turn become serpentine,” Dana calls this an extra-
vagant doctrine, and says :—“ I demonstrated that all writers on pseudomorphism, with but one or two exceptions,
would repudiate it as strongly as myself.” He farther says the statements here quoted “ have been shown by me
to be untrue ;” and, with regard to the transmutation of granite or gneiss into limestone, declares, in repeat-
ing his charges before the Boston Society of Natural History, that “ he never knew any one ignorant enough or
audacious enough to have suggested it.” (Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., xvii. p. 170.)
Those who read these pages, and will take the trouble to consult the authorities here cited, or those given in
more detail in my Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 324-326, may satisfy themselves that I have not borne false
witness in this matter, but that every one of the changes cited has been formally maintained by some one or more
of the transmutationists. It is surely not more difficult to transform granite into limestone, than limestone to
granite, as imagined by Volger, or corundum to opal with Genth, or chrysolite to corundum with Julien,
"Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. (1883) vol. xxiii, p. 147.
20 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
in a heated condition. The applications of the doctrine of metasomatosis seem to be limited
only by the imagination of its disciples.
§ 39. We now come to examine what we have called the second phase of the doctrine
of metasomatism, which starts, not from silicated and aluminous rocks, but from lime-
stones, and from these proceeds to silicated rocks. The resources of the chemist were
severely taxed, when it was required by the metasomatist to change a sandstone or an
argillite into a gneiss, a hornblende schist, or a serpentine ; but with a comparatively soluble
rock, like limestone, the change was less difficult to conceive. Accordingly, we find von
Buch, Haidinger and others teaching the conyersion of limestone into dolomite, and Gustaf
Rose and Dana, the further change of dolomite into serpentine; while Volger, and after
him Bischof, maintained the transformation of limestone into gneiss and granite. The
argument for this change, as stated by the latter, is instructive, as showing the ordinary
mode of reasoning adopted by this school. The occurrence of feldspar in the form of cal-
cite, according to him, “proves the possibility of carbonate of lime being replaced by a
feldspathic substance.” He elsewhere argues that since both quartz and feldspar may
replace calcite, “if both changes take place together, the chief constituents of gneiss would
be substituted for the limestone removed.” “ Volger also describes instances of the asso-
ciation of adularia and pericline with calcite, at St. Gothard, which show that feldspar,
quartz and mica may be substituted for the carbonate of lime in calcite. Consequently,
it may be inferred that granite or gneiss may be produced from limestone in the same
manner.” ”
§ 40. Akin to this view of Volger is that suggested by Pumpelly with regard to the
halleflinta or bedded petrosilex-porphyry of Missouri (composed chiefly of quartz and
orthoclase)—that this rock, as well as its imbedded magnetic and specular iron and man-
ganese ores, may have been derived by a metasomatic process from a limestone, parts of
which were replaced by the oxyds of iron and manganese, “ while the porphyry, now sur-
rounding the ores, may be due to a previous, contemporaneous, or subsequent replacement
of the lime-carbonate by silica and silicates.” Portions of this petrosilex are, in fact, inti-
mately mingled with calcite, and thin layers of crystalline limestone are also found inter-
stratified with the petrosilex, which, in these associations, retains its normal composition
of a mixture of orthoclase and quartz.
The hypothesis of metasomatism as applied to silicated rocks, endeavors to account for
the generation of different and unlike masses in a single crystalline terrane or series, and
also for certain phenomena in the transformation of detrital rocks. As applied to lime-
stones, however, by Rose, Volger, Bischof and Pumpelly, it seeks to explain the transforma-
tion of a single wide-spread rock into granite, gneiss, serpentine, petrosilex, and crystalline
iron-ores. These transformations once established, we should have an intelligible hypothesis
to account for the origin of the principal crystalline rocks.
§ 41. We have in the preceding historical sketch endeavoured to shew that the
existing hypotheses regarding the origin of the stratiform crystalline rocks may be classed
under six heads, which are as follows :—
# Bischof; Chemical and Physical Geology, 1859, vol. III., pp. 431, 432.
* Geological Survey of Missouri, 1873; Iron Ores, etc., pp. 25-27. Also Hunt, Azoic Rocks, Rep. E., Second
Geological Survey of Penn., p. 194.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 21
I. Enpopiutonic. This supposes the rocks in question to have been formed from the
mass of the primeval globe as it congealed from‘ igneous fusion and, as Naumann remarks,
implies a solidification from without inwards. The process beginning before the precipi-
tation of water on the surface, this liquid took no part in their formation, and their strati-
form structure and arrangement are to be ascribed to crystallization, or to the effect of
currents set up in the congealing mass. (Naumann, T. Macfarlane, Hébert et al.)
II. Exopzuronic. This hypothesis conceives the crystalline stratiform rocks to have
been built up out of matters ejected from beneath the superficial crust of the earth.
Besides lavas and pyroclastic rocks, which are the ordinary products of volcanoes, the
hypothesis of the Huttonians (in which the notion of metamorphism is carried back in-
definitely, so that its products are confounded with the primeval crust,) has apparently led
the way to a belief in the eruption not only of re-fused rediments, but of hydrated serpen-
tinic and feldspathic magmas, and even, as we have seen, of quartz, magnetite, limestone,
rock-salt, anhydrite, and of clays and sands. It would not probably be maintained by its
advocates that the eruption of all of these rocks was attended with volcanic phenomena,
properly so-called. Such extruded rocks, though not truly volcanic, would however, as
coming up from the underworld, merit the more comprehensive designation of exoplutonic,
here proposed.
Ill. Meramorpuic or plutonic-detrital. This hypothesis conceives the crystalline
rocks to have been formed by consolidation and recrystallization of sediments arranged
beneath the sea, and derived (1) from the ruins of endoplutonic rocks resembling these,
(Hutton, and his followers, Playfair, Scrope, Boué, Lyell, and Dana in 1863-1879) ; (2) from
exoplutonic or volcanic rocks, broken up, for the most part, during the process of eruption,
which was often submarine. With these materials may also be associated lava-flows.
(Dana in 1843, Kopp, Reusch, Térnebohm, Marr, C. H. Hitchcock). The heat, which
was believed to effect the metamorphosis of these detrital materials beneath the sea into
erystalline rocks, is supposed by the Huttonians to have come from the heated interior by
conduction, but, according to the volcanic-detrital hypothesis of Dana, through the direct
heating of the waters of the sea by contact with the eruptive matters.
IV. Merasomatic. Although the crystalline rocks believed to be formed in each one
of the preceding methods have been supposed to be occasionally the subject of wide-
spread metasomatosis, we may properly restrict the title of a general metasomatic hypo-
thesis to that which seeks to explain the derivation of the principal crystalline silicated
rocks from limestones, as suggested by Rose, Volger, Bischof and Pumpelly.
V. Cuaoric. We have already suggested the name of the chaotic hypothesis for that
which supposes the crystalline stratiform rocks, as well as the granites underlying them,
to have been successively deposited by crystallization from a general chaotic ocean, by
which their elements were originally held in solution. In this doctrine, which was taught
by Werner and his immediate disciples, the conception of internal heat was not recognized,
and there was no suggestion of an elevated temperature in the chaotic ocean.
VI. THERMocHAotic. The history of the attempts to adapt the Wernerian hypo-
thesis to the conception of a cooling globe has already been told in the preceding pages.
It was supposed that the waters of the universal chaotic ocean were highly heated, and
were thus enabled to exert a powerful solvent action upon the previously-formed plutonic
rocks of the primitive crust, transforming them into the present crystalline stratiform
22 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
rocks; a hypothesis of their origin which may be appropriately designated as thermo-
chaotic. According to this hypothesis, as set forth by Scrope, and afterwards by Delabeche
and by Daubrée, the first water on the surface of the planet would be condensed under a
pressure equal to 250 atmospheres, corresponding to a temperature near that of redness.
We are reminded in this of Dana’s earlier metamorphic theory, in which he also invoked
the action of waters at a red heat. These, however, were supposed by him to be heated
in the depths of the ocean by local volcanic eruptions, and the process, so far from being
a universal one belonging to a very early time in the history of our Dee was a partial
one repeated at different geological periods.
According to Daubrée the original plutonic rocks are not known, and the oldest
crystalline schists are thermochaotic. Macfarlane, on the contrary, while adopting this
hypothesis for the later crystalline or transition schists, maintains the endoplutonic origin
of the primitive gneisses.
§ 42. Proceeding now to review briefly the claims of the above hypotheses, we remark
with regard to the first, that multiplied observations in many parts of the world have now
established the existence of a regular succession in the crystalline rocks, which show by
the greater corrugation of the lower members, by frequent discordances in stratification,
and by the presence of fragments of the lower in the higher strata, that the order of
generation was from below upwards. With this, moreover, corresponds the fact that the
lower rocks are the more massive and more highly crystalline, while the upper ones pre-
sent a gradual approximation in physical characters to the uncrystalline sedimentary or
secondary strata ; thus justifying the name of transition, applied by Werner to these inter-
mediate rocks. All these facts are irreconcilable with the endoplutonic hypothesis.
The universal distribution, and the persistency of characters of these various groups
of crystalline rocks, indicate moreover that they have been produced by a world-wide
action, extending with great regularity through vast periods of time, and are incompatible
with anything which we know of the phenomena of vulcanicity. The objections long
since made by Naumann to the second or exoplutonic hypothesis are still as valid as ever,
and there is no evidence in the lithological characters of these rocks of their volcanic
origin. The argument derived from the similarity between their mineralogical composition
and that of erupted rocks, of paleozoic and more recent times, is equally strong in favor
of the derivation of these latter from the primitive strata.
§ 43. The metamorphic hypothesis, which would derive the primitive strata from the
consolidation and the recrystallization of detrital plutonic rocks, whether endoplutonie or
volcanic, is, for many reasons, inadmissible. Without at present considering the later crys-
talline groups, which are also of vast extent, the ancient granitoid gneisses, (originally
called Laurentian and represented in Canada by the Ottawa and Grenville series,) have an
unknown volume, since their base has never been detected. It is, however, certain that
they include, wherever studied in Europe or in America, a vast thickness which, as Dana
correctly says, cannot be assumed to be less than 30,000 feet. The detrital hypothesis
demands an agency which shall create, transport, and lay down beneath the sea, over vast
areas, now continental, this enormous thickness of sediment, not of mingled sands and
clays, like those of later deposits, (which are the results of a more or less complete sub-
aérial chemical decomposition of primitive rocks,) but in a chemically unchanged condition,
and with the feldspar unaltered. It, moreover, demands asource for these enormous
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 28
amounts of fresh detrital material, either in vanished pre-Laurentian continents, or in vast
volcanic centres which have left behind them no traces of their existence.
This hypothesis further demands a consolidation and recrystallization of the elements
of these re-composed rocks, so perfect that the microscope fails to detect the evidence of their
detrital origin. The resemblances between the primitive crystalline rocks and what we
know to be detrital rocks, compressed, re-cemented, and often exhibiting interstitial mine-
rals of secondary origin, is too slight and superficial to deceive the critical student in
lithology, and disappears under microscopical examination. The lessons taught by careful
lithological and stratigraphical study have already led to the abandonment of the meta-
morphic hypothesis by the greater number of geologists ; the more so since, as Bonney has
well remarked,“ the long-quoted examples of metamorphic secondary and tertiary rocks in
Europe have, without exception, been found to be mistaken, and to have been based either
on false stratigraphy, on cases of re-composed crystalline rocks, or on a local development
of crystalline minerals in the texture of clastic rocks.
§ 44. The very ingenious metasomatic hypothesis, which would derive the crystalline
stratified rocks from the transformation of limestones, is of course a gratuitous one, based
on some observed cases of association of silicates with calcite, and the possible replacement
of the one by the others, and deserves mention only as showing the greater difficulties of
the previous hypotheses, which could lead to the adoption of that of general metasomatosis.
It is possible, however, that its authors never imagined for it the rank of a universal
hypothesis ; the creation of continents of pure limestone, and their subsequent transforma-
tion into the vast masses of granitoid gneisses just referred to, would make as great
demands on our credulity as the metamorphic hypothesis itself.
As regards the chaotic hypothesis of Werner, according to which the whole of
the materials of the crystalline rocks were originally dissolved in a primeval sea, its chemical
difficulties are evident to the modern student. That the ocean could have ever held at one
time in solution, under any conceivable conditions, the elements of the whole vast series
of crystalline rocks, and could have deposited them successively, in that orderly manner
which we observe in the earth’s crust, was seen to be incredible. This argument, success-
fully urged by Playfair and his followers, contributed, with others, to the discredit which,
as we have seen, soon fell upon the Wernerian hypothesis.
§ 45. Respecting what we have called the thermochaotic hypothesis, so ingeniously set
forth by Daubrée, while his conclusions as to the first precipitation of water on the
globe at a very high temperature are not to be questioned, it can, we think, be shown that
its direct action, under these conditions, upon the primitive crust could not have resulted
in any such succession of deposits as those which make up the crystalline schists; these
we are forced to assign to a later period in the history of the globe, for which the phase
to which Daubrée has drawn attention was but a preparation.
The mineralogical characters and associations of the ancient crystalline rocks are, it
is maintained, incompatible with the elevated temperature supposed in the hypothesis of
Daubrée. The orderly interstratification with the ancient Laurentian gneisses of beds of
limestone, and others of dolomite, not less than the presence in the one and the other of
these of concretionary masses and beds of serpentine, after the manner of flint, and the
# Geological Magazine, November, 1883, p. 507.
24 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
inclusion in this of what so many regard as an organic form, the Æozoon Canadense; the
presence, alike in the limestones, gneisses and associated quartzites, of carbon in the form of
graphite; and, finally, the occurrence of sulphids, testifying to a process of reduction of
sulphates (which, not less than the graphite, suggests organic matter,) all indicate chemical
processes such as are now going on at the earth’s surface, and have been in operation since
the beginning of paleozoic time ; but which are inconsistent with any considerable eleva-
tion of temperature above that now prevailing on the earth. They are, in short, evidences
that the processes of vegetable and animal life were going on simultaneously with the deposi-
tion of the rocks of the Laurentian period. More than this, the presence of rounded masses of
older gneisses in the younger crystalline schists, not less than the composition of these schists
(as we shall hope to show in the sequel), are evidences that during the period in question
a subaérial decay of the older crystalline rocks was already going on, giving rise to boulders
of decomposition, to clays, and all the chemical reactions which that process implies, and
which I have elsewhere set forth at length.”
§ 46. If we have correctly defined the conditions requisite for the production of the
erystalline stratified rocks, they must have been separated from water by a process of
crystallization or precipitation, at a temperature and a pressure not widely different from
those now prevailing at the earth’s surface. This process, in the earlier periods, must have
been widely extended, and, so far as known continental areas were concerned, probably
universal. A slowly progressive change meanwhile went on in the chemical conditions,
indicated by a gradual modification in the composition of the rocks, and the areas of
deposition, though still very great, became limited, leaving large surfaces, both of subse-
quently erupted rocks and of the precipitated stratified rocks, exposed to a process of sub-
aérial decay, the soluble and insoluble products of which alike intervened in the rock-
forming processes of this later or transition period. The conditions of the problem before
us require moreover a source, neither detrital nor volcanic, for the immense mass of wholly
crystalline material, chiefly quartz and feldspars, constituting the vast and as yet
unfathomed primitive granitic and gneissic series; which only at a later time furnished
its contingent of decayed and detrital matter to the crystalline transition rocks.
But there is still another condition imposed by the problem before us—that of a satis-
factory explanation of the highly inclined and often nearly vertical attitude of the crystal-
line stratified rocks, which is most remarkable in those of the earliest periods. The
ordinarily received explanation of this, as due to the contraction of a cooling globe, has
seemed so inadequate to account for the great contortion, crushing, and folding of these older
rocks, that some geologists, as Naumann tells us, have been led to regard the present
as their original attitude, resulting from movements of the solidifying crust ; in which
connection he quotes with approval the language of Kittel, that “ so long as a hypothesis
is unable thoroughly to explain the almost vertical position of the primitive strata, it
cannot be regarded as even approximately near the truth.”
It will, we think be apparent, in the light of the preceding review of existing hypo-
theses, that no explanation of the origin of the crystalline rocks which fails to meet all of
the conditions just defined can hope for the approval of those who, after a careful survey
of the whole field, seek for a new and more satisfactory hypothesis. It remains to be seen
# The Decay of Rocks Geologically Considered,£1883.—Amer. Jour, Sci., vol. xxvi., pp. 190-213.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS, 25
whether, with the help of modern physical and chemical science, and our present knowledge
of geological facts, it is possible to devise such a one. After many years of reflection and
study, the present writer ventures to propose a new hypothesis, believing that while avoid-
ing all the difficulties of those hitherto put forward, it will furnish an intelligible
solution of a great number of hitherto unsolved problems in the physiology of the globe.
Il.—THE DEVELOPMENT oF A NEW HYPOTHESIS.
§ 47. The history of the beginning and the growth of the new hypothesis here proposed
to explain the origin of crystalline rocks is necessarily to a great extent personal, since
it covers the work of many years of the author’s life. The lines of investigation which have
led to this hypothesis may be described as first, that of the order and succession of the
crystalline stratified rocks of the earth’s crust ; secondly, their mineralogy and lithology ;
thirdly, their history, considered in the light of physics and chemistry, involving an inquiry
into all the chemical relations of existing rocks, waters and gases, including the transfor-
mations and decay of rocks, and the artificial production of mineral species ; and fourth and
lastly, the probable condition of our planet before the creation of the present order. The
adequate discussion of all these themes, which would include a complete system of
mineral physiology, is impossible within the limits of the present essay, but a brief
outline of some of the chief points necessary to the understanding of the hypothesis will
here be attempted.
§ 48. As regards the order and succession of the crystalline rocks, the author’s studies
of them, begun in New England forty years since, and continued in Canada from 1847
onwards, were for many years perplexed with the difficulties of the Huttonian tradition,
(then and for many years generally accepted in America) that the mineral character of these
rocks was in no obvious way related to their age and geological sequence, but that the
strata of paleozoic and even of cenozoic times might take on the forms of the so-called
azoic rocks. It was questioned by the partisans of the Huttonian school whether to
the south and east of the azoic rocks of the Laurentides and the Adirondacks, in North
America, there were any crystalline strata which were not of paleozoic or of mesozoic age,
although many of these are undistinguishable from the rocks of the Laurentides.
As I have elsewhere said, the metamorphic and the metasomatic, not less than the
exoplutonic hypothesis, of the origin of the crystalline rocks, by failing to recognize the
existence and the necessity of an orderly lithological development in time, have powerfully
contributed to discourage intelligent geognostical study, and have directed attention
rather to details of lithology and of mineralogy, often of secondary importance.” That a
great law presided over the development of the crystalline rocks, was from the first my
conviction, but until the confusion which a belief in the miracles of metamorphism,
metasomatism, and vulcanism had introduced into geology was dispelled, the discovery of
such a law was impossible.
§ 49. Convinced of the essential truth of the principles laid down by Werner, and
embodied in his distinctions of Primitive, Transition and Secondary rocks, I sought, during
4 Amer, Jour. Science, 1880, xix, 298.
Sec, III., 1884. 4.
26 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
many years, to define and classify the rocks of the first two of these classes, and by ex-
tended studies in Europe, as well as in North America, succeeded in establishing an
order, a succession, and a nomenclature, which are now beginning to find recognition on
both continents.”
While the succession of the various groups of crystalline rocks was thus being esta-
blished, not without the efficient aid and co-operation of other workers in late years, min-
eralogical and chemical studies were teaching us much of the true nature of the diffe-
rences and resemblances of these groups, as well as of the natural relations and modes of
formation of various silicates and other mineral species which enter into the composition of
the crystalline rocks. The investigations of physicists and astronomers had moreover
given form and consistence to the ancient theory of the igneous origin of our planet, and
the concurrent working in all of the lines of investigation above indicated was thus pre-
paring the way for a new hypothesis of the origin of crystalline rocks—a hypothesis
of which I shall endeavour to sketch the growth and the evolution.
§ 50. It was in January, 1858, more than a quarter of a century since, that I ventured
to put forth a speculation as to the chemistry of a cooling and still molten globe. Consi-
dering only that crust with which geognosy makes us acquainted, it was maintained that
at a very early period the whole of its non-volatile elements were united in a fused mass of
silicates, which included the metallic bases of the salts now dissolved in the ocean’s waters ;
while the dense atmosphere of that time was charged with all the carbon, sulphur, and
chlorine, combined with oxygen or with hydrogen, besides which were present watery
vapor, nitrogen, and a probable excess of oxygen. The first precipitated and acid waters
from this atmosphere falling on the hot earth’s silicated crust, would, it was said, soon
become neutralized by the protoxyd bases, giving rise to the chlorids and sulphates of the
primeval sea; with the probable separation of the combined silica, at that high tempera-
ture, in the form of quartz. The suggestion as to the acid nature of the primitive
atmosphere, and its first chemical action, which were obvious deductions from the igneous
theory, had, as I afterwards learned, been anticipated by Quenstedt.*
§ 51. These views were reiterated in May, 1858, when they were coupled with the
conception of a solid nucleus to the globe as then taught by Poulett Scrope and by Wil-
liam Hopkins. The subsequent subaérial decay of exposed portions of the earth’s primi-
tive crust in a moist atmosphere, now purged of the acid compounds of chlorine and
sulphur, but still holding carbonic acid, was then set forth as resulting in the transforma-
tion of feldspathic silicates into clays, and the transference to the sea of the lime, magnesia
and alkalies of the decayed rock in the form of carbonates, the latter of which, reacting on
calcium-chlorid, would yield carbonate of lime and chlorids of sodium and magnesium. It
was then said that by this hypothesis “we obtain a notion of the processes by which, from
a primitive fused mass, may be generated the various silicious, argillaceous and calcareous
“TI have elsewhere given the history of the progress of inquiry in this direction in Report E of the Second
Geological Survey of Pennsylvania (Azoic Rocks) 1878; in brief, in an essay on Pre-Cambrian Rocks, etc., in the
Amer. Jour. Science, 1880, (xiv. 268); and later in a study of the Pre-Cambrian Rocks of the Alps, in the Trans.
Roy. Soc., Canada, vol. i, part 3, pp. 182-196. See also in this connection the late address of Dr. Hicks,
president of the British Geologists’ Association, in its Proceedings, vol. viii. 1883, On the Succession of the Archæan
Rocks, ete. ; and the still more recent paper of Prof. Bonney, president of the Geological Society of London, on The
Building of the Alps, in Nature for May 18 and 25, 1884; also the Geological Magazine for June 1884, p. 280,
# Epochen der Natur. p. 20.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. PATE
rocks which make up the greater part of the earth’s crust.” Of this it was declared, “ the
earth’s solid crust of anhydrous and primitive igneous rock is everywhere deeply concealed
beneath its own ruins, which form a great mass of sedimentary strata, permeated by
water,” and subjected to heat from below, changing them to crystalline metamorphic
rocks, and at length reducing them to a state of igneo-aqueous fusion, through which they
yield eruptive rocks. Of this primitive crust it was farther asserted that it “ probably
approached to dolerite in composition.”
The principal points in this hypothesis, as presented in 1858, were thus the solid
condition of the earth’s interior, and the derivation of the whole of the rocks of the known
crust, by chemical transformations, from the original superficial and last-congealed layer
of the cooling globe, which was considered to have been a basic rock, not unlike dolerite.
All of these positions are fundamental to the present hypothesis.
$ 52. These views were again repeated in a paper read before the Geological Society
of London in June, 1859, with some farther developments as to the origin of the various
crystalline rocks derived from the primeval crust. This, it was claimed, was necessarily
quartzless, and far removed in composition from the supposed granitic substratum, or the
primitive gneiss. An attempt was, however, made to show that with the quartz, derived
from the supposed first decomposition of the primitive igneous rock by acid waters, and
the sediments resulting from subsequent disintegration and subaérial decay, coarser and
finer sediments, more or less permeable, would result, which by the natural chemical
action of infiltrating waters might, in accordance with known laws, divide themselves
into two great classes, “the one characterized by an excess of silica, by the predomin-
ance of potash,and by small amounts of lime, magnesia and soda, and represented by
the granites and trachytes ; while in the other silica and potash are less abundant, and
soda, lime and magnesia prevail, giving rise to pyroxene and triclinic feldspars. The
metamorphism and displacement of such sediments may thus enable as to explain the
origin of the different varieties of plutonic rocks without calling to our aid the ejections
of the central fire.”
§ 53. Such was the scheme put forward by the writer, in 1858 and 1859, to explain the
generation from a homogenous undifferentiated crust, without the intervention of plutonic
matters from the earth’s interior, of the two great types of acidic and basic crystalline
rocks; gneisses, granites and trachytes on the one hand, and doleritic rocks, green-
stones and basalts on the other. Regarded as an attempt to adapt the Huttonian hypo-
thesis to the growing demands of the science, and to give it what it had hitherto lacked,
a starting point in time, and a possible explanation of the two types of acidic and basic
rocks, this scheme demands a place in the history of geology, although, in the judgment
of its author, it must share the fate of all other forms of the metamorphic hypothesis.
In recognizing the adequacy of a primitive undifferentiated layer of igneous rock as the
sole source of the materials of the future order it, however, effected a great step towards
a more satisfactory hypothesis.”
’ See, for the references to this early statement, the American Journal Science for January, 1858, (vol. xxv, p.
102;) also a Theory of Igneous Rocks and Volcanoes, Canadian Journal, Toronto, May, 1858 ; and Some Points in
Chemical Geology, in abstract in Philos. Mag. for February, and in full in the Quarterly Geological Journal for
November, 1859. The latter two papers are reprinted in the author’s Chemical and Geological Essays, pp: 1-17.
28 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
§ 54. The nature and history of this primitive layer was farther discussed by the
author in a lecture on “The Chemistry of the Primeval Earth,” given at the Royal Insti-
tution in London, in June, 1867.” Therein it was said: “ It is with the superficial portions
of the fused mineral mass of the globe that we have now to do, since there is no good
reason for supposing that the deeply-seated portions have intervened in any direct manner -
in the production of the rocks which form the superficial crust. This, at the time of its
first solidification, presented probably an irregular diversified surface, from the result of
contraction of the congealing mass, which at last formed a liquid bath of no great depth,
surrounding the solid nucleus.” It was further insisted that this material would contain
all of the bases in the form of silicates, and must have much resembled in composition
certain furnace-slags or volcanic products. Of this primary lava-like rock, it was said,
that it is now everywhere concealed, and is not to be confounded with the granitic
substratum. That granite was a secondary rock, formed through the intervention of
water, was then argued from the presence therein, as a constituent element, of quartz,
“which, so far as we know can only be generated by aqueous agencies, and at compara-
tively low temperatures.” The metamorphic hypothesis of the origin of granite was
then maintained.
In 1869, in an essay on “The Probable Seat of Volcanic Action,’ a further inquiry
was made into the probable nature and condition of what had been spoken of in 1858 as
“the ruins of the crust of anhydrous and primitive igneous rock.” This, it was now
said, “must by contraction in cooling have become porous and permeable, for a consider-
able depth, to the waters afterwards precipitated upon its surface. Inthis way it was pre-
pared alike for mechanical disintegration and for the chemical action of the acids .
present in the air and the waters of the time. . . . The earth, air, and water, thus
made to react upon each other, constitute the first matters, from which, by mechanical and
chemical transformations, the whole mineral world known to us has been produced.” It
was farther argued, from many geological phenomena, that we have evidence of the exist-
ence between the solid nucleus and the stratified rocks of “ an interposed layer of partially
fluid matter, which is not, however, a still unsolidified portion of the once liquid globe,
but consists of the outer part of the congealed primitive mass, disintegrated and modified
by chemical and mechanical agencies, impregnated with water, and in a state of igneo-
aqueous fusion.”
§ 55. Although in 1858 I had, as already shown, sought to give a more rational basis
to the metamorphic hypothesis of the origin of crystalline rocks, the traditions of which,
as expounded by Lyell, weighed so heavily on the geologists of the time, other considera-
tions soon afterwards led me to seek in another direction for the solution of the problem.
The examination of the mineral silicates deposited during the evaporation of many natural
waters, that of the Ottawa river among others, and the study which I had made of the
hydrous magnesian silicate found in the tertiary strata of the Paris basin, induced me, as
early as 1860, to inquire “to what extent rocks composed of calcareous and magnesian
silicates may be directly formed in the moist way ;” and again, in the same year, to declare
50 ‘Proceedings of the Royal Institution, and also Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 35-45.
5! Geological Magazine for June, 1869, and Amer. Jour. Science, for July, 1870 (vol. i., p.21.) See also Chemical
and Geological Essays, pp. 59-67.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 29
with regard to the latter, “it is evident that such silicates could be formed in basins at the
earth’s surface, by reactions between magnesian solutions and dissolved silica;” a con-
sideration which was then applied to the generation of serpentine and of tale. Again, in
1863 and 1864, I ventured to conclude that “steatite, serpentine, pyroxene, hornblende,
and, in many cases, garnet, epidote, and other silicated minerals, are formed by a crys-
tallization or molecular rearrangement of silicates generated by chemical processes in
waters at the earth’s surface.” ”
§ 56. While natural waters hold in abundance both lime and magnesia, alumina is,
under ordinary conditions, insoluble in them, and moreover is not found uncombined with
silica. The problem of the genesis of the aluminous double silicates, so abundant in the
rocks, was therefore a more difficult one than that of the simple protoxyd-silicates, with
which they are often intimately associated. Many facts in the history of zeolitic minerals,
however, soon led me to recognize in the conditions under which these aluminous double
silicates are formed, a clue to the solution of the problem. Thus it was that, in an essay
read before the Geological Society of Dublin, in April, 1863,° I called attention to the
observations of Daubrée on the production, during the historic period, of the zeolites, chabazite
and harmotome (phillipsite), by the action of thermal waters at a temperature not above
70° C.,on the masonry of the ancient Roman baths at Plombières. The mode of the occur-
rence of these minerals showed that the aluminous silicate of the burned bricks had been
changed into a temporarily soluble compound, which had crystallized in cavities as
zeolites, which differ in composition from feldspars only by the presence of combined
water. I also called attention, in this connection, to the experiments of Daubrée, who, by
operating at higher temperatures in sealed tubes, had succeeded in producing crystallized
quartz, pyroxene, and apparently feldspathic and micaceous minerals.
§ 57. The aqueous origin of feldspars, and their intimate relations to zeolites and
other hydrous minerals, were farther noticed by the author, in the “Geology of Canada,”
in 1863, in which he cited the observations made by J. D. Whitney on the frequent
occurrence of orthoclase in the copper-bearing veins in the melaphyres of Lake Superior.
The crystals of this mineral, which had been mistaken for stilbite, are there found under
conditions, which show their formation contemporaneously with the zeolites, analcime and
natrolite ; while elsewhere in the same region, the associates of the orthoclase are epidote,
calcite, native copper and quartz, upon which, as well as upon saponite, the crystals of the
feldspar were found implanted.* Whitney recalled in this connection the occurrence of a
variety of orthoclase, the weissigite of Jenzsch, with chalcedony, in cavities of an amyg-
daloidal rock.
§ 58. These facts were now insisted upon, in connection with my own observations, to
show the aqueous origin of the feldspar found in veins among the crystalline schists in the
province of Quebec, where “a flesh-red orthoclase occurs so intermingled with white
quartz and chlorite as to show the contemporaneous formation of the three species. The
orthoclase generally predominates, often reposing upon or surrounded by chlorite, and at
© For citations and references see Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 296, 297 and 300.
S The Chemistry of Metamorphic Rocks ; Dublin Quarterly Journal for July, 1863; reprinted in Chemical and
Geological Essays, pp. 18-34.
5 Whitney, Amer. Jour. Science, 1869, xxviii., 16.
30 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
other times imbedded in quartz, which covers the latter. Drusy cavities are also lined
with small crystals of the feldspar, and have been subsequently filled up by a cleavable
bitter-spar,” often with crystallized hematite, rutile, and copper-sulphids. It was shown
that among these veins, then described as of aqueous origin, there was to be seen a transi-
tion, from those “containing only quartz and bitter-spar, with a little chlorite or tale,
through others in which orthoclase appears, and gradually predominates, until we arrive at
veins made up of quartz and feldspar, sometimes including mica, and having the character
of a coarse-grained granite; the occasional presence of copper-sulphids and hematite char-
acterising all of them alike.” There was also described the occurrence, in the same region, of
a dark-colored argillaceous and schistose rock, having in parts the aspect of a chloritic
greenstone, which is rendered amygdaloidal by the presence of numerous spherical or
ovoidal masses of quartz, or more commonly of reddish orthoclase, often with a nucleus of
quartz. In schistose varieties of this rock the feldspar extends from these centres in such
a manner as to give a gneissoid aspect to the mass. All of these facts were regarded as
showing the aqueous origin of orthoclase, and its secretion from the adjacent rock.”
§ 59. With the feldspar in the above mentioned veins may be compared the similar
occurrence, observed in 1872, in the great quartz lodes with chalcopyrite which traverse
the Huronian greenstones at the Bruce Mines, on Lake Huron, of bands one or two inches
wide of a brick-red orthoclase, mingled with a little quartz and a small amount of a
greenish, apparently hornblendic element, forming an aggregate which can hardly be dis-
tinguished from some of the older granitic rocks, but is clearly interbanded with the
metalliferous quartz and the bitter-spar of the lode. In this connection may also be quoted
a description of the vertical parallel veins found cutting at right angles the Montalban
gneisses, in Northbridge, near Worcester, Massachusetts. These veins, as described by the
writer, “may be traced for considerable distances, and are ordinarily but a few inches in
thickness. The veinstone of these is generally a vitreous quartz, which in some parts
exhibits selvages, and in others bands of white orthoclase, by an admixture of which it
passes elsewhere into a well characterized granitic vein. The quartz veins, in places, hold
cubic crystals of pyrite, together with chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite, the latter in consider-
able masses, sometimes accompanied by crystals of greenish epidote, imbedded in the
quartz, and occasionally associated with red garnet. In one part, there is found enclosed
in the wider portion of a vein, between bands of vitreous quartz, a lenticular mass, three
inches thick, of coarsely granular pink calcite, with imbedded grains of dark-green amphi-
bole and on one side small crystals of olive-green epidote and red garnet; the whole
mass closely resembling some crystalline limestones from the Laurentian,” and evidently
endogenous.” I have also described remarkable examples of similar associations of
zoisite, garnet, hornblende, pyroxene and calcite in the metalliferous quartz lodes in the
Montalban series, at Ducktown, Tennessee.”
§ 60. The question of the aqueous origin of concretionary veins was resumed by the
author in 1871, in an essay On Granites and Granite Veinstones, when it was maintained
that the relation of granitic veins with metalliferous quartz-lodes, on the one hand, and
55 Geology of Canada, 1863 ; pp. 476 and 606.
66 Azoic Rocks, Report E, Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, p. 247.
57 Chemical and Geological Essays, p. 217.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 31
with caleareous veins carrying the ordinary minerals of crystalline limestones, on the
other, is such that to all these veins must be assigned a common aqueous origin. It
was farther shown that the endogenous granitic masses or veinstones in the Montalban
or younger gneissic series in New England often attain breadths of sixty feet or more, and
that they present great varieties in texture, from coarse aggregates of banded orthoclase
and quartz, often with muscovite (from which these various elements are mined for com-
mercial purposes), to veins in which the concretionary character is not less marked,
including beryl, tourmaline, garnet, cassiterite and other rare minerals ; while others still
of these great veins are so fine-grained and homogeneous in character as to have been
quarried as granites for architectural uses. These endogenous masses are included alike
in the gneisses, the quartzites, the staurolitic mica-schists, and the indigenous crystalline
limestones of the Montalban series, and, though generally transverse, are sometimes, for
a portion of their course, coincident with the bedding of the enclosing rock.”
It was clear that these endogenous granitic veins of posterior origin were mineralogi-
cally very similar to the older gneisses and the erupted granites. From a prolonged study
of all these phenomena, the conclusion was then reached that we have in the action which
generated these endogenous granitic rocks a continuation of the same process which gave
rise to the older or fundamental granitoid gneisses, which were hence of aqueous origin.
§ 61. This process of reasoning was in fact identical with that by which Werner, in
the last century, was led to assign an aqueous origin to the primitive granite and the
crystalline schists. In a farther description, in 1874, of some examples of these banded
veinstones from Maine and Nova Scotia, it was said that their structure is “due to
successive deposits from water of crystalline matter on the walls of the vein, and results
from a process which, though operating in later times and in subterranean fissures, was
probably not very much unlike that which gave rise to the indigenous granitic gneisses.”
The same ideas as to the origin of the ancient crystalline rocks, and their relations to
granitic and to zeolitic veins, were farther defined by me, in 1874, when it was said:
“The deposition of immense quantities alike of orthoclase, albite and oligoclase in
veins which are evidently of aqueous origin shows that conditions have existed in which
the elements of these mineral species were abundant in solution. The relation between
these endogenous deposits and the great beds of orthoclase and triclinic feidspar-rocks is
similar to that between veins of calcite and of quartz, and beds of marble and of traver-
tine, of quartzite and of hornstone. But while the conditions in which these latter
mineral species are deposited from solution have been perpetuated to our own time, those
of the deposition of feldspars and many other species, whether in veins, or in beds, appear
to belong only to remote geological ages, and, at best, are represented in more recent times
only by the production of a few zeolitic minerals.” ®
§ 62. A farther and more particularized statement of the author’s conclusions as to the
origin of the crystalline rocks was embodied in a paper read before the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science at Saratoga, in August, 1879, containing the three
following propositions :°!
5% Amer. Jour. Science (3), vol. i., 88 and 182, and vol. iii., 115 ; also, Chem. and Geol. Essays, pp. 183-209.
5 Proc. Boston Society of Natural History, xvi. 237, p. 198.
5 Chemical and Geological Essays, p. 298.
*' The History of some Pre-Cambrian Rocks, etc. Proc, A. A. A. S., for 1879, and Amer. Jour. Science (1880)
xix., p, 270,
32 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
1st. All gneisses, petrosilexes, homblendic and micaceous schists, olivines, serpentines,
and in short, all silicated crystalline stratified rocks, are of neptunian origin, and are not*
primarily due to metamorphosis or to metasomatosis, either of ordinary aqueous sediments
or of volcanic materials.
2nd. The chemical and mechanical conditions under which these rocks were deposited
and crystallized, whether in shallow waters, or in abyssal depths (where pressure greatly
influences chemical affinities), have not been reproduced to any great extent since the
beginning of paleozoic time.
3rd. The eruptive rocks, or at least a large portion of them, are softened and displaced
portions of these ancient neptunian rocks, of which they retain many of the mineralo-
gical and lithological characters.
§ 63. In a subsequent paper, in 1880, it was said, with reference to the subaérial decay
of rocks: “The aluminous silicates in the oldest crystalline rocks occur in the forms of
feldspars, and related species, and are, so to speak, saturated with alkalies or with lime. It
is only in more recent formations that we find aluminous silicates either free or with
reduced amounts of alkali, as in the argillites and clays, in micaceous minerals like musco-
vite, margarodite, damourite and pyrophyllite, and in kyanite, fibrolite and andalusite ; all
of which we regard as derived indirectly from the more ancient feldspars.” In connection
with this important point, which I had already discussed elsewhere, I added the following
note, referring at the same time to the propositions of the preceding paragraph:” “It
is a question how far the origin of such crystalline aluminous silicates as muscovite,
margarodite, damourite, pyrophyllite, kyanite, fibrolite and andalusite, is to be sought in a
process of diagenesis in ordinary aqueous sediments holding the ruins of more or less com-
pletely decayed feldspars. Other aluminous rock-forming silicates, such as chlorites and
magnesian micas, are, however, connected, through aluminiferous amphiboles, with the
non-aluminous magnesian silicates, and to all of these various magnesian minerals a very
different origin must be ascribed.”
In a farther discussion of this subject, in 1883, it was noted “that decayed feldspars,
even when these are reduced to the condition of clays, have not, in most cases, lost the
whole of their alkalies.” This was shown by the analyses made by Sweet, of the
kaolinized granitic gneisses of Wisconsin, from which it appears that “the levigated clays
from these decayed rocks still hold, in repeated examples, from two to three hundredths or
more of alkalies, the potash predominating.”
§ 64. The question of the source of the matters in aqueous solution which, according
to the hypothesis before us, gave rise to granitic veinstones, naturally comes up at this
stage of our inquiry. As we have seen, the granitic substratum of igneous origin, the
existence of which is postulated by most modern geologists is, since the time of Scrope,
Scheerer and Elie de Beaumont, generally conceived to be impregnated with a portion of
water, conjectured by Scheerer to equal perhaps five or ten hundreths of its weight; and
through the intervention of this to assume, at temperatures far below the point of liquefac-
® The Chemical and Geological Relations of the Atmosphere, Amer. Jour. Science, xix, 354. See farther, for the
stratigraphical relations of the various aluminous silicates, (which were first set forth by the author in 1863), Chem.
and Geol. Essays, pp. 27 and 28; also Report E, Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, (1878) p. 210.
® The Decay of Rocks Geologically Considered, Amer. Journal Science, (1883) xxvi, 194.
+ Cali Oe
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 33
tion of the anhydrous rock, a condition which has been designated one of aqueo-igneous
fusion. This interposed water, under the influence of great heat and pressure, we may
suppose, with Scheerer, to constitute a sort of granitic juice, which, exuding from the mass,
might fill fissures or other cavities, alike in the granite and in the adjacent rocks, with
the characteristic minerals of granitic veins. This seems to have been essentially the view
of Elie de Beaumont, who described the elements of the pegmatites, the tourmaline-
granites, and the veins, often abounding in quartz, which carry cassiterite and columbite,
as emanations from the adjacent granitic masses, or as a granitic aura. Daubrée and
Scheerer, in previously describing the similar granitic veins found in Scandinavia, con-
ceived them to have been filled in like manner, not from an unstratified granitic sub-
stratum, but from the crystalline schists which enclose them.™
§ 65. In both of the above hypotheses, we note that the source of the orthoclase and
the quartz of the veins is sought in the solutions derived from the granitic substratum
or its closely related crystalline schists. If now we go farther back, and ask for the origin
of this granitic substratum, with its constituent minerals, we have shown, in opposition to
the view that it is the outer layer of a cooling globe, good reasons for maintaining, in the
first place that such a layer must have had a very different composition from that of gra-
nite, and in the second place that granite itself is a rock of secondary origin, in the forma-
tions of which water has in all cases intervened. We have, moreover, already sought to
show that the attempt to derive this granitic rock, by any process of metamorphosis or
metasomatosis, from sediments formed from the primitive quartzless rock, was untenable,
and that the vast granitic substratum, so homogeneous and so widely spread, could not thus
have originated. Already, in 1874, it had been declared that the process which generated
the orthoclase and the quartz of the granitic rocks was one represented in more recent
times by the production of zeolites.
§ 66. The generation from basic rocks, by aqueous action, alike of orthoclase, of quartz,
and of zeolites, is well known. These are often associated in such rocks, under conditions
which show them to be secretions from the surrounding mass. The substance named
palagonite is an amorphous, apparently colloidal, hydrous silicate, the composition of which,
deducting the water (about seventeen per cent. on an average), is, according to Bunsen,
identical with that of his normal pyroxenic or basaltic magma ($ 24), except that the
iron in palagonite is in the state of peroxyd. This substance is changed by no great eleva-
tion of temperature into the zeolite, chabazite, a crystalline silicate of alumina and alkalies,
rich in silica, but destitute of iron-oxyd and magnesia, and a more basic residuum, in which
the latter two bases are retained. Basaltic rock is, according to Bunsen’s observations in
Iceland, changed through hydration into palagonite, “under the influence of a neptunian
cause,” and this, by the heat of contiguous eruptive masses, is subsequently transformed
into a zeolitic amygdaloid. These operations, as he has shown, may be repeated in our
laboratories. Fragments of amorphous native palagonite, when rapidly heated in the flame
of a lamp, develope in their mass cavities filled with a white matter, recognized by the aid
of a lens as crystalline chabazite; while the transformation of basaltic rock into palago-
St For a general account of the views described in this paragraph, and for references to the somewhat extended
literature of the subject, see Hunt, Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 188-191; also Zbid., p. 6.
Sec. IIL, 1884. 5.
34 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
nite itself may also be artificially effected.” Palagonite, is not, apparently, a distinct mineral
species, but a colloidal hydrated mixture, interesting as marking a stage in the transforma-
tion of the vitreous form of certain basic silicated compounds. The crystalline forms of
these by their decomposition may, however, yield zeolites without passing through this
intermediate stage.
§ 67. That in these curious but neglected observations of Bunsen’s, we have repro-
duced in miniature not only the process which takes place on the large scale in masses of
basic exoplutonic rock, but the process which must have gone on in the early ages, when
the universal basic rock, which we have supposed to form the surface of the cooling globe,
was heated from below, and penetrated by atmospheric waters—was a deduction which,
although it seemed legitimate, was too vast and too far-reaching to be lightly accepted. It
was therefore not until after many years of careful consideration, and the examination and
rejection of all other conceivable hypotheses, that the conviction was acquired that in
these reactions, which give rise to zeolitic minerals, we have the true solution of the pro-
blem of the genesis of crystalline rocks. This was formally enunciated in 1884, when,
after considering the condition of a cooling earth, in accordance with the hypothesis
defined in § 50, it was said: “The globe, consolidating at the centre, left a superficial
layer of matter, which has yielded all the elements of the earth’s crust. This last-cooled
layer, mechanically disintegrated, saturated with water, and heated by the central mass,
furnished in aqueous solution the silicates which were the origin of the ancient gneisses
and similar rocks.” ®
®The following is the composition assigned by Bunsen to the typical trachytic and basaltic magmas, and to
palagonite, as deduced from his studies of these rocks in Iceland ; A, being the normal trachytic type, the mean of
seven analyses of trachyte and obsidian; B, the normal basaltic type, from six analyses of basalt and lava; and
C, the average of several palagonites of that region, deducting the water :—
A. B. C.
SHC Bosnoumocsconenndos 1p000e 76.67 48.47 49.15
PAU PITTA TA Se Eee ec cereneemhese 1115 14.78
+ 7 }30.82
RÉITOUS OXYAc--e-----e-e-rerte 3.07 15-38
SUTIN Openers. ne re ave lolol Ut ses 1.45 11.87 9.73
IMagnesid-s cette 0.28 6.89 7.97
Potash eee eee ESS SE 3.20 0.65 0.99
SOUS ss here neue HAS 0S 4.18 1.96 1.34
100.00 100 00 100.00
The ferrous oxyd in the six examples from which B was deduced varied from 11.69 to 19.43; while for the
palagonite, the iron (which is not separated from the alumina in the above average, and is present as ferric oxyd,)
ranged from 11.85 to 21.30. The water therein varied from 16.0 to 24.0 per cent. The oxygen ratio for pala-
gonite, taking the maximum of alumina, 18.97, and the ferric oxyd, 11.85, together, would be about 1 : 2 : 4; and
excluding the latter from the calculation, very nearly 1:15:4. Palagonite, according to Bunsen, is thus a
hydrated basalt which has exchanged a portion of its lime for magnesia, with peroxydation of the contained
iron. It “is the amorphous portion of basalt that gelatinizes with acids, which is the part forming zeolites ”
(corresponding to the vitreous matter of the tachylite-basalts), and the hydration of this yields palagonite.
Bunsen, by fusing a basalt with potassic hydrate, and treating the mass with water, got a material which
differed from the basalt only in having lost a little silica and acquired 30.0 of water, and which had all the charac-
ters of palagonite. (Bunsen, Recherches sur la formation des roches volcaniques en Islande. Ann. de Chim. et
de Phys. (1853) (8) xxxviii., 215-289.
% From a report of a lecture by the author before the Lowell Institute, Boston, Mass., Feb, 29, 1884, in the
Boston Daily Advertiser of March 1.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS, 35
§68. The transformation of the primary basic layer, judging from the phenomena
seen in basic exoplutonic rocks, would give rise not only to quartz, feldspars and zeolites,
but to aluminous silicates like epidote, chlorastrolite and prehnite, and to non-aluminous
silicates like pectolite, okenite and apophyllite. These silicates are all non-magnesian,
but their reactions, while in a soluble condition, with dissolved magnesian salts would
give rise to various natural magnesian silicates, both aluminous and non-aluminous.
§ 69. The cooling of the surface of the earth by radiation, and the heating from
below, would establish in the disintegrated, porous and unstratified mass of the primary
layer a system of aqueous circulation, by which the waters penetrating this permeable
layer would be returned again to the surface as thermal springs, charged with various
matters there to be deposited. The result of this process of upward lixiviation of the mass
would be the gradual separation of the primary undifferentiated layer into an upper
stratum, consisting chiefly of acidic silicates, such as feldspars with quartz, and a lower,
more basic and insoluble residual stratum, charged with iron and magnesia; the two re-
presenting respectively the overlying granitic and the underlying basaltic layer, the
presence of which beneath the earth’s surface has generally been inferred from exoplutonic
phenomena. The intervention of the argillaceous products of subaérial decay was
considered, and the reactions between them and mineral solutions from below, it
was conjectured, might give rise to certain micaceous minerals.
$ 70. That the great shrinking of the primary layer, consequent upon the removal
from it, by solution, of the vast amount of matter which built up the overlying granitic and
gneissic series, would result in a collapse and a general corrugation of this overlying
deposit, and that this would probably be attended by outflows, through fissures, of the
underlying basic magma, constituting the first eruptive or exoplutonic rocks, were among
the most obvious deductions from this hypothesis. These various points were concisely
set forth in notes read in April and May of this year, with the suggestion that this newly
proposed explanation of the origin of crystalline rocks, through the action of springs
bringing up mineral matters from below, might be called the CRENITIC hypothesis, from
the Greek xp7vy, a fountain or spring.”
§ 71. The steps in the chronological history of the new hypothesis, which we have
sketched in the preceding pages, may be briefly resumed as follows :—
I.—1858. An attempt to deduce from the doctrine of a solid incandescent nucleus, and
a single primary igneous rock, supposed to be quartzless and basic, through mechanical
and chemical agencies, two distinct and unlike classes of sedimentary deposits, which,
when subsequently transformed by subterranean heat, should give the two types of acidic
and basic crystalline rocks. This was an attempt to adopt the Huttonian metamorphic
hypothesis to the conception of a cooling globe, and to give it, what it wanted, a point of
departure.
II.—1860. An attempt to explain the production, by aqueous action at the earth’s sur-
face, of various protoxyd-silicates.
III.—1863. An attempt to extend this last conception to double aluminous silicates, by a
consideration of the formation of zeolites at the earth’s surface in rocks of secondary age,
* On the Origin of the Crystalline Rocks, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, April 15, 1884, in
American Naturalist for June; also Royal Society of Canada, Ottawa, May 20, in Amer, Jour. Science, July, 1884,
and Nature, July 3, p. 227.
36 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
and also in more recent times, through the action of thermal waters ; it being shown, from
the association of zeolites with feldspar and quartz in nature, that all these are sometimes
formed contemporaneously from aqueous solutions, and also that many feldspathic veins
and masses have probably had a similar aqueous origin.
IV.—1871. The subject of granite veins, farther discussed, and the mineralogical
similarity between these endogenous masses and the indigenous gneissic and granitic
rocks insisted upon.
V.—1874. The argument reiterated, that the conditions under which the primitive
granitic and gnessic rocks were produced were essentially similar to those of the granitic
veins of the later crystalline schists, and that these conditions are reproduced to a smaller
extent, in later times, in the formation of zeolitic minerals: finally, that the gneisses and
bedded granites are to granitic veins what beds of chemically-deposited limestone and
travertine are to calcareous veins.
VI.—1880. The definite assertion of the aqueous origin of stratified crystalline rocks,
coupled with the rejection of the doctrines of metamorphism and metasomatism in explain-
ing their origin, and the assertion of their pre-paleozoic age. At the same time, the proba-
ble intervention of clays, from the subaérial decay of feldpars, as a source of certain crystal-
line aluminous silicates is suggested.
VI.—1884. The definite assertion is made that the ancient crystalline rocks were
generated either directly from materials brought to the surface by subterranean springs
from the primary igneous rock, or, as was the case in later times, by the reactions of these
materials with the products of subaérial decay. These latter included clays from feldspars,
and dissolved magnesian salts formed by the action upon sea-water of magnesian car-
bonate set free in the atmospheric decomposition of basic rock erupted from the primary
stratum. Thus, while what may be called the Primitive crystalline rocks were wholly
crenitic in their origin, the soluble and insoluble results of the subaérial decay, alike
of basic exoplutouic matter, and of the older crenitic rocks, contributed to the formation
of the later, or Transition crystalline schists.
Ul. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE CRENITIC HYPOTHESIS.
$ 72. The crenitic hypothesis, which has been proposed in the second part of this
essay to account for the origin of the granites and crystalline schists, conceives them to
have been derived, directly or indirectly, by solution from a primary stratum of basic rock, the
last congealed and superficial portion of the cooling globe, through the intervention of
circulating subterranean waters, by which the mineral elements were brought to the sur-
face. This view not only compares the generation of the constituent minerals of the
primitive rocks with that of the minerals formed in the basic eruptive rocks of later times,
but supposes these rocks to be extruded portions of the primary stratum which, though
more or less modified by secular changes, still exhibited after eruption, though on a limited
scale, the phenomena presented by that stratum in remoter ages. The study of these rocks,
and of their accompanying secondary minerals, which may be properly described as the
secretions of these rocks, will therefore be found very important as illustrations of the
crenitic hypothesis.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 87
$ 73. Without here entering into the details of their geognosy or their lithology, it is
sufficient to recall the fact that such basic eruptive rocks abounding in zeolitic minerals are
found, with many characters in common, from the time of the Cambrian or pre-Cambrian
Keweenian series of Lake Superior to that of the trias of eastern North America, the tertiary
of Colorado and the British islands, and the recent lavas of Iceland. The secreted minerals
of these rocks often occur in closed cavities in tufaceous beds, constituting amygdaloids,
and, at other times, in veins or fissures of considerable size. They are not, however, con-
fined to the tufaceous or recomposed detrital exoplutonic rocks, (which are sometimes
themselves hydrated and transformed into palagonite, as described by Bunsen in Iceland,)
but occur in veins and cavities in massive rocks, as is well seen in the diabase of Bergen
Hill, New Jersey, and the massive basalt of Table Mountain, Colorado, both remarkable
for their zeolitic minerals.
§ 74. The accumulations of secreted minerals in these conditions are often consi-
derable in amount. Among other examples, it may be noticed that the zeolitic masses in
the amygdaloids of the Faroé Islands are sometimes three or four feet in diameter, and
constitute a large portion of the rock. Veins of laumontite in Nova Scotia attain breadths
of a foot or more, while some veins on Lake Superior, which are made up to a great extent
of zeolitic and related species, are two and three feet or more in breadth, and often of
considerable extent. The history of the chemical composition of the zeolite-bearing rocks
of Lake Superior, and of the changes which have taken place in their degradation from
the original eruptive mass, have been studied in detail by Pumpelly, with the help of the
previous analyses of Macfarlane, but cannot here be discussed.”
§ 75. We must here notice the modes of occurrence of the zeolites of Table Mountain,
Colorado, as described in 1882 by Messrs. Cross and Hildebrand.” The upper forty feet of
a great flow of basalt, one hundred feet or more in thickness, shows many cavities, large
and small, described as more or less flattened and drawn out. Some of these cavities are
empty, while others are more or less completely filled by various zeolites, which are also
found in fissures in the mass and, in the case of analcite, in a conglomerate made up of
pebbles of basic eruptive rocks, underlying the bed of basalt. The zeolitic deposit often
appears as “a reddish-yellow sandstone-like material, which occurs in many of the cavities.
In the larger ones it takes the form of a floor, the upper surface being horizontal, and
the deposit may be several inches in thickness. Small cavities have been completely filled
with it, and it is clear that the deposition has taken place from the bottom of each cavity,
upward. In parts of South Table Mountain, especially, the same material has filled fissures.
Usually the lower part of such masses is composed of a reddish-yellow mineral in irregular
grains, which form a compact aggregate, in which lie isolated spherules of a similarly-colored
radiated mineral. These spherules are seldom more than two millimetres in diameter, and
are very perfect spheres. They increase in number upwards, and finally form the greater part
of the deposit. In one cavity, six or eight feet in horizontal diameter and about two feet
high, the deposit is quite different. Here the main mass is loosely granular, and is formed
chiefly by a bright greenish-yellow mineral, while a stratified appearance is produced by
® T, Macfarlane, Geological Survey of Canada, 1866, pp. 149-164; Pumpelly, Geology of Michigan, 1872.
part 2; also the same, on The Metasomatic Development of the Copper-bearing Rocks of Lake Superior, Proc,
Amer. Acad., Boston, (1876) vol. xiii, pp. 253-309.
® Cross and Hildebrand, American Journal of Science, xxiii., 452, and xxiy., 129.
38 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
layers of a white or colorless mineral. Some of the white layers are chiefly made up of
easily recognized stilbite, and the same mineral, in distinct tablets, forms the upper layer of
the whole deposit. There are also irregular seams of white running through the yellow
mineral.”
The greenish-yellow crystalline mineral was found to consist of laumontite, and the
other layers were mixtures of stilbite and laumontite, with some of which were found sphe-
rules of thomsonite. This, in other cavities, formed layers by itself, without admixture of
the other zeolites mentioned. The presence of these zeolites in cavities side by side with
other cavities which were entirely empty, is, according to the writers whom we have
quoted, apparently due to the fact that the former communicated with fissures which were
channels for the percolating waters that deposited the zeolites. Such fissures, filled up
with similar zeolites, were in many cases found leading to these cavities.
§ 76. The eruptive rocks which break through the Trenton (Ordovician) limestone at
and near Montreal, in Canada, are of various ages and unlike composition. Some of these
are highly basic, and have been described as dolerites and diorites, while some have been
found to contain analcite, and others again much nephelite, and have been referred to
teschenite and nepheline-syenite. In some fine-grained amygdaloidal varieties of these
basic rocks, which have been designated dolerités, I long since described the occurrence of
heulandite, chabazite, analcite and natrolite, with quartz and epidote.” These zeolites are
not abundant, but in certain of the basic doleritic rocks on Mount Royal I have found
remarkable veins of orthoclase with quartz and other minerals, which merit a notice in
this connection. Included in vertical dykes of these rocks, themselves cutting the horizontal
limestones which appear at the base of the mountain, are frequent granitic veins, some-
times twelve inches or more in breadth, parallel with the walls of the inclosing dyke,
often distinctly banded, and exhibiting a bilateral symmetry which, together with their
drusy structure, shews them to be endogenous. The most characteristic of these veins are
made up of white, coarsely-crystalline orthoclase with a little quartz which, in druses,
presents pyramidal forms. In some of the veins, Dr. Harrington has since detected,
besides orthoclase and quartz, nephelite, sodalite, cancrinite, hornblende, acmite, biotite
and magnetite. All of these minerals are seemingly secretions from the enclosing basic
exotic rock.
§ 77. The mineral secretions of the basic eruptive rocks may be conveniently grouped
under seven heads, as follows :—
1. The aluminous silicates, inciuding the zeolites properly so-called, to which we
append the related hydrous species, prehnite and chlorastrolite, and the associated
anhydrous species, orthoclase and epidote, which are common in the amygdaloidal rocks of
Lake Superior. To these we must add albite, axinite, tourmaline and sphene, observed by
Emerson, in 1882, in a diabase dyke in the trias at Deerfield, Massachusetts,” and also the
various anhydrous aluminous silicates found with orthoclase in the veins on Mount
Royal, just described.
2. The group of hydrous protoxyd-silicates, the bases of which are lime and alkalies, and
Hunt, in Geology of Canada, 1863, pp. 441, 655 and 668; also Harrington, Report Geol. Survey of Canada,
1877-78, p. 43, G.
7 Emerson, Amer. Jour. Science, xxiy. pp. 195, 270 and 329. We reserve for another occasion the discussion
of the paragenesis of the minerals of this locality, so carefully studied by Emerson.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 39
of which pectolite may be taken as the type. These species are sometimes wrongly spoken
of as belonging to the class of zeolites. As an appendage to this group, we note the
hydrous borosilicate of lime, datolite, frequently found in these rocks. Mention should
here also be made of the anhydrous protoxyd-silicates, hornblende and acmite, in the
feldspathic veins of Mount Royal. We have already called attention to the occurrence of
hornblende and pyroxene in granitic veins under other conditions (§ 57).
3. Quartz in its various crystalline and crypto-crystalline forms, as rock-crystal,
amethyst, chalcedony, agate and jaspery varieties, is found both alone and associated with
the minerals of the preceding groups. Hyalite of very recent origin has also been
observed by Emerson at Deerfield.
4. The oxyds, magnetite and hematite, are frequent in the zeolite-bearing rocks of Nova
Scotia, where both of these species form veins in amygdaloid, and where magnetite
moreover occurs in drusy cavities with quartz, laumontite and calcite. Hematite, in the
form of plates of specular ore, is also found there in veins with laumontite, and manganese
oxyd is sometimes associated with these iron-oxyds. Small crystals of hematite on
prehnite, with a little manganese oxyd, have been observed by Emerson at the Deerfield
locality, as also cuprite on datolite, and malachite on prehnite. In similar associations he,
moreover, found small portions of various sulphids, such as chalcopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite
and galenite.
5. The presence of native copper, and occasionally of native silver, associated with the
various silicates already named, should also be noticed. The former metal is common
to the zeolitic rocks of Lake Superior and Nova Scotia.
6. Mention should here be made of the saponite often found in amygdaloidal rocks,
which, in its purer form, is a hydrous silicate of magnesia, with but little alumina or iron-
oxyd. Matters, apparently of this class fill, or more frequently line, amygdaloidal cavities
which are filled with other species. This magnesian hydrous silicate is perhaps distinct in
origin from the delessite or iron-chlorite which is a frequent constituent of many basic
rocks, such as the melaphyres of Lake Superior, and is probably not a secretion but a
residual product of the transformation of the rock.
7. Calcite in various forms is a common species in the rocks in question, and
fluorite and barytine may also be mentioned as accidental minerals therein.
It is principally with the first two classes of minerals, the zéolitic group, with
its appendages, and the pectolitic group that we have to do. These two, as is well known,
though chiefly found in the eruptive rocks already noticed, are not confined to them.
Some species of zeolites occur occasionally in veins in gneiss and other crystalline rocks,
and even in limestones and other sedimentary deposits. These occurrences are the more
readily understood when we consider that the same minerals have been recently formed
by the action of thermal waters in various localities, and are even generated in sub-marine
ooze. Many of the species of these two groups have also been formed artificially in the
chemist’s laboratory.
$ 78. It is our present purpose to consider, first, the zeolitic, and secondly, the pectolitic
group, both as regards their chemical composition and their relations to various anhydrous
silicates. We shall then proceed to notice the action of water at high temperatures on glass
and similar bodies, in giving rise to various crystalline species, including quartz. In this
connection will also be discussed some facts relating to the chemistry of the alkaline
40 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
silicates. We shall next notice the action of thermal waters in historic times, and the
occurrence of zeolites in the clays of the deep sea, and then pass to the experiments on the
artificial reproduction of zeolitic species in the laboratory of the chemist, and discuss the
relations of hydrous and anhydrous species. From this, we shall proceed to a consideration
of the reactions of the hydrous species of the two groups with magnesian salts. The origin
TABLE OF ZEOLITES AND RELATED SPECIES.
Hyprous. Rene DIS 1B ANHYDROUS.
Thomsonite....... 1481450 Ca, Na. Anorthite, Paranthite, Sodalite,
Gismondite ...... 5 1:3: 44: 43 | Ca. Nephelite.
Esmarkite........ Retail Me
é © Barsowite, Bytownite, Iolite.
Fahlunite......... 15e 2 Mg.
Natrolite ........ ° IE GiB} 8G} Be Na.
Scolecite.......... LES I0NTS Ca.
aes Labradorite.
Mesolite .......... I a3 (38183 Ca, Na.
Levynite ......... 1 sa Be! Ca, Na.
Analcite.......... 1N 3182 Na, Ca, Cl UT et LI TERRE
Eudnophite....... 1337378 32 Na.
Edingtonite........ 18:22 Ba.
Laumontite....... eg aro eyo! Ca.
Hyalopt
Herschelite..... as NÉE Na, K. a slop bate AISNE Pete
Phillipsite ....... 2 lRTOU BI TE Ca, K.
Chabazite .... 1291081716 Ca, Na, K.
Gehlenite........, WV Gis) AiG Ca, Na.
Faujasite ........ . We By Ate S 9 Ca, Na.
Hypostilbite ....., TESS ie Cee? Ca, Na. Oligoclase.
Puflerite ......... 1292794526 Ca.
Harmotome ...... LES BP Oye 5) Ba.
Heulandite .., 19 22505 Ca.
Epistilbite ....... . 1:3:12:5 Ca.
e = Orthoclase, Albite.
Brewsterite . ...... d'82742) 255) Ba, Sr.
Stilbite ........... 13:27:16 Ca.
Prehnite......... ° DRE ONG a Ca.
Chlorastrolite ..... 12 SR EL Ca, Na. Epidote, Zoisite, Meionite.
of these salts through subaérial decay of exoplutonic magnesian silicates, and their relation
to the primeval sea, will then claim our notice ; after which will be considered the probable
relations of the clays from the subaérial decay of feldspathic rocks to other classes of rock-
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. Al
making silicates. The conditions of crystallization of mineral matter will next be consi-
dered in relation to the formation of rocks, after which the conclusions of our present study
will be briefly summed up in the fourth and last part of this essay.
§ 79. In the accompanying table of zeolites and related species, are placed, in the first
column, the names of hydrous species ; in the second column are given the oxygen-ratios
between the protoxyd-bases, the alumina, the silica, and the water, represented respectively
by R, r, Si, and H ; while in the third column, appear the symbols of the predominant pro-
toxyd-bases in the respective species. In the fourth column are given the names of corres-
ponding anhydrous species, the protoxyd-bases of which are too well known to require
designation. In this and the succeeding tables I have generally followed the terminology
and adopted the formulas given in the fifth edition of Dana’s “ System of Mineralogy.”
In the line with the most basic zeolite known, thomsonite, are placed not only the
feldspar, anorthite, but a scapolitic species, paranthite, and sodalite. The minerals of the
sodalite group, including hauyine and nosite, correspond, as is well known, to a silicate
of the anorthite type united with a chlorid or a sulphate. With nephelite is coupled the
hydrous species gismondite, a true zeolite. The recent analyses, by Cross and Hildebrand
of the zeolites of Table Mountain, Colorado, give for the zeolites having the characters
of thomsonite a proportion of silica greater than corresponds to the formula of that mineral
given by Rammelsberg, which we have placed in the table. Some of their analyses, while
yielding almost exactly the other ratios of the formula, give for silica, instead of 4:00, the
numbers, 465, 4°76 and even 5°17; showing a composition more silicious than that of gis-
mondite, and approaching that of a zeolite corresponding to fahlunite, barsowite and
bytownite. These chemists, while believing the specimens analyzed by them to represent
a pure and unmixed mineral, leave undecided the question of its real composition.
§ 80. The feldspars, barsowite and bytownite, according to several concordant analyses,
are as distinct from anorthite as they are from labradorite, and apparently as much entitled
to form a distinct species as the latter feldspar, or as andesite or oligoclase. The composition
of a lime-barsowite, with the ratios, 1: 3:5, would be silica 48.54, alumina 33.33, and
lime 18.13 = 100.00. With these feldspathic minerals has been placed iolite, which is a
magnesia-iron silicate, giving the above ratios and, as I long since pointed out, is from its
atomic volume entitled to be regarded as a feldspathide. With these various anhydrous
species would appear to correspond very nearly the so-called thomsonite of Cross and
Hildebrand. With this anhydrous group we have placed two hydrous magnesian species,
the one, esmarkite, also called praseolite and aspasiolite, and the other fahlunite, which
includes what have been called auralite and bonsdorffite. These species are often associated
in nature with iolite, from which they differ only in the presence of water, and they have
been by most mineralogists regarded as formed by subsequent hydration from this
mineral. This view, however, was contested by Scheerer, who regarded the association
of the hydrous and anhydrous minerals, as due to a simultaneous crystallization of two
isomorphous species.”
The relations of the silicates of the natrolite section to labradorite are obvious from
the table. The same may be said of the relations of the numerous silicates of the anal-
cite section to andesite, hyalophane and leucite, and of the faujasite section to oligoclase.
@ Amer, Jour. Science (1848), v. 385, from Pogg. Annalen, lxviii, 319.
Sec. III., 1884. 6,
A2 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
It is to be noted that the well-defined zeolite, harmotome has as yet no corresponding
anhydrous silicate. Of the heulandite section, and the corresponding feldspars, orthoclase
and albite, it is to be remarked that orthoclase and albite are the only feldspars hitherto
found associated with zeolites, and the only feldspars as yet artificially produced in the wet
way. The observations of Whitney already noticed ( 57) have since been fully confirmed
by Pumpelly, who finds orthoclase very common with the zeolitic minerals on Lake Supe-
rior, where its deposition is shown to be posterior to laumontite, prehnite, analcite, apo-
phyllite, quartz, calcite, copper and datolite ; the only species superimposed upon it
being calcite, chlorite and epidote, which latter also occasionally occurs between
laumontite and prehnite, in order of superposition.”
§ 81. We have placed at the end of the table the two hydrous silicates prehnite and
chlorastrolite which, from their associations, are evidently, secretions of basic rocks, like
the zeolites, though neither of them present the ratios for protoxyds and alumina which
characterize these silicates. Prehnite has no known corresponding anhydrous silicate,
while chlorastrolite, though a less common species, is interesting, inasmuch as it affords
the oxygen-ratios of the anhydrous species, epidote and zoisite or saussurite ; a fact of some
significance in connection with the abundance of epidote in the amygdaloids of Lake
Superior. It has also the oxygen-ratios of meionite of the scapolite group, an anhydrous
silicate, which however belongs to a much less condensed type than zoisite, as is indicated
by its inferior density and hardness, and its ready decomposition by acids. I have else-
where discussed the relations of these two silicates, and have shewn that the density,
hardness, and chemical indifference of epidote and saussurite assign them a place with
garnet and idocrase, in the grenatide group ; while meionite, though lacking the proper feld-
spar-ratio between protoxyds and alumina, belongs to the feldspathides.”
§ 82. It is to be noted that the protoxyd-bases of the zeolites and their related felds-
pathides are either alkalies or lime, baryta or stroutia, if we except the partially magnesian
zeolites, picranalcite and picrothomsonite, and iolite and its related hydrous species,
which, besides magnesia, include ferrous oxyd. The latter base enters also to some extent
into epidote and prehnite. It should also be remarked that small portions of ferric oxyd
are frequently found in the analyses of zeolites, amounting, in the red varieties of laumon-
tite to three or four, and in some natrolites to one and two hundredths. Some part of this,
however, is disseminated in the form of hematite, giving color to the zeolites, and recalling
the association alike of hematite and magnetite with zeolites, as already noticed, and a
similar occurrence of these oxyds crystallized in many granitic veins.
§ 88. We next come to the hydrous silicates of lime and alkalies, which we have
called, for convenience, the pectolitic group, and which are correlated in the accompanying
table with other protoxyd-silicates having similar oxygen-ratios, chiefly magnesian, and
partly hydrated and partly anhydrous. We have indicated in the second column, for the
known silicates of the pectolitic group, the oxygen-ratios of R, Si, and H, as in the former
table, and have left a blank under H, where, as in the first three terms, for example, no
pectolitic or non-magnesian species is known.
The first place in the table is given to chondrodite, the most basic natural protoxyd-
silicate known, and remarkable for the replacement of a small and variable proportion of
73 See Pumpelly, Geology of Michigan, already cited $ 74; also Amer. Journal Science, (1871) iii, 254.
™ Chemical and Geological Essays, pp. 445-447.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 43
oxygen by fluorine. In the second line, we find, besides monticellite and chrysolite
(including the pure magnesian variety forsterite or boltonite), the hydrous species, villar-
site. With these, moreover, belong the manganesian species, tephroite; the zincic, wille-
mite; and the glucinie, phenacite. In the third line, the hydrous silicate, serpentine, with
the ratios, 4: 3:2, stands alone. Serpentine, unlike villarsite, has no corresponding anhy-
drous magnesian species, and it is worthy of note that, as Daubrée has shown, when dehy-
drated and fused, it breaks up into chrysolite and enstatite, between which, excluding
water, it holds an intermediate position.” Deweylite, in like manner, another hydrous
magnesian silicate with the ratios, 2: 3:1, has no corresponding anhydrous species, but is
represented by the hydrous lime-silicate, gyrolite, the most basic of the pectolitic group as
yet known.
TABLE OF PROTOXYD SILICATES.
Pxrcro.itic. RASE ANHYDROUS AND MAGNDSIAN,
4:5 Chondrodite.
1 pall Monticellite, Chrysolite, Tephroite, Villarsite.
3:4 Serpentine.
Gyrolite.......--. 2: Se ; Deweylite, Nickel-gymnite.
Xonaltite ......... eR Gees: ; Wollastonite, Enstatite, Hornblende, Pyroxene,
Plombierite....... Tn eq] Rhodonite, Picrosmine, Aphrodite, Cerolite.
Pactolitor---he-.ner 5y & ale) peal Some Hornblende ?
? 2:5 Some Tale.
——? Me) Sepiolite, some Tale.
(Unnamed)........ aes at
Okenite ..........- a Lohse: Bag}
Apophyllite....... Wea 212
§ 84. We come next to the great section of bisilicates, represented among anhydrous
species by wollastonite, enstatite, pyroxene, many hornblendes, and the manganesian species
rhodonite, with many related species and sub-species. With these are the hydrous magne-
sian bisilicates, picrosmine, aphrodite, and cerolite, in which the oxygen-ratios, Rh: Si: H,
are respectively 1:2:4; 1: 2:3; and 1:2:14 These various bisilicates are represented
among the pectolitic group by plombierite and xonaltite ; the former a lime-silicate found by
Daubrée in the process of formation at the hot spring of Plombières in France, and having
the oxygen-ratio, 1:2:2. Ofthe less hydrated xonaltite, it is worthy of remark that, as
observed by Rammelsberg, it occurs in concentric layers with the anhydrous species,
rhodonite (bustamite), and the hydrous quadrisilicate, apophyllite.
While many hornblendes have the ratio of a bisilicate, others are believed to have a
75 Compte Rendu de l’Acad. des Sciences, Ixii., le 19 mars, 1866,
A4 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
ratio (excluding a little water) of 4:9, not far from that of pectolite, with which
we have placed them. Different analyses have assigned to tale the ratios for the fixed
basis of 2: 5 and 1: 3, (the water being variable),—the latter corresponding to sepiolite,
1: 3: 1. For neither of these do we know any corresponding pectolitic silicate.
§ 85. We come, in the last place, to the quadrisilicates, for which we have no repre-
sentatives in the table among anhydrous or among hydrous magnesian species. They are,
however, represented in the pectolitic group by no less than three species, okenite,
apophyllite, and an unnamed species got artificially by Daubrée. It is fibrous like okenite,
is decomposed by acids, and is a hydrous silicate of lime, with six per cent. of soda, giving
the ratios, 1:4: 4. Pectolite, it will be recollected, contains in like manner about nine
per cent. of soda, while apophyllite contains five per cent. of potash and a little fluorine.
§ 86. The process by which this unnamed pectolitic silicate was obtained by Daubrée
is very instructive, as showing, in many ways, the action of heated water on an undifferen-
tiated silicate of igneous origin. He took for the subject of his experiments a common
glass, the analysis of which gave silica 68.4, alumina 4.9, lime 12.0, magnesia 0.5, and soda
14.7 = 100.5. Tubes of this glass were sealed up, with many precautions, in tubes of iron,
with about one third their weight of pure water, and exposed during several weeks to a
temperature not less than 400° C. At the end of this time the glass was found to be com-
pletely disaggregated and changed into a white fibrous or lamellar substance, composed in
‘great part of the fusible pectolitic quadrisilicate of lime and soda in question. With this
were found abundant crystals of quartz, and a few crystals having the form of diopside,
and the composition of alime-iron pyroxene. In certain of the crystals of this latter mineral
were also included microscopic grains of a black matter resembling magnetite or picotite,
probably the former. The iron of these minerals was perhaps derived from the metal tube.
§ 87. The net result of the prolonged action of heated water on the glass was that the
vitreous silicate gave up 44.0 per cent. of its silica, 64.0 per cent. of its soda, and 85.0 per
cent. of its alumina; the lime, with the remaining silica and soda and alumina (equal to 1.4
hundredths) forming the pectolitic silicate. Of the separated silica, the larger part separ-
ated in the form of well-crystallized quartz, with globules of chalcedony, and the few crys-
tals of pyroxene mentioned above. The soluble matter, got by treating the decomposed
glass with boiling water, was a silicate of soda, with some dissolved alumina, neglect-
ing which the proportions of soda and silica in the liquid were found, in one instance, to
be as 63 : 37 by weight, corresponding to an oxygen-ratio of R : Si of about 8: 4 But as,
according to Daubrée’s analysis, 85.0 per cent. of the alumina had passed into the solu-
tion, this would make for 63 parts of soda not less than 9.7 parts of alumina, which
should give for the silico-aluminate in solution a ratio of R :r : Si of nearly 3:1: 4; a
result of much significance which it would be very desirable to verify by further trials.
§ 88. Daubrée has recorded experiments like that above made to determine the
solvent action of heated water upon vitreous volcanic rocks, such as obsidian and perlite,
which gave similar result to glass, though, according to him, not so well defined. Frag-
ments of sanidin, of oligoclase, of potash-mica and of pyroxene, in these tubes, suffered no
apparent change, though incrusted with crystals of quartz derived from the glass. This
stability was to have been expected from the fact that crystals of pyroxene are formed
under similar conditions, and, as we shall see, both albite and orthoclase have since been
crystallized at high temperatures in presence of solutions of alkaline silicates. Another
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 43
experiment, mentioned by Daubrée in this connection, is important. By heating in a glass
tube with water a refractory clay (probably under similar conditions to the preceding
experiments) this became filled with white pearly hexagonal scales, resembling a mica,
They were fusible, attacked by hydrochloric acid, and contained both silica and alumina,
being seemingly a product of the action of the alkaline silicate from the glass upon
the infusible kaolin.”
Daubrée recalls in this connection the observations of Frémy, who found that colloidal
silicates of soda, (water-glass), made at low temperatures, and containing a large excess of
silica, give up, when heated, a portion of their silica, which separates in a form having the
insolubility of quartz.” Daubrée well remarks that we appear to have, in his own experi-
ments at high temperatures with water, a similar breaking-up of the silicate of soda,
which had separated from the glass, into quartz and a more basic silicate.
§ 89. In connection with this apparent solubility of alumina, under certain conditions,
in watery solutions of alkaline silicates, the observations of Ordway are very important.
In his extended studies of the alkaline silicates in 1861, he notes that Bolley had shown
that magnesia and lime are slightly soluble in solutions of water-glass, and that Kuhlmann
had obtained a double silicate of potash and manganese as a violet-colored vitreous mass,
giving a brown solution with water, and had also observed a similar combination of
cobalt. Ordway found that in the manufacture of water-glass, if care be not taken, a por-
tion of iron passes into the compound, which is not separated from the solution by peroxy*
dation, and but imperfectly by sulphids. The solvent power of the water-glass is dimin-
ished by dilution, but the liquid thus rendered turbid, becomes clear again on concentration.
He observed that when a few drops of a weak solution of a metallic salt are added to a
solution of water-glass, the precipitate at first formed is redissolved by agitation. “ A
liquid silicate thus takes up no inconsiderable amount of the oxyds of iron, zinc, mangan-
ese, tin, antimony, copper and mercury.” By agitating a solution of ferrous sulphate
with one of water-glass, in a vessel partly filled with air, a liquid is got which, after filtra-
tion, has a very deep blue color.” This solubility of metallic oxyds in aqueous solutions
of alkaline silicates will help to a rational explanation of many obscure facts in mineralo-
gical chemistry, as, for example, the presence of iron, manganese and copper-oxyds, and
of metallic copper, with the zeolites and other minerals secreted from basic rocks.
§ 90. We may now consider the observations of Daubrée and others on the contempo-
raneous formation of crystalline zeolites, and many other mineral species, by the slow action
of various thermal waters on the bricks and mortar of ancient Roman masonry in France
and Algeria. It was at Plombières, in the Vosges, that his first observations were made.
The hot water, here rising from a fissure in agranitic rock, penetrates a layer of gravel, and
to protect it from the superficial waters, the Romans had capped the spring with a mass of
concrete, resting partly upon the granite and partly upon the gravel. From beneath this
concrete, extending over a length of more than a hundred metres, and in parts, three
metres in thickness, the waters were led to the surface through vertical channels of cut
stone. The water, having at its outlet a temperature of 70° C., fills the gravel beneath
the roof of concrete, and a portion filters slowly upward through this. The concrete
16 Daubrée, Géologie Expérimentale, pp. 159-179.
1 Frémy, Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, (1856) xliii, p. 1146.
Ordway, Amer, Journal Science, (1861) xxxii, 338.
46 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
itself was made of fragments of burnt red brick, with others of sandstone and of a friable
granite, the whole in a calcareous cement. Repairs having required cuttings to be made
in this mass, it was found to contain numerous crystallized mineral species, formed through
the action of the water, which were examined by Daubrée, with the aid of de Senarmont
for the crystallographic determinations, and first described in 1858.
§ 91. The substance of the fragments of brick was found to be altered to some depth,
while the numerous cavities therein were lined or filled with various matters, often dis-
tinctly crystallized. Among these were identified chabazite and phillipsite (christianite),
gismondite, implanted on the chabazite, scolecite, and what is designated by Daubrée as
mesotype (thomsonite or natrolite). Inthe calcareous cement were well-defined crystals of
apophyllite containing, as usual, a little fluorine ; while in cavities in the lower part of the
concrete, near the gravel, was found an abundant gelatinous matter, which was detected in
the act of deposition, in recent cuttings in the mass through which the water was still
oozing. This matter elsewhere had consolidated into a white mammillary concretionary
fibrous substance, which was found to be ahydrous silicate of lime, with but 1.3 hundredths
of alumina, and constitutes the pectolitic species, plombierite, already noticed (§ 84).
With the various minerals in the concrete was also found an abundant deposit of silica in
the form of hyalite, and more rarely crystals of tridymite, and globules of chalcedony,
together with calcite in well defined crystals, arragonite, and fluorite. The chabazite was
‘often found adherent to fragments of wood enclosed in the concrete, recalling, as observed
by Daubrée, the similar occurrence of zeolites with fossil wood in lacustrine limestone in
Auvergne. The various minerals named were absent from the fragments of friable granite,
while in the underlying gravels the only matter deposited was an amorphous aluminous
silicate, compared to halloysite, and found also in the concrete.
§ 92. The fragments of red burnt brick in the cement had undergone an alteration from
their surface, marked by concentric lines of changed color, as well as by the development
of zeolites, and also of an amorphous matter compared by Daubrée to palagonite. In
these fragments, the amount of combined water had increased from two or three hun-
dredths in the centre, to eight hundredths in the outer infiltrated portion, in which
the amount of matter soluble in nitric acid was equal to fourteen or fifteen hun-
dredths, including a notable proportion of potash, supposed by Daubrée to have been fixed
from the waters. The silica, alumina and lime of the new mineral species were
derived from the cement and the bricks, the calcination of which had probably rendered
them more susceptible to chemical change. As has been pointed out by Daubrée, the resem-
blance between these species and the similar ones found in many rocks, extend even to
minor details of crystalline form and association. The small geodes lined with crystals, in
the bricks, as the writer can testify, cannot be distinguished by inspection from many
similar cavities in certain amygdaloids.
$ 93. Similar phenomena have since been noticed in the ancient constructions around
the thermal waters of Luxeil, Bourbonne, and others in France, and at Oran in Algeria,
These localities have added little more to our knowledge of the production of silicates,
though at some of them, and notably at Bourbonne, besides zeolites, have been found
various crystalline metallic sulphides derived from the transformation of metallic objects
enclosed in the concrete. The water of the last named locality, which unlike that of
Plombiéres, rises from the muschelkalk, has a temperature of about 60° C., and is
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 47
a neutral saline containing seven or eight thousandths of mineral matters, chiefly
sulphates and chlorids of alkalies, and of lime and magnesia; while that of Plombières
contains only about three ten-thousandths, and is also said to be neutral. As remarked by
Daubrée, it is probable that the action of the water in the formation of these mineral
silicates is, to a great extent, independent of its composition, since pure water, in acting
upon finely divided alkaliferous materials, soon becomes itself alkaline.
As regards other silicated deposits from thermal waters, we may notice the case
of the baths of St. Honoré (Niévre), the waters of which, having a temperature of 31° C.,
yield a finely laminated white translucent substance in concentric layers, which
appears from analysis to be a hydrous silicate of alumina, with a large excess of silica, but
is probably a mixture. Mention is also made of a similar deposit from a mineral spring
at Cauterets, which is talcose in aspect, and according to qualitative analysis, is a
silicate of alumina, with magnesia and alkalies.” In this connection mention should be
made of the occurrence at the thermal spring of Olette (Pyrennes Orientales), of a crystal-
line silicate, having, according to Descloizeaux, the crystalline form of stilbite, of which it
has also the composition.”
§ 94. As an example of a zeolite, apparently in process of formation, may be mentioned
the observations of R. Hermann, who found in the crevices of a columnar basalt at Stol-
penau, in Saxony, an amorphous white plastic substance, which after some time changed
into acicular crystals of scolecite.' More recently, Renevier has described the occurrence
of a white subtranslucent matter, unctuous to the touch, gelatinous at first, but becoming
a plastic mass, and called by the quarrymen mineral lard, found in constructing a tunnel
in the molasse or tertiary sandstone near Lausanne, in Switzerland, in 1876. This substance,
which formed layers of from one to three centimetres on the walls of fissures, was said by
observers to have, in some cases, taken on a crystalline form, a fact, however, which
Renevier was not able to verify. When dried at 100° C., it was found to be a hydrated
double aluminous silicate, giving the oxygen-ratios of chabazite, 1 : 3 : 8 : 6; the bases
being lime and potash, with 3.14 per cent. of magnesia.”
§ 95. A remarkable fact in the history of zeolites is that lately made known by the
researches of Murray and Rénard, that a decomposition of volcanic detrital material, goes on
at low temperatures in the depths of the ocean, transforming basic silicates, “ represented
by volcanic glasses such as hyalomelane and tachylite,” into a crystalline zeolite on the
one hand, and the characteristic red clay of deep-sea deposits on the other. To quote the
language of the authors, this process, “in spite of the temperature approximating to 0°
C., gives rise, as an ultimate product, to clearly crystallized minerals, which may
be considered the most remarkable products of the chemical action of the sea upon the
volcanic matters undergoing decomposition. These microscopic crystals are zeolites, lying
free in the deposit, and are met with in greatest abundance, in the typical red-clay areas of
the central Pacific. They are simple, twinned, or spheroidal groups, which scarcely exceed
half a millimetre in diameter. The crystallographic and chemical study of them shows
“For a summary of the observations of Daubrée, the details of which are found in several papers, see his
Géologie Expérimentale, 1879, pp. 179-207.
“Cited by Dana, System of Mineralogy, 5th Ed., p. 443.
“ Jour. für Prakt. Chemie, Ixxii. Cited by Dana, System of Mineralogy, sub voce Scolecite.
# Bull, de la Soc. Vaudoise des Sci. Naturelles, xvi, 15.
48 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
that they must be referred to christianite,” * which is but another name for phillipsite.
We have here, as in the case of palagonite, and in ordinary zeolitic rocks, the breaking-up
of a basic igneous silicate into an acidic crystalline aluminous silicate of lime and alkalies,
and a more basic insoluble residue, rich in iron-oxyd ; a portion of which, as is well known,
separates from these red clays in the form of concretions, often with oxyd of manganese.
§ 96. We have next to examine the conditions under which zeolites, feldspars and
related silicates have been artificially produced in the chemist’s laboratory. When, accord-
ing to Berzelius, three parts of silica and two of alumina are fused with fifteen parts or
more of potassic carbonate, and the cooled and pulverized mass is exhausted with water,
there remains a double silicate, which has the composition of a potash-anorthite, with the
ratios, 1 : 3 : 4, corresponding to potash 28.68, alumina 32.04, and silica 39.31; the excess
of silica being dissolved as an alkaline silicate.“ The analogous soda-compound may be
produced in like manner. A similar silicate, according to Ammon, is obtained when
recently precipitated alumina is added to a moderately concentrated and boiling solution
of caustic soda, mixed with silicate of soda. The alumina is at first completely dissolved,
but a white pulverulent precipitate soon separates, which is a hydrous silicate of soda and
alumina, having for the fixed bases the same ratio as before, 1: 3 : 4; corresponding to
anorthite and to thomsonite.”
§ 97. C. J. Way, in his studies on the absorption of bases by soils, prepared artificial
aluminous silicates by dissolving alumina in soda-ley, and adding thereto a solution of
silicate of soda containing not more than one equivalent of silica to one of alkali (R: Si =
1: 3,) to which any convenient excess of soda might be added. A precipitate was thus
obtained, which, when washed and dried at 100° C., was a white pulverulent silicate
of alumina and soda, holding twelve hundredths of water, and having almost exactly
the oxygen ratios, 1:3:6:2; being a true soda-mesolite. This artificial silicate, when
digested with lime-water, or with any neutral salt of lime, exchanged its soda for
lime. It was difficult thus to separate the whole of the soda, but in some cases the replace-
ment was almost complete, and a scolecite was formed. Hither of these compounds, when
digested with sulphate or nitrate of potassium, was converted into a potash-mesolite.
With a solution of a magnesian salt, these compounds gaye a magnesian double silicate,
which was not particularly examined.’ Berzelius again, by adding a solution of silica
to one of alumina in potash, in proportions which are not indicated, found the mixture to
solidify in a few minutes to an opaque jelly, in consequence of the separation of a silicate
of alumina and potash having the oxygen-ratios, 1 : 3: 8, which are those of analcite.”
Farther investigations are required to make known the precise conditions for the produc-
tion of these different silicates, which give for their fixed elements the ratios respect-
ively of thomsonite, mesolite and analcite. The most basic of these, according to Berzelius,
is formed in the presence of an excess of a soda-silicate.
§ 98. Henri Ste. Claire Deville, by mingling solutions of silicate of potash and alumi-
nate of soda, in such proportions as gave for the oxygen-ratios, al : Si = 3 : 6, obtained a
# Lecture, in Nature, June 5, 1884, p. 133,
# Cited in Gmelin’s Handbook, iii, 431.
* Jahresbericht der Chemie, 1862, p. 128.
*6 Way, On the Power of Soils to absorb Manures, Trans. Royal Soc. Agriculture, 1852, xiii, 123-143.
7 Cited in Gmelin’s Handbook, iii, 489.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 49
gelatinous precipitate, which in sealed tubes, at temperatures of from 150° to 200° C.,
was gradually changed into hexagonal plates of a potash-soda zeolite with the oxygen-
ratios, 1 : 3 : 6 : 2; having the physical characters of levynite. The residual liquid
was nearly free from both silica and alumina. On repeating this experiment at a higher
temperature, a very different result was obtained. There was an abundant separation of
silica in crystalline grains, with a little levynite, while an alkaline aluminate remained in
solution. This remarkable dissociation of the first-formed aluminous silicate into free
silica and soluble alumina recalls the conditions of the separation of quartz already noticed
in § 87. The crystalline silica produced in this reaction may be either quartz or tridymite,
which latter form of silica, mingled with quartz, was obtained in 1879 by Friedel and
Sarrasin by heating gelatinous silica with an alkaline solution to about 400° C. The
dissociation of alumina from silica, observed in this experiment, serves to throw light on
the origin of corundum and spinel. In other experiments with mixtures of solutions of
silicate and aluminate of potash in sealed tubes at 200° C., Deville got a crystalline
compound with the formula of phillipsite, 1:3:8:5. Subsequently, de Schulten, in
similar experiments, at 180° C., with silicate and aluminate of soda, obtained crystals of
analcite, with the ratios, 1 : 3 : 8 : 2.5
§ 99. More recent investigations in the same direction by Friedel and Sarrasin are
very instructive, as showing not only the generation of feldspars in the wet way, but the
production at will, under similar conditions, of a feldspar or a zeolite. These chemists had
already, by heating a mixture of silicate of alumina (precipitated from a solution of chlo-
ride of aluminium by silicate of potash) with an excess of a solution of silicate of potash,
obtained crystals of orthoclase, mingled with crystals of quartz or, at a more elevated tem-
perature, of tridymite. In subsequent experiments, undertaken for the production of
albite, a similar hydrous silicate of alumina was mingled with a solution of silicate of
soda, (the silica and alumina in the proportions of the soda-feldspar), and heated to from
400° to 500° C. Instead of the anhydrous albite, however, were obtained crystals of
analcite, 1: 3:8:2; the excess of silica, with soda and some alumina, remaining in
solution. When, however, an excess of silicate of soda was employed, the whole of the
silicate of alumina was transformed into albite” Thus analcite, which is formed by the
action of thermal springs below 70° C., is equally produced at 180° C., as in the experi-
ments of de Schulten, and at 400° C. and upwards.
§ 100. We have thus far considered among aluminous double silicates those which
present the oxygen-ratio of R : al = 1: 3, and have only mentioned incidentally the epidote
and meionite groups. The numerous experiments already detailed suffice to show that
the double silicates of alumina and alkalies, formed under very varied conditions in the
wet way, in the presence of an excess of alkali, always present this ratio, of 1 : 3.
When, however, we pass to aluminous double silicates with other protoxyd-bases, we find
many with the ratio, 1 : 2, as in the epidote and meionite groups; with 1:1, as in the
alumina-garnets and biotite; or even 2 : 1, as in phlogopite and many hydrated alumino-
magnesian species of the chlorite group. The genesis of these various calcareous
“6 The results of Deville, Friedel and Sarrasin, and de Schulten in the preceding paragraphs, are cited from
Michel Levy and Fouqué, Synthése des minéraux et des roches, Paris, 1882, pp. 87-134 and 161-164,
# Compte Rendu de l’Acad. des Sciences, le 30 Juillet, 1883.
Section IIT,, 1884, 7.
50 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
and magnesian alumina-silicates, so conspicuous in the rocks, is an important and unsolved
problem.
Artificial zeolitic compounds, like the soda-mesolite formed by Way, with the ratio,
R: al = 1: 3, may, as we have seen, exchange their alkaline base for lime or magnesia, but
for the silicates in question, in which this ratio is 1: 2, or 1: 1, or 2: 1, the correspond-
ing silicates of alumina and alkalies are as yet unknown to chemistry, being soluble, and
probably unstable and uncrystallizable. Analogy, however, as well as the modes of
occurrence of these calcareous and magnesian silicates, would lead us to expect the
the production of such alkaline double silicates, under certain conditions, in solution, and
we are not without evidence of the occurrence of such compounds. The soluble alkaline
extract from the decomposition of an aluminous glass, in Daubrée’s experiment, holding in
solution both silica and alumina, gave, if the data are exact, the oxygen-ratio for
R:al:Si=3:1: 4. We have also, in Friedel and Sarrasin’s experiment, the separation of
analcite from a like solution, which retained both silica and alumina in solution.
Researches in this direction will probably make known to us the conditions under which
such residual solutions may be produced, containing alkalino-aluminous silicates with
the ratios corresponding to epidote, garnet, biotite, phlogopite and the chlorites.
§ 101. Magnesian silicates corresponding to the zeolitic and feldspar group are rare, and
known to us only through the artificial compound of Way, the species iolite, esmarkite and
fahlunite, and the partially magnesian zeolites, picrothomsonite and picranalcite. Chaba-
zite, when finely pulverized, according to Eichhorn, exchanges a portion of its lime for
potash when digested with a potassium salt, but is very slightly attacked by a solution of
magnesian chlorid.” The more silicic of these zeolites are apparently indifferent to such
substitutions and, as we have seen, phillipsite is formed in sea-water. We should, how-
ever, expect the more basic of the calcareo-aluminous silicates, with the ratios, R:al=1:1
or 2: 1, to be very susceptible to replacement by magnesia. Bunsen has shown that
palagonite, a hydrous silicate of this class ($ 67, foot-note) with a large proportion of
calcareous base, decomposes even a solution of ferrous sulphate, which removes its lime,
and it would doubtless decompose in a like manner magnesian salts. I have long since
shown that an artificial hydrous silicate of lime readily decomposes a solution of
magnesium-chlorid, with the production of calcium-chlorid and a magnesian silicate ;
a result in accordance with the earlier observations of Bischof on the power of solutions of
silicate of lime to decompose magnesian salts.°!
§ 102. While on one side of what we may call the normal type of alumina-protoxyd
silicates, with the ratio, R: al — 1 : 3, as seen in the group of the feldspars and the zeolites,
we have those with an excess of protoxyds, including scapolites, epidote, garnet, biotite,
phlogopite, and the chlorites; there is another series of aluminous silicates in which the
proportion of protoxyds falls below this normal ratio, and still another series in which
protoxyd-bases are absent. Of the latter we need only name the anhydrous species,
andalusite, fibrolite and cyanite, and the hydrous species, pyrophyllite, pholerite, and
kaolinite, with the amorphous halloysite, a more highly hydrated and colloidal form of the
kaolin-silicate. The aluminous protoxyd-silicates with a diminished proportion of alkali,
% Cited by 8. W. Johnson, Amer. Jour. Sci., 1859, xxviii, 74.
Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 122,
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 51
constitute an important group, including the principal non-magnesian micas, muscovite,
margarodite, euphyllite, damourite or sericite, and paragonite, excluding the rarer lepidolite
of veinstones, which is more highly alkaliferous. In the following list, the formulas for the
last four species named have been taken from Dana’s “ System of Mineralogy,” while the
three given for different varieties of muscovite have been devised so as to facilitate com-
parison with the latter, and at the same time to represent, as near as may be, the variable
composition of the anhydrous mica.
NON-MAGNESIAN OR MUSCOVITIC MICAS.
RATS ARE
Muscovite (a). :.... 3 6 9
Muscovite (b)......, F3 6 9
Muscovite (c) ....... 1 6 9
Margarodite ........ 1 6 9 2
Euphyllite ......... 1 8 9 2
Damourite.......... 1 Ju 2
Paragonite.--..-... il ON? 2
§ 103. The frequent occurrence of muscovite in endogenous granitic veins with orthoclase
and albite, shows that this species, like the feldspars, may be crystallized from solutions. At
the same time, their composition and their geological relations suggest that this and the
related micas have more generally been derived, directly or indirectly, from the subaérial
decay of the feldspar of granitic rocks. While these micas are rare, or altogether absent
from the oldest granitoid gneisses, they become comparatively abundant in the younger
gneisses and their associated mica-schists and, finally, in the forms of damourite, sericite,
and paragonite-schists, characterize great masses of strata among the still younger transition
strata. We have called attention to the fact that decayed feldspars, already changed
to the form of clay, and approaching to the kaolin-ratio, in which al: Si = 3: 4, still
retain, in many cases, a few hundredths of alkali; while the three anhydrous silicates
of alumina, andalusite, fibrolite and cyanite, which are frequently found crystallized in
certain mica-schists, have each the ratio, 8 : 2. It will be readily seen that the separation
of these highly aluminous silicates from clays still holding a little alkali would leave
residues having essentially the composition of the micas given in the above table. There
are, however, other mica-schists which are not accompanied by such anhydrous alumin-
ous silicates, but on the contrary are associated with serpentines and chloritic minerals,
indicating in the waters of the time a very different condition from that which we
have first supposed, and pointing to the intervention of soluble silicates. That these, by
their union with the kaolin from decayed feldspars, might yield muscovitic or acidic micas,
will be evident, when we note that the elements of one equivalent of kaolinite united
with one of thomsonite, or of natrolite, would give essentially the oxygen-ratio of mus-
covite or margarodite, and two of kaolinite with one of thomsonite that of damourite or
paragonite.
§ 104. There exists another important class of hydrous alkaline aluminous silicates,
related to these micas in composition, but differing widely from them in structure and
52 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
physical characters. 1t includes what has been variously designated as pinite, gieseckite,
agalmatolite, and dysyntribite, which sometimes occur in crystalline forms in other rocks,
and at other times themselves constitute rock-masses. Amorphous, and granular or com-
pact in texture, its hardness and general aspect have often led observers to compare it to
serpentine. The many varieties of this substance, as Dana has remarked, agree closely
in physical characters, as well as in composition, and he has deduced from their analyses
a formula corresponding to a hydrous silicate of potash and alumina, with the ratios, 1: 8: -
12 : 8, which requires potash 12.0, alumina 35.1, silica 46.0, water 6.9 = 100; in which
the potash may be partially replaced by soda, lime, or magnesia. Dysyntribite, as first
described by C. U. Shepard, forms rock-masses, associated with specular hematite in St.
Lawrence county, New York; and similar deposits, often of considerable extent, occur in
the crystalline schists of the Green Mountain range, both in Vermont and Quebec. Inthe
latter province, a bed of it in Stanstead, interstratified with chloritic schists, is one hundred
feet wide, schistose, and often with an admixture of quartz. Layers of the pure pinite
from this deposit, formerly described by the writer under the synonym of agalmatolite, have
a banded structure, a ligneous aspect, and a satiny lustre. The mineral is translucent,
soft, unctuous, and somewhat resembles steatite. A similar deposit occurs in argillite,
among the crystalline schists of St. Francis, Beauce, which is honey-yellow in colour,
and granular in texture. The pinites from these two localities agree closely in composi-
tion. That of the latter contained silica 50.50, alumina 33.40, magnesia 1.00, potash 8.10,
soda 0.63, water 5.36 (with traces of lime and iron-oxyd) = 98.99. These elements give
almost exactly the oxygen-ratio of 1: 8 : 13? : 21, closely agreeing with Dana’s formula,
except in an excess of silica perhaps due to an admixture of quartz, which is apparent in
the deposit at Stanstead.” The variety of pinite, formerly described as parophite from its
resemblance to serpentine, occurs in uncrystalline Cambrian shales at St. Nicholas, near
Quebec.” Related to pinite are the minerals which have been called onkosine and oésite.
The name of cossaite has been given to a similar mineral having the physical charac-
ters of pinite, from which it differs in containing soda instead of potash. The formula,
which has been deduced from its analysis, is identical with that of the soda-mica, para-
gonite. We cannot be certain, in the case of massive minerals like these, whether this
same general formula is not as welladapted to pinite as that proposed above. In any case,
it is evident that we have in the pinitic group a widely distributed class of natural sili-
cates, not less important than the muscovitic group, and probably similar in origin.
® See, for an account of these various forms of pinite, there described as agalmatolite, the Geology of Canada,
1863, pp. 484, 485.
“There are several other hydrous silicates of alumina, sometimes with alkali, which, like pinite, are
sometimes found among uncrystalline strata, showing that the conditions of their deposition have been continued
down to comparatively recent times. Such is the brayaisite described by Mallard, a soft unctuous matter, with a
fibrous texture, occurring in layers in shales of the coal-measures in France. It is a hydrous silicate of potash and
alumina, with a little lime and magnesia, and according to its author, after deducting impurities, gives essentially
the ratios, 1:3:9:4. The hygrophilite of Laspeyres is also a soft unctuous cryptocrystalline matter, found in
sandstone, which somewhat resembles brayaisite, and is compared to pinite. It contains potash and some soda»
and gives the ratios,1:5:9:3, A somewhat similar substance, found replacing coal-plants in the Taren-
taise, has been also referred to pinite or to the so-called giimbellite. Genth, on the other hand, found pyrophyllite
replacing the substance of coal-plants in Pennsylvania. (See Dana’s System of Mineralogy, Supplements, I. 6; II.
29, 63; and III, 18, 54).
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 53
$ 105. The constancy in composition and the wide distribution of pinite show it to be a
compound readily formed and of great stability. Such being its character, it might be
expected to occur as a frequent product of the aqueous changes of other and less stable
silicates. It is met with in veinstones, in the shape of crystals of nephelite, iolite, scapo-
lite, feldspars, and spodumene, of each of which it is supposed to have been formed by
epigenesis. Its frequent occurrence as an epigenic product is one of the many examples to
be met with in the mineral kingdom of the law of “the survival of the fittest.” It is,
however, difficult to assign such an origin to beds of this mineral, like those which
have been above described, which are probably the results of original deposition, or
of diagenesis. It is a characteristic of our present unnatural system of mineralogy
to banish to the category of doubtful species most of the substances which are supposed
to be of epigenic origin, and which do not ordinarily present a definite crystalline struc-
ture. Several mineral compounds are apparently indisposed to assume a crystalline con-
dition, and among these are pinite and serpentine. The latter is probably, like pinite, in
certain cases, a product of epigenesis, but few, we think, who have studied the mode of its
occurrence and distribution in crystalline limestones, will ascribe to it, in such conditions,
an epigenic origin.
§ 106. Dana has compared serpentine and pinite on the ground of their physical resem-
blances, and has said that pinite is “an alkali-alumina-serpentine, as pyrophyllite is an
alumina-tale.”"* The relations between the minerals thus compared are, however, mimetic
only and not genetic. A true system of mineralogical classification must not be based on
analogies such as these, nor on assumptions regarding water as replacing fixed bases, or
alumina as taking the place on the one hand of silica, or on the other of protoxyd-bases.
Some of the relations, suggested by formulas constructed in accordance with such assum-
tions, are not without interest from the point of view of theoretical chemistry, but serve
only to mislead the mineralogist who seeks for a fundamental and genetic system of
classification of mineral silicates.
§ 107. The cardinal distinction is that between protoxyd-silicates and aluminous
silicates, based on their origin, and on the chemical relations of their respective bases. For
the latter class, there comes, in the next place, the consideration of the proportions
between the protoxyd-bases and the alumina, and the departures on either side from the
ratio, R : al = 1: 3, as seen in the relations of those aluminous silicates with an excess of
R, on the one hand, and on the other, those with a deficiency of R, which are connected
with the simple aluminous silicates. The above ratio of 1:3, which we have called the
normal ratio of protoxyd to alumina, is that not only of the feldspars and the zeolites, but
of diaspore, of the spinels, and of the crystalline aluminate of potash. The chemist will
not need to be reminded that this stable group is the simplest possible compound which
the hexatomic element, aluminium, can form with a monatamic or a diatomic element like
sodium or calcium, corresponding to a condensed molecule, the water-type of which
will be H, O,.
§ 108. The point of next importance, which is of special signifiance in the aluminous
double silicates, is that of their greater or less condensation, or in other words, the relation of
their density to their empirical equivalent weight, as already pointed out in the case of the
% Dana’s System of Mineralogy, 5th ed., p. 479.
54 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
scapolite and epidote groups (§ 81) The greater stability of those which belong to the
more condensed types is shown in their superior resistance to decay, and is thus of geolo-
gical signifiance. The relations of anhydrous to hydrous species of aluminous double sili-
cates appear to be of less importance, when we consider what secondary causes will deter-
mine the formation either of a hydrous or an anhydrous species, of a zeolite or a feldspar.”
The relations of the bases, potash, soda, and lime to each other, and to magnesia and other
protoxyd-bases, are next to be considered, alike for the double aluminous silicates and for
simple silicates of protoxyds.
A system of classification, constructed in accordance with these principles, has
already been indicated in the preceding illustrations of the crenitic hypothesis, and will,
it is believed, be found of fundamental importance for the student of mineral physiology ;
since it is based on the genetic processes by which the species of the mineral world have
in most cases been formed. The principles which it embodies, will be found not less
applicable to compounds of igneous origin than to those formed by aqueous processes.
§ 109. In considering the origin of crystalline stratified rocks formed, in accordance with
our hypothesis, in all cases with the concurrence of water, questions connected with the
process of crystallization of mineral species, and of their condition when first deposited, are
of much importance. The most familiar case is that of the direct separation of matters in a
crystalline condition, as happens from the evaporation or the change of temperature of the
solvent, or from the generation of new and less soluble compounds, as in many cases of che-
mical precipitation. In this connection, it should be noted “that many such compounds,
when first generated by double decomposition in watery solutions, remain dissolved for a
greater or less length of time before separating in an insoluble condition. . . . . There
is reason to believe that silicates of insoluble bases may assume a similar state, and
it will probably be shown one day that for the greater number of those oxygenized com-
pounds, which we call insoluble, there exists a modification soluble in water. In this con-
nection also may be recalled the great solubility in water of silicic, titanic, stannic, ferric,
aluminic and chromic oxyds, when in what Graham has called the colloidal state.” % In
writing the above, in 1874, reference was also made to my own earlier observations on the
solubility, under certain conditions, of carbonate of lime, which are subjoined.
§ 110. “ The recent precipitate produced by a solution of carbonate of soda in chlorid
of calcium is readily soluble in an excess of the latter salt, or in a solution of sulphate of
magnesia. The transparent, almost gelatinous magma, which results when solutions of
carbonate of soda and chlorid of calcium are first mingled, is immediately dissolved by a
solution of sulphate of magnesia, and by operating with solutions of known strength
[titrated solutions] it is easy to obtain transparent liquids holding in a litre, besides three
or four hundredths of hydrated sulphate of magnesia, 0.80 gramme, and even 1.20 grammes,
of carbonate of lime, together with 1.00 gramme of carbonate of magnesia; the only
other substance present in the water being the chlorid of sodium equivalent to these car-
™ See, in this connection, the author On the Objects and Method of Mineralogy, Chem. and Geol. Essays, pp.
452-458 ; also the same, pp. 445-447.
% On the relations of hydrous to anhydrous species, see farther the author in Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. i.,
part 4, p. 208.
"Hunt, Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 223.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 55
bonates. A solution of chlorid of magnesium, holding some chlorid ofsodium and sulphate
of magnesia, in like manner dissolved 1.00 gramme of carbonate of lime to the litre. Such
solutions have an alkaline reaction.”
These solutions, which contained, in all cases, neutral carbonates, with no excess of
carbonic acid, possessed a considerable degree of stability. One prepared with 0.80
gramme of carbonate of lime and 1.00 gramme of carbonate of magnesia, when filtered after
standing eighteen hours at 10° C., still retained 0.72 gramme of carbonate of lime to the
litre, but, after some days, deposited the whole of this in transparent crystals of hydrous
carbonate of lime, all of the carbonate of magnesia remaining dissolved. This hydrous car-
bonate, stable at low temperatures, is at once decomposed, with loss of its water, at 30° C.
“The solubility of the yet uncondensed carbonate of lime in neutral solutions, which are
without action upon it in another state of aggregation, is a good example of the modified
relations presented by bodies in the so-called nascent state, which probably, as in this case,
consists of a simpler and less condensed molecule. At the same time, the gradual spontane-
ous decomposition of the solutions thus obtained affords an instructive instance of the
influence of time on chemical changes.” *
§ 111. The spontaneous conversion of uncrystalline precipitates into crystalline aggre-
gations may next be noticed. Instances of this are well known to chemists, but aremark-
able and hitherto undescribed example is afforded in the case of the mixed oxalates of the
cerium-metals, got by precipitating their nitric solution with oxalic acid in the cold. A
tough pitchy mass was thus repeatedly obtained which, in a few minutes, changed into
incoherent crystalline grains, the conversion being attended with a notable evolution of
heat. Another example of a somewhat similar phenomenon is presented in the case of
the amorphous insoluble malate of lead, which, as is well known, spontaneously changes
into crystals beneath the liquid in which it has been precipitated.
§ 112. In the paper above quoted on the salts of lime and magnesia, I have described
not less remarkable examples of similar transformations in the case of the carbonates of
lime and magnesia. A paste of hydrous carbonate of magnesia precipitated in the cold,
slowly changes under water, at ordinary temperatures, into a crystalline mass made up of
prisms, grouped in spherical aggregations, of the well-known terhydrated magnesian carbo-
nate. In like manner, the amorphous paste got by triturating in a mortar a solution
of chlorids of calcium and magnesium, in equivalent proportions, with the requisite
amount of a solution of neutral carbonate of soda is, at a temperature of from 65° to 80°
C., changed, after a few hours, into an aggregate of translucent crystalline spheres of a
hydrous double carbonate, resembling the hydrodolomite of von Kobell. At temperatures
of from 15° to 18° C., the same magma changes slowly into a more highly hydrated com-
pound. The process of change, which requires from twelve to twenty-five days, appeared
“to consist in the formation of nuclei from which crystallization proceeded until every
particle of the once voluminous, opaque, and amorphous precipitate had become translucent,
dense, and crystalline.” The product is made up of brilliant prisms, apparently oblique,
grouped around centres, and sometimes forming spheres five or six millimetres in diameter.
The hydrated double carbonate of lime and magnesia, thus formed in presence of a
* Hunt, Contributions to the History of Lime and Magnesia Salts; Part ii., 1866. Amer. Jour. Science, vol.
xlii., pp. 58, 59.
56 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
slight excess of carbonate of soda, was found to contain more than two per cent. of the latter,
but it was not certain whether this did not proceed from an admixture of the hydrous
double carbonate of lime and soda, gaylussite. The new composition itself was described
as having the composition of a gaylussite, in which magnesium replaces sodium. The
production of crystals of true gaylussite, as observed by Fritzsche, by the slow crystalliza-
tion of the gelatinous precipitate got when a strong solution of carbonate of soda in excess
is mingled with one of calcium-chlorid, is another remarkable example of the phenomenen
under consideration.
Fritzsche moreover observed that it is not necessary that the lime-carbonate should be
in its gelatinous form in order to produce this compound, since the previously precipitated
carbonate when digested with a solution of carbonate of soda, slowly combines with it to
form the crystalline hydrous double salt. More remarkable still is the observation of H.
Ste. Claire Deville, which I have repeatedly verified, that a paste of magnesia alba and
bicarbonate of soda, with water, is slowly changed, at a temperature of from 60° to 70° C.,
into a transparent crystalline anhydrous double carbonate of lime and soda, hexagonal in
form, and called by its discoverer a soda-dolomite.”
§ 113. In this connection, it should be said that we have here an explanation of the
formation of the double carbonate of lime and magnesia which constitutes ordinary dolo-
mite. The origin of this mineral species, which so often constitutes rock-masses, is still
generally misunderstood. The baseless notion of its production by a metasomatosis or
partial replacement of the lime in ordinary limestone, imagined by the older geologists, 1s
still repeated, and holds its place in the literature of the science, despite the facts of geog-
nosy and of chemistry. I have long since shown, by multiplied examples, that the ordinary
mode of the occurrence of dolomite in nature is not in-accordance with this hypothesis
of its origin, since beds of dolomite, or more or less magnesian limestone, are found
alternating, sometimes in thin and repeated layers, with beds of non-magnesian carbonate
of lime. Moreover, beds of crystalline dolomite, conglomerate in character, are found to
enclose pebbles and fragments of pure non-magnesian carbonate of lime. I have also ex-
plained at length the natural reactions by which precipitates consisting of a greater or less
proportion of hydrous carbonate of magnesia, mixed with carbonate of lime, must, in past
ages, have been laid down in the waters of lakes and inland seas, in some cases with, and
in others without, the simultaneous formation of sulphate of lime.
It was, moreover, found that the reaction at an elevated temperature in presence of
water, between sulphate of magnesia and an excess of carbonate of lime, supposed by
Haidinger and von Morlot to explain the frequent association of gypsum and dolomite,
does not yield the double carbonate, since the carbonate of magnesia separates in an anhy-
drous form, and does not combine with the carbonate of hme. Finally, it was shown that
mixtures of hydrous carbonate of magnesia and carbonate of lime, when heated together in
presence of water, unite to form the anhydrous double carbonate which constitutes dolo-
mite. In my experiments, their combination, with the formation of dolomite, was effected
rapidly, at 120° C., but many considerations lead to the conclusion that its production in
®Hunt, Contributions to the History of Lime and Magnesia Salts, part ii., 1866. Amer. Jour. Science, vol.
xlii., pp. 54-57.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 57
nature is effected slowly at much lower temperatures, and that the formation of the
hydrous double carbonate already described is, perhaps, an intermediate stage in the
process.'”
§ 114. The reactions described in the preceding paragraphs between the elements of
comparatively insoluble substances in the presence of water, resulting not only in the con-
version of amorphous into crystalline bodies, but in the breaking-up of old combinations,
as well as in the union of unlike matters mechanically mingled to form new crystalline
species, are instructive examples of what Giimbel has termed DIAGENESIS. The changes
in the masonry of the old Roman baths in contact with thermal waters, resulting in the
hydration of the substance of the bricks, and its conversion into zeolitic minerals; the
hydration of volcanic glasses, with similar results, going on, even at low temperatures,
in the deep sea; the decomposition of common glass by heated water; the conversion
of basaltic rock into palagonite and the production therefrom of zeolites; the similar
changes seen elsewhere in amygdaloids, and even in massive basic plutonic rocks, are also
examples of this process of diagenesis, and serve to show its great geological significance.
We have already suggested the intervention of similar reactions in past ages among the
sediments from the subaérial decay of felspathic rocks, in some cases with the concurrence
of the secretions from the primary basic stratum, which, in accordance with the crenitic
hypothesis, we suppose to have been the source of soluble mineral silicates. In the
diagenesis of these early argillaceous sediments, aided by crenitic action, will, it is
believed, be found the origin of many of the crystalline schists of the transition rocks.
§ 115. An instructive phase in this diagenetic process is that of the gradual conversion
of smaller crystalline grains or crystals into larger ones, which is familiar to chemists.
This action is in fact nearly akin to that which takes place in the transformation of amor-
phous into crystalline precipitates, since in both cases a partial solution precedes the
crystallization. It is well known that, as a result of successive solution and re-deposition,
large crystals may be built up at the expense of smaller ones. This process, as H. Deville
has shown, “suffices, under the influence of the changing temperature of the seasons, to
convert many fine precipitates into crystalline aggregates, by the aid of liquids of slight
solvent powers. A similar agency may be supposed to have effected the crystallization of
buried sediments, and changes in the solyent power of the permeating water might be
due either to variations of temperature or of pressure. Simultaneously with this process,
one of chemical union of heterogeneous elements may go on, and in this way, for example,
we may suppose that the carbonates of lime and magnesia become united to form dolomite
or magnesian limestone.” !!!
§ 116. The tendency of the dissolved material in this process to crystallize around nuclei
of its own kind, rather than on foreign particles, is a familiar fact, and its geological import-
ance, to which I first called attention, as above, in 1869, was again pointed out by Sorby in
1880, when he showed that dissolved quartz might be deposited upon clastic grains of
this mineral in perfect optical and crystallographic continuity, so that each broken frag-
ment of quartz is changed into a definite crystal, as was seen in his microscopic
™ Hunt, Contributions to the Chemistry of Lime and Magnesia, part i., 1859. Amer. Jour. Sci., xxviii., pp.
170,365, and part ii., 1866, vol. xii., p. 49; also in abstract in Chem. and Geol. Essays, pp. 80-92.
“! Hunt, The Chemistry of the Earth, Report Smithsonian Institution, 1869; also Chem, and Geol. Essays, p. 305.
Sec, ITI., 1884, 8,
58 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
studies of various sandstones.’ This fact has been confirmed by the observations of Young,
Irving, and Wadsworth in the United States ;"* and Bonney has suggested the possible
extension of such a process to feldspar, hornblende and other minerals.
Vanhise has very recently announced that his microscopical examinations of cer-
tain sandstones of the Keweenian series, from Lake Superior, afford evidence of the second-
ary deposition of both orthoclase and plagioclase feldspar, in crystallographic continuity
upon broken feldspathic grains, in one case uniting the two parts of a broken feldspar-
crystal. The sandstones which have yielded these examples are made up in part of feld-
spathic fragments, and in part of fragments of “ some altered basic rocks.” They are more-
over, interstratified with and, in some case at least, immediately underlie the basic plutonic
rocks of the same Keweenian series.® When we consider that orthoclase is a common
secretion of these basic rocks, as is shown by its frequent occurrence in them with zeolites
and epidote, it may perhaps be questioned whether the secondary feldspar in the sand-
stone has been derived from the adjacent grains of this mineral, or has come into solution
from the transformation of the basic rocks. The apparent stability and insolubility of
orthoclase and oligoclase at high temperatures in the presence of water, as observed by
Daubrée, would seem to favour the latter view. In any case, it is a striking illustration
of the tendency of mineral species to crystallize around nuclei of their own kind, which is
so marked a factor in the development of the crystalline rocks.
IV.—ConNcLUSIONS.
$ 117. We reviewed in the first part of this essay the history of the different hypotheses
hitherto proposed to explain the origin of the crystalline rocks and, in doing so, reached the
conclusion that not one of them affords an adequate solution of the various problems pre-
sented by the chemical, mineralogical and geognostical characters of the rocks in question :
at the same time, we endeavored to show succinctly what are the principal conditions to
which a satisfactory hypothesis must conform. In the second part, we sketched the growth
and development, during the last quarter of a century, of what we believe to be such a
hypothesis. In the third part, we sought to bring together a great number of facts, both
new and old, which serve to illustrate the new hypothesis; according to which the crystal-
line stratiform rocks, as well as many erupted rocks, are supposed to have been derived
by the action of waters from a primary superficial layer, regarded as the last portion of the
globe solidified in cooling from a state of igneous fluidity. This, which we have described
as a basic, quartzless rock, is conceived to have been fissured and rendered porous during
crystallization and refrigeration, and thus rendered permeable to considerable depths to the
waters subsequently precipitated upon it. Its surface being cooled by radiation, while its
base reposed upon a heated solid interior, upward and downward currents would establish
a system of aqueous circulation in the mass, to which its porous but unstratified condition
would be very favorable. The materials which heated subterraneous waters would bring
Sorby, Presidential Address, Quar. Jour. Geo. Soc. London, xxxvi., 33.
7% Young, Amer. Jour. Sci., xxiy., 47. Irving, Ibid, xxv., 401. Wadsworth, Proc. Boston Soc, Natural History,
Feb. 7, 1883.
1 Bonney, Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxxix., 19.
15 Vanhise, Amer. Jour, Sci., 1884., xxvii., 399.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 59
to the surface, there to be deposited, would be not unlike those which have been removed,
by infiltrating waters in various subsequent geological ages, from erupted masses of similar
basic rock ; which, we have reason to believe, are but displaced portions of this same primary
layer. The mineral species removed from these latter rocks, or segregated in their cavities,
are, as is well known, chiefly silica in the form of quartz, silicates of lime and alkalies, and
certain double silicates of these bases with alumina, including zeolites and feldspars, besides
oxyds of iron and carbonate of lime; the latter species being due to the intervention of
atmospheric carbonic acid. The absence from these minerals of any considerable propor-
tion of iron-silicate, and, save in rare and exceptional conditions, of magnesia, is a significant
fact in the history of the secretions from basic rocks, the transformation of which, under
the action of permeating waters, has resulted in the conversion of the material into quartz
and various silicates of alumina, lime, and alkalies, while leaving behind a more basic and
insoluble residue abounding in silicated compounds of magnesia and iron-oxyd with
alumina.
§ 118. The peculiarities resulting from this comparative insolubility of magnesian
silicates long ago attracted the attention of the writer. The addition, to solutions like sea-
water, of bicarbonate of magnesia, which is a product of the sub-aérial decay of basic rocks,
would, it was shown, effect a separation of dissolved lime-salts in the form of carbonate,
leaving the magnesia in solution as chlorid or as sulphate ; while on the contrary the action
of such anatural water with certain silicates, whether solid or in solution, containing lime
or alkalies, would effect a removal of the dissolved magnesia. At the same time it was
shown that, “by digestion at ordinary temperatures, with an excess of freshly precipitated
silicate of lime, chlorid of magnesium is completely decomposed, an insoluble silicate of mag-
nesia being formed, while nothing but chlorid of calcium remains in solution. It is clear
that the greater insolubility of the magnesian silicate, as compared with silicate of lime,
determines a reaction the very reverse of that produced by carbonates with solutions of the
two earthy bases. In the one case, the lime is separated as carbonate, the magnesia remain-
ing in solution, while in the other, by the action of silicate of soda, or of lime, the magnesia
is removed and the lime remains. Hence carbonate of lime and silicate of magnesia are
found abundantly in nature, while carbonate of magnesia and silicate of lime are produced
only under local and exceptional circumstances. It is evident that the production from
the waters of the early seas of beds of sepiolite, tale, serpentine, and other rocks in which a
magnesian silicate abounds, must, in closed basins, have given rise to waters in which
chlorid of calcium would predominate.” !"
§ 119. From this reaction it would follow that the magnesian salts, formed when the
first acid waters from the atmosphere fell upon the primary stratum, would be removed
from solution, either by the direct action of the solid rock, or by that of the pectolitic
secretions derived therefrom in the earliest ages. The primeval ocean, if, as we sup-
pose, a universal one, would soon be deprived of magnesian salts, and henceforth the
early-deposited rocks would be essentially granitic in composition, a nd non-magnesian,
until the introduction of magnesia into its waters from an exterior source.
The pectolitic silicates, themselves, which, in the cavities of exotic basic rocks, are
deposited in crystalline forms, would, if set free in a sea deprived of magnesian salts, be
™ Amer. Jour, Sci., 1865, vol. xl, p. 49; also Chem. and Geol. Essays, p. 122.
60 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
readily decomposed by the carbonic acid everywhere present, with separation of free silica
and carbonate of lime. From this would be formed the first deposits of limestone, which
make their appearance in the old gneissic rocks and become mingled with magnesian car-
bonate and silicates from the introduction of magnesian salts into the waters. The
comparative instability of the lime-silicate is seen when wollastonite is compared with
the corresponding silicates, pyroxene and enstatite. It is possible, notwithstanding the
absence of magnesian species from zeolitic secretions, that, under certain conditions, small
portions of magnesian silicate may have been included in the early crenitic deposits, but
the rarity of such magnesian silicates in these, and their abundance in parts of the later
Laurentian and in younger deposits, points to a new source of the magnesian element;
namely, the extravasation of portions of the underlying primary mass, and its sub-
aérial decay.
It would be instructive to consider in this relation the gradual removal of a large pro-
portion of silica from the primary stratum in the forms of orthoclase, albite and quartz,
and the consequent partial exhaustion of portions of this underlying mass, so that its suc-
ceeding secretions consisted chiefly of less silicic silicates, such as labradorite and andesite,
without quartz, as in the Norian series.
§ 120. The conditions of this first exoplutonic action cannot be fully understood until
we have settled the question of the permanence of continental and oceanic areas, and the
extent of the early crenitic rocks which constitute the fundamental granites and the granit-
oid gneisses. Whether these are spread, with their vast thickness, alike underneath the
great areas of the paleozoic series and our modern oceanic basins ; in brief, whether or not
they are universal, as supposed by Werner, is a question which cannot here be discussed.
There is, however, nothing incompatible with what we know of the chemistry of the
early rocks and the early ocean in the supposition that they were universal, since there is
apparently no evidence that the products of subaérial decay of exposed rocks intervened in
their production. Such a condition of things was, however, necessarily self-limited ; the
great diminution of the primary mass, from the constant removal of portions of it in a state
of solution, and the vast accumulated weight of the superincumbent accumulated granitic
and gneissic material, could not fail to result in widely spread and repeated corrugations
and foldings of the overlying mass, the effects of which are seen in the universally wrinkled
and frequently vertical attitude of the oldest gneissic rocks. Such a process, like the simi-
lar though less considerable moyements in later times, would probably be attended with
outflows, in the form of fissure-eruptions, of the underlying basic stratum, which, in
accordance with our hypothesis, was permeated with water under conditions of tempera-
tures and pressure that must have given to it a partial liquidity. Such a process of collapse
and corrugation of the crenitic deposits, attended with extravasation of the underlying
primary stratum, would, doubtless, be often repeated in these early periods, resulting in
frequent stratigraphical discordances, which are, however, in all cases to be looked upon as
local accidents, and not as wide-spread catastrophes. Hence the appearance, from time to
time, of exoplutonic rocks, with upliftings and depressions of the older rocks, which caused
the exposure of both alike to the action of the atmosphere.
§ 121. The consequent subaérial decay of these two types henceforth introduced new
factors into the rock-forming processes of the time, and made the beginning of what Werner
called the Transition period. The decomposition of these, under the influence of a moist
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 61
atmosphere holding carbonic acid, resulted in the more or less complete removal of the
alkali from the feldspars of crenitic rocks, and their conversion into kaolin, while the corres-
ponding changes in the basic exoplutonic rocks were still more noteworthy. These rocks,
while containing feldspars, consisted in large part of silicates of lime and magnesia, pre-
sumably pyroxene and chrysolite, which, as we are aware, yield to the action of the atmos-
phere the whole of their lime and magnesia. These, in the form of carbonates, passed into
solution together with a large proportion of silica, leaving behind the remaining portion,
together with non-oxyd and the kaolin from the feldspars. The carbonates of alkalies,
of lime, and of magnesia, resulting from the subaérial decay of the exposed exoplutonic
and the crenitic rocks alike, were carried to the sea, there to play an important part.
Besides the direct influx of carbonate of lime into the waters of that time, it is evident that
both the alkaline and the magnesian bicarbonates would react upon the calcium-chlorid
of the primeval sea, with the production of a farther amount of lime-carbonate, and the
generation of alkaline and magnesian chlorids. In this way, the sea becoming magne-
sian, a new order of things was established. Henceforth, the pectolitic matters brought
up from the primary layer would at once react upon the dissolyed magnesian salts, and
the production of such compounds as chondrodite, chrysolite, serpentine, and tale would
commence. No one who has studied the mode of occurrence of these silicates in the upper
part of the Laurentian series, where serpentine not only forms layers, but frequent concre-
tions like flints, often around nuclei of white pyroxene, can fail to recognize the process
which then came into play, resulting later in the production of abundance of pyroxene,
hornblende and enstatite, and apparently reaching its culmination in the vast amount of
magnesian silicates found in the deposits of the Huronian age.
§ 122 The solutions of simple silicates of alkalies, which by heat had deposited their
excess of silica in the form of quartz, as in the case of the soluble matter from glass, probably
gave rise by their reaction with magnesian solutions to the basic protoxyd-silicates, like
chondrodite, chrysolite, serpentine and pyroxene. That we have no anhydrous quadri-
silicates corresponding to apophyllite and okenite is apparently due te the fact that such
silicates, in contact with water at eleyated temperatures, break up into anhydrous bisili-
cates and quartz; as is seen in the artificial association of pyroxene and quartz in the experi-
ments of Daubrée, and the frequent occurrence of admixtures of the two in beds among the
ancient gneissic rocks. A noticeable fact in the history of the surbasic silicates of mag-
nesia and related protoxyd-bases, mentioned above, is their frequent association with non-
silicated oxyds. Examples of this familiar to mineralogists are the occurrence of aggregates
of chondrodite and magnetite; of chromite, picotite, ilmenite and corundum with chry-
solite and serpentine; and of franklinite and zincite with tephroite and willemite. These
collocations are probably connected with the solvent power of solutions of alkaline silicates,
already insisted upon (§ 89), and probably also with the dissociation of silicate of alumina
in heated alkaline solutions, noticed by H. Deville (§ 98).
The separation, by the alternate action of decaying organic matters and of atmospheric
oxygen, of iron-oxyd, which readily passes from a soluble ferrous to an insoluble ferric
condition, and conversely, has probably played an important part in the formation of depo-
sits of iron-oxyds, which are much more cosmopolitan in their associations than corundum,
or the compounds of chromic, titanic, aluminic, manganic and zincic oxyds mentioned
above, to which we have assigned a different origin. It will remain for the mineralogist
62 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
to determine what deposits of magnetite and of hematite are to be ascribed to the one and
what to the other origin.
§ 123. We have seen, among the secretions of basic rocks, lime-alumina silicates,
like epidote and prehnite, in which the ratio of the protoxyd-bases to alumina, instead of
being 1: 3, as in the feldspars and the zeolites, is 14: 3 or even2: 3. Although, probably
on account of their solubility and their instability, we do not know of any natural sili-
cates with a still larger proportion of lime to the alumina, we have indirect evidence of
their former existence in solution, in the frequent occurrence of double silicates of magnesia
and alumina, in which the oxygen-ratio of R, al, instead of being 1: 3, as in the feldspars, or
2: 3,as in prehnite, becomes 3: 3 and even 6 : 3, as seen in the magnesian micas and in the
chlorites. Such silicates, often with epidote, abound in the rocks of Huronian age.
This process by which, through the intervention of silicated secretions from the sub-
stratum, the magnesian salts are removed from the sea-water, is, as we have shown, the
reverse of that which takes place through the action of the carbonates from the subaérial
decay of silicated rocks precipitating lime-salts and giving rise to magnesian waters, if not
over oceanic areas, at least in inland basins of greater or less extent. Alternations of this
kind must have been frequent in geological history, and we have evidence of a wide-
spread phenomenon of this kind foliowing the Huronian age, when in seas, from which
magnesian salts were apparently for the most part excluded, were deposited the gneisses
and mica-schists of the Montalban series. These, in very many places, are found resting
directly, often in unconformable superposition, upon the older or Laurentian gneisses, but
elsewhere upon the Huronian, showing the intervention of extensive movements of eleva-
tion and subsidence, and probably of denudation, subsequent to the Huronian time.
§ 124. The introduction on a limited scale, into the sea-basins of the Montalban time, of
magnesian salts is evident from the occasional appearance of magnesian silicates in the Mont-
alban rocks. The most noteworthy fact in their history is, however, the appearance in
this series, with gneisses which differ from those of older times in being finer grained
and less granitoid, of deposits containing aluminous silicates characterized by a diminished
proportion of protoxyd-bases. Such as these are the beds of quartzose schists holding
non-magnesian micas and the simple silicates, andalusite, fibrolite and cyanite. It has
already been mentioned that, in the formation of these rocks, the more or less completely
decomposed feldspar from the subaérial decay of older crenitic rocks may have been brought
into the areas of deposition. Either such clays, still retaining a portion of alkali from
undecayed feldspar, or else admixtures of kaolin with the elements of a feldspar or a
zeolite might, as has been suggested, yield by diagenesis, muscovite and quartz, with one
of the simple aluminous silicates just named. That a process of subaérial decay was in
progress in the Montalban time is shown by the presence in the mica-schists of this
series, at several localities in Saxony and elsewhere, as described by Sauer and subse-
quently noticed by the present writer, of “ boulders of decay,” having all the appear-
ance of those formed during the atmospheric decay of the older gneisses.” The
intervention in the deposits of that period of somewhat basic zeolitic minerals, is shown
by the presence in the younger gneissic series of Germany of large masses of so-called
107 Sauer, in 1879, Zeitschrift f. d. ges. Naturwiss. Bandlii; also Hunt, Amer. Jour. Sci., 1883, vol. xxvi. p. 197,
and Trans. Roy. Soc. Can. vol. i., part 4, p. 194.
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 63
dichroite or iolite-gneiss, and the occasional occurrence of iolite in the younger or Montal-
ban gneisses of New England.
§ 125. The predominance of micaceous schists of the muscovitic type in the upper por-
tions of the Montalban, marks the growing change in the conditions of the process which
gave rise to the indigenous crystalline rocks, a process continued with many modifica-
tions, and with diminished energy, through the subsequent period of the Taconian.
This was marked by the deposit of quartzites, limestones, and argillites, and also
by the intercalation of schistose beds, characterized by an abundance of damourite
or related micaceous minerals, as well as by the presence of matters apparently felds-
pathic, which seldom take upon themselves the characters of well-defined species,
though found transformed by subaérial decay into a form of kaolin, and in some instances
apparently assuming the state of an imperfect gneiss. These Taconian schists, which
require careful chemical and microscopic study, also include serpentine, talc, pyroxene,
epidote and garnet. The appearance in paleozoic argillites of crystals of rutile, of tour-
maline, and of staurolite, indicates a latter stage of that condition of things which
marked the crenitic process of pre-paleozoic times, and made possible the formation of the
whole vast series of primitive and transition crystalline schists which we have sought to
include under the names of Laurentian, Norian, Arvonian, Huronian, Montalban and Taco-
nian—designating in their order the upward succession of these great groups from the
fundamental granitoid gneisses (here included in the Laurentian) to the dawn of paleozoic
time. The Arvonian or petrosilex group intervenes between the Laurentian and the Huro-
nian. The peculiar characters of the Norian, and its localization to some few limited
areas in Europe and North America, make it difficult for us, as yet, to define its precise
relations to the Arvonian. The Norian, however, like the Arvonian, probably occupies a
horizon between Laurentian and Huronian. Much time may pass, and many stratigra-
phical studies must be made, before the precise relations of the Huronian and the succeed-
ing Montalban can be defined. It seems probable, in the present state of our knowledge,
that the Montalban series, though of great thickness, was, in many cases, deposited over
areas where the Huronian had never been laid down. Notwithstanding the great geograph-
ical extent and the importance of these two series, neither can claim that universality
which apparently belonged to the primitive granitic stratum; a universality soon inter-
rupted by the uplifting of portions of dry land, an event which preceded Huronian time.
§ 126. That the production of large quantities of similar pectolitic silicates, in regions
remote from exotic rocks, was continued from the Pre-Cambrian to far more recent times
is evident, from the presence of a considerable deposit of serpentine among the horizontal
Silurian dolomites of Syracuse, New York, of which the writer has elsewhere recorded
the history," and also from the well-known beds of sepiolite found with opal in the
tertiary dolomites of the Paris basin.® The recent amorphous zeolitic deposits in
tertiary sandstone in Switzerland ( 94), and the compounds referred in the foot-note to
§ 104, should not be forgotten in this connection.
Whether the silicates brought from below by crenitic action were directly separated as
feldspars, as crystalline zeolites, or as gelatinous precipitates to be subsequently changed
18 Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., vol. i., part 4, pp. 174-177.
19 Hunt, on the Dolomites of the Paris Basin, 1860. Amer. Jour. Sci., xxix., p. 284.
64 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
by diagenesis into crystalline hydrous or anhydrous species, are questions for farther dis-
cussion. The range of temperature through which we have noted the crystallization of
chabazite, and the association of orthoclase by contemporaneous or subsequent crystalliza-
tion with hydrous species like zeolites and chlorite, lead us to conclude that for the hydrous
and anhydrous aluminous double silicates alike, a considerable range of temperature is
permissible. In any case, we find nothing in the conditions of the formation of zeolitic
minerals in the past, any more than in modern times, incompatible with the existence of
organic life.
§ 127. The phenomena of exoplutonic action, or so-called vulcanicity, though relegated
to a secondary place in the crenitic hypothesis, are yet, as we have said, of great importance
and significance, and are by no means simple. They were, according to our hypothesis,
confined in early times to fissure-eruptions of the underlying primary stratum. This,
although in the course of ages it has suffered a gradual change from the ceaseless crenitic
action, which has removed from it the elements of the various series of crystalline rocks,
including the primitive granitic and gneissic series, probably still retains in the lower
portions somewhat of its original constitution. A second phase in the history of exoplu-
tonic rocks, already foreseen by the Huttonians, here presents itself for our consideration.
The more deeply buried portions of the primitive crenitic deposit, must themselves have
been brought within the influence of the central heat, and, permeated as they were by
water, have suffered a softening which permitted them, as a result of subsequent move-
ments of the crust, to appear again at the earth’s surface as exoplutonic or exotic rocks
of the trachytic or granitic type.
We can hardly suppose the displacement, either of the primary igneous mass or of the
early granitic deposits, to have been attended with the evolution of permanent gases, such
as attend modern volcanic eruptions and are to be ascribed to the action of subterraneous
heat on more recent deposits, including carbonates, sulphates, chlorids and organic matters.
Such materials, when mingled with silicious and argillaceous sediments, and brought by
local accumulation and depression within the heated zone would give rise to the various
gases which characterize the volcanic eruptions of recent periods, in which, however, the
materials of the underlying primary and crenitic layers apparently intervene.
By thus ascribing a three-fold origin to the products of exoplutonie action, it becomes
possible to classify and harmonize the apparently discordant phenomena of eruptive
rocks. While the typical basalts and related basic rocks would be derived from the primary
igneous stratum, and the trachytic and granitic rocks from the earlier crenitic deposits, the
more fusible portions of the later transition and secondary strata may have furnished their
contingent, not only of gases and vapors, but of lavas and volcanic dust.
§ 128. The history of the origin of crystalline rocks is the history of the origin of the
mineral species which compose them. The crystalline masses are essentially made up
of a few groups of species. Various feldspars and occasional zeolites, some of which
apparently occur as integral parts of rocks chiefly feldspathic, form a great central group.
On one side of these are the aluminous double silicates, represented by basic species like
garnet, epidote, magnesian micas and chlorites, all with an excess of protoxyd-bases;
while, on the other hand are the aluminous double silicates of the muscovitic and pinitic
groups, in which the diminished proportion of the protoxyd-bases prepares the way to the
associated simple aluminous silicates, pyrophyllite, andalusite, cyanite, etc. To these
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 65
groups must be added the non-aluminous silicates, including hornblende, pyroxene, ensta-
tite and chrysolite, and the hydrous magnesian species, serpentine and tale. Besides these
are free silica, generally as quartz, free oxyds, including the spinel and corundum groups,
which, together with the carbonates, make up the essential parts of the crystalline rocks.
§ 129. Rock-masses, and the mineral species which compose them, present variations in
time, as we find in tracing the history of the great successive groups of crystalline strata ;
and they moreover show local changes, as seen in different parts of their distribution in the
same geological group. As regards the causes of these variations, very much remains to
be discovered by the patient collection and recording of facts concerning the associations
of mineral species, their artificial production, and their transformations under the influences
of fire and water, and of solutions of potassic, sodic, calcareous and magnesian salts. The
instability of silicated compounds of igneous origin in the presence of water and watery
solutions, so widely diffused through nature, is the warrant for a general aqueous hypo-
thesis; while, on the other hand, the derivation of stable mineral species, under such
influences, from matters of igneous origin justifies us in assuming for these species an
igneous starting point.
Igneous fusion destroys the mineral species of the crystalline stratified rocks, and
brings them back as nearly as possible to the primary undifferentiated material. Fire is
the great destroyer and disorganizer of mineral as well as of organic matter. Subterra-
nean heat in our time, acting upon buried aqueous sediments, destroys carbonates, sul-
phates, and chlorides, with the evolution of acid gases and the generation of basic
silicates, and thus repeats in miniature the conditions of the ante-neptunian chaos,
with its surrounding acidic atmosphere. On the other hand, each mass of cooling igneous
rock in contact with water begins anew the formative process. The hydrated amorphous
product, palagonite, is, if we may be allowed the expression, a sort of silicated protoplasm,
which, in its differentiation, yields to the solvent action of water the crystalline silicates
which are the constituent elements of the crenitic rocks, leaving, at the same time, a more
basic residuum abounding in magnesia and iron-oxyd, and soluble not by crenitic but by
sub-aérial action. Palagonite, or some amorphous matter resembling it, probably marks
a stage in the sub-aqueous transformation of all igneous rocks, though only under special
conditions does this unstable, hydrous substance form appreciable masses. In all cases,
igneous matter, of primary or of secondary origin, serves as the point of departure.
According to the proposed hypothesis, which derives rocks of the granitic type, com-
posed essentially of quartz and feldspars, by aqueous secretion from a primary igneous
and quartzless mass, it would follow that the highly basic compound, assumed by Bunsen
to represent the typical pyroxenic or basaltic rock (§ 24), would be the above mentioned
insoluble residuum; and that less basic varieties of similar rocks would correspond to
portions of the same primary mass, less completely exhausted by lixiviation, and conse-
quently approaching in composition to admixtures of the basaltic and granitic types, as
maintained on other grounds by Bunsen himself.
§ 130. The principles which have been enumerated in the preceding pages will, it is
believed, lead the way, not only to a natural system of mineralogy, but to a natural system
of classification of crystalline rocks, considered with regard alike to their chemical compo-
sition, their genesis, and their geological succession. A valid hypothesis for the crystalline
Sec, IIL, 1884. 9,
66 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
rocks must seek to connect all the known facts of their history, by alleging a true and
sufficient cause for the production of their various constituent mineral species. Such a
hypothesis will violate no established principles in chemistry or in physics, but will show
itself to be in accord with them all, and will commend itself to the acceptance of those
who take the pains to understand it.
The crenitic hypothesis set forth in these pages is the result of many years of patient
study applied to the elucidation of a great problem; and as such is offered to chemists and
mineralogists as a first attempt at a rational explanation of the fundamental questions
presented by the history of the crystalline rocks of the earth’s crust.
CONTENTS OF SECTIONS.
I.—Historical and Critical.—§ 1, 2. Supposed igneous origin of crystalline rocks ; views of Lehman, Pallas, de Luc
and Saussure.—3, 4. Werner’s neptunian system ; his primitive, transition and secondary rocks.—5.
System of Hutton; his interpreter Playfair; nature of granite.—6, 7. Indigenous, exotic and endogenous
rocks ; significance of eruption in geology.—8, 9. The schools of Werner and Hutton contrasted; their
unlike views of the origin of granite and of gneiss; Hutton the founder of the metamorphic school.—10,
11. Hutton’s system farther defined; its analysis by Daubrée.—12. The theological aspects of the two
systems.—13. Delabeche’s modified neptunian system.—14, 15. Daubrée’s later statement of the same ;
the intervention of internal heat.—16. The granitic substratum of Werner adopted by Huttonians.—17.
Poulett Scrope’s theory of the origin of granite and of gneiss.—18. Beroldingen and Saussure on the
detrital origin of gneiss; views of Bouë.—19. Lyell on the Huttonian or metamorphic hypothesis;
Bischof and Haidinger on pseudomorphie alteration; a metasomatic hypothesis.—20. Naumann’s criti-
cism of metamorphism ; the chaotic, endoplutonic, exoplutonic and thermochaotie hypotheses.—21, 22.
Endoplutonism as defined by Naumann and by Hébert; Macfarlane’s statement of the endoplutonic
and thermochaotic hypotheses.—24. Supposed condition of the earth’s interior ; the two magmas of Bun-
sen; Von Waltershausen’s views.—25. The exoplutonic or volcanic hypothesis as stated by J. D. Dana
in 1843.—26. Metamorphism by an incandescent ocean.—27, 28. This view since abandoned by Dana;
his statement of the metamorphic hypothesis.—29. Clarence King on metamorphism, and the sup-
posed igneous origin of olivine.—30. Kopp, Térnebohm and Reusch on the exoplutonic hypothesis.—
31. Marr and C. H. Hitchcock on the same; its relation to the origin and permanence of continents.—
32. Various geologists on the supposed eruption of limestones, serpentines and iron-ores; H. D. Rogers
and Belt on the igneous origin of quartz lodes.—33. The eruptive origin of rock-salt, buhrstone and cer-
tain clays and sands maintained by many.—34. Water in the formation of granites; Scrope, Elie de
Beaumont and Scheerer; pyrognomic minerals; hydroplutonic origin of serpentine.—35. Excesses of
the exoplutonic school; transmutation or metasomatism.—36. Metasomatosis of silicated rocks; their
supposed conversion into serpentine and limestone; King and Rowney.—37, 38. Chrysolite rocks of
the Atlantic belt; conflicting views of Genth and Julien as to their supposed alteration (Dana’s criti-
cisms, foot-note).—39, 40. Metasomatosis of limestones; views of Volger, Bischof and Pumpelly.—41.
The endoplutonic, exoplutonie, metamorphic, metasomatic, chaotic and thermochaotic hypotheses
summed up.— 42. The endoplutonic and exoplutonic reviewed.—43, 44. The metamorphic, metasomatic
and chaotic reviewed.—45. The thermochaotic; conditions of the problem of rock-formation.
IL—The Development of a New Hypothesis—§ 47. The lines of investigation followed.—48, 49. Order and succession
of crystalline rocks.—50, 51. The hypothesis proposed in 1858 of a solid globe and a superficial layer as
the source of all rocks.—52. Farther speculations in 1859 on the source of acidic and basic rocks.—
54. Developments in 1867-1869; the secondary origin of granite, and the underlying primary basic
stratum.—55. The aqueous origin of many mineral silicates.—56, 57. Geological significance of zeolites, and
their relations to feldspars.—58,59. On feldspathic and granitic veins.—60, 61. Relations of granitic veins
to indigenous granites and gneisses.—62. Conclusions announced in 1879.—63. Relations of alumina in
silicates to protoxyd bases.—64. Source of granitic elements; Scheerer, Elie de Beaumont.—65. The
secondary origin of granite.—66. Bunsen on palagonite, its origin and changes ; composition of trachytic
ORIGIN OF CRYSTALLINE ROCKS. 67
and basaltic magmas and of palagonite (foot-note).—67, 68. A primary quartzless rock the source of
granite and of crystalline schists.—69. Its separation by water into a lower basic, and an upper acidic
portion.—70. Shrinking of the former and wrinkling of the latter ; exoplutonic rocks ; the crenitic hypo-
thesis.—71. Its growth from 1858 to 1884.
UI.—Tilustrations of the Crenitic Hypothesis.—§ 72. The new hypothesis defined.—73, 74. The study of zeolitic rocks.
—75. Zeolites of Table Mountain, Colorado.—76. Zeolites and feldspathic veins of Mount Royal.—77. The
mineral secretions of basic rocks classified.—78. Zeolites and related silicates ; a tabular view.—79. The
thomsonite and nephelite series.—S0. Barsowite, iolite, and related species; the natrolite and labrado-
rite series; the faujasite and heulandite series; orthoclase.—S1. Prehnite and chlorastrolite; epidote,
saussurite and meionite.—82. The protoxyd bases of zeolites; hematite and magnetite; the pectolitic
group and its related species; chondrodite, chrysolite, serpentine, deweylite ; tabular view.—84. The
bisilicates, hydrous and anhydrous.—85. Quadrisilicates.—86, 87. Daubrée on the action of hot water
on glass; formation of quartz, diopside, a pectolitic species, and a soluble silicate of alumina and soda.
—88, His farther studies of feldspars, etc. ; Frémy on alkaline silicates.—89. Ordway on alkaline silicates ;
solutions of water-glass dissolve metallic oxyds.—90, 91. The thermal waters of Plombiéres ; recent
formation of zeolitic and pectolitic silicates, quartz and calcite.—92. The alteration of bricks by these
warm waters.—93. Similar studies at other thermal springs.—94. Recent production of zeolites in basalt
and sandstone.—95. Their formation in deep-sea ooze.—96, 97. The production of zeolitic silicates in the
laboratory ; results of Berzelius, Ammon, and Way.—98. H. Deville on the formation of zeolites and
quartz.—99. Friedel and Sarrasin on the production of both zeolites and feldspars in heated solutions.
—100. Aluminous silicates with excess of protoxyd bases; their genesis.—101. Reactions of zeolites with
magnesian solutions; Way, Eichhorn, Bunsen.—102. Aluminous silicates with deficiency of protoxyds,
and simple aluminous silicates; muscovitie micas.—103. Probable origin of these silicates.—104. Pinite
and related species ; their composition.—105. Their importance in nature ; the survival of the fittest.—
106. The supposed chemical relations of pinite—107, 108. A natural system of mineralogical classi-
fication —109. Conditions of erystallization from water; solubility of silicates and oxyds.—110. Tempo-
rary solubility of carbonate of lime; a hydrocarbonate.—111. Conversion of amorphous into crystalline
matters; cerium-oxalates; malate of lead.—112. Crystallization of hydrous magnesian carbonate, and
hydrous double carbonates of lime and magnesia; gaylussite; the soda-dolomite of H. Deville.—113.
Dolomite, its geognostical and chemical history; its origin and formation explained.—114. The process
of diagenesis ——115. Conversion of smaller into larger crystals ; chemical union.—116. Crystallization of
dissolved matters around nuclei; examples from quartz and orthoclase.
TV.— Conclusions.—§ 117. The crenitic hypothesis re-stated.—118 Separation of magnesian salts from sea-water ;
the relations of carbonates and silicates of lime and magnesia.—119. Elimination of magnesia from the
primeval sea; decomposition of pectolitic silicates by carbonic acid, and formation of limestone.—120.
First exoplutonic action ; results of contraction of the primary mass.—121. Sub-aérial decay of exotic
rocks a source of magnesian salts; their reaction with pectolitic silicates —122. Decomposition of alka-
line silicates ; formation of quartz and basic silicates; oxyds of the spinel and corundum groups; their
formation.—123. Surbasic aluminous silicates ; rocks of the Huronian time.—124. Absence of magnesia
from sea-basins; Montalban gneisses and mica-schists ; sub-aërial decay ; boulders of decomposition ;
iolite-gneiss.—125. Taconian series; its micaceous schists; Laurentian, Arvonian, Norian, Huronian,
Montalban and Taconian series; their relations noted.—126. Later evidences of crenitic action; Silurian
serpentine and tertiary sepiolite; conditions of deposition of aluminous silicates compatible with life—
127. Exoplutonic or voleanic phonomena; their probable three-fold origin. —128. The history of crystal-
line rocks resumed.—129. Their changes in time and place; grounds of an aqueous hypothesis and an
igneous point of departure; fire as a destroyer, water as an organizer; relations of palagonite ; separa-
tion of the primary mass into basic and acidic layers.—130. Marks of a valid hypothesis; claims of the
one here proposed.
Nore.—The observations of Vanhise, cited in § 116, have appeared since the presenta-
tion of this paper in May, 1884. The same is true of those of Murray and Rénard, referred
to in § 95, though these had previously been communicated to the present writer.
mm ee on “ — hy BL) Fr”
A 7 ‘
: MS EN ; tar Li
i, * (oe 7 ‘
ihe awe a:
É aa i ACTES É va à
La | | jo i‘. | d
ONS, an 0 an : |
er re Ph ) - 7 M i: RO.
SITES Wan aN Ae Wy AR me oe
1 Reds Seated wey TUE Late. L
7. le AOL oe a Pes =
hah QE TRES ,
=
AA). 4 rants.
ie Ye OUEN |
ae Je
\ PA À
é ROME : : Fe git var
ri ; y D re) oa Dire
A | ] ans 7a eae
ae Nr a r uly
+. | h 7 L Ve
1e i | |
Le ;
by. i i
wal P re a ceive 2 mie 21 a by | hal ee
Lis PAS famed ‘hs ‘à è , ; Vi) at. list ie Se asf
on L 1 4 \ 08 . te 4 ‘Lokal ey i ieee wi k
i ‘ ne à et FT ANT PNR ‘Hd PAiqel
y a wore 27
' V7
f ye ae = le) Ae 2 y 7
| j | Full FES EL
| D A | Lea + Ca = 4
} | ; i à dt +
CARS LÉ 2
all nt à re
v TP A TPS PR a
‘ i D At EL: AN, i LS:
‘ pe PE de fa ur tes RE
‘ 5 | hs | LEAVE NS
ae | oat olf FREIN
: ; Pe i DT 0 Le
; ¢ =.
he ! «7,1 NE te MU
A" 7 ñ
Ae E> Me alates
r Jen:
, . ET =) 271
al 1 phe M
a ae Pie “
vee) A
ww} Mi TR Peres N
N | ‘D NA See ref
= erin a Û
$ LR à -
ET =
LILI Rata SHEER EA ae A
= ath 8 = Le ss 1 i
FR HH co BEEP SEER C EEE Ert
jo | a ip TEE ic SY a a
a De a | | i a Lt El 4. HG tel ste A
10°C Temperature 20° 25 301 35
To illustrate Prof. MacGregors Paper on the Density and Thermal Expansion
of Solutions of Copper Sulphate. Be a nse
ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA.
TRANSACTIONS
SECTION IV.
GEOLOGICAL AND-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.
PAPERS FOR 1884.
Section IV., 1884. et] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
I.—On some Relations of Geological Work in Canada and the Old World.
By J. W. Dawson, C.M.G., LL.D., FRS, &c.
(Read May 21, 1884.)
Ido not propose in this paper to attempt the impossible task of discussing all the
points of contact between the geology of Canada and that of other parts of the world, but
merely to notice a few instances likely to be of interest to this section, which have come
under my own observation, of the relations of scientific work and workers on the two sides
of the Atlantic,—relations which are daily becoming more intimate, and which it may be
hoped will be greatly strengthened by the approaching visit of the British Association to
Montreal.
Beginning with the older crystalline rocks, one is struck with the large amount of
attention at present bestowed on petrology, and especially on the microscopic examination
of rocks. I can recall the time when these subjects scarcely excited any interest, and were
almost entirely neglected by English geologists. The current now sets strongly in this
direction, and many of the younger men are enthusiastic lithologists, while many of the
warmest and most earnest discussions in the Geological Society relate to subjects of this
kind. In connection with this, the comparison of the pre-Cambrian rocks of Britain with
the larger and more complete development of these formations in Canada is pursued by
such men as Bonney and Hicks, and has directed much attention to Canadian geology.
Canada has naturally taken the lead in the discrimination and classification of those
old pre-Cambrian rocks, of which she possesses so large an area. The distinctions made by
Sir W. E. Logan, of the Lower and Upper Laurentian, the Huronian and the Upper Copper-
bearing Series of Lake Superior, were in advance of anything done in Europe at that time,
and they have been ably followed up by Dr. Hunt and by the officers of the Geological
Survey. Corresponding formations are now recognized in Great britain, and in a recent
address delivered by Dr. Hicks, as President of the Geologists’ Association, he contends for
the existence in the British Islands and other parts of Europe of rocks corresponding to the
Lower Laurentian or Ottawa series, to the Middle or Grenville series, to the Norian or
Upper Laurentian, to the Huronian and to the Montalban. I had myself an opportunity
of noticing the remarkable lithological resemblance of the rocks of the St. Gothard Pass to
those of the White Mountains, and I had also the pleasure of recognizing in the gneisses
and crystalline schists of Assouan in Egypt, a series identical in mineral character with
many portions of the Middle Laurentian of Canada ; while overlying deposits, largely made
up apparently of igneous products, seemed to occupy the position of the Arvonian series.
The quarries, from which the ancient Egyptians obtained their fine blocks of red granite
and diorite, are in intrusive dykes and masses penetrating these old stratified rocks,
Sec, IV., 1884. 1.
2 J. W. DAWSON ON SOME RELATIONS OF
Nothing can be more remarkable than the strong similarity in mineral character of these
ancient rocks in all their wide extension in both continents.
The areas occupied by these pre-Cambrian rocks in Great Britain are so limited, and
their statigraphical complexities are so great, that some controversy still exists as to their
arrangement ; but the prospect is that they will ere long be admitted on all hands to cor-
respond in their order of occurrence with the Canadian series.
The long-agitated question of the animal nature of Eozoon Canadense is now in a some-
what quiescent state ; but I have been pleased to find a pretty uniform current of opinion
in its favour among those best qualified to judge. Dr. Carpenter has for some time been
engaged in a careful re-examination of all the more important specimens, with a view to the
publication of an exhaustive monograph on the subject, which is to be illustrated with
large and admirably executed figures. I had the pleasure, shortly after my arrival in
England, of spending a few days with Dr. Carpenter and aiding him in this work, as
well as of furnishing him with notes of the geological relations and mode of occurrence
of the specimens.
Thanks to the labours of Hall, Barrande, and Billings, the correlation of the great
Silurian series of Europe and America is now in a somewhat complete and satisfactory con-
dition. America, which is so eminent in its representation of the life of the Silurian, is
still somewhat behind in the recognition of the Cambrian and the determination of its
fossils. We are however steadily advancing in this matter, more especially in Canada, and
T hope that the excellent work of Mr. Matthew on these ancient fossils, in connection
with this Society, will be continued and enlarged. The re-arrangement and more com-
plete display of the Paleozoic fossils in the new Museum at South Kensington will place
the means of comparison with british forms in a more advanced position than formerly.
When in Belgium, I had the pleasure of examining the interesting collections of
Devonian plants of that country which have been described by M. Crepin. I was struck
with the close correspondence of the forms with ours in Canada,—a correspondence more
marked in the specimens themselves. than in the published engravings, owing to close
similarity of the state of preservation and the containing rock. In Britain also, my friends,
the Rey. Thomas Brown of Edinburgh and Mr. Kidston of Stirling, have been extending
our knowledge of the Devonian flora, and find, as in this country, the lower portions of
that system to be characterized by such forms as Psilophyton, Arthrostigma and Prototazites,
while the ferns of the genus, Archæopteris, and Lepidodendroid species are equally note-
worthy in its upper members. As yet no flora corresponding in richness to that of our
Middle Devonian or Middle Erian has been recognized.
Very remarkable discoveries of millipedes and scorpions have been made by Peach
in the Devonian and Lower Carboniferous of Scotland, which place that country far in
advance of America, though Nova Scotia afforded the earliest Carboniferous millipede
known. That millipedes existed in the Lower Devonian of Scotland is a fact in harmony
with the occurrence of winged insects in the Middle Devonian of New Brunswick. Mr.
Peach’s discoveries also indicate very remarkable affinities between the scorpions and the
eurypterid crustaceans, some of which seem to haye been aquatic scorpions.
With reference to the Carboniferous flora, I had the pleasure of spending a week with
my old friend, Prof. Williamson of Manchester, and of inspecting under the microscope the
magnificent series of preparations of structures which he has been accumulating for many
GEOLOGICAL WORK IN CANADA AND THE OLD WORLD. 3
years, and describing and figuring from time to time in the Transactions of the Royal
Society. I was able to make many notes of these specimens, which I trust will be useful
in advancing the knowledge of this flora in Canada; and I feel convinced that the facts
accumulated by Prof. Williamson and those recently obtained by Grand’Eury and others
in France are rapidly placing us within reach of a comprehension of the affinities and
relationships of the plants of the coal period, much more accurate and definite than we
have heretofore obtained. While new and unexpected conclusions may be reached on this
subject, I have reason to believe that many of the suggestions and anticipations, which I
have ventured to throw out with reference to the plants of the Nova Scotia coal-formation,
and which I have based on facts of mode of occurrence as well as of structure, will be
verified and confirmed. More especially it will, I think, appear that there have been
grouped, under the general name of Sigillaria, plants of very different ranks; while defi-
nite characters will be found to separate the greater part of the plants known as Cordaites
from the true conifers of the genera, Dadoxylon and Araucarites ; and the humble plants of
the group of Rhizocarps will be discovered to have been more important in the Palæozoic
than has hitherto been supposed.
The coal-field of Nova Scotia has afforded a very remarkable group of terrestial
batrachians, not precisely paralleled elsewhere. But recently Fritsch has described, from
the so-called gas-coal deposits of the Permo-carboniferous of Bohemia, a number of very
similar forms, some of them belonging to the same genera with those of Nova Scotia. The
earliest known indications of Carboniferous Batrachians were the footprints discovered by
Logan at Horton Bluff and described by me as Hylopus Logani; but we have not found
actual bones at so low an horizon. I saw, however, in the collections of Dr. Traquair in
Edinburgh, a skull of a large batrachian not yet described, from beds of the same age in
Scotland.
The peculiar development of the Cretaceous and Laramie rocks in our Western Terri-
tories, the rich angiospermous flora which they contain, the insensible gradation upward
of the Cretaceous into the Tertiary, and the small relative development of the marine parts
of the formations, have given a special and exceptional character to these deposits.
Recent discoveries are, however, tending to assimilate the floras of the old and new
worlds in the Cretaceous epoch; and in Great Britain, Mr. Starkie Gardner has recently
shown that the Eocene flora corresponds more nearly with that of America than had here-
tofore been supposed, and that certain floras formerly regarded as Miocene are really older.’
In this way much of the apparent discrepancy will be removed, and we shall probably be
no longer told by European palzeobotanists that floras, which on stratigraphical grounds
or the evidence of animal fossils we know to be Hocene or Cretaceous, are in their estima-
tion Miocene. I had myself occasion to observe in the Cretaceous of the Lebanon, where,
however, the marine limestones are very largely developed, a formation with sandstones,
shales, and clays, containing shells of Ostreæ and nodules of ironstone, as well as fossil wood
1 Since writing the above, I observe that in a paper read before the British Association, Mr. Starkie Gardner
has somewhat incorrectly stated the position of Canadian geologists as to the first appearance of the Cretaceous
flora, which, as explained in my paper in the Transactions of this Society for last year, first presents Dicotyledo-
nous trees, not in the earliest Cretaceous, but in the Middle Cretaceous. Our Lowest Cretaceous holds a strictly
Mesozoic flora, so far as known.
4 J. W. DAWSON ON SOME RELATIONS OF
and beds of lignite, and which, in character and geological horizon, may be held to repre-
sent the Dakota group or the Lower Belly River group of the West.
The opinions of geologists in England, with reference to the vexed question of the
glacial drift, are, I think, gradually diverging from the extreme glacialist views, recently
current, to a position of greater moderation. The great submergence of the later Pleisto-
cene, evidenced by the occurrence of marine shells and sea beaches at high levels, has
forced itself on the attention of geologists in Great Britain, as it has long since done in
Canada, and has produced the general conviction that much of the transport of boulders
and drift has been due to the agency of floating ice. My friend, Mr. Milne Home, who has
for some time been the chairman of the boulder committee of Scotland, informs me that
the careful mapping and study of these travelled masses has thrown much new light on
their directions and mode of conveyance, and that a conference between the English and
Scottish committees is to be held, and will probably still farther aid in the elucidation of
these points. It would seem that a similar committee, or series of committees, might be
profitably employed in recording the statistics of Canadian travelled boulders, and much
preliminary information might be compiled from the reports of the Geological Survey and
the papers published in scientific periodicals.
When in the East, I had an opportunity of satisfying myself as to the occurrence of a
great Pleistocene submergence in the Mediterranean regions, parallel to that in Northern
Europe and America, and succeeded in like manner by a continental period,—a fact very
important with reference to the later geological history and physical geography of the old
continent. The details of these observations will appear in the London Geological
Magazine.
The subject of prehistoric man is at present one of intense interest, and is pursued both
by geologists and archeologists. In Canada we are familiar with the fact that oul
modern aborigines afford, in their manners and implements and weapons, much materiar
for explaining the traces of prehistoric men in older countries. Dr. Daniel Wilson has
most ably illustrated this in his admirable volumes on “Prehistoric Man,” and I have
myself endeavoured to direct attention to it in my little work entitled “ Fossil Men and their
Representatives”; while by a singular coincidence, M. Quatrefages has adopted almost the
same title, ‘““L’Homme fossile et l'Homme sauvage,” for his recent valuable work on this
subject. The admirable collections now accumulated in public museums, and especially
those at St. Germains and at Brussels, and in the British Museum, with such private
collections as those of Mr. John Evans and Prof. Boyd Dawkins, bring very clearly before
the mind of a Canadian student, the striking resemblance between the arts of the perished
peoples of primeval Europe and those so lately universal in the American continent. The
Smithsonian Institution, at Washington, has rightly appreciated the importance of collecting
extensively and preserving for future reference the monuments of the Stone Age of
America. Our efforts in this direction have as yet been comparatively feeble, but it is to
be hoped that they will be greatly extended in the time to come.
Some of the most interesting remains of prehistoric man in the world are those of the
Lebanon range; both because of the abundance and richness of the cavern deposits of that
region, and the fact that some of these antedate the old Phenician colonization of the
coast of Syria. When at Beyrüt I had the opportunity of making collections in some of
the most interesting caverns of the region, and obtained evidence, which I have given in a
GEOLOGICAL WORK IN CANADA AND THE OLD WORLD. 5
paper read before the Victoria Institute, that the oldest cavern deposits, containing remains
of the horse and the rhinoceros, belong to a period in which the physical character of the
country was somewhat different from its present condition, and which may be charac-
terized as Post-glacial or Antediluvian. Other deposits come up to the time of the
Phenician colony.
The subjects referred to in this paper have been but slightly sketched; but it may be
interesting to bear in mind that we are workers together with so many able men on the
Eastern side of the Atlantic, whose works we may study, while we emulate their suc-
cessful labours. I cherish the hope at some future time to direct your attention more
specially to some at least of the subjects cursorily noticed in the present paper.
(a EE ARE
itis rs), Gr Uta. ‘ ‘4 L
PORT SIN CN
Tant
: . \ Tr
Ian te
= the vx , + > a
© Lu no" CA ‘ 1e
Te - i - =
n
LE dé
f v
À L ‘
7 a
pa } ‘_
i
j
.
Lore ti ae lag AS Ka. 4 dut ,
ss
ie eh uy Back re FU ee
pr eres > i.
trs ie NU
DE. À
éd, fry ph PEL
Ne Se bete Fe RCS id
a, 6 i’
J de T2
eo in ALES"
#
ha ©
5
'
ie # ne
a
3».
i
à
|
‘
SECTION IV., 1884. eZ] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA,
IL.— Notes on the Manganese Ores of Nova Scotia.
By Epwin Gizrin, Jun. AM, FGS.:::
(Read May 22, 1884.)
In the following sketch I have endeavoured to bring together the information relative
to the manganese ores of Nova Scotia. The only previous note now accessible, beyond
the references in Dr. Dawson’s “ Acadian Geology,” is one by the late Dr. How, of King’s
College, Windsor, published in the Transactions of the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural
Science. The exceptional purity of some of the ores makes them interesting to the
mineralogist, and valuable in certain operations of the manufacturer. The attention paid
in Nova Scotia to the working of these ores is by no means proportionate to their value,
and to the great extent of the geological formation to which they appear to be chiefly con-
fined. The object of these notes will be obtained, if they serve to indicate that the ores
of manganese may prove in the future an important addition to the mining resources of
this province.
The least valuable but certainly the most common of the Nova Scotia manganese
ores is wad. This ore is found as a superficial deposit in connection with every geological
formation known in the province. Among the localities yielding it may be mentioned
Jeddore, Ship Harbour, St. Margaret’s Bay, Shelburne, La Have, Chester, Parrsborough,
Springhill, Pictou, and Antigonishe. These ores exhibit the varying composition which
characterizes their class, and have in some cases been used to a limited extent as paints.
On Boularderie Island, Cape Breton, a bed of wad, several feet thick, was examined some
years ago. The following analyses show this want of uniformity of composition: two
analyses by Mr. Hoffman, of the Canadian Geological Survey, gave :—
I JDE
Manganese peroxide.............,..... DD AD... 11:04
Iron sesquioxide. ....................... — | “Goddu00e 12°49
Insolublé matter cc. ---re-res-eee---ce — SHbopsos, OS
\Witiieraacoon coco So00ns ccaseo oocedanosac BIO 0000000 =
also, in the case of analysis IL, traces of copper, cobalt, and nickel.
An analysis, by the writer, of a sample from a different part of the bed, gave :—
Manganese peroxide..................................... 44°33
Tron sesquioxide..... nitd cod nUdidoD Pododoe aaa noOHOcMonGenED 35°50
Tmsoluble matter...-...................4. cece eee soso 10:00
At the Londonderry Iron Mines, Colchester County, in the great vein of brown
hematite, associated with ochre, ankerite, sideroplesite, and calcite, in strata of Lower
Silurian age, secondary changes have at some points enriched the iron ore with manganese
8 EDWIN GILPIN ON THE
peroxide up to fourteen per cent. of its total constituents. Some encrusting fibres are
manganite, and part of the manganese is present under the form of wad, of which Mr.
H. Louis gives the following analysis :—
Manganese peroxide............,.s.sessesese.s ss... 67°10
Manganese protoxide...... SH hddobor oooaodoosdobsooounoo I
Watens ere ananon coe Presse doc Da de ae Te 10:37
Copper protoxide............. ADO Do oU dobgo Habbo dcr *88
Iron protoxide..... RS RSR à Laie vies dd et gl a lelelaiete 4-09
AIUMINAS sem aisle ceisiehinte ae ssele oise ie diac toulon se 5 "67
Nickel and cobalt oxide:.............. Bat bo dan sénne wars +65
Time Cesare PO TE OS : Arnon ore oan PASS se 2-49
Magnesia 2 Bnd BOO COM SDA PRUE EON OCONOdO coca dooce trace
SIN E sboco sd ooucranat eee Rent SD dan LD Dhdndoe 4-08
100-00
The occurrence of this ore in the pre-carboniferous rocks is interesting, as showing
its original wide distribution, and as possibly indicating the sources of part of the more
recent ores of economic value. Pyrolusite is the only ore of manganese which has hitherto
been mined to any extent in Nova Scotia, and it is known to occur in pre-carboniferous
strata at several points. Between Halifax and Windsor, near Mount Uniacke, pyrolusite
is found in small pockets and veins penetrating granite, and in quartzites of the auriferous
Lower Cambrian of the Nova Scotia Atlantic coast. It occurs in veinlets in the granite
of Musquodoboit, and as small irregular seams in the granite of Ship Harbour. In the
hills south of Wolfville, in King’s County, the same ore is found in quartzites and slates,
presumably of Upper Silurian age. In the trias of the same county, the ore is met ina
bedded form near Cornwallis and Wolfville, and in the triassic trap it is said to occur
lining cavities, in association with zeolites, etc.
We, however, find these ores most abundantly in the Lower Carboniferous marine
limestone formation. This horizon forms one of the widest spread, and most strongly
marked of the divisions of the Carboniferous period. It is met in King’s County, in
Hants, Cumberland, Colchester, Pictou, and Antigonishe, and in the four counties of
the Island of Cape Breton. The measures of this division, comprising sandstones, shales,
grits, and limestones, with beds of gypsum and marl, sometimes rest directly on the pre-
carboniferous strata, and at many points are separated from them by the lower, or false
coal-measures, or by beds of conglomerate, according to the conditions of the period of
accumulation. The limestones and gypsums occur, apparently, at no fixed horizon in this
division. Dr. Dawson, in his “ Acadian Geology”, has divided the limestones into five
groups, characterized respectively, so far as the subject has received attention, by a pre-
dominance of certain fossil forms. In his supplement to the second edition, he proposes
to subdivide the lowest group by distinguishing a certain manganiferous limestone,
which appears at many points to form the basis of the limestone formation, strictly so
called. This limestone at Salmon River, Cape Breton County, Springville and New Laing,
Pictou County, Chester, Maitland, Tenny Cape, Windsor and Onslow, seems to underlie
the gypsum beds, and generally to be associated with manganese. The following
analyses by the writer show the character of some of these limestones :—
MANGANESE ORES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 9
Springville, (Pictou Co.) Tenny Cape Salmon River, C. B.
1 NS I I
Lime carbonate...... ere 83-42 55:28 49:81 49-269
[ron carbonate. .-.......... 1:20 24°11 2°56 4-044
Magnesia carbonate........ 10°32 10°15 35°44 28° 034
Manganese carbonate...... 1:38 1-83 4-581 14°586
Insoluble matter..........,. 4°85 5-00 8-06 1-298
HVEOIS LUT Ces ofcteie esters eee — -40 CR —
101-17 96-77 100-82 97-231
The limestone of Chester, on the Atlantic shore, presents a remnant of Lower
Carboniferous measures, formerly without doubt co-extensive with those of our northern
counties. The lower beds are described by the late Dr. How as compact, of a dark blue
colour, and consisting principally of carbonates of iron, lime, magnesia and manganese,
yielding umbers by weathering. These are the most highly magnesian and mangan-
iferous limestones that I have yet met in the province. It is quite possible that there may
be others higher in the marine limestone formation carrying notable percentages of the
carbonates of these metals. In the case of the Pictou district, however, the overlying
limestones, up to what may be termed the base of the millstone-grit, are decidedly non-
magnesian ; the inspection of a very complete set of analyses showing none carrying
over four per cent. of the carbonate of magnesia, and usually little more than traces of
manganese,
The following analysis, made at the Durham College of Science, of a limestone lying
above the Springville gypsum, shows the usual composition of the purer grade of the
limestones of the higher sections of the Pictou marine limestones :—
Time CATPOMALGs= --- secs. ses. .cc od oaoc do po bec .. 96°26
Magnesia carbonate. --©e:.--:--"-c-h---eree aeh o alee rete 2°33
Tron peroxide.,... Sa bisteloeeiteaereee RATES aie aie wiclowceans “57
Manganese peroxide........... Adivno codon cnomon Ce “BD
Al UImimsay ce ske ste es DOC EC AE SEP DETTE che s nec eese 10
Sulphur---sesepe ect énoncb bonbon oo Me enoe *02
Phosphoric acid....... Joombaco déacadonc de plore sieTolelolol ont +03
Silicaae, clecretenearreh Ne sn atteinte nel aietrie sie siecle aise es Nectar? 1:99
Moisture..... Bate yalea so 330 DO RE COC ann SONO “17
101-02
In the northern part of Hants County, the carboniferous marine limestones and the
underlying lower coal measures are found in a series of east and west folds, shifted and
broken by transverse subordinate flexures. The presence of manganese in the upper of
these divisions is first observable at the mouth of the Shubenacadie River, where a dark-
coloured limestone underlies the gypsum, and is associated, a short distance east of the
river, with red shales, carrying veins of red hematite, with manganese oxides and calespar.
The westward continuation of this horizon is noticeable again at Tenny Cape, where a
series of these measures, extending to Walton and Cheverie, a distance of about fifteen
? As peroxide,
Sec. IV., 1884. 2.
10 EDWIN GILPIN ON THE
miles, contains several beds of limestone, which apparently underlie the gypsum, and may
be called manganiferous. These measures carrying manganese re-appear again south of
Windsor, and at Douglas, fifteen miles south of Tenny Cape, near the line of their
junction with the pre-carboniferous rocks. In this range of measures the manganese of
Tenny Cape appears to be principally connected with a compact red and gray limestone,
which, from the analysis already given, may be called a dolomite. At the western end of
the district if occurs as veins in conglomerates and sandstones, and also in limestones
in places decidedly magnesian.
The Tenny Cape manganese ores were discovered about the year 1862, and have been
intermittently worked since that date. The limestone band to which they seem to be
principally confined is about 300 feet thick. The ore occurs in irregular nests, and in
seams eroded on the bedding-planes and cross-fractures. It thus occurs that large
masses almost entirely isolated have been met, also seams with occasional pockets, some-
times connected, but in no case, so far as I am aware, following any regular order of
position or extent. The largest mass yet found was estimated to contain 180 tons of ore.
Apparently, the ore has been deposited at irregular intervals of time, with the associated
minerals, in the openings worn by the action of water on the limestones. Specimens may
be obtained showing pyrolusite, cementing waterworn pieces of limestone, and surround-
ing nodules of the bed-rock which have resisted erosion. The ore is chiefly a fibrous
pyrolusite, with splendent lustre, based on a compact or granular ore consisting of pyro-
lusite, of psilomelane, and of manganite, the latter mineral however not being present in
large quantity. The quality of these ores, even after the slight hand-dressing they receive
at the mines, is very high, and in some years they bring $125.00 a ton at the mine. They
are prized by glass-makers for their freedom from impurities, especially of iron. This
high grade of the pyrolusite from the Tenny Cape district will appear when, from
numerous assays, it has been found to yield from eighty-eight to ninety-five per cent. of
available oxide. The following analyses show the general character of these ores :—
Douglas. Cheverie. ?
Moisture.......... Sogods.nbnod Ni Aiwhetelers 1-660 2-05
Water of composition......... dondddedousé 3630 —
TrOn PeroxidO EE eee creer -603 2°55
Oxygen. ss soso one enrooe esse see se 7-035 =
Baryia ce SBoove GoHadS do dnar20 000000 0 724 1:12
Insoluble matter........ ane ae é 1-728 2°80
IPHOSphorie acide tale selel=lteisteslele etre A DOCE — 1:029
Manganese oxides ..........,....... ....... 84-620 —
Peroxide of manganese......,.,............ — 90-15
TIME. se ce. -eteeere entire Ten — trace
100-000 99-699
At Walton and Cheverie manganite is more common than at Tenny Cape. Its mode
of occurrence is similar, and its general character is shown by the following analyses :—
1 Contains some psilomelane ; analyst, H. Poole.
2 E. Gilpin,
MAGANESE ORES OF NOVA SCOTIA. atal
Tenny. ! Cheverie. *
INan PAN ESORORIC OSetel> etelaterelblel= nictaletelettiesrelerelete 85°54 86°81
TOM POLOKIAG aralelel-teiietolelelelonetolaleleielstele eitele/sterela Fi 1:18 à
2.05
REVIENT Uno o dodo BooUndHnOntanoddaD *89
Insoluble matter............. Sond covdde 08D . Sez 1°14
PHOSPHOrIC AGI difstejeielc slelai ol nlcivielsiayato!-fele re “34 =
ANS Mede oom! A awononeeeSonr SU due dane 8°54 10-00
Availabley oxy Pon aree ses -e-e---scs-e----e+ DADA: 47:78
The Tenny Cape manganite is compact, with partly fibrous structure, and subme-
tallic lustre. It is not in much demand at present, but I am informed that considerable
quantities could be got at several points. The following are the principal minerals found
in connection with the Tenny Cape ores :—
Calcite. This, the most abundant accessory, occurs as low rhombohedral crystals
implanted on the limestone, of reddish and bluish shades, frequently with the edges
clouded symmetrically with impurities; and as a secondary deposit on the preceding
crystals, in the form of snow-white grannular incrustations, frequently penetrated by the
fibres of pyrolusite ; and as a capping on isolated fibres of the ore. The pyrolusite also
occurs encrusting wine-coloured crystals of dog-tooth spar.
Iron is present as an earthy red hematite, and as a fibrous and mammilated limonite.
Iron sulphide is seldom visible.
Barite occurs in rounded nodules, and in tabular crystals in the ore, and mixed with
the calespar. -
Selenite is sometimes noticed in fibrous form, and in thin transparent films.
Many very beautiful cabinet specimens of these minerals have been met at Mr. J. W.
Stephens’ mine, the natural beauty of the crystals being greatly increased by the setting
of gleaming fibres of the black pyrolusite.
Lower Carboniferous limestones at Minudie, in Cumberland County, have yielded
small quantities of a soft fine-grained pyrolusite, giving on analysis 9704 per cent. of
manganese binoxide. Ores similar to those of Tenny Cape are found at Onslow, and on
the Salmon River, near Truro, Colchester County. Prospecting work has shown red
shales and sandstones, and beds of dark-bluish limestone, covered by beds of gravel and
clay holding nodules of compact sub-crystalline pyrolusite. The ore also occurs in veins,
up to four inches in thickness, in the sandstones, and in irregular nests and layers in the
limestone. Calespar, barite, and selenite are found in the veins, which are filled with
fibrous ore. The exact horizon of the beds holding these ores is not readily ascertainable,
and it may be higher in the marine limestone formation than at Tenny Cape. The ore is
of very good quality, some of it running as high as ninety per cent. of available oxide. In
Pictou County, near Glengarry station, nodules of fibrous pyrolusite, containing eighty-
four per cent. of peroxide, are found with crystals of dog-tooth spar, in a dark-blue lime-
stone, similar to that at Springville already referred to, and exposed close to the junction
of the marine limestone with pre-carboniferous rocks.
Boulders of a mixture of psilomelane with manganite occur lying on the limestone
at Springville, of which an analysis has already been given, and on the associated red
1 Dr. How.
2 E. Gilpin.
12 EDWIN GILPIN ON THE
shales. At several points in this vicinity the limonite ores, found along the line of junc-
tion of the Upper and Lower Silurian with the Lower Carboniferous marine limestone
are heavily charged with manganese. The ore is dull brownish-black in colour, with a
black streak, and softer than the normal limonite. The percentage of manganese present
in the iron ore varies. The general character of this ore, however, will appear from the
following analyses by the writer :—
ib II.
Water of composition....... mabooods 990000 —
Moistures-trnieeretlcerRee re telestele tolerate 1.450 } D
Insolublo#residue.---#-=--------R-rerec-c-t 273. 25°130
INrrEmooudocooodadouonnoecosuonnonne 2°880 trace
TRONGSESOULO RIG Oretereletciertetelelotsistereiete io) iciereii 10:848 48-223
Manganese sesquioxide................... 62-950 =
Manganese peroxide...................,.. — 14-410
WEG: 6000 Boop DobNdG Gaddno DBD DanGCb0C 1-630 =
Lime ....... DS HO0ODO Dan no A0 DC 509000 7:280 015
EE Loocod oo oo0ddponn oo 00 000 *670 =
Carbonic acid........... Sono wad 20 ands — —
SUIPAUT- a etetestee etes Fr Lie CE couette = 480
PhOSphOrus 0-61 bob dnodo as — 020
90-439 100-808
In Antigonishe County similar ferriferous manganese ores have been found in drift
at several places.
In Cape Breton deposits of economic value occur only in the western part of the
county of the same name. Here, at the head waters of the Salmon River, the lower
members of the Carboniferous are met in a valley between the felsites of the Mira and
East Bay hills. The space is generally occupied by the millstone grit, beneath the edges
of which the marine limestones occasionally crop out, or the latter are excluded by the
basal conglomerates. The following notes are from a visit to the Moseley (iron) mine, and
from information kindly furnished by Mr. Fletcher, of the Canadian Geological Survey.
The felsites of the Mira Hills form a series of bays along which are exposed carbon-
iferous limestones, conglomerates, shales, and grits as they were accumulated subject to
the varying conditions of the winds and currents of the period under consideration. At
some points, the limestones rest on the felsites; at other localities, grits and shales inter-
vene; elsewhere, the basal conglomerates are covered directly by the millstone grit. The
manganese ores were discovered two years ago in one of these recesses where the felsites
were succeeded by shales and grits, and finally by limestones, the latter apparently
extending from point to point of the ancient bay. The ores at the western mine are found
in irregular bedded layers in a soft arenaceous reddish-coloured shale, which is in some
places calcareous and coated with films of manganese oxide. The layers vary in thick-
ness up to eighteen inches, and are frequently connected by cross stringers of ore. The
shales when weathered present the ore in small nodules, and the disintegration of the
former by water probably indicates the source of the beds of gravel manganese ore found
lying on them. The ore at the eastern mine occurs as a bed immediately underlying a
layer of black manganiferous limestone, with red and greenish shales and coarse grit.
The thickness of the ore and limestone varies from two to eight inches, the average thick-
MAGANESE ORES OF NOVA SCOTIA, 13
ness of the two being about eight inches. The ore also occurs in this vicinity as len-
ticular pockets and irregular nests in conglomerate, etc., and sometimes forms the
cementing material. This latter mode of occurrence is similar to that shown by the red
hematites (sometimes highly manganiferous) found at various points in the lower Carbo-
niferous conglomerates of the island near their junction with older strata. The analysis
of the overlying limestone has already been given. The ore from this locality is
generally a pyrolusite, soft, fine-grained, and sometimes sub-crystalline. It is at some
openings mixed with manganite, and the latter ore is abundant at several places in the
grits. The minerals associated with the ore are calcspar, barite, films of selenite, and
limestone. Analyses by Mr. Hoffman, of the Canadian Geological Survey, show that the
ores run as high as 88°9 per cent. of binoxide, and contain an admixture of ferric oxide as
low as two-tenths of one per cent. On the Magdalen Islands, the manganese ores are
found, according to Mr. Richardson (Geological Survey Report, 1879-80 ) associated with
sand, clay, gypsum, and doleritic rocks of Lower Carboniferous age. From Mr. Hoffman’s
report, (ibid.) the ore is a purely crystalline manganite, yielding on analysis 45°61 of
binoxide. I have, however, seen samples of pure pyrolusite from these islands. There do
not seem to be any limestones directly connected with these ores, as surveyed by Mr.
Richardson, and the locality appears to form an exception to the rule which, so far as my
information goes, governs the presence of manganese ores in the Carboniferous of Nova
Scotia, viz., the presence of limestone. Possibly in the case of these Magdalen Island
ores they may have been derived directly from the dolerite.
From the preceding notes, which cover, I think, all the localities known to yield
manganese in this province, it may be inferred that in Nova Scotia there appears to be
ground for referring the principal deposits of the ores of manganese to an horizon low
down in the Carboniferous marine limestones, and certainly, in most cases, underlying the
lowest gypsum beds, and that limestones, magnesian and sometimes also manganiferous,
appear to be associated with them. Iam not prepared to attempt any outline of the pro-
cess which, in Nova Scotia, appears at some points to have deposited in these strata iron
ores, sometimes manganiferous, and at other points ores of manganese frequently very free
from iron. The source of the manganese may be looked for in the older strata bordering
the Carboniferous sea, or, as Dr. Dawson suggests, its presence in these limestones may be
due to the decomposition of volcanic debris proceeding from the contemporaneous igneous
vents which produced the Carboniferous traps. Both the older bordering strata, and
the limestones and associated strata may have been drawn upon for the deposits of this
interesting and useful mineral. The action of magnesian thermal springs may have led to
the alteration of the limestones more particularly referred to in the preceding notes. Such
an action might lead to the deposition of manganese and iron oxides, as well as of lead and
copper ores, all of which are frequently found in them.
Mi :
Cb IL jui Ne
is dev: 1 ts AUS |
(SE | + |
A À + NE
NAN CES
RO Te CA PCR ARE
MP en Ob ARR MA uaa iy
HET" d v L L 2
=, “he ser Or ids fol aleve
7
2
À
az
A
=
+ ‘ gc r it a LS 4 ris ah hy ee ‘i a
nu SS ke eS ee {+ P iy i
i HER ALT" AN nt ART het Ve Ae vary
i + > € A id
# 1S Wiadey fk. ta ie NB Ls es, tue set ate RAT AIME v
| + MCE ATOS CFE
' ; LU 4
, a) l Ag
3 = } n f ‘ + k ni '
PAS 12
‘
ui
A
m : a
= 2b if 7
¢
; ET 4 à EU h fr
4. ‘al { 7 ‘) f ; 5 >
Bie LU } vu “tak HAE rime 4} pti
: “4 | aoe Re CS. VOTE Las sf? mA ve
= Fe = Le LA ni Ee
À 4 ‘ a ROW Hp TS A BUS | 1. D LOT RUE | A
a AUOT RE
ha? yal MON at ;
A JS Vis à of rf LA if i 3% Fait Mat ve
: ; # SOCIEN = ; à | 4 { MON ach sav À ‘
ae | “NS Date ery ot Nu SATA
| Ry ite oF M CMS
> V a ô a ex i Mil! f ai Ac ite
Me i
= é Le .
î uf
4 a
‘8 +
,
y %
i
‘ \ , L ]
,
} LL
+ Ê , Er PE (re
need ie Se el OREORS
Vic
f 4! . k
FR] Ve 4,2
Be
SECTION IV., 1884. RL] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
III.— Revision of the Canadian Ranunculaceæ.
By GEORGE Lawson, Ph. D., LL.D., Dalhousie College, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
(Read May 23, 1884.)
In the year 1870, my monograph of the “ Ranunculaceæ of the Dominion of Canada”
was published in the Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science. Its
objects were: to show what species of Ranunculaceous plants had been identified as
Canadian; to correct their nomenclature, as far as this could be done with the limited
material to which access could then be had ; to present concise descriptions of the species;
to point out their geographical range as then ascertained; to place on record their
local occurrence so far as had been observed ; and, finally, to suggest points for investigation
in regard to those species that appeared to be of doubtful rank, whose relations to others
were imperfectly understood, or whose occurrence and distribution were imperfectly
known. After a lapse of thirteen years, during which period a good deal of botanizing
has been done in Canada, and many useful publications bearing upon the North American
flora have appeared,—some within our own borders, others in the United States of
America, in England, and in Russia,—I have thought it might be useful to return to this
Order, and present to Canadian botanists, through the Royal Society, a fuller and more
accurate description of our Ranunculaceous plants than was possible at the time when my
previous paper was prepared. Throughout the Dominion many collectors have been at
work. In the older provinces, resident amateur botanists and students have, by individual
effort and through “field clubs” and similar organizations, already done much good
service to science, both in collecting materials and working up the botany of their
respective districts. By the rapid opening up of the great Northwest, by the survey
explorations over the Plains, among the Rocky Mountains, the Cascades, in British
Columbia, and along the Pacific coast, our knowledge of the distribution of our indigenous
plants has been greatly extended. The names of those to whom I am indebted for speci-
mens, seeds, or information, used in the present paper, will be found under the several
species, but foremost among recent collectors may be mentioned the name of Professor
Macoun, who, with other officers of the Canadian Survey, has had opportunities such
as fall to the lot of few botanists, and, availing himself of them to the fullest extent, he has
reaped an abundant harvest, as is shown by the lists already published and by the accu-
mulations of material still awaiting examination. I have to express my obligations to
Dr. Selwyn, the director of the Survey, for affording me every facility for examining
the herbaria in the museum.
It is hoped, by arranging the materials of our Canadian collectors and observers, and
collocating the results obtained by botanists in other countries, in occasional monographs
16 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
such as the present, that the information thus brought together may be made available
for general use, and prove an incentive to resident botanists and students to continue
and extend their labours, and direct their energies to the observation and record of
facts bearing upon questions that still need elucidation. 1
It is very desirable that collectors should be particularly careful to note the precise
localities and dates of collection of their specimens. Where names of places are apt to be
mistaken, the latitude and longitude should be noted as nearly as possible. Such facts
form useful scientific data. The tendency has been, in our large country, especially in
published floras and lists, to omit special localities, and to indicate the general
geographical range, or supposed range, of the plants over wide areas, in such vague terms
as, “from Canada to the Pacific,” “from the Atlantic through the wooded country to the
tocky Mountains and British Columbia,” “ Newfoundland, Labrador and Hudson Bay,”
etc. In working out the distribution of plants, it is not safe to tabulate as facts such
statements as these, because there may be reasonable suspicion either that, in difficult
families, more than one species is included in the range indicated, or that the statement
may be the result of a mental impression rather than of a sufficient number of actual
observations. When we have the specimens from definite localities before us, they
can be compared and identified, and the range of the plants may thus be ascertained with
definiteness on actual data. Our aim should be to collect materials for a Canadian flora,
bearing in mind that, whilst a paucity of facts was some excuse in the early days
for vagueness of generalization, now, the more material we accumulate, the greater
opportunity there is for precision in our work. The many imperfections of this paper will
indicate how much room remains for work in the field, in the herbarium, and in the
library. Its special objects are :—
1. To shew what species of Ranunculacee have been ascertained to be certainly
inhabitants of the Dominion of Canada, and of adjoining tracts of country that, for
purposes of geographical botany, cannot well be disconnected,—citations being given of
the historical evidence for their occurrence in cases of plants not observed during recent
years.
2. To correct the nomenclature so as to bring it in accord, as far as possible, with
that adopted by the most recent and trustworthy authorities in the standard works of other
countries.
3. To present concise descriptions of the several species, so as to enable students to
identify them with certainty.
4. To give the synonyms and references necessary for tracing the history of the
several plants throughout botanical literature back to the first scientific recognition of the
species, wherever this can be done without over-burdening the record. In a few cases,
pre-Linnzean citations are given where they tend to elucidate or illustrate the early
history or distribution of a species, or the origin of its specific name.
5. To point out the geographical range of these plants over Canada, and other parts
of the Northern Hemisphere.
6. To record their local distribution, that is their presence or absence from particular
localities, or occurrence or absence throughout larger districts of the several provinces.
7. To suggest points for observation in regard to those species that appear to be of
CANADIAN RANUNCULACE®. alge
doubtful rank, or whose relations to other reputed species are still imperfectly under-
stood, or whose range has not been fully traced.
The Ranunculacee' form a large natural order of flowering plants, distributed chiefly
throughout the temperate and cooler parts of the northern hemisphere. They belong to
the polypetalous division of Dicotyledones, and form the first order of Bentham and
Hooker’s “ Genera Plantarum,” as of most other modern systematic works. In Jussieu’s
“Genera Plantarum,” they formed the first order of “Class 13, Polypetalous Dicoty-
ledonous plants, with hypogynous stamens.” Upwards of 1,200 species have been
described by authors as inhabiting the globe, only a small proportion being Australian,
but Hooker and Bentham reduce the number of well-distinguished species to 540. Lindley
had estimated them at 1,000.
Whilst, in regard to structure, the boundaries of the order are pretty well defined,
and the plants which it contains present a certain uniformity in the form, modes of
division and incision of the leaves, which, in a large majority of the herbaceous species
are more or less tripartitely or palmately divided, and always without stipules, although
often with flattened petioles, yet the several genera present considerable diversity of
modification in the form, number, and arrangement of the parts of the flower. In the
genus Clematis, the calyx consists of large petaloid sepals, whilst the petals are mostly
absent. In Anemone we have the same modifications, with this difference, that the sepals
are imbricate in eestivation, that is, overlapping, and not valvate or meeting at the
edges on the same plane. In Thalictrum, the sepals are small and imperfectly petaloid, the
stamens in some of the species forming the conspicuous part of the flower. In Ranunculus,
the calyx consists of five green imbricate sepals, assuming the more usual general
form, texture and colour of this organ as seen in other families of plants, whilst, in this
genus, the corolla also assumes its more normal form as a verticil of large, flat or cupped,
bright-coloured petals. Myosurus presents us with other modifications; the sepals are
spurred, the petals are saccate and stalked, and the receptacle is greatly elongated. Caltha
has large petaloid sepals, but no petals. In Trollius, the sepals are also large and
conspicuous, variable in number, but there are slender petals with a pit at base. In
Coptis the petals are shortly tubular at the apex. In Aguilegia they are funnel-shaped,
being narrowed posteriorly into long hollow “spurs.” Then there are two genera in
which the flower is irregular, viz., Delphinium and Aconitum. In these, as well as
in some others, the petals are peculiar, small, deformed, or altogether absent. The
fruit also varies considerably in this order. In most cases it consists of a large num-
ber of minute nut-like achenes (each containing a single seed); but in Paonia, Caltha,
Trollius, Coptis, Aquilegia, Delphinium, Aconitum, the fruit consists of several or many-seeded
“follicles” or pods. In Actea, etc., it is a berry.
Many of these plants have powerful physiological actions, owing to organic
compounds which they contain; several have been long in use in medicine, and as
* Ranunculacee. A. Laurent Jussieu, Genera Plantarum (1789); A. P. De Candolle, Reg. Veg. Syst. Nat. (1818) ;
Lindley, Veg. Kingdom (1853) ; Endlicher; A. Gray; Bentham & J. D. Hooker (1862).
Sec. IV., 1884. 3.
18 , LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
poisons. In some, the acid or poisonous principle is so volatile as to be removable by
drying or boiling. Aconitum Napellus, which yields the powerful alkaloid Aconitine, was
used by the Romans as a poison, and has of late years been the cause of fatal accidents in
England, where the root had been mistaken for horse-radish. A. feroxz was at one time
used by the natives in India to poison wells in advance of the British troops. Ranunculus
acris, Flammula and sceleratus have been employed in Europe for blistering, instead of
cantharides. Anemone Hepatica, and Delphinium are astringents; Helleborus, a drastic
purgative; Hydrastis Canadensis, a tonic; Coptis trifolia, a powerful bitter ; Xanthorhiza
apiifolia, a tonic bitter. The berries of Actæa are poisonous, the roots anti-spasmodic,
expectorant, astringent,—used in cases of catarrh. Cimicifuga has similar properties, and
its preparations have of late years come into use in rheumatic affections ; its astringent
bitter root is a reputed remedy for rattle-snake bites. Few of these plants can be used as
food or fodder. Ranunculus repens is eaten by cattle. The small starchy tubers of R.
Ficaria have been cooked as an article of food in Austria; Caltha palustris is used in New
England in spring as a pot-herb, and C. leptosepala is boiled and used as greens by
the silver miners on the Rocky Mountains of the South.’
CONSPECTUS OF GENERA.
Trp Il. CLEMATIDEZÆ. Sepals valvate. Petals 0, or narrow staminoid processes. Carpels numerous,
one-ovuled. Ovule pendulous, raphe dorsal. Achenia indehiscent. Stem herbaceous, or usually woody and
climbing. Leaves opposite.
Genus 1. CLEMATIS.
Trip Il. ANEMONEZÆXÆ. Sepals imbricate. Carpels one-ovuled. Ovule pendulous, raphe dorsal. Achenia
indehiscent. Herbs. Leaves radical, alternate or involucrate.
* Petals 0 or very small, not hollowed.
Genus 2. THALICTRUM. Involucre 0. Sepals 4-5.
Genus 3. ANEMONE. Involucre formed of a verticil of floral leaves, rarely 0. Sepals several or numerous,
petaloid.
** Petals hollowed out or tubular.
Genus 4. MYOSURUS. Sepals spurred at the base. Petals slender. Achenia spicate (on an elongated receptacle).
Trip I. RANUNCULEZÆ. Sepals imbricate. Carpels one-ovuled. Ovule ascending, raphe ventral.
Achenia indehiscent. Herbs. Leaves radical or alternate.
Genus 5. TRAUTVETTERIA. Petals 0.
Genus 6. RANUNCULUS. Sepals caducous. Petals usually 5 or more.
Trisp IV. HELLEBOREZ. Sepals imbricate. Petals small, or abnormal in form, or 0. Carpels many-
ovuled, dehiscing when ripe, or rarely baccate. Herbs. Leaves radical or alternate, the involucrate ones
similar.
Subtribe 1. Carrnex. Leaves palmati-nerved or palmatisect. Flowers regular, solitary, or in panicles.
* Petals 0.
Genus 7. CALTHA. Ovules in a double series along the ventral suture.
Genus 8. HYDRASTIS. Ovules 2. Carpels baccate.
*& Petals small or slender.
Genus 9. TROLLIUS. Sepals usually deciduous. Petals entire.
Subtribe 2. Isopyreæ. Leaves ternate,sub-pinnate, or decompound. Flowers regular, solitary, or in panicles.
1For elaborate details in regard to some of the active principles of Ranunculaceous plants, particularly
Anemonin, Anemonic, and Anemoninic Acids, see Lloyds’ Drugs and Medicines of N. America, vol. i., No. 3,
October, 1884,
CANADIAN RANUNCULACEZÆ, 19
* Sepals 5-6.
Genus 10. COPTIS. Petals small. Carpels free, stipitate.
Genus 11. AQUILEGIA. Petals prolonged backwards into long hollow spurs.
Subtribe 3. Drtpuinnm. Leaves palmati-nerved or palmatisect, Flowers irregular.
Genus 12. DELPHINIUM. Dorsal sepal spurred behind.
Genus 13. ACONITUM. Dorsal sepal helmet-shaped.
Subtribe 4. Crormcrucnx, Leaves ternate, sub-pinnate, or decompound. Flowers regular, in racemes,
* Stamens numerous.
Genus 14. ACTÆA, Carpel 1, baccate.
Genus 15. CIMICIFUGA. Carpels 1 or several, dehiscent follicles.
Tren V. PÆONIEZÆXÆ. Sepals imbricate. Petals large. Carpels with a circular disc, several or many
ovuled, dehiscent. Large herbs or slightly woody. Leaves radical or alternate, pinnately decompound.
Genus 16. PÆONIA.
Genus I—CLEMATIS, Linneus.
Bentham and Hooker, Genera Plantarum, I, p. 3.
List of Species :—
1. C. verticillaris. 4. C. Douglasii.
2. C. Virginiana. [C. alpina, var. Ochotensis.]
3. C. ligusticifolia.
1.—CLEMATIS VERTICILLARIS, De Candolle.
Stem shrubby, slender, trailing or climbing, from ten to twenty feet or more in length.
Leaves of the barren or leaf-bearing shoots opposite, petioles twisted and clasping as
tendrils, each leaf consisting of three stalked leaflets, which are ovate, or slightly heart-
shaped, or oblong-lanceolate, shortly acuminate or acute, entire or more usually coarsely
and laciniately toothed or trifid, hairy when young, becoming nearly glabrous at
maturity. Peduncles opposite, each bearing one large cernuous flower. Sepals four in
number, one and a half to two inches in length, petaloid, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, of a
pleasing but not bright purple colour, thin and flaccid, somewhat cupped and convergent,
forming a campanulate blossom, not expanding freely. Petals small, crowded, in form
of spatulate stamen-like processes, the inner series passing into stamens. The flowers,
which are from two to three inches in diameter, are produced in May, or early in June,
on the bare leafless shoots of the previous year, arising in pairs from the opposite buds
of the shoot. Each flower is accompanied by an apparent leafy verticil, formed of two
pairs of long-stalked trifoliate leaves, produced simultaneously with the development of
the flower. The flower arises from the axil of one of the upper pair of subtending leaves,
and from the other a leaf-shoot or branch shoots forth. The flowers are succeeded by
large heads of achenes with long silky plumose tails. The leaflets are long-stalked and
vary in form (as usual in this genus) from broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, usually more
or less cordate at base, acute or acuminate, somewhat lobed, coarsely toothed or entire, at
least towards the point, one and a half to two inches in length, and somewhat less in
breadth. Fl. May-June.
20 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
Clematis verticillaris. De Candolle, Syst. Nat. Reg. Veg., Vol. I, p. 166. (1818.) Pro-
dromus, I., p. 10. Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am., 1, p. 2 Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am, I, p. 10.
Maclagan, Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin., III, p. 18. Lond. Jour. Bot. VI, p. 66. Torrey, Fl. N.
Y., L, p. 7. Wood, Botany. p. 201. Gray, Manual, ed. 5, p. 35. Provancher, Fl. Can, p.
4. Lawson, Ranunc. Can., p. 20. Bot. Wilkes, p. 212. Watson, King’s Rep. V., p. 4.
Porter, Hayd. Rep., 1871, p. 477. Coulter, same, 1872, p. 758. Watson, Bibl. Index, I,
p.11. Macoun, Cat. (1883), No. 1. J. F. James, Revis. Clematis, pp. 3, 11, and 19. Brewer
& Watson, Botany of California, ed. 2, Vol. I, p. 3.
Atragene Americana. Sims, Bot. Mag., t. 887. Aiton f., Hortus Kewensis, ed. 2, IIL,
p. 342, (1811). Pursh, F1, p. 384 Spreng., Syst. IL, p. 644 Watson, Dend. Brit., p. 74,
(1825). Don, Mill. Dict, I, p. 10. Spach, Hist. Veg., VI, p. 270. Dietr. Syn., IIL, p. 349.
Loudon, Arboret., I, p. 248, t. 27. Hort. Brit. p. 228. Gray, Gen. Illus., p. 14, t. 1.
Manual, 2 ed., p. 3. Revue Horticole, 1854, t. 7, and 1855, t. 17. Curtis, Bot. N. Carolina,
p. 120. Chapman, FI. South. U.8., p. 3.
C. Americana. Poiret, Supp., V., p. 622. (1810-16.)
A. Columbiana. Nuttall, Jour. Ac. Phil., VII, p. 7.
C. Columbiana. Torr. & Gr., Fl. N. Am, I. p.11. (Watson.)
The species was originally described in the Botanical Magazine as Atragene Americana,
De Candolle, in “ Regni Vegetabilis Systema Naturale,” did not adopt the genus Alragene,
but merged it in Clematis, as Poiret had previously done. Poiret called it C. Americana.
But there being already a Clematis Americana, described in Miller's Dictionary, from Equa-
torial America, and adopted by De Candolle, the latter botanist had to find a new specific
name for the Northern American plant, now transferred to Clematis, and accordingly called
it C. verticillaris, in allusion to the apparent verticils of leaves subtending the flowers. In
the Hortus Britannicus, its English name is given as the Whorled American Atragene.
So far as observed, the limits of the range of this species are as follows:
Pacific Coast Region.—South limit (Northern California)........... Soest 40° N. Lat.
North limit (British Columbia).................... pe T
(Extent of range, N. to S.—10°.)
Rocky Mountain Region South ‘Wimit......-::..-. 2.2 see ee ARS
North limit (Mount Selwyn)................. Oa tae
(Extent of range N. to S.—16°.)
Elevation limits: Teton, 48° N.—11,000 ft.
Utah, 40° N.— 9,000 “
Central Continental Region —NSouth limit (Wisconsin)... AG €
Northtimit ludson Bay)... iy a
(Extent of range, N. to S.—9°.)
Atlantic Coast Region —South limit (Carolina Mountains) .............. Sie
North limit (Maine, Vermont, Montreal)...... Al ata aS
(Extent of range, N. to S.—8°.)
Extreme South Limit (Carolina Mountains)..…................................. Slee
Extreme North Limit (Rocky Mountains) 2 eee eee DORE
In woods in the central districts, as far north as lat. 54°, ascending the elevated valleys
on the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains in that latitude.— Richardson, T. Drum-
mond. At Cape Mendocino, on the N.W. coast, in lat. 40°, plentiful (North California) —
CANADIAN RANUNCULACE®. 21
Douglas. (Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., I, p. 2.) Montreal and Belceil Mountains, Que. ; at Jones’s
Falls (Rideau Canal) this was the most striking plant, a handsome-flowered species
ascending the trees and rocks to a height of twenty or thirty feet, (1843).—Dr. P. W.
Maclagan. Vicinity of Quebec City.—Dr. Brunet. Mountain side east from Hamilton,
Ont.—Judge Logie. North limit in Hudson Bay Territories, lat. 54°; seldom occurs to N.
W. of Ontario.—Barnston. Mount Selwyn, lat. 56, Rocky Mountains; Coast Range of
British Columbia; foot-hills of Rocky Mountains, near 49th parallel; and in the Bow
River Pass.—Macoun. North Hastings, Ont., 15th June, 1874, in fruit—Macoun. Spence’s
Bridge, British Columbia, 21st May, 1875.—Macoun. Chelsea Mountains, north from the
city of Ottawa; first found there by the Ottawa Field Club. (In flower May, 1884.)
Vermont.— Wood. New York and Pennsylvania.—Pursh. Mountains of North Caro:
lina— Chapman. Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin,
Montana, Idaho, Utah— James.
According to Hortus Kewensis, the American Atragene was introduced to English
gardens by Messrs. Loddiges, in the year 1797. It is the earliest flowering species, but, as
the flowers are produced before the foliage, it is less adapted than some others for garden
decoration. In its native haunts, in the rocky and bushy woods, it is an agreeable surprise
to the botanist to find its charming blossoms among the withered leaves in the early season
of spring flowers.
2.—CLEMATIS VIRGINIANA, Linneus.
Stem shrubby, climbing. Leaves opposite, petioles twisted and clasping as tendrils,
leaflets three, stalked, ovate or somewhat cordate, acute, lobed, and coarsely toothed. Ped-
uncles opposite, each bearing a large panicle or cluster of #wmerous flowers. Sepals four,
rather large, petaloid. Petals absent. A climber, ten or twelve feet high, clinging to
bushes and small trees for support. Flowers white, fragrant. The plant is very conspic-
uous in the fall season, as the leafless stems with their numerous clusters of plume-tailed
achenes form large feathery wreaths. The leaflets are always prominently toothed, some-
times almost lobed, never entire, as they sometimes are in C. Vitalba, of Europe, and
constantly in several Indian species. Very variable in length and breadth and division
of leaflets.
Clematis Virginiana. Linneeus, in Ameen. Acad., IV., p. 275. Sp. PI, 766. Michaux,
F1. Bor.-Am., I, p. 318. Pursh. II, p. 384. Bigelow, F1. Bost., p. 133. Lam. Dict., IL, p.
43. Walt. Fl. Car. p. 157. Aiton f, Hort., Kew., ed. 2, III, p.344 Willdenow, Sp. PI,
IT, p. 1290. Persoon, Synops., Il, p. 99. DC. Syst. I, p. 142. Prod. I, p. 4 James,
Long’s Exp. II, p. 343. Elliott, II. p. 44 Wats. Dendr., 74. Hook., Fl Bor.-Am.,
I., p. 1 (m part.) London Jour. Bot., VI, p. 66. Don. Mill. Dic, I., p. 5. Torr. and
Gr., Fl. N.A., IL, p.8 and p. 657. Spach., Hist. Veg., VII, p. 278. Dietr. Syn., IIL, p. 345.
Torr. Fl. N.Y., I, p. 6. Fremont’s Rep, p. 87. Emory’s Rep., p. 136 and p. 406. Loud.
Hort. Brit., p. 228. Arbor., I, p. 237, fig. 13. Richardson, Arct. Exped., IL, p. 442. Gray,
Pac. R. Rep. 12, 40. Manual. Curtis, Bot. N. Car, p. 120. Parry, Pl. Minn, p. 608.
Lesquer., Fl. Ark., p. 374. Lawson, Mill. F1. NS, ser. 8, part 5, t. 14 Chapman, FL So.
US. p. 4 Lawson, Ranunc. Can., p. 20. Watson, Bibl. Index, p. 11. Macoun, Cat. 1883,
No. 2.
22 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
C. Canadensis. Mill, Dict., n. 5.
C. fragrans. Salisb. Prod. p. 371, not of Tennore (which is Flammula).
C. cordifolia. Moench, Sup., p. 104.
C. bracteata. Moench, Sup., p. 103.
C. cordata. Pursh, IL, p. 384 “DC. Prod., I, p. 4, exc. syn.” Spreng. Syst. IL, p.
670. — Don, Mall-L.,.p: 5.
C. Purshü. Dietr. Syn., IIL, p. 345.
Clematis Virginiana pannonice similis. Plukenett, Mantissa, p. 51, t. 379, f. 4, (1700.)
C. holosericea. Pursh, F1, IT, p. 384. Chapman, Fl. 8. U.8., p. 4 Referred here by
Mr. James.
Canada.— Michaux. Banks of streams and moist spots, edges of swamps, ravines, etc.
from the shores of Bras d’ Or Lake, Cape Breton, and the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia,
westward through the provinces of New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario. Banks along
the roadside at the Rifle Range, Bedford, N.S—Zawson. London, Ont.—Millman, 13th
August, 1879, Herb. Can. Survey. In the townships in rear of Kingston, in Frontenac
and adjoining counties, as between Kingston and Odessa, Waterloo, and Hinchinbrook ;
also Toronto.—Lawson. Windsor, N. S.—Prof. How. Nicolet and St. Johns, Q., and
Niagara, Ont.; also Montreal, 12th Aug., 1851.—Maclagan. Two miles from Prescott, near
Ottawa and Prescott Railway, abundant; rare in thickets northward to Chelsea—Mr. B.
Billings jr. Belleville, abundant in low grounds, along small streams; also Thunder Bay,
Lake Superior.—Macoun. Red Lake River, September, 1860.—Dr. Schultz, Provancher
cites Pied du Cap Tourmente and Isle Verte, which is the last outpost north-eastwardly.
Mr. Barnston observes that westwardly this species does not appear to pass the longi-
tude of Red River or Lake Winnipeg, and is rare to the N.W. of Ontario Province. South
end of Lake Winnipeg.—Drummond. Canada to Georgia, and west to the Mississippi.—
T. and G. Said by Sir John Richardson to be common to Oregon, the eastern United
States and Canada, and to extend northwards to the Saskatchewan; but Sir John no
doubt included the form Jligusticifolia, which, although described from Nuttall’s Notes in
Torrey and Gray’s Flora, was not then well known or generally recognized as a species.
Hooker observed that this had been long cultivated in England, where it proved a
hardy plant, well adapted for covering walls and arbours. Its flowers are highly fragrant,
which is not usual in this genus. The first notice of its cultivation in England is in
Hortus Kewensis, “1767, by Mr. James Gordon.”
3—CLEMATIS LIGUSTICIFOLIA, Vuttall.
Stem shrubby, trailing or climbing. Leaves pinnate and five-leaved, or ternate, occa-
sionally seven-leaved; the leaflets oval, oblong or lanceolate, from broad to very narrow,
tri-lobed or with few distant teeth. Inflorescence in close panicled corymbs, flowers on
long, slender pedicels, dicecious. Otherwise as C. Virginiana. In Professor Macoun’s
specimens from source of the Qu’Appelle the leaves are pinnate, the leaflets short, as
broad as long, and shortly stalked, inflorescence corymbose. In a form (apparently of this)
collected in May, 1883, near Canyon City, Colorado, the leaflets are narrowly oblong-
lanceolate, very acuminate, with a few distant teeth,
C. ligusticifolia, Nuttall in Torr. & Gr., FL, 1, p. 9. Gray, Pl. Fendl., p. 3. Watson,
CANADIAN RANUNCULACEÆ. 23
Bibl. Index, I, p. 10. King’s Exp., 40th Parallel, p.3 J. F. James, Revis. Clem., p. 9 and
p. 15. Macoun, Cat. No. 3. Brewer & Watson, Bot. Calif., ed. 2, Vol. I, p. 3.
C. Virginiana. Hook., Fl.-Bor. Am., I., p. 1, in part. Richardson, Boat Voy. App,
IL, p. 284, in part. Lawson, Ranune. Canad., p. 20, in part.
From Washington Territory to the Saskatchewan.— Watson, King’s Exp. 40th parallel,
p. 8. Rocky Mountains. The locality given in Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am. for C. Virginiana, viz.,
Banks of the Columbia (Douglas), no doubt belongs to C. ligusticifolia. Climbing or trailing
over bushes or sand on the sand hills at the source of the Qu’Appelle; Spence’s Bridge
and Cache Creek, B.C.—Macoun. Sand Creek, Columbia Valley, B.C., 22nd July, 1883 ;
Coldstream River, Cascade Mountains, B.C., 8th July, 1877; margin of Waterton Lake,
Rocky Mountains.—Dr. G. M. Dawson.
This is essentially a Rocky Mountain plant, occurring in one or other of its forms in
New Mexico, Colorado (where I gathered it last year, near Canyon City), California
Arizona and Oregon. The forms which pass under the name of C! ligusticifolia might be
referred as varieties of C. Virginiana. Mr. James suggests that the eastern plant (C. Virgi-
niana) is a descendant of the western one (C. ligusticifolia), and that the latter may have its
nearest relatives in the highlands of India, but I know no Indian species resembling it.
Dr. George Dawson’s specimen from Sand Creek, Columbia Valley, with nearly
smooth, broadly ovate, subcordate, tri-lobed leaflets, may be T. and G.’s var. 7. brevifolia.
4.—CLEMATIS DOUGLASII, Hooker.
Stem erect, simple, herbaceous, and, like the peduncle, strongly striate, with one
terminal campanulate cernuous flower. Leaves pilose, bi-tri-pinnatifid, the segments
linear. Carpels villous, with long plumose tails.—Hooker. Torr. § Gray.
Clematis Douglasii. Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., I, p. 1, tab. 1. Torr. & Gr., Fl. I. p. 8 and p.
657. Lond. Jour. Bot. VI, p. 65. Don, Mill, I, p. 8. Walp. I.,p. 7. Dietr. Syn., III,
p. 348. Gray, Am. Jour. Sc., ser. 2, XXXIII, p. 408. Proc. Acad. Phil, 1863, p. 56,
Watson, King’s Rep. V., p. 8. Porter, Hayd. Rep., 1871, p. 477. FI. Col. p. 1. Coulter.
Hayd. Rep., 1872, p. 758. Torrey, Bot. Wilkes, p. 211. Watson, Bibl. Index, I, p. 19.
J. F. James, Revis. Clem, pp. 3 and12. Macoun, Cat., 1883, No. 4.
C. Wyethit. Nutt. in Jour. Acad. Phil, VIL, p. 6. Torr. & Gr. FL, L, p. 8. Walpers,
Rep., I, p. 7. (Watson.)
On the west side of the Rocky Mountains, near the sources of the Columbia.
Douglas, in Hook. FI, B.-A, (quoted as the Oregon in Torr. and Gr.) Judging from the
course of the Columbia River and Douglas’s route as laid down in Hooker’s map, the
locality of this plant would be in the neighbourhood of Mount Brown, near 52° north
latitude. It does not appear to have been found in British America by any other collector ;
but several localities are given for the Rocky Mountains of the south. Mr. James thus
sketches its distribution :—‘ A mountain western species, strictly confined, so far as
known, to the Rocky Mountain ranges, and extending from Central Colorado, at Middle
Park, Clear Creek Canyon (middle elevations), and in the Wahsatch and Uinta Mountains
of Utah, at 6,000 or 7,000 feet, to Fort Ellis, and the Yellowstone in Montana, at Snake
River Valley. Teton Mountains (11,000 feet) and Flat Head River Valley in Northern
24 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
Idaho and Washington Territory.” “We have specimens in fruit from Douglas’s last
Oregon collection.” Torr. and Gray, F1, I, p. 657.
Sir William Hooker, in describing this plant, observes: “This beautiful species of
Clematis is quite unlike any hitherto described ; and I am anxious it should bear the name
of its zealous and meritorious discoverer.” David Douglas, who was a native of Perth-
shire, Scotland, greatly distinguished himself as botanical collector for the Horticultural
Society of London, in the early days when that flourishing institution was filling the
gardens of England with new and strange plants. But this species does not seem to have
ever reached a garden. Douglas met his death in 1834, at the early age of 36 years, by
falling into a pit made by the natives of the Sandwich Islands for catching wild animals.
(There is a biographical sketch in Loudon’s Gardeners’ Magazine, for May, 1835, and in
Canadian Naturalist, 1860.)
[C. ALPINA, var. OCHOTENSIS. Leaves biternately divided, segments oblong-lanceo-
late, acuminate, serrate, petals few, linear. (Atragene Ochotensis. Pallas, Fl. Ross, IL,
p. 69. ©. Ochotensis, Poir. DC. Syst. Nat. I., 166.) Prof. Gray expresses surprise that
this plant should have been for the first time detected in the New World at a point
so far south as Santa Fé. (Plantze Fendlerianæ Novi-Mexicanæ, p. 4) In the Old
World it is the northern or Siberian form of the European C. alpina, but in America
it has only, so far, been found in Colorado, Utah and Idaho, according to Mr. J. F.
James (Clematis, p. 12), who observes : “ Doubtless it is to be found in British America at
the north, and may even extend up to Alaska.” As yet, however, it cannot be included in
our Flora, but will, it is hoped, ere long reward the efforts of some climber on our Rocky
Mountains. It is the only species of Clematis common to both America and Europe.]
Genus II —THALICTRUM, Linnaeus.
Hooker and Bentham, Genera Plantarum, I, p. 4.
List of species :—
i De 'Cornutz | 5. T. sparsiflorum.
2. T. occidentale. | 6. T. anemonoides.
3. T. dioicum. | [T. purpurascens.]
4. T. alpinum. |
1.—THATLICTRUM Cornutl, Linnaeus.
Root fibrous. Stem strong and tall, prominently furrowed, (three to six feet high).
Radical leaves long-stalked, very large, and, like the sessile cauline leaves, ternately
decompound; leaflets large, thick and glaucous or downy beneath, varying from broadly
obovate to narrowly elliptical in outline, ternately divided into rather large acute lobes.
Flowers numerous, in large showy terminal panicles, dicecious or polygamous; sepals
white; anthers crowded, erect, on short, stoutish filaments ; stigmas very long, flattened.
Carpels numerous, terete, ribbed. Cornute’s Thalictrum.
Thalictrum Cornuti. Winn., Sp. PL, I, p. 768, (1753). Aiton f., Hort. Kew., ed. 2, II,
CANADIAN RANUNCULACE Æ. 28
p. 347. Pursh., p. 388. Persoon, Synops. PI, IL, p. 100. Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am., I. p. 3, tab. 2
Torr. & Gray, FI. N. A., I, p. 88, in part. Gray, Pl. Fendl., p. 5. Manual, ed. 5, p. 39. Chap-
man, FILS. U.8., p.5. Pl. Bourgeau, 254. Lawson, Ranune. Canad., p. 31. Watson, Bibl.
Index, I, p. 25. Macoun, Cat. No. 22.
T° corynellum. DOC. Syst. Nat., I., p.172. Richardson, Frankl. Jour., 12, in part, (see
Hook. F1. B. A.)
. confertum. Moench. (Watson, Index.)
. crenatum. Desf. Cat. Hort. Par. ed. 2, p. 126. (DC.)
! discolor. Willd.
. rugosum. Pursh, F1, p. 388. DC. Syst. Nat. I, p. 185.
. Carolinianum. DC. Syst. Nat, I., p. 174 (Watson.)
. leucostemon. ©. Koch and Bouché, in App. Index Semin. Hort. Berol., 1855. Wal-
pers, Annales Botanices Syst., IV., p.12. C. Koch and Bouché’s description does not show
this plant (received at the Berlin Garden from North America) to be essentially different
from T. Cornuti. It appears to be a form with more compact congested panicles, a pecu-
liarity that might possibly result from its being grown in the well-drained soil of the
Berlin Botanic Garden.
Thalictrum Canadense. Cornute, Canad. PI. Hist., 186, tab. 187, (1635). Provancher,
Fl. Canad., p. 5.
T. Americanum. Parkinson, Theatr., 265, n. 9, (1640).
T. majus, foliis aquilegia, flore albo. Morison, Historia Plantarum, III., p. 325, (1680).
T. Canadense, caule purpurascente, Aquilegie foliis, florum staminibus albis. Tournefort,
Inst. Rei Herb., p. 271, (1700).
Banks of rivers as far north as lat. 56°, in wooded districts, the whole breadth of the
continent, excluding the barren grounds and alpine tracts.— Hooker, Fl. B. A.
Wet meadows and margins of streams, not uncommon throughout the provinces of
Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. Kingston, Ont., Hardwood Creek, 10th
July, 1861, and surrounding country, abundant; Halifax County, not rare—ZLawson. Fre-
quent in Quebec province—Wr. Barnston. Chippewa and Malden, Ont—Dr. P. W.
Maclagan. Gaspé, moist places along the Dartmouth River.—Dr. John Bell. Windsor,
N.S.—Prof. How. Prescott and Ottawa, common.—B. Billings jr. Lake Superior.—Prof.
R. Bell. Belleville, common on the borders of streams.—Macoun. Anticosti, 1861.—
Verrill, Newfoundland, Bonne Bay and Point Rich, July-August, 1861—J. Richardson.
Between Wild Rice River and Red Lake River, September, 1860 —Dr. Schultz. Assini-
boine River, July, 1861, Nos. 40-50.—Dr. Schultz. From the Atlantic through the wooded
districts “to the Pacific,’ north to Peace River.—Macoun. Manitoba House, 14th June,
1881, and Long Lake, N. W. Territory, 7th July, 1879.—Macoun, in Herb. Can. Surv. St.
Marie (Beauce).—Provancher. Abundant in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, but its
western or Pacific range has not been well traced. Cultivated in England in 1640,
(Parkinson, I. ¢.).
ERSIS sea
2.—THALICTRUM OCCIDENTALE, Gray.
This is referred to by Brewer and Watson as very like the southern 7. Fendleri, except
Sec. IV., 1884, 4.
26 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
in the achenes, which are nearly half an inch long, narrow, long-acuminate and less
curved than in that; it seems to be allied to 7. Cornuti, the filaments not thickened
upwards as in that species.
Thalictrum occidentale. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad., VIII, p. 372.
XI, p. 121, (1876). Brewer & Watson, Bot. Calif., ed. 2, I., p. 4.
British Columbia to W. Montana.— Watson. Oregon to Montana.—Bot. Calif.
Watson, Proc. Am. Acad.,
3.—THALICTRUM DIOICUM, Linneus.
Root of strong thick fibres, sometimes almost tuberous. Stem twelve or fourteen
inches, varying to two feet or more in height, with long-stalked ternately compound
leaves, composed of rounded thin broad-lobed leaflets, green above, glaucous beneath.
Flowers dicecious (or polygamous), in panicles, sepals greenish, with yellow or dull
purple long slender pendent anthers. Carpels deeply furrowed, several usually abortive.
Thalictrum dioicum. Linn., Sp. Pl. p. 768. Aiton f., Hort. Kew., ed. 2, II], p. 347. Pursh,
FI, p. 388. DC. Syst. Nat, I, p. 173. Hook, Fi. Bor.-Am., L, p. 3. Torr. & Gr. Fl. I, p.
38. Hook. f, Arct. PI, p. 288. Chapman; F1. So. U.S., p.5. Pl. Bourgeau, 254. Wood.
Class Book and Flora, p. 204 Provancher, Fl. Can., p. 5. Gray, Manual, 5 ed., p. 39,
Lawson, Ranune. Canad., p. 32. Watson, Bibl. Index, I, p. 26. Macoun, Cat. No. 20.
T. levigatum. Michaux, F1, I, p. 322, (DC.) Persoon, Synops. PI, II, p. 190.
Grassy banks of rivers ; most abundant in the central limestone districts, from Canada
to the banks of the Mackenzie River in lat. 67°.— Richardson. Found also on the eastern base
of the Rocky Mountains.—Drummond. And on the banks of the Columbia.—Mr. Garry. °
Not found on the barren grounds, nor on naked alpine situations.—Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am.
Dry woods and banks, common in central Ontario, as woods about Trenton, June, 1862,
and around Gananoque Lake, Birch Island, &e., May, 1861; near Kingston Mills, and
woods near Kingston Depot, 2nd May, 1860.—Lawson. Mountain side, Hamilton, 12th
May, 1860.—Judge Logie. Prescott and Ottawa, common.—B. Billings jr. Ellis Bay,
Anticosti, July 4.—J. Richardson. Anticosti—Verill. Niagara Falls and Malden.—Dr. P. W.
Maclagan. Belleville, abundant in rich woods.—Macoun. Montreal Mountain, 1848.—
James Adie. Mackenzie River, above Fort Simpson, 22nd June, 1853; Trout Lake, June ;
between Severn and Trout Lake, June.—MeTavish. Near the big lake of Harrington, Co.
Argenteuil, July, 1861.—Dr. John Bell. Assiniboine, July, 1861.—Dr. Schullz, No. 71. In
New Brunswick, at Keswick Ridge, rare—Fowler. Flat lands, Restigouche.—Chalmers.
This plant was cultivated in England by Mr. Philip Miller in 1759. Mall. Dict. ed.
7, n. 9.
4.—THALICTRUM ALPINUM, Linneus.
Root fibrous, stem simple, smooth, three to six inches high, leaves nearly all radical,
long-stalked, biternate. Flowers hermaphrodite, in a simple raceme. Carpels shortly
stalked, tipped with the hooked style.
Thalictrum alpinum. WLinn., Sp. Pl. p. 767. Fl. Lapponica, p. 225. Hudson, FI.
Anglica. Withering, Fl. Brit. Lightfoot, Fl. Scot., p. 286, t. 13 f.1. DC. Syst. Nat., I, p.
175. Prod, I. p.12. Bot. Mag, t. 2237. Torr. & Gr. Fl. N. À, I, p. 39. Wood, Cl. Bk.
CANADIAN RANUNCULACE®. PAT
& F1, p. 204 Hook. & Thoms., Fl. Indica, I, p.18. Eng. Bot, t. 262. Hook., Bab.,
and other British authors. Reichenbach, Ic. FL Germ., IT, 26. Fries, Summa Veg.
Scandinay., p. 27. Lawson, Ranune. Canad., p.33. Watson, Bibl. Index., p. 25, Macoun,
Cat., No. 28.
T. microphyllum et marginatum. Royle, Il, Walp. Rep., I, 24-25.
T acaule. Camb., Walp. Rep. I. 12, n. 31. Ann, IV, p. 11
First recorded as Canadian on authority of Kalm; subsequently reported from the
Island of Anticosti, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by Pursh ; not noticed by Hooker in Flora
‘Boreali-Americana. Again collected on Anticosti by Mr. Verrill, rare and not in flower,
1861; more recently by Macoun, on Jupiter River, Anticosti, very abundant in river val-
leys, but not on high grounds.—Herb. Survey Canada. Newfoundland.—Herb. Banks, DC.
Newfoundland, 1866-8.—H. Reeks (Jour. Bot., [X., p. 16). Greenland.—Hornemann. Lyn-
gemarken, Disco Island, west coast of Greenland, 1867.—Brown Camp. Plentiful at sea
level amongst Luzula spadicea, at Englishman Bay, Disco, to the west of Lievely, lat.
69° 15’—Hart, Brit. Polar. Exped., 1875-6. Kotzebue Sound and Port Clarence.—Rothrock.
Rocky Mountains of the South.—Dr. Parry. Iceland.—Hooker, Lindsay, &c. Orkney, 500
feet —Boswell-Syme. Scotland, Scandinavia, &c., Wales.—Sir J. E. Smith. Pyrenees.—DC,
Lapland.—Linneus. Himalaya and Thibet, above 10,000 feet.—Hook. fil. & Thomson, F1.
Ind., Walpers Annales, IV., p. 11. The stronghold of this species is in Northern Europe,
where it occurs chiefly on the mountains, descending to the sea level as it approaches the
Arctic Circle, and extending eastward through East Siberia. Novaya Zemlya.—Baer and
Middf. In Britain it extends from 53° to 61° N. lat., its southern limits being Yorkshire
and Wales, on mountains, descending to the coast level in the North Highlands, and ascend-
ing to 3900 feet in the East Highlands; range of mean annual temperature 46°—34°.—
H. C. Watson, Cybele Brit., I., p. 71, who observes: “This is truly an Arctic species, and
the specific name should be construed with reference to the climate, and not as indicating
any predilection for {he Alps, as seems to be implied by those botanists who write the
name with an initial capital,—Alpinum.”
5.—THALICTRUM SPARSIFLORUM, Turczainow.
Plant 12 to 18 inches high, with shortly petioled ternately compound leaves, which
are glabrous, glaucous on the lower surface. Flowers hermaphrodite, filaments clavate.
Carpels large, pale, thin and pod-like, stipitate, with embossed veins but no furrows.
Thalictrum sparsiflorum. Turez. in Index Sem. Petropol. Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, iv, p. 332.
Gray, Pl. Wright. Smithsonian Contributions, V. p. 8. Watson, Bibl. Index, I, p. 26.
Macoun, Cat. No. 24.
T. clavatum. Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am. I, p. 2, excl. syn. Torr & Gr., Fl. N. A, I, p. 87.
Walpers, Ann. Bot., IV., p. 10. Lawson, Ranune. Canad., p. 33.
Not T. clavatum of DeCandolle’s Systema, Gray’s Manual, and Chapman’s F1. So. U.8.,
which is a southern plant.
T. Richardsonii Gray, Am. Jour. Sc. XLII, p. 17.
Found only on Portage La Loche, a height of land composed of sand hills, lying in
Jat. 57°, and separating the waters flowing to Hudson Bay from those falling into the
28 LAWSON: REVISION OF THE
Arctic Sea—Richardson, in Hook., Fl. Bor.-Am. York Factory, a large number of specimens
collected during successive seasons.—Governor McTavish. Unfortunately special localities
are not given on the labels of McTavish’s specimens, the district being indicated merely by
the letters “Y. F” Low ground along the eastern base of the Porcupine Mountains, about
lat. 53°; Manitoba; McLeod Lake, lat. 55°, B. C_—Macoun.
~
6.—THALICTRUM ANEMONOIDES, Michaux.
Root of few fleshy tubers; radical leaves few ; long-stalked, ternately compound,
with stalked leaflets; cauline leaves similar, forming an involucre. Plant five or six
inches high, with habit and foliage of Isopyrum, flowers of Anemone, and fruit of Thalictrum,
DC.
Thalictrum anemonoides. Michaux, F1. B. A. I, p. 322, (1803.) DC. Syst. Nat. I, p. 186.
Prodromus, I, p. 15. Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. I, p. 4 Torr. & Gr, Fl. N. A, L, p. 39. Gray,
Gen. Ill, I, p. 24, t. 6. Manual, ed. 5, p. 38. Chapman, FI. S. U.S., p.6. Watson, Bibl.
Index, I., p. 25. Macoun, Cat., No. 19.
Anemone thalictroides 8. Linn., Sp. PI, p. 763.
Anemone thalictroides. Bigelow, F1. Boston, p. 136. Pursh, Fl, IL, p. 387. Aiton,
Hort. Kew. Bot. Mag. t. 866. Persoon, Synops. P1, IL, p. 98. Pursh, F1, p. 387.
Syndesmon thalictroides. Hoffmansege, in Flora, 1832, Intell. Blatt, p. 34 Lawson,
Ranune. Can., p 31.
Anemonella thalictroides. Spach, Hist. Vee., VIT, p. 240, (1839.)
Canada.—Kalm, Michaux. St. David’s, Niagara District, Ont.—Dr. P. W. Maclagan.
Oaklands, Hamilton, Ont., 31 May, 1859.—Judge Logie. Vicinity of Niagara Falls and
Pelee Island, Lake Erie —Macoun.
[T. PURPURASCENS, Linneus. Attributed by Linnæus to “Canada,” in the Species
Plantarum, has not so far been satisfactorily identified as a Canadian species, although
reported several times. It appears to be a southern plant, well known to Dr. Gray, who
gives a full description of it in the Manual, 5th edition, p. 39. 7: dioicum is frequently tinged
with purple on the upper part of the stem, leaf stalks, &c., and such forms have been mis-
taken in Canada for 7. purpurascens. It is very desirable that all suspicious forms of Thalictra
should be collected, especially in the southern peninsula of Ontario, whence Dr. Burgess
reports this species, but I have not had opportunity of examining his specimens. ]
Genus II].—ANEMONE, Linneus.
Bentham and Hooker, Genera Plantarum, I, p. 4.
List of species :—
Section 1.—Involucre of three simple leaves close to the flower, resembling a calyx.
Hepatica. . Dillenius. Linn. DC. Gray.
1. A. Hepatica. | 2. A. acutiloba.
Section 2.—Involucre much divided, distant from the flower ; achenes with long plume-
tails. Pulsatilla. Tournefort. DC.
3. A. patens. | 4. A. occidentalis.
CANADIAN RANUNCULACEA. 29)
Section 3.—Involucre more or less resembling the leaves, usually distant from the
flower. Achenia without tails.
5. A. Baldensis. 10. A. cylindrica.
6. A. parviflora. 11. A. Virginiana.
7. A. nemorosa. 12.
MINIMUS, LAnn...... ........
SHOT RANNEQUO Lecce...
PæonrA BRowNIr, Douglas....., ...... ...... .....
CANES TOT Cal INULTAILE RER... de
Populago, Ray..........- eee ec 00 booc 5
Pulsatilla alpina, Lawson. ......................
Nuttalliana, Sprengel...................
pates (Crehienconge qoobgoceno dese
_...
8. Wulfgangiana,Trauty. & Meyer
RANUNCULUS ABORTIVUS, Linn........ geedoe cetobe
var. micranthus, Gray..........
IAGRIS SLAIN eR Eee ere Voie
acris, Macoun....... sel ee
AHRINIS RTE CRE eee eee
var. CARDIOPHYLLUS, Gray .......
var. y. LRIOCARPUS, Trautr........
alismeefolius, Gray .......... 50600 bOGO :
Altaicus, Laxm........... DD ane 500
amoenus, Ledebour....................e
AMBIGENS, Watson......................
Ammant GUNTEr- 2-5: de ce--es-ie
amphibius, James "0...
AQUATILIS, var., CONFERVOIDES, Lawson.. ..
var. DrouEru, Lawson...........
var. Lobbii, Watson............
var. LONGIROSTRIS, Lawson .......
var. SUBMERSUS, Lawson ........,
var. trichophyllus? Lawson.....
arcticus, Richardson..............,.....
auricomus, HOOkK:-------c--.--e-..- do
VE iiEionsagacrocac dboonDouS
var. affinis, Lawson.......+....
IBGCK1T SNL) OM cto ayers elatera rec BODO U-OES 5
brevicaulis, Hook........ rs stetaterstateaters
BULBOSUS: TNT etes Carre
Geespitosus) AWallche "#00"
Californicus, Macoun'..... 6 <1 selesiarr
Canadensis Jacquin 1... 5
cardiophy Us; EVOOK <1. sje clcie wine) sleleielleeiale
Chamissonis, Schlechtendal ............
Clinton Beck ee Roeecr-cecree 5
Confer VOIES, ETIES.-- chi 5
CYMBATARTA Pure «is co elstalelelact ees ne
var. 8. ALPINUS, Ho0k, 2. 0
delphinifolius, Torrey 2-1. cee cece scenes
DIGITATUS, Ho0k.....,.... Dons noces
Drouetit Be SchultZecec tsetse ons
Sec. IV., 1884.
PAGE
31
54
54
29
81
62
46
62
49
1
9
Le
Eschscholtzii, Schlechtendal...... cree
FASCICULARIS, Muhlenberg..........,......
fascicularis, Barton ...... eee
filiformis, Michaux
Flammula, Schlechtendal...............
Flammula, Pursh......
var. y. filiformis, Hook..........
var. intermedia, Hook...... voce
var. reptans, Smith...... spado00
sub.-sp. reptans, Hook. f.........
fluitans, Provancher ....
fluviatilis, Bigelow.....................
es
ee en
bene tee mms
frigidus, Willd ........ agicadsads sopn0o00
GLABERRIMUS, H00k............... D'A000
GLACIALIS, LANN..... ..... ee -cc-eeriee
Gmelini, Fl. Sibir......................
halophilus, Schlechtendal......... eee
hederaceus, Biria........ Do dot ob covutn
hederaceus, Macoun................ eerie
hederaceus, var., Torrey................
HEDERACEUS, Var. HEDERÆFOLIUS, Lawson.»
var. LOBBIL, LAWSON ...... ss...
hispidus, Ho0k....-.""..."00
hispidus, Michaux ...... about condbe
hispidus, Pursh...... S60
HooKkeri, Regel.............
hydrocharis confervoides, Hiern ........
hederzefolius, Hiern ...... Morice
Lobbii, Hiern.............
longirostris, Hiern ........... 50
HYPERBORBUS, Rottbüll......... HooPocoudé
hyperboreus, Hook. & Thoms...........
HYPERBORBUS, var. PYGMÆUS, Lawson :....
infestus, Salisb....................
intermedius, Eaton
lacustris, Beck & Tracy..........
lanuginosus, Walter.......,.,..........
lanuginosus, var. y. Pursh........,......
Lapponicus, Linn ..... aon08 aboade Cdt
limosus, Nutt...... Risievelereccrogelelinisinsia terete
Lingua, Pursh?..........
lobatus, Jacquem .......... OO DD Doc ë
Lobbii, Gray......... Moa dcr ondoet
longirostris, Godron.....,...
Marilandicus, Poiret.........
MULTIFIFUS, Pursh...........
sors su...
essor.
sous rss
ss ss.
ee ees ss.
var. 3. LIMOSUS, Lawson...... oad
var. y. REPENS, Watson ..........
multifidus, var. 3. Watson........,..... .
NELSON, Gray... ,..... ceeeerscucceee
var, TENELLUS, GTAY sesers severe
nitidus, Hook.......... ere rer
NIVALIS, LAN... esse soon soso se Ao
nivalis, Bo TAN). «cel cieccice sicise eee
var. 3. Wahlenberg.............
var. EscuscHourzit, Watson ......
pygmæus, Linn................
var. SULPHUREUS, Watson. .......
OCCIDENTALIS, Nuttall..........
…sssrisse
89
PAGE
59
64
61
48
48
49
48
48
48
48
46
46
57
53
47
47
49
45
44
44
44
44
62
61
62
59
45
45
44
45
56
56
56
60
61
46
63
61
55
47
49
49
44
45
61
46
47
LAWSON: REVISION OF RANUNCULACEA.
occidentalis, M'&G.-............... Soon (oe!
var. parviflorus, Torrey......... 64
ORTHORHYNCHUS, HOOK .......... ...... 66
OVALIS, Refinesque ne eee se. 52
PATLTASIL SCHIECRIENUQL. .. ess sous 59
palust. apiifol. levis, C. Bauh............ 54
paucistamineus, var. borealis, Beurl..... 45
SC AGUS LOO Keatelateieietetelelstel-faeieterctelaialels 59
pedatifidus, Schlecht........ ele rayerstaters soda: fil
pedatifidus, Smith .........- Pacoopooun “at
PENNSYLVANIOUS, Linn. fil............... 62
Pennsylvanicus, Pursh................ COL
Pennsylvanicus, var., Biria.....- Dos Se OB
Philonous Pure cer -----e Oo
plantaginifolius, Murray .......... poomd 5!)
prostratus, Poiret........... oopamounooo5. (OÙ
pulchellus, C. A. Meyer................. 49
Purshii, Richardson...... soba seas dde ae 46
Pe PERI CHAT CSOT eee metres 47
Pap RIChATOSOM EEE ere ere 47
P., terrestris (subglaber), Lede-
DOUTE =. -etere cree 47
Var DARÉODKe- eee El
var. 0. Hook..... NÉS oc 47
pygmæus, Wahl.......... Jan sacoan ec 56
radicans, C. A. Meyer............... Sone LT
a. typicus, Regel............... 47
var. multifidus, Regel ........., 46
B. repens, Regel................ 47
RECURVATUS, Poiret............ ces 63
recurvatus, Bong .-.............. recess 64
B. Nelsonii, DC.......... Dosage 64
REPENS, Linn............ Spa dbpn 100 An 60
var. HISPIDUS, T. & G,........... 61
repens, var. Marilandicus, T. & G........ 61
REPTANS, Linn..... By Gaadno AU So ac oo fo 48
var. . filiformis, DC............ 48
var. B. INTERMBDIUS. ...ee see ee 48
*rhomboideus, Goldie............. nosso Met)
SADIRLUR BTE eee eee CEE TEE CR aie
salsuginosus, Don............ Édodbo done 49
salsuginosus, Pallas................ coos 49
salsuginosus, Wallich ...... Poe ee. 4)
saniculæformis, Muhl....... SodomoocaGou 63
sarmentosus, Adams..... 26000200 060be0
SCELERATUS, DANN. ++. ...... soe nee
Schlechtendalii, Hook...
sulphureus, Solander............ gobéaad
tenellus, Nutt........... dodo to bocce
tomentosus, Poiret.................0....
tridentatus, HBK%.-.....-.
[rabies trish MŒœnche--"---+-----e--------e
Syndesmon thalictroides, Hffmsg..... Bh ag8a00000
Tuavicrrum acaule, Camb.........,.... DEEE EEE
ADPINUM ANT ee ee cecee-Chee-pte
Americanum, Parkinson ...............
ANEMONOIDES, Michæ.............. 00190
Canadense, Cornute.......... Boo Doon
Canadense, et c., Tournefort ......... Bon
Carolinianum, DC......... Ce urine
clavatum HOOk--2-----------rreccre
clavatum DO RS crisis chose reeLete
contertum, MtŒœnehre-ecsere-eesrte-ce
CoRNUII, JAnn---......... ÉTAT R oO ao
CORYnONUM DO sooqqaca9n eao0000005 5550
crenatum, Desf........... Sdoniooe 000
DIOICUME MIU Ice er eee rapes bose
Giscolor WATER eee ee Peters
Japonicum, Thunberg..................
levigatum, Michx............. qoonacs on
leucostemon, Koch & Bouche.......... 56
marpinafum, ALOIS: secs:
majus fol. Aquil., et c., Morison..... 5560
microphyllum, Royle...................
OCCIDENTALE, (TAY eee. se cle 'e cleimas eieeieiels
PURPURASCENS, Linn......... TOOL 0080
Richardson, Gray..."
rugosum, Pursh......... rielefetelelofetstatetateteye
SPARSIFLORUM, Turez................ esters
TRAUTVETTERIA GRANDIS, Nutt ..... dacnase boohnots
palmata, var. occidentalis, Gray.........
Trifolium Hepaticum, Mentzelius ..............,
TroLLIUS AMERICANUS, Muhlenb..... ARCS -
decapetalus, DC..........-. Sat age
laxus, Salisb....
pentapetalus, DC...............
nn nn ntm nuuse
Tussilago sive Farfugium, Mathiolus.............
Warnera Canadensis, Miller.....................
71
SECTION IV., 1884. [SI Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA,
IV.—On Geological Contacts and Ancient Erosion in Southern and Central New
Brunswick.— By L. W. BaïLey.
(Read May 23, 1884.)
The importance of geological contacts in the determination of the structure and
geological history of different regions is well understood, and in the study of the latter
these receive, as they deserve, especial attention. While the various formations, in their
petrological characters, their thicknesses, and their contained fossils, afford the data for
estimating the conditions of their origin and their relative duration, it is along their lines
of junction that we are to look, more than elsewhere, for information as to the circum-
stances under which they came to a close ; in other words, for the time and nature of the
physical breaks by which the historical record is divided into its separate chapters, and
made comparable with those of other regions.
In the study of the geological structure of the Province of New Brunswick, which, as
regards its general features, is now well advanced, a variety of such contacts has been
observed and detailed in the geological reports. From the peculiar position, however,
which this Province occupies with reference to the great north-eastern or Acadian basin,
and from the fact of its possessing a larger number of determinable horizons than any
other portion of that basin, of which it therefore becomes to a certain extent the key, the
consideration of these contacts has an interest beyond the immediate region in which they
are found, and suggests conclusions of much wider application. It is the intention of the
writer, in the following remarks, to consider briefly some of the more important of these
junctions, and the deductions which they may seem to justify. As the passage from one
formation to another is usually accompanied by evidences of more or less extensive
erosion, and as this, in some instances, affords almost the only proof of a want of continuity,
some observations on this latter point may also prove of interest.
The reference of a portion of the rocks of southern New Brunswick to a pre-Silurian,
Azoic, or, as it is now better termed, Archean age, was first asserted by the writer in con-
nection with Mr. G. F. Matthew in 1865, on the ground of their relations to the fossil-
iferous rocks of St. John, then first identified by Hartt as containing a typically Primor-
dial fauna. It is remarkable that, while the recognition of this ancient horizon is
not exceeded, as regards the completeness of the data, by that of any subsequent formation,
so its relations to the underlying rocks are of the most satisfactory and conclusive charac-
ter. For not only do they differ wholly in lithological characters, a feature which some
writers suppose to have been the only ground for their separation, but, in every particular
ordinarily marking discordance of successive formations, the evidences here offered are
wide-spread and complete. Whatever view be taken as to the precise equivalence of the
underlying groups which have been compared respectively with the Laurentian and
Huronian systems, the fact remains that these represent 2 vast thickness of sedimentary
92 I. W. BAILEY ON GEOLOGICAL CONTACTS AND ANCIENT
strata of the most diverse character, and that, while at one point the Primordial rests upon
what appear to be the most recent of these strata, at another it reposes upon beds which
cannot be less than several thousands of feet lower in the series, while the conglomerates
which mark its base bear further testimony, both in their composition and their thick-
ness, to the erosive processes which preceded or accompanied the deposition of the Pri-
mordial sediments. Finally, while local unconformable contacts may be seen at many
points, an equally marked discordance is observable in the two groups as a whole, the
trends of the Primordial being transverse to those of the supposed Huronian, as the folds
and dislocations of the one are quite independent of those of the other. The Lower Silu-
rian, or Cambrian, formation is thus as clearly defined in its stratigraphical relations as it
is in its paleontological features, and forms a readily recognizable horizon, with reference
to which the position of both older and more recent groups may be directly compared.
As regards the older systems to which reference has been made, New Brunswick has
been naturally looked to as likely to afford some information upon the questions which
have recently awakened so much attention, regarding the number and order of succession
of the pre-Cambrian rocks, and has, indeed, been frequently referred to in discussions of
this subject. It can, however, I think, hardly be said that these questions, as here applied,
have yet received a definite solution. That there are among the rocks referred to three,
if not four, distinct groups of strata, exhibiting strong lithological contrasts, and pro-
bably representing entirely distinct periods and conditions of deposition, was early recog-
nized and has been confirmed by all later study of the region, but the precise relations in
which these stand to each other and their correlations with proposed subdivisions of
Archean rocks elsewhere, are not so easily settled and have been variously regarded by
different observers. Thus, while the writer, in common with Mr. G. F. Matthew, by whom
the structure of the district was first studied, has described, in what he believes to be an
ascending succession, a gneissic, a calcareous, a felspathiec, and a schistose group,—the two
former being regarded as representing the Laurentian and one at least of the latter the
Huronian system,—Dr. Hunt has been disposed to question the existence of true Lauren-
tian in this district, and to modify the above arrangement by associating the calcareous
with the schistose group, regarding both as newer than Huronian and equivalents of what
he has elsewhere termed Montalban. Without attempting to deny that such an arrange-
ment is possible, and that, if sustained by further investigation, it would bring the succes-
sion in this region into remarkable parallelism with that observed elsewhere, the
writer, after long and repeated study of the region, is still constrained to think that the
facts of the case are such as to favour the former rather than the latter view of the actual
structure. Thus, applying the test of contacts, which it is the purpose of the present paper
more particularly to consider, it is not a little remarkable that while the calcareo-silicious
group may be seen at many points resting upon, and in direct contact with, the coarser
gneisses, following these throughout their distribution, and apparently involved in the
movements by which they have been affected; nothing at all resembling the strata first
named is to be found in connection with the schistose group, where the few limestones
which are met with are very impure, of insignificant thickness, of different character, and
of wholly unlike associations. Again, if the calcareous and associated strata are really
more recent than the felsite-petrosilex group, the entire absence of the latter between the
same calcareous beds and the underlying gneisses, when these are observed together,
EROSION IN SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL NEW BRUNSWICK. 93
would imply an amount of erosion which, considering the nature of the material compos-
ing the felsitic group and the vast bulk which it exhibits even at a very limited distance,
seems altogether improbable. It may be added that while pebbles, derived alike from the
felsitic and schistose beds, occur abundantly and in great variety in the basal conglomerates
of the Primordial, no such pebbles from either member of the calcareous group have been
identified in such a position as they naturally would be in, were the latter group imme-
diately subjacent. All that can at present be positively asserted is: (1) the super-position
of the limestone-quartzite series upon the granitoid gneiss, though perhaps distinct from
the latter, and (2) the interposition of a vast body of schistose strata, quite unlike those of
the first named group, between the felsitic rocks and the basal beds of the Primordial. It
may be added that between the felsitic group and the overlying schists and conglomerates
the contacts are abundant and easily observed, showing not only distinct unconfor-
mity of dip, but at least a partial breaking up of the lower beds, accompanied by the
extensive extravasation of igneous rocks and the formation of coarse tuffs and agglomer-
ates, filled with blocks derived from the horizons beneath. Adopting this view of the
succession, it will be found to accord very nearly with that described by Dr. Hicks and
others as characterizing the district of St. David’s in Wales, where fossiliferous Cambrian
strata, containing a fauna similar to that of St. John, are in like manner underlaid in down-
ward succession by slaty and comparatively little altered rocks (Pebidian), a middle
group (Arvonian), comprising contemporaneous volcanic rocks, felsites, breccias and tuffs,
and having a thickness of 15,000 feet, and a lower group (Dimetian) consisting of grani-
toid and quartzose rocks with coarse gneiss and bands of limestone and dolomite, The
Coastal, Coldbrook and Portland groups of the New Brunswick local reports present appa-
rently identical features both of origin and arrangement. We may now pass to the con-
sideration of some more recent horizons.
In connection with the Primordial or Cambrian rocks of St. John, no remains of
younger formations are to be met with, except it be those of the Lower Carboniferous
series, and although in the more northerly belt of such rocks, found in the valley of the
St. John River in King’s County, these are approached somewhat nearly by fossiliferous
beds of Upper Silurian age, no actual contact of the two has been observed. It is, how-
ever, to be remarked that while beneath the Primordial rocks of this region there are, as in
St. John County, felspathic and schistose beds, succeeding in turn a well defined felsite-
petrosilex group, the latter is also directly and unconformably covered by the Upper Silu-
rian strata, thus indicating the extensive erosion to which the surface had been subjected
prior to the deposition of these later sediments,—a circumstance made still more conspicuous
by the occurrence of numerous hills, some of them several hundred feet in height, which
rise like islands through the nearly horizontal Upper Silurian beds, being evidently
fragments of a formation at one time much more widely distributed. The nature of these
beds and the fossils they contain show that the waters in which they were deposited were
but of moderate depth.
It has long been known that rocks of Upper Silurian age are widely spread over the
northern counties of New Brunswick, and that these are bordered along their southern edge
by wide belts of much harder rock, flanking one or more belts of granite, and in the vicinity
of the latter often presenting the aspect of highly crystalline schists, this second group
being variously described by Gesner, Robb, Hitchcock, Hind and others as Silurian, Cam-
e
94 L. W. BAILEY ON GEOLOGICAL CONTACTS AND ANCIENT
brian, Mica-schist group and Quebec group. Until within the last year or two, however,
no definite knowledge existed, either as to the true limits or relations of these several sets
of rocks, or even whether in the lower group there might not really be included several
distinct formations. In 1879, the base of the Upper Silurian in that part of Carleton County
lying east of the St. John River was approximately fixed by Mr. Matthew, and, simulta-
neously but independently, a like boundary was determined by myself between the town
of Woodstock and the Maine frontier. More recently both of these districts have been
reexamined and the line of contact of these formations carefully studied for a distance of
not less than thirty miles. Though somewhat obscured by overlying carboniferous sedi-
ments, the unconformity of the two is, nevertheless, strongly marked: first, in the occur-
rence at the base of the upper series of thick beds of calcareous conglomerate filled with
fragments (black silicious slate and petrosilex) derived from the group below; secondly,
in a difference both of strike and dip; and thirdly, as a result of this difference, in the pro-
gressive overlapping of the newer formation upon the several members of the older. The
fossils of the later group are numerous and varied, and indicate an horizon corresponding
either to that of the Niagara or Lower Helderberg; in the lower are a few shells and
graptolites, together with fragments of trilobites, apparently of the genera Trinucleus and
Harpes, but too poorly preserved to be certainly determinable.
The relations of these supposed Cambro-Silurian rocks to the granite open up nume-
rous questions, as interesting as they are difficult. They present, indeed, only another phase
of the well-known Taconic controversy, so admirably summarized and discussed by our dis-
tinguished Vice-President in the lately issued volume of our Transactions. Into the broader
questions involved in this controversy it is not necessary, nor do I feel prepared, to enter ;
the objects of the present paper will be sufficiently served by presenting a few facts of
actual observation in the field, with such conclusions as are of direct local application. In
the case of both of the great granite belts which traverse New Brunswick, the contacts of
the latter with the bordering stratified rocks are best seen along their northern edge, from
which overlying material has been for the most part removed, while it has been exten-
sively accumulated along that of the south. Where thus exposed it invariably presents
the following features :—
1. The transition from massive, compact and uniform granite to the associated schists
or other rocks is instantaneous and abrupt.
2. The invaded beds vary greatly in character, embracing coarse and fine gneisses,
mica schists, chloritic and hornblendic schists and fine micaceous sandstones.
3. Foliation and crystallization are most marked in the vicinity of the granite, and
decrease in receding from the latter, but vary greatly in the apparent distance to which
the effect has extended, this being in some instances only a few yards, while in others it is
several miles.
4. The outline of the granite is irregular, and, while in part parallel to the strike of
the enclosing schists, at others it intersects these obliquely or even at right angles, or
sends into the latter irregular tongues.
5. Detached masses or bosses, of various forms and sizes, border the main granitic
areas, indicating, beneath the schists, a wide-spread and uneven granitic floor.
6. Granitic veins, not different from the main mass of the granite, but readily distin-
EROSION IN SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL NEW BRUNSWICK. 95
guishable from true segregated veins which accompany them, penetrate the schists in all
directions to a distance of several hundred feet.
7. Large detached blocks, of various sizes up to two or three feet, but usually angu-
lar and sometimes rectangular, are enclosed in the granite, and produce the appearance of
a coarse granitic breccia.
To the above it may be added that small patches, sometimes not more than a few
yards or feet in extent, of gneissic or schistose rock, are occasionally met with resting
upon, but inseparable from, the granite, at very considerable distances from the nearest
exposures of such schistose rock, while smaller masses, which are evidently detached frag-
ments, occur in all parts of the granite area, often retaining the same features of texture,
foliation, and even of colour, presented by the main body of such rocks.
From a consideration of the above and other facts, the conclusion seems to be fairly
established that the granites in question are intrusive or exotic, and that the alteration of
the associated rocks was an accompaniment, if not an effect, of such intrusion. It may be
added that while the several belts of slates and schists, north and south of, or central to,
the granite, have been variously described as wholly or partly of different age or origin,
recent minute examinations of the region show beyond question their essential identity,—
the same crystalline and semi-crystalline rocks always appearing where the granite is
approached, whether from the southern, northern or eastern side, while in the opposite
directions these as invariably graduate into the upper and comparatively unaltered argil-
lites and greywackes. At what period the extravasation of the granite occurred is less
certain. As far as yet observed in Carleton County, no veins of the latter are to be found
penetrating the Upper Silurian, although veins of syenite and diorite are common ; but
the fact observed in the southern counties, that the conglomerates older than the Lower
Carboniferous are destitute of granitic pebbles, while those of the latter formation abound
with them, taken in connection with the evident similarity of the granites in the two
regions, and the precisely similar effects accompanying them, appears to indicate that both
are of synchronous origin and both Devonian. In either case the amount of erosion which
has since occurred is sufficiently indicated by the facts already stated, the whole granitic
area, with a superficies of several hundred square miles, having been evidently laid bare
by the denudation of beds (schists, slates and sandstones,) which, though now miles apart,
were at one time continuous over it, and which, to judge from their highly inclined atti-
tude and vast thickness, must have buried it to a very considerable depth. The fact that
the granite areas are usually lower than those of the bordering schists would also seem to
indicate that erosion has been more extensive and complete along these areas than in
the regions adjacent to the latter; while the much greater breadth of the region of meta-
morphism and foliation on the northern side of the granite, than on the southern, would
appear to indicate a much more abrupt descent in the junction line of the granitic mass on
this latter side than upon the opposite. It is to the contrasts thus produced that the different
views, which have been advanced by different observers as to the relations of the strata in
the district, are to be ascribed.
I pass now to the contacts of the Devonian. In the southern counties the rocks of
this age, so far as they have been certainly identified, are of very limited distribution, and
rest only upon rocks of Cambrian or pre-Cambrian age, a portion of these latter, by an
overturn and fault, being also brought to rest, in a position of comparative conformity,
96 L. W. BAILEY ON GEOLOGICAL CONTACTS AND ANCIENT
upon the Devonian strata, and thus originating a misconception which for some years
obscured the true structure of the region. No contacts of Devonian and Silurian are to be
found in this part of the Province; and though such contact has been supposed to occur in
connection with the argillites bordering the central coal-field, the age and relations of
these rocks can hardly be regarded as definitely settled.
In rising to the Lower Carboniferous, we reach an horizon and a series of contacts
which, whether they be regarded simply in themselves, or in their accompaniments of
erosion and lithological contrasts, constitute the most marked boundary line in the physical
history of New Brunswick. Resting indifferently and unconformably upon all the older
formations (Laurentian, Huronian, Cambrian, Upper Silurian, Devonian and granite) ; com-
posed of material, in some instances fossiliferous, derived from all these formations, and
varying in its aspect with the nature of the rock on which it rests; exhibiting no sign of
those metamorphic influences which have hardened, crystallized, or debitumenized all the
older beds beneath, even to the Devonian, but, on the contrary, being even in its lowest
portions saturated with petroleum and containing deposits of Albertite,—the study of this
formation, from whatever point of view, suggests conclusions of the greatest interest. So
marked and so wide-spread are the contrasts referred to, not in New Brunswick only but
everywhere around and over the Acadian basin, and so important were the movements by
which these contrasts were determined, that we may well style the epoch in which they
occurred the Acadian or Devonian revolution. It was, indeed, probably at this time that
the Acadian basin proper first became clearly outlined by the elevation of its bordering
hills, and when all the more marked of those physical features which now distinguish it
became determined. It is remarkable that both the breadth of the formation and its
elevation above the sea-level progressively increase in passing from the western to the
eastern side of the Province, beds of this age in the former being rarely met with more
than two or three hundred feet above the sea, and mostly confined to the valleys, while in
the opposite direction they gradually mount the sides of the hills, and, in the case of
Shepody Mountain, in Albert, cap the latter at a height of twelve hundred feet. There
is, however, good reason to believe that they formerly spread over much wider areas and
possessed a considerably greater thickness than they now exhibit. Thus, not only on
Shepody Mountain, but on other portions of the southern hills, at scarcely inferior eleva-
tions, strata of this age may be observed in positions which are not far from horizontal,
and which appear to be merely the detached and isolated fragments of a formation,
which at one time must have been continuous, and which deeply buried the entire
region in which they are found. So again, similar rocks, showing similar evidences of
marine origin, are found in scattered areas over portions of York, Carleton and Victoria
Counties, which are also but little inclined, and which have probably been disconnected
by erosion. Some of these in the Beccaquimic region cannot well be less than 800 or 900
feet above the sea-level. In King’s County the peculiar topography of such localities as
the Dutch valley and Upham, are evidently due to the removal of extensive masses of this
formation by denuding processes.
Still further evidence of the extent to which this formation has suffered by removal is
shown in its relations to the overlying coal-measures, and brings us to consider another .
line of contact, of special interest as bearing upon the important question of the coal-
producing capacity of this formation. There can be no question that, at many points, the
EROSION IN SOUTHERN AND CENTRAL NEW BRUNSWICK. 97
red éalcareous beds of the Lower Carboniferous pass up into those of the millstone-grit,
not only without unconformity, but with direct evidence of transition between the two; as
for example about Hillsborough in Albert County, where the denudation which has taken
place would appear to have occurred at a later period: but on the other hand there are also
evidences that this conformity is in many instances only apparent, resulting from the fact
that both sets of beds are approximately horizontal, and that a considerable interval,
involving a large amount of corrosion and deformation of the surface, occurred prior to
the deposition of the later strata. Thus, while in the Grand Lake district we have, on the
Newcastle River, a regular and apparently conformable succession of Lower Carboniferous
marine sediments, millstone-grit, and productive coal-measures, all with only a very low
inclination ; borings through these latter at a distance of only a few miles, and on the side
of the dipping strata, resulted in showing the entire absence of the lower beds, while at
yet another point, on Coal Creek, the coal-measure rocks may be seen, for miles, resting
upon uplifted pre-Carboniferous slates, without the intervention of the Lower Carboni-
ferous. So also, in some parts of York County, points almost within sight of each other show
horizontal coal-measure rocks resting at one time upon nearly vertical Lower Silurian
beds and at another upon an apparently thick mass of Lower Carboniferous sediments.
The wide-spread accumulations of dolerite, basalt and amygdaloid, which intervene
between the summit of the last-named group and the millstone grit, may be regarded as
further evidence of their unconformity. The supposition of conformity in beds so nearly
horizontal would necessarily imply, with wide superficial extent, a very limited thickness
to the coal-formation; while that last mentioned, by supposing the deposition of these
beds upon a surface extensively folded and eroded, will at least admit of the possibility of
a very varied thickness of the coal strata, and consequently of the occurrence of other
seams of coal than those now known and worked near the surface.
The last contact to which it is necessary here to refer is that of the Carboniferous
formation with the Trias or new red-sandstone. Several examples of such contacts have
been observed along the southern coast, but, apart from the fact of placing beyond question
the existence here of Mesozoic deposits, they present no features of special interest.
In recapitulation, it will appear from the foregoing observations that we have in New
Brunswick not less than six well defined physical breaks, with all the usual accompani-
ments of unconformity, viz., one between the Primordial and pre-Cambrian, four between
the several subdivisions of the Paleozoic, and one between the latter and the Mesozoic,
to which may be added certainly two, and probably three, similar breaks among the pre-
Cambrian rocks. In each of these cases, excepting perhaps that between the two main
divisions of the Carboniferous, the unconformability is accompanied and in part indica-
ted by the formation of heavy beds of conglomerate, while, in most instances, the same
lines of junction are marked by the occurrence of eruptive rocks, the result probably of
the same forces to which the unconformity is to be ascribed. In the case of the Devonian
revolution, involving movements of the entire Paleozoic series, there were, in addition to
the eruptions of trap, the extensive extravasations of granite which constitute so marked a
feature in the geology of Acadia, and which have had so profound an influence on all its
subsequent history.
Sec. IV., 1884. 18.
‘ ave
Ts 3 Wiel ete 9
x dix à, 1
re r 1
LEO | bank:
oni
; Ce of LA!
TE ;
ae
. i
LUF
2 D ah
ride heheh
bay sl
SECTION IV., 1884. PQ 9% Trans. Roy. Soc, CANADA,
V.— Illustrations of the Fauna of the St. John Group continued: on the Conocoryphea,
with further remarks on Paradoxides. By G.F, Marturw, M.A,
(Read May 28, 1884.)
In continuing my work on the Fauna of the St. John group, I have, at intervals dur-
ing the past year, made an examination of a part of the numerous species of trilobites
grouped by the late Prof. C. F. Hartt under the genus Conocephalites of Barrande. During
the examination of the fossiliferous material from the beds of Division 1c of the St. John
group necessary for this purpcse, some points in illustration of the characters of the
Paradoxides described in my former paper were noticed, which were not observed when
that paper was written, To these I shall refer before entering upon the main subject of
this article,
I—PARADOXIDES.
1.—PARADOXIDES ACADICUS. (Fig. 1.)
Young of this species. —In trimming some pieces of slate, two heads of very young indi-
viduals were exposed, which show important differences from the adult. These heads
were of equal size, and being only half of the length of the smallest head described in my
former paper, show the appearance of the species at a much earlier period of growth. The
length is about 4 mm., and it possesses in an exaggerated degree the wide-spread anterior
border which is a somewhat marked feature of the 8 (7.7) mm. size. This 4 mm. size is
also remarkable for the sharp Anopolenus-like sinus in the facial suture, and for the long
eye-lobe, which on the one hand touches the glabella, and on the other nearly reaches the
posterior margin. The cheeks are expanded to correspond to the spreading anterior border,
and the third and fourth furrows are placed very near the anterior end of the glabella.
Pygidium (Fig. 2).—A tail-piece, 4 mm. long, appears to have belonged to a larger test of
this species. It is ovate in outline and has peculiarities not observed in any other. The
axial lobe is somewhat more than half of the whole length. It consists of two segments :
the anterior one ring-like and narrow, with a small lunate portion, one third of its length,
marked off on the posterior side; the posterior segment of the axial lobe is subtriangular,
its extremity is rounded and the sides are rounded forward at the anterior quarter. Along
the front and side of the lateral lobe of the pygidium there is a marginal fold or border,
which at its anterior end connects with the first ring of the axis.
Sculpture —The upper surface of the pygidium is finely granulate, and in the posterior
half, where (in the specimen) the upper surface is broken off, the inner side of the under
surface presents a number of irregular parallel striæ, concentric to the axial lobe and the
front of the pygidium. This tail-piece, both in its granulated surface, its thickness, and
its well preserved form, possesses characters belonging to the rigid test of Paradoxides
Acadicus.
100 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
2,—PARADOXIDES LAMELLATUS, Hartt. (Figs. 3 and 4.)
Through the kindness of Mr. J. F. Whiteaves, of the Geological and Natural History
Survey of Canada, I was afforded an opportunity of examining a well-preserved head of
the typical form of this species. Prof. Hartt speaks of this trilobite as “a small species
distinguished from several others found with it by the presence of a number of sharp per-
pendicular lamin on the anterior lobe of the glabella.” As it is desirable, for the purpose
of comparison with other species, that a more complete description of this trilobite should
be given, I have sketched the following characters :—
The anterior margin is arched around the front of the glabella, and thence to the
suture it is straight. The flat area is one and a half times longer in front than at the
suture. The fold is much wider at the suture than in front of the glabella.
The glabella is about one quarter longer than its width. It is narrowed and depressed
at the back, but rises anteriorly into a well-rounded dome.
Glabellar furrows.—The first crosses the glabella and is deeply impressed, especially
in the outer third, and arches back from both extremities to the middle of the glabella.
The second furrow fails to cross the glabella by about one-fifth of its width; it is much
narrower than the first, and is deeply impressed; it inclines backward as it ascends the
slope of the glabella, and the extremities of the segments are sharply bent backward
where they approach the axial line. The third and fourth furrows are lightly impressed
and are directed forward; the third furrow extends about one-third across and is slightly
bent backward at the inner end; the fourth furrow extends only about one-fourth across.
Neither the third nor the fourth extends quite to the edgé of the glabella.
The occipital ring is somewhat inclined forward at the extremities, and is strongly
arched vertically. It is high behind and slopes gradually to the occipital furrow. This
furrow is deeply impressed in the outer third of its length, and in this part is’ strongly
arched forward towards the middle of the first glabellar furrow. Between the outer
thirds there is a flattened area on the axis of the glabella where this furrow blends with
the first glabellar furrow, but the latter furrow is here somewhat the deeper.
The posterior margin is broken in the specimen examined, but appears to arch down-
ward strongly at the extremity. The furrow is of regular width, and is moderately
impressed.
The fixed cheek also is broken, but appears to be rather narrow; it is elevated in the
middle and depressed at both ends. The ocular lobe in the specimen examined is broken off.
Sculpture —The anterior marginal fold is traversed by fine parallel raised lines, which
branch at intervals; they are roughly parallel to the anterior margin, near which they
are more crowded. The front of the dome of the glabella is ornamented with two or
more continuous sharp, raised ridges (separated by the space of about one millimetre)
which sweep around the front of the glabella on each side to the fourth furrow ; higher
on the dome of the glabella are small, broken and irregular ridges ; similar small, elongated
elevations of the test are scattered on the slopes of the glabella between the second and
fourth furrows. The projecting part of the occipital ring and the back of the dome of the
glabella are covered with tubercles, which, on the less elevated parts of the ring, and the
posterior half of the glabella, gradually diminish in size, until they pass into granulations.
Similar granulations are found on the fixed cheeks.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 101
Dimensions.—Length, 13 mm.; breadth, about 15 mm.
Locality —St. John, N.B. Collector, T. C. Weston.
This species is intermediate in size between P. Eteminicus and P. Acadicus. It resem-
bles the former in the appearance of the glabellar furrows and in the hollowness of the
neck of the glabella, and the latter in the granulated cheeks.
APPENDAGES OF PARADOXIDES. (Fig. 5.)
As any facts relative to the existence of appendages in the trilobites are of importance
from their bearing on the question of the position of these creatures in the animal king-
dom, I reproduce in the drawings accompanying this article a pygidium incorrectly
figured in connection with my former paper. (See Fig. 15, Plate X, Vol. I, Trans. Roy.
Soc. of Canada.) In Fig. 14 of the plate referred to, another pygidium of the same type is
figured, upon which a row of scars appears on each side of the axis; but those on the
pygidium reproduced with this paper are more distinct. These scars are somewhat
obliquely set on each ring of the axial lobe except the first, and are not far from the median
line ; the first pair are nearly circular, but those behind have an oval form.
If these scars mark the points of attachment of limbs, as seems not improbable, in
being so near the axial line they conform more nearly in position to the articulating base _
of the appendages of Asaphus megistos, as represented by Mr. C. D. Walcott in “Science,”
March, 1884, than they do to that of Calymene senaria, figured in the same paper,
3.—PARADOXIDES Micmac.
In preparing the notes for my former paper, I was a good deal perplexed as to the
species to which Prof. Hartt intended to attach this name. In his preliminary notice of
the fauna of the St. John group (‘Observations on the Geology of Southern New Bruns-
wick,” page 30), he says there at least five species of Paradoxides in this formation. At
page 656, “Acadian Geology,” he speaks of Paradoxides lamellatus as a species occurring with
several others; on the next page, Dr. J. W. Dawson attaches the name, with doubt, to a
specimen in my collection of that period since destroyed by fire, as being probably the
species which Hartt distinguished by this name.
The name was not found attached to any of the Paradoxides in the type-collection of
fossils of the St. John group deposited at Cornell University by Prof. Hartt, and yet there
are some unpublished species of other genera among these fossils, which have been named
by him. Prof. C. D. Walcott, of the United States Geological Survey, who has examined
this collection, and will describe the species contained in it in a monograph on the Cam-
brian fauna of the United States, now in press, is of the opinion (and rightly,) that “the
species P. Micmac should be thrown out, as not determined by illustration, description, or
the preservation of type-specimens.” But as the name P. Micmac has gone into geological
literature, I would suggest that it be applied to the large species with finely striated
glabella, marginal fold, and broad free cheek. (See Fig. 8, Plate X, Vol. I, Trans. Roy. Soc-
of Canada.) This is probably the one figured in “Acadian Geology.”
102 G, F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
II—CONOCORYPHEA.
In Professor Hartt’s descriptions of the species of the St. John group, (“Acad. Geol.,” p.
643, etc.) he has grouped together, under the genus Conocephalites of Barrande, a large
number of species which would now be divided among several genera. When tested by
the criterion of the eye-lobe it will be observed that they all belong to one or other of two
groups,—one characterized by the possession of eye-lobes and free cheeks ; the other consist-
ing of trilobites which apparently have no eyes, and have a suture which cuts off only a
portion of the rim of the head-shield. This latter group is the one which I propose to
make the subject of this article.
The Conocoryphea, as thus limited, appear to be confined to the lower plane of the pri-
mordial zone, and are thus almost as characteristic of this horizon as Paradoxides itself. In
their younger stages, the trilobites of this group assimilate in general form much more
closely to the eyed Conocephalites than they do when they approach maturity. This resem-
blance is chiefly due to the narrowness and comparative great length of the glabella in the
young of the Conocorypheans,—a peculiarity which disappears in the later stages of growth,
for in these stages the glabella contracts in length and expands at the base, and finally as-
sumes that conical shape to which this form of trilobite owes its name.
In the group of trilobites of this sub-family which is found in the Acadian region, some
points of structure come into view which are not evident in the corresponding species of
the Old World, and raise the question as to whether too much weight has not been attached
to the course of the facial suture as a means of dividing genera. Thus, in regard to the
two species Conocoryphe Sulzeri and Ctenocephalus Barrandet of Corda, ( Conocephalites
coronatus, Barr.) associated together by Barrande in the genus Conocephalites, he mentions
that the suture in the two species is the same in position, and takes the ground that the
differing number of segments in the thorax and the diverse pygidia are not of sufficient
value to carry these species into different genera, and therefore that Corda should not be
followed in thus dividing them.
I think, however, it will be made clear from the additional light thrown upon the
relations of these two species by a knowledge of the life-history and the mature features
of Conocephalites Matthewi (Hartt) that Corda was right in establishing two genera for these
species. It cannot be questioned but that the relationship between the last-named trilobite .
and Cf. coronatus is much closer than its connection with C. Sulzeri, and that this relation-
ship is most strongly shown in the possession by the two former of a marked protuber-
ance, or lobe, in front of the glabella, and by their small pygidia. The value of the
protuberance, or frontal lobe, in discriminating the two genera is better appreciated
when the embryological development of Cf. Matthewi is considered ; for it will be found
that this species springs from a more elementary form that the other Conocorypheans of
the St. John group, which by their pygidia and the form of their cephalic shield find their
relationship with C. Sulzeri, C. bufo, ete. Barrande remarks that the difference of one
joint in the thorax between Cf. coronatus and C. Sulzeri is not of sufficient moment even
when coupled with the existence of diverse pygidia to separate these two species generi-
cally. His opinion, as regards the lower generic value of the number of segments in the
thorax, is supported by the fact that Cf. Matthewi possesses in the only known thorax but
fourteen segments, the normal number of segments in Cf. Sulzeri, but not in Ct. coronatus.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 103
If we admit that the number of divisions in this region of the body is really a matter of
arrested development at an earlier or later stage of growth in the life of an individual, it
would be of less value in the discrimination of genera, than other points more nearly
related to the earlier embryonic features of the trilobite.
Omitting from consideration the difference in the facial suture between C. Sulzeri and
Conocephalites Baileyi (Hartt), a very close resemblance in general form and in the special
moulding of the surface of the cephalic shield is apparent ; nor is the resemblance between
the pygidia of the two species less marked. In the moulding of the inner surface of the
head-shield, and in the form of the thoracic segments, we trace on the other hand a close
connection between the last named species and Erinnys venulosa (Salter) of the British
Cambrian rocks.
A still more obvious resemblance is apparent between Conocephalites (Conocoryphe)
elegans (Hartt) of the Acadian region and Conocoryphe bufo (Hicks) of the British Cambrian ;
and in this case there is no diversity in the suture to throw doubt upon the relationship,
for both of these species have a suture that cuts off about a third of the marginal fold.
Considering these main features in the form and the markings of the head-shield, and
what is known of the size and number of the other parts of the Conocoryphea on both
sides of the Atlantic, it appears to the writer that these trilobites are properly divisible into
two groups, which may be arranged, as follows :—
A. Species with frontal lobe as well as glabella, and having a small pygidium.
1.—CrexocePHALUS, Corda,
Species having a wall-like front to the cheeks Species having a sloping front to the cheeks and
and frontal lobe, frontal lobe,—sub-genus, Hartella,
Ct. coronatus. Ct. Matthewi.
| ? Ct. Solvensis, Hicks.
B. Species with glabella only, and with larger pygidium.
2.—CoxocoryrHe, Corda.
Species having a suture that runs along the out- Species having a suture that cuts off the lateral
er edge of the marginal fold, third of the marginal fold—sub-genus, Bailiella,
C. Sulzeri. C. Baileyi.
C. Walcotti, n. sp.
C. elegans.
? C. bufo.?
A—CTENOCEPHALUS.
1.—CTENOCEPHALUS MATTHEWI (Figs. 6-21.)
Conocephalites Matthewi, Hartt; Conocoryphe Matthewi, Dana (Meek).
The author of this species has well said that it is the most abundant of the trilobites
found at St. John; nevertheless, after having discovered hundreds of heads and other parts
of the body, I have not yet met with a perfect individual. However by using the fragments
that have been recovered, a fairly good description of all parts of the test can now be given.
1 The pygidium is not known, but the general aspect is that of C4 Matthewi.
? The pygidium of C. bufo is not described by Dr. Hicks, but the head:shield is very like that of C. elegans.
104 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
ADDITIONAL FEATURES OF THE CEPHALIC SHIELD.
This is the only part of the animal described by Prof. Hartt, and though his account
is very full and accurate, it does not give all the characters of this part of the body.
It is seldom that the head is found “more than twice as wide as long,” except when
flattened by pressure in the slate; and the anterior margin is perceptibly angulated where
the lateral thirds begin. It may be said also that the fold, though weak at the sides, goes
entirely round the posterior angle. Prof. Hartt does not mention a pair of spines, or
tubercles, which are set in the hollow between the cheek and the glabella, on the edge of
the posterior marginal furrow (one spine being at the inner corner of each cheek) and
which can be seen in almost all stages of growth of this species. The statement that the
glabella is longer than its width applies to the younger tests; but in the adult, as pre-
served in the slates, it is more frequently wider than its length, and may be generally
described as being as wide as it is long. The ocular ridge, and the lines that diverge
from it toward the anterior margin (Fig. 10), are much more distinct on the inner, than on
the outer, surface of the shield; and the lines not only bifurcate, but are found to anasto-
mose with each other, forming a reticulated ornamentation over the inner surface of the
anterior part of the head. Many of the spines that decorate the front of the cheeks are set
at the intersections of these lines. The spines are spoken of as being “‘ sparsely sown ;”
but this remark does not apply to all varieties of the species, as will be seen further on.'
The example of this species figured in “ Acadian Geology ” is considerably below the full
size of the adult, the head of which, as it occurs flattened in the slates, averages 19 by 38
mm., but is occasionally seen as large as 20 by 40 mm.
GENAL SPINES. (Fig. 8.)
Among the parts not described by Prof. Hartt are the genal spines. These appendages
are occasionally found attached to the under side of the anterior marginal fold, and, when
detached, carry with them the lower half of the lateral third of this fold. They are not
spinous like the surface of the cephalic shield, but they sometimes have a few scattered
tubercles, and are covered with minute granulations, visible with a lens. The spine in
the adult, forms two-fifths of the whole length of the detached cheek-piece, and is moder-
ately incurved to the point; the spine narrows rapidly in the first third, and is sharp at
the extremity ; a faint rib traverses the cheek-piece along the median line.
FACIAL SUTURE.
Prof. Hartt makes no allusion to this feature of the test in his description of the spe-
cies, and, if the spines were not found attached, its position would hardly be suspected.
In its course alone the upper surface of the test it agrees exactly with that of Conocoryphe
Sulzeri, but differs on the under surface. In C. Sulzeri and Ct. coronatus, it begins at one-
eighth of the distance from the apex of the shield, but in our species at about one-third of
1 There appears to be a misprint in this part of the description in “Acadian Geology,” p. 648, line 22, where the
spines are said to be always wanting “on the cheek lobes,” perhaps (in the furrows) “around the cheek lobes” is
intended.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 105
the distance from the same point; it runs along the edge of the lateral margin, until it
approaches the posterior angle, and there it cuts across the extremity of the marginal fold
in a curving line, releasing the genal spine from its connection with the shield. A line
drawn from the front (apex) of the glabella, touching the front of the cheek, will intersect
the anterior margin, where, on the under side of the shield, the suture usually begins ; it
varies, however, a little in different individuals. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that,
while in the two Bohemian species of the Conocoryphea, C. Sulzeri and Cf. coronatus, the
suture begins quite near the apex, in the Acadian species of all genera of that group it be-
gins about one-third of the distance from the front of the shield to the genal angle.
THORAX. (Figs. 11-12.)
This middle region of the body is seldom found in connected segments, but the slates
abound with pleure, having the form and ornamentation of this species. The thorax of
the adult is not known, but that of the half-grown animal (14 by 28 mm., var. perhispidus)'
consists of fourteen segments (Fig. 12). The axis is well rounded, and the rings are about
three-fifths of the length of the pleure ; each ring is grooved more deeply at the sides than
on the axial line, and carries a few small obscure spines, ranged along the crests of the
bounding ridges. The pleure are bent downward at the middle of their length, and are
strengthened by a wide groove or furrow, which extends well out towards the tip; the
raised edges of the pleure are decorated with eight to ten small spines, these being more
numerous on the front than on the back edge of each pleura.
PYGIDIUM. (Figs. 13, 13b, 13c, 13d.)
Among the pygidia of the Conocoryphean type there are two kinds which are of
much more frequent occurrence than others ; the smaller of these corresponds in form
and size to the pygidium found with the thorax just described. This, therefore, is regarded
as the pygidium of Ct. Matthewi, the other being the tail-piece of Conocoryphe Baileyi.
This pygidium is reversed semi-circular, being straight or nearly so on the base and
arched around at the front of the axis and lateral lobes. The largest is about 4 X 84 mm.
The axis is about three-eighths of the whole width, and has a posterior slope extending
nearly or quite to the end of the pygidium ; it has two rings, beside the articulating facet; the
first one is sharply raised with strong furrows before and behind, but the furrow behind
the second ring is only faintly defined: the posterior lobe projects in high relief from the
general surface of the caudal shield, and descends abruptly and rapidly to the posterior
margin. The lateral lobes are flattened posteriorly ; each lobe has one rib, beside the half
rib in front; the first costal furrow is distinct, the second faint, but neither reach the
outer margin; there is no distinct marginal fold, but the surface of the pygidium is
slightly Seed towards the outer margin.
Sculpture—Kach ring of the axis bears four or five minute spines ranged along the
crest, and the costal rib has about the same number; a few similar spines may also be de-
tected on the outer part of the half rib, and scattered over the flat surface of the lateral
! Described on a succeeding page.
Sec. IV., 1884. 14.
106 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
lobe. These spines show most distinctly on the mould of the inner surface, and are
perhaps only perforations of the test. The outer surface of the test appears to the naked
eye to be smooth, but when magnified it is found to be finely granulated.
VARIETIES.
This species varies much in the ornamentation of the cephalic shield. Beside the
type which is described by Prof. Hartt as having sparsely sown spines, there are three
varieties distinguished by the ornamentation. Of these, the first two appear to run into
the typical form, but the third has more stable characters.
The spines which ornament the surface of Ct. Matthewi are tubular, haying a cavity
which passes through the test ; those on the front of the cheeks, on the frontal lobe, and
on the anterior marginal fold, are connected together within by a network of striations
which usually cross each other at the internal orifices of the spines ; on the outside of the
shield there are also striæ, though usually ridges, corresponding in course and position to
those within. These striæ originate at the ocular lobe, and extend forward across the
anterior marginal fold to the edge of the shield.
The following table, shewing the usual number of spines on different portions of the
test, will help to distinguish the varieties that are described separately after it :—
TABLE SHOWING THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF SPINES OF DIFFERENT VARIETIES OF
CTENOCEPHALUS MATTHE WI.
El
Anterior Margin. re £ = ‘en Cheeks.
=] a Le) ao
R = AIRE 5 5
6 = 5.5 g = a ea) 1a 5 à 25%
£ 2:5 a i>) = 2: SE SOs
Be SH = & = eek Ese
Typical form (young, 5 x 8 mm).....- 25 12 6 15 5 12 20
“(well grown, 14 x 28 mm.).... 40-50 | 15-20 || 10-15 | 15-25 4 5 25 40-50
a 99
«(adult test, { RSR 35 20 12 24 an NE 95
Var. a. geminispinosus (11 x 22 mm.)... 30 25 12 13 2 4 12 18
|
Var. B. hispidus.....,.............. 60 30 40 50 10 20 40-60 | 60-80
Var. y. perhispidus ...-++cccesscsecee 80 60 60 70 40 30 70 100
Var. a. geminispinosus. A sparsely-spined variety in which the spines are paired on
many parts of the shield. This is especially the case with those on the occipital ring and
glabella, and in some cases there is a distinct double row of spines, passing from the outer
posterior angle of the cheek, inside the summit, to its anterior extremity, and thence
round the front of the frontal lobe to the opposite cheek. This variety may be the Cono-
cephalites geminispinosus of Prof. Hartt; but the wide marginal fold and gibbous cheeks,
attributed by him to geminispinosus, are more frequently met with in the next variety.
Var. f. hispidus is more angulated in the outline of the cephalic shield than the typi-
cal form, and the middle of the anterior margin generally projects a little in front: it has
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP, 107
more tumid cheeks than the type, or var. a., and the fulness extends well down toward
the genal angle; the furrows are generally deeper and more abrupt, and the anterior mar-
ginal fold usually broader and flatter. The occipital spine is long and stout, and the
ocular ridge frequently not observable. The largest head of this variety found was 15 x
30mm. The marked feature of this variety is the profusion of spines that cover the raised
parts of the cephalic shield,—usually double the number found on the typical form.
Var. y. perhispidus (Fig. 12), is distinguished from the others in having more than
one row of tubercles or spines on the lateral limbs of the anterior margin ; and by the
more numerous and smaller tubercles, almost uniform in size, that cover the test, The
largest test of this variety found was 15 X 30 mm.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE YOUNG.
Fortunately in this species the peculiar form of the cephalic shield, and the hispid
surface enable us to recognize without difficulty very small tests ; in the very youngest
we lose the guidance of spines, but the general form is a sutlicient assurance that, in the
minute tests to which I am about to refer, we have the embryonic and larval stages of
this trilobite. The youngest form, however, differs widely from the adult, and, without
the intermediate links, one would hesitate to assign them to the same species or even the
same genus. In the following descriptions I have named as “stages” those tests, where a
new feature is introduced in the moulding of the cephalic shield during growth,
EMBRYONIC STAGE (?), 1 X 14 mm. (Figs. 14 and 15.)— Shield semi-oval in outline
and globose, with genal spines. The anterior margin is bounded by a very thin, thread-
like fold at the anterior quarter. The genal spines are slender, arched inward at the
points, and about as long as the cheeks are wide.
The axial lobe of the cephalic shield (there being as yet no glabella) is club-shaped,
the anterior half being enlarged ; it is bounded throughout by distinct furrows.
The occipital ring is not distinguishable as a separate part, but the occipital spine
appears as a distinct protuberance at the posterior end of the median lobe.
The posterior margin is strongly arched forward on each side of the centre, and back-
ward again on nearing the genal spines; the fold is visible, but is a mere thread.
The cheeks are somewhat tumid outward, but they fall below the level of the median
lobe in the forward half. In a few tests of this size the ocular ridge is faintly outlined for
a short space on the anterior slope of the cheek, on each side of the axial lobe and quite
close to the anterior marginal fold, but usually it cannot be distinguished.
I have marked this form with doubt as an embryonic stage of Ct. Matthewi. It is not
found in such great numbers as the succeeding stage, and may perhaps be only an
immature condition of it; or possibly it may be an earlier stage of one of the other Cono-
corypheans. The club-like form of the enlargement of the front of the axial lobe may be
due to backward pressure upon this very flexible test. In most of the tests of the next
stage obtained from the slates, the width of the anterior end of the axial lobe is, on the
contrary, exaggerated by downward pressure.
First STAGE, 14 X 2 mm. (Fig. 16.)—Shield semi-circular, with genal spines.
Anterior margin.—The fold faint, thin and thread-like, and extending about one-third
108 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
across the front of the shield. Genal spines are moderately incurved and at this stage are
half as long as the posterior transverse diameter.
The axial lobe of the shield is trumpet shaped, about twice as wide in front as behind,
where it is about one-fifth of the transverse diameter.
The occipital ring is prominent and separated from the median lobe by a furrow; it is
subtriangular, the extremities extending forward toward the inner angles of the cheeks.
The summit projects backward to an elevated point which is scarcely a spine.
The posterior margin is strongly arched, and has a distinct though not strong fold.
The cheeks are prominent ; they are somewhat higher than the axial lobe of the shield,
and are tumid forward and in the outer half. The ocular ridges are still far forward on
the anterior slope of the cheeks, around which they arch, descending into the furrow, and
are lost to view about half way from the front of the cheeks.
In small tests, such as the preceding, which bear only a remote resemblance to the
adult form, and which, owing to their thinness, are more liable to distortion than the suc-
ceeding moults, the author depends largely upon three considerations in referring them to
this species. There is, first, the train of succeeding sizes, which by their form and marking
are undoubtedly of the species Ct. Matthewi. In the second place, there is the semi-
circular shield and the rudiment of the ocular ridge, which together are sufficient to show
that these minute tests belong to the Conocorypheans. And, thirdly, there is the consid-
eration of number. I think it may be safely assumed that one-third cf the head shields of
the trilobites, grouped by Prof. Hartt under the genus Conocephalites, which are exposed
in breaking up the shales of horizon 1c at St. John, are of this species; and of the embry-
onic tests found at the same locality, a corresponding number are of the above form or
stage.
SECOND STAGE.—Shield, 13 X 24 to 1? X 3 mm. Narrowly semi-circular, without
spines. This has the thirds of the front margin angulated, and is easily recognized as
related to the adult form of the species.
Anterior margin.—In this, beside the fold in front, the lateral thirds can be seen to be
slightly turned along the edge.
The glabella is now divided from the rest of the axial lobe which forms a short promi-
nence in front of the glabella, and is low as compared with it. The first pair of glabellar
furrows is distinctly though lightly impressed, and the second pair can sometimes be
detected. The occipital rimg and spine are well marked.
The cheeks are now more spreading at the base and somewhat tumid outward and
forward. The two little spines at the posterior inner corner are visible. The ocular ridge
is higher up on the slope of the cheek than in previous stages,—being in about the posi-
tion of this ridge in the adult of Conocoryphe elegans.
Sculpture—The surface of the test when viewed with a lens appears to be finely
granular.
THIRD STAGE (Fig. 17.)—Shield, 24 X 4mm. Narrowly semi-circular, but angulated
like the last, with rounded corners and without spines.
Glabella rather wider at the posterior end than in front, but still only about one-fifth
of the whole width of the shield. Two pairs of furrows are now distinctly but lightly
impressed. The frontal lobe is still short and comparatively inconspicuous.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 109
The posterior margin is now straighter and the furrow heavier.
The cheeks are now more like those of the adult in form, and the little spines at the
corner more distinct.
Sculpture-—The spines on the cheeks are now visible with a lens, and the rows across
the glabella also.
FourtH STAGE (Fig. 18.)—Shield, 34 X 54 mm. Oblong semi-elliptical, without
spines.
The anterior marginal fold is now traceable all around, and is wider and stronger every-
where than in the younger stages.
Glabella much wider behind than before; nearly one-third of the transverse diam-
eter. Three pair of furrows are visible, two directed backward, as in the adult. The
frontal lobe is rounder than in preceding stages, having gained in length.
The cheeks have become ovoid and spread apart at the base, owing to the flattening of
the posterior outer angle and the widening of the base of the glabella.
Sculpture—Tubular spines, are now visible on all projecting parts,
the front third of the anterior marginal fold, and a single row on the rest of the fold; there
a double row on
is also a row of about five spines on each limb of the posterior marginal fold.
Firru STAGE (Fig. 19.)—Shield, 5 X 8mm. Narrowly semi-circular, somewhat angu-
lated, without spines.
The Glabella and its furrows are more distinct than in the preceding stage.
Posterior margin.—Notch in the outline at the inner end very distinct ; fold thickened
toward the outer end, and rounded forward at the genal angle.
Sculpture. —AT elevations are now covered with spines, and the number does not differ
greatly from those on some adult individuals, but they are arranged with more regularity,
especially the rows across the glabella and frontal lobe; those around the outer base of the
cheek may also be seen to be roughly arranged in rows parallel to the anterior border.
The average number of spines on heads of individuals of this age is given in the preceding
table.
From this stage onward to the adult period there are no very decided characters mark-
ing the progress of the animal toward maturity, but the changes in the proportions of dif-
ferent parts of the shield are gradual. Of certain sizes, there is a predominating number
of shields preserved, as, for instance, at 6 X 10 mm., 7 X 12 mm., 9 X 17 mm., (Fig. 20) ;
10 X 20 mm., 14 X 28 mm., (Fig. 21); 19 X 38 mm., (Fig. 6.) The form of the shield
changes during this time, so that the width becomes double the length.
Size 9 X 17 mm. (Fg. 20 and 9.)—Of this size, an individual with other parts attached
to the shield has been obtained, from which it appears that the genal spines have become
shorter in proportion to the size of the shield than they were at first. Four segments of
_the thorax attached show a rapid narrowing of the body-rings at this stage.
S1ZE 10 X 20 mm.—At this period the head-shield, as preserved in the slates, is about
twice as wide as long, and continues to maintain this width until the adult size is reached ;
the genal spine is also short, as in the adult.
Size 14 X 28 mm. (Fig. 21.)--From this period to maturity there is greater variation
110 G, F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
in the number of spines covering the test, and the arrangement of these spines is less reg-
ular than in the younger heads. The number of spines usually found on shields of this
size is given in the preceding table.
SIZE 19 X 38 mm. (Fig. 6.)—In this, which may be considered the adult stage of this
species, the most notable features are the increased irregularity in the number of the
spines, and the greater distinctness of the eye lobe and its ramifications.
RESEMBLANCE OF THE YOUNG TESTS TO OTHER SPECIES.
Axial lobe--The earlier stages of growth in this trilobite are of much interest, es-
pecially those which precede the second segmentation of the axial lobe of the cephalic
shield. In place of the conical glabella, which characterizes the Conocoryphea at ma-
turity, these embryonic tests have a club-shaped, or trumpet-shaped, median lobe, simulat-
ing, to some extent, the glabella of Paradoxides and Carausia, and especially the younger
stages of Sao hirsuta. As in the first named genus, the eyelobe begins opposite an anterior
enlargement of the axial lobe of the shield, and sweeps outward toward the genal angle.
The long genal spine of the early stages adds to the likeness.
Frontal lobe—The growth of this part is an interesting feature in the history of
this trilobite. At first it was a narrow segment cut off from the median lobe; but as the
animal grew, and the eyelobe retreated from the front of the shield, a corresponding in-
crease in the length of this part took place; until, from being when first seen about one-
fifth only of the axial diameter, it became at maturity nearly a third. What the glabella
lost in length during the growth of the animal, was partly acquired by this frontal pro-
tuberance of the shield.
In the young of Conocoryphe Baileyi corresponding to the second and third stages of this
species, there is a slight protuberance in this part of the shield, so that in distorted young
tests it is not always easy to distinguish the two species ; especially in the second stage of
Ct. Matthewi, when there are no tubercles visible and when the position and sweep of the
ocular ridge in the two species and in Conocoryphe elegans are very similar: but in the
older tests, in which the specific characters are more fully developed, the species are easily
separated. In the European Conocoryphe Sulzeri a slight protuberance of a similar nature
may be observed, but it does not assume importance.
Arrangement of the spnes (Fig. 9, &c.)—Although at the first glance the spines, which
are strewed over the surface of the test in this species, appear to be placed without order,
it is evident, on a more careful survey, that some at least are arranged in a definite way.
Several rows of spines may be observed, especially in the young, crossing the glabella ;
and the surface of the test is sometimes seen, both in this species and in Conocoryphe ele-
gans, to be slightly elevated along the lines where these spines are set. It would appear
that some general purpose in the economy of these trilobites is subserved by the eleva-
tion of the test at these places.
Glabella—In this species (Ct. Matthewi), the glabella is relatively smaller than in any
other of the Conocorypheans occurring at St. John; and it does not fairly assume the
form characteristic of the genus until the shield has attained half of its largest diameter.
This will be seen by the following table. In this table the measurement of the small
shields are only roughly approximated :—
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 111
COMPARATIVE SIZE OF HEAD AND GLABELLA OF CT. MATTHEWI AT DIFFERENT AGES.
Size of Cephalic : Proportion of the Glabella
Shield. Size of Glabella. | tothe
: : Axial Transverse
se ASIE Done ae Diameter. Diameter.
Average of several... ............ 19 38 9 9 | -47 |) .25 |)
= ©
GR Sie Ma Onc dhe ete 18 | 36 |- 8 8 |} 45 | "22 | 85
© £
2 | 2 Ba
DT TOC RS cr CCC SRE Sele 4/3 8 74 5 [la | -24/1 68
= ao
fe oe CRE SEE EE 14 28 6 7 43 = 25 |]
Lo
ERNE WO saisisiinas een 1) |) BB 9) bt] 7 ||% 46 || & 28 |)
ay = FA cE
D, tibenroocooodoceooons 11 23 | & 5 6 ë 45 118 26 5
a 5 | 2
Var. a. geminispinosus..............| 11 22 a 5 64 | a -45 | 3 ë
3 KSI LA
PASVONSLOOL Gi Olereletsisietetslola)e)=\aiel syste e's 9 184 | 2 42 54 | = 5 |] 3 a
= A
(GS DATENT CS RQ va Rens 8 | 164 | AN ER -56 3 g
« (STNTOP senc reremmaes ee 74 1510) 4 33 1) -55 -97 |
|
CG 17 DOC 8 k 23 MINES 2 re
OUR re eee 53 | 103 À 3 A | 5 | 5 4 1g
mY We PHT EO cin soso nan sie cle cies 2 ss | 2 bY . HS DE A
three... 43 8 ie 24 | | 5 5 a 25 | 5
« CT: a 2 | © ; Ss 9 =
SpA opdo Good 3 54 a 13| 13 t £ 55 | 2 28 8
EN PRE eee PAR 2 lye ane RE 4} 1 ||3 | s11lé 25 ||
5 2114 2
CG ti alee oe RS SN CTI 13 23 1 en || a 63 24 Cs
Average of several 1 ................ 14 Py | 1 4 | Dr] °16
From the preceding observations on the development of this species during its growth,
it will be seen that much light as to the life-history and relationship of different genera
of trilobites is to be gained by the study of the embryonic and larval stages, and, as I have
shown in my former article on the Paradoxides, it is evident that the nearer we get to the
embryo the more important are the phases of the trilobites, especially in reference to their
primitive relationship. Nevertheless, the larval stages should not be neglected, for in
these there are changes which, though not so momentous, are still of importance as con-
necting the embryonic form with the adult animal.
B—CONOCORYPHE.
1.—CONOCORYPHE BAILEYI. (Figs. 22-91.)
Conocephalites Baileyi, Hartt.
CEPHALIC SHIELD.
Since Prof, Hartt originally described this species, other parts of the body have been
recovered, and further particulars can be given in regard to the head-shield than are con-
tained in his description,
‘The measurement in the fifth column of figures here includes the whole length of the axial lobe, there being
no separate glabella. The length and width of the shield and glabella are given in millimetres.
112 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
Facial suture —This cuts obliquely across the anterior marginal fold, at the beginning
of the lateral third, where the fold has already begun to bend rapidly toward the posterior
margin; after crossing the fold, the suture runs along the side of the cheek and curves
outward toward the posterior angle.
Glabellar furrows.—The describer of the species states that there are none, or that they
are but slightly marked, without specifying their number or position. It is true that on
many heads they are obscure, but on others they are sufficiently distinct to be easily seen.
The posterior pair originates at a point on the side of the glabella more than two-thirds
from the posterior end, and arches backward at an angle of 45°, nearly attaining the
summit of the glabella, and terminating quite close to its end. The second pair is less
distinct, and is also directed backward, but less decidedly than the posterior pair, reaching
about half way to the summit of the glabella; this pair is about as far from the front, as
the posterior pair, at their outer ends, is from the back of the glabella. The anterior pair
of furrows is both faint and short, often to be detected only as shallow depressions on the
surface of the glabella.
Sculpture.—The outer surface is smooth. Some tests are distinctly granulated on the
inner surface ; these markings are sometimes large enough to be seen by the naked eye,
but generally cannot be resolved without a lens; they are largest on the higher parts of
the occipital ring and glabella. It is also on the inside of the test that the ocular ridge
and its ramifications can be seen to the best advantage; on the outside of the shield both
are but faintly visible. On tests that are unusually well preserved, very fine granulations
of the outer surface may be detected with a lens.
THORAX.
Only eight segments of this region of the body are known.
Axis —The few rings of the axis preserved indicate that it was comparatively narrow ;
the rings are well arched, rounded and smooth.
The pleure are strongly geniculated at the fulcrum, which is about half way from the
axis. There is a wide and deep concave furrow on the inner half of each pleura; but be-
yond the fulcrum, the furrow narrows rapidly, and the bounding ridges slope away from
it on each side: the furrow ends rather abruptly on the median line, before reaching the
extremity of the pleura. The pleuræ are not so strongly angulated at the middle of the
thorax as near the head.
PYGIDIUM. (Fig. 24.)
5
Length, about 10 X 20 mm. Broadly lenticular, and its width is twice its length.
Axis narrowed posteriorly, scarcely reaching the extremity of the pygidium. Carries
three rings, beside the articulating facet ; third ring faintly defined ; terminal lobe rounded
at the extremity and descending abruptly at the end. Each of the rings is indented with
a sharp stria, nearly half of its length and parallel to its course. Each of these striæ on
the outside opposes a more distinct groove on the inside of the test.
Lateral lobes.—The side lobe of the pydidium bears three ribs, beside the half rib in
front; the third rib is only faintly raised above the general surface; a narrow, faint fur-
row, or stria, may be seen to pass outward from the posterior side of the inner end of the
La
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 113
first and second ribs toward the anterior side of the outer end of these ribs. The first
furrow both of the axis and marginal third are strongly impressed. The half rib connects
at the outer angle of the pygidium with a distinct border, which at the inner edge is
bounded by a sharp and straight, thread-like ridge.
Sculpture —Both the inner and outer surfaces of the test in this pygidium appear
smooth, but with a lens the outer surface may be seen to be very finely granulated.
[N. B.—There is a broad variety of this pygidium (7 X 18, or 8 X 20 mm.) with more
distinct ribs both on the axis and lateral lobes, and having a more quadrate end to the axis.]
VARIETIES. (Figs. 23 and 230.)
Var. a. arcuata. The distinctive features of this form are not very easily pointed out,
but are sufficiently obvious on comparison of a number of individuals; the difference from
the type is most conspicuous among the larger tests, and it is not so easily recognized
among very small ones. It is quite possible that it may be only asexual variation of
form. This variety differs from the type in having a more conical glabella, rounded
rather than squared in front, and haying flattened slopes on each side of the axis. The
anterior marginal fold is more strongly arched forward in the middle, is wider and has a
longer slope to the furrow than the corresponding fold in the typical form; the furrow
also is wider. The inner end of the ocular ridge is more prominent and rounder in this
variety than in the type.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE YOUNG.
The heads of this species have been found from the length of two millimetres upward.
SHIELD 2 X 3 mm. (Fig. 25.)—In this species the earliest known stage resembles the
adult much more nearly than the youngest, in the preceding species, does the mature indi-
vidual; and yet it presents important differences.
The glabella is cylindrical and about two-thirds of the whole length of the shield,
whereas in the adult it is not much more than one-half. But the disparity in width is
greater, for at this stage the glabella is only one-fifth of the width of the buckler, while in
the larger tests it is about one-third Only the posterior pair of furrows can be detected at .
this age, and they are more strongly directed backward than those of the adult.
The occipital ring is peculiar and quite different from that of the adult. It is trian-
gular in outline, with the spine set well back on the axis; the two anterior angles merge
into the corners of the cheeks at the point where, in the preceding species and in C. elegans,
a small spine is situated.
The posterior marginal fold is well defined, but sharp and narrow, and the genal spines
are also narrow and about as long as one-third of the posterior diameter of the shield.
The cylindrical glabella at this stage recalls the form common in the genus Ptychoparia,
and when the ocular ridge peculiar to the Conocoryphea is obscure, it is sometimes diffi-
cult to distinguish the young of the Ptychoparians from the fry of this species.
SHIELD 3 X 44 mm. (Fig. 26.)—At this period the glabella shows much greater lateral
volume, but only one pair of furrows is yet visible. The anterior marginal fold is now
Sec. IV., 1884 15.
114 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
stronger, as is also the posterior, but the occipital ring preserves the same triangular form
as in the stage last described.
Sculpture—Except the anterior marginal fold, which is minutely granulated, the sur-
face of the test at this stage appears scabrous under the lens.
SHIELD 4X6 mm. (Fig. 35.)—A shield of this size has been found which has some
peculiar features. The glabella is conical, narrowed in front and with three sets of distinct
furrows, as in C. elegans, and, like some shields of this species, it has raised ridges across
the glabella between the furrows. But the eyelobe, cheek and anterior marginal fold are
such as are found to characterize C. Baileyi. The surface is scabrous.
SHIELD 7 X 14 mm. (Fig 27.)\—The intermediate sizes between this and the preced-
ing have not been recovered, but at this stage the shield has nearly attained the proportions
of the mature form. The glabella has more distinctly converging, straight sides than the
last, and also possesses the sub-quadrate front which is found in most of the mature heads.
All the furrows are distinctly impressed. The occipital ring is narrowed, and its spine,
or tubercle, placed half way from the front. Respecting the succeeding sizes of this spe-
cies, there is little of moment to be said: both glabella and cheeks continue to increase
in width at the base, and a greater amount of variation appears in the distinctness of the
furrows on the glabella.
The following table will more clearly show the variation in the form of the shield and
tle relative proportions of the glabella during growth. The figures given for the small
tests are only rough approximations :—
COMPARATIVE SIZE OF HEAD AND GLABELLA OF C. BAILEYI AT DIFFERENT AGES. !
Size of Cephalic Size of Glabolla. Proportion of
Shield. Glabella to
2 | À Axial [Transverse
Length. Width. Length. Width. Dites
Var. a. (Fig. 23) . 20 40 | 12 14 60 35 Well rounded.
ae a fy 3 Rae Somewhat flattened
Like Fig.22.... | 20 | 40 || | 12 | 14 [| 60 35 { aerate
{ o ©
ne 18 | 34 | Ro HO AS Al | ate 55 35 | Well rounded.
<
[ses 171 T6 1012 “59 ‘33 | Rather flat and wide.
| 2
LA TAGS 84 on bos 15 | 28 9 93 | 60 34 Somewhat flattened.
ANT PO00 Toto 13 20 7 73 J “4 ‘37 Narrowed.
BENGE SES cou 10 16 ai 6 6 “60 “31 Diagonally narrotved.
s K
cee a esse re peal es À eee 5 5 ||£ “55 ‘33 | Narrowed.
œ oO
ibn eee C0 Mes TE 4 43 | + & -57 34 | Flattened.
2 =
| Hip hte ET RU 3 6 2 13 24 E “54 +38 Shortened.
| ve a 1 1 3 |J : Flattened and cheeks
Ra e2G tereteiasetete ol 3 43 15 13 28 50 39 are er
| bo
| Fig. 25. TS EN LINE LE bee -66 | -20 | Somewhat flattened.
= of
1The measurements in this table are in millimetres.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 115
2—CONOCORYPHE ELEGANS. (Figs. 28-34.)
Conocephalites elegans, Hartt.
Prof. Hartt’s account of this species is not as full as that which he gives of Cfenocepha-
lus Matthewi, and a few words of additional description may be useful.
CEPHALIC SHIELD. (Figs. 28, 29 and 34.)
I find that, in shields which are not distorted, the occipital ring and spine project be-
hind the posterior line of the shield; and that the posterior marginal fold overhangs the
furrow only in cases in which the shield is shortened by pressure. In the largest heads
the wide part of the anterior marginal fold is as much as the seventh of an inch (3? mm.)
in width. In flattened heads the glabella appears to be wider than it is long, but the rela-
tions are reversed when the natural form of the glabella is preserved, it being a little
longer than its width. The posterior marginal fold is thin, sharp and high in the inner
three-fifths, but broader and flatter at the outer two-fifths. Viewed horizontally, the fold
seems almost geniculated at the point where this change in width takes place; viewed
from above, the border is here sharply angulated forward. The occipital furrow is deeply
indented in the outer third, and arches back to the middle third, corresponding in its
course to the glabellar furrows. I do not find that the bounding groove of the glabella
joins the anterior marginal furrow, though it often has that appearance in distorted heads
because the intervening space is low. I have seldom found an occipital spine more than
an eighth of an inch in length, including the slope of the ring, but the variation in the
length of the spine in Cenocephalus Matthewi would quite lead to the expectation that
longer spines may be found on some shields of this species.
Facial suture —This begins at the side of the head, where the marginal fold becomes
narrow, and usually at a point about as far from the front of the shield as the length of the
glabella; it crosses the marginal furrow diagonally tothe border of the cheek, along which
it runs for some distance, and then arches outward toward the posterior angle of the shield.
Ocular ridge.—Prof. Hartt does not refer to this feature, and in some heads it is scarcely
distinguishable. It begins on the slope of the cheek, just behind the front of the gla-
bella; there is no tuberculous elevation here, as in C. Baileyi, nor such a lenticular ridge as
in Ctenocephalus Matthewi, but the ridge is narrow and less elevated ; its extension crosses
the cheek more directly than in the other two species, descending toward the point where
the facial suture, after cutting the anterior margin, curves in toward the cheek. The oc-
ular ridge and its ramifications are more distinct in the undersized and young of this
species than in the full grown trilobite.
Sculpture—There is more regularity in the arrangement of the tubercles of this species
than in the mature Ct. Matthewi. The row of tubercles, which in this species crosses the
glabella behind the first pair of furrows, consists of six, and arches forward on the slopes
behind the furrow. There is another row, also consisting of six tubercles, less arched
than the last, and terminating at the anterior ends of the same furrows. “A more irregular
row of tubercules crosses the glabella on the space between the second and third furrows.
Between these three rows of tubercles, near the axial line, there is in each space a pair of
less prominent tubercles. On some young heads the three principle lines of tubercles on
116 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
the glabella are placed on slightly elevated, transverse ridges. In this species the tuber-
cles are more equally distributed over the surface of the cheeks than in Cf. Matthewi.
The test of this species is more heavily studded with minute elevations than the typ-
ical forms of other species of Acadian Conocorphea. The outer surface is covered almost
everywhere with little projecting tubercles, which are nearly equal in size, and appear to
be based on an outer film of the shell. When this film is removed the test has quite a
different appearance, for, in place of closely set projections of nearly equal size and height,
prominences of two orders come into view, larger ones, of the nature of hollow spines,
and smaller ones, similar in size to those on the outer film of the test, but more pointed.
The moulds corresponding both to the spines and the tubercles may be seen on the cast
of the inner surface of the test; and it would seem that the hollow core of the spines |
passes through the test, but that the apex of the core is veiled on the outside by tubercles
similar in appearance to the other tubercles with which the outer surface of the test is so
abundantly studded.
PYGIDIUM. (Fig. 30.)
Broadly lenticular, and about half as long as it is wide.
Axis sub-triangular, running the whole length of the pygidium. Marked by three
rings, beside the articulating facet, and a terminal lobe, which has a slight protuberance
on each side of the axial line, near the middle, and thence slopes abruptly and narrows
rapidly to the extremity.
The side lobes of the pygidium have three ribs beside the half rib at the anterior mar-
gin; the first two ribs are well defined, the third only by a furrow in front; all arch back-
ward and downward to the margin. The two first ribs are crossed by narrow, faint fur-
rows, or striæ, from the anterior side of the inner end to the posterior side at the outer end.
Sculplure.—The outer surface is distinctly granulated all over; on the intermediate, or
under surface, sometimes a single, sometimes a double row of small spines can be detected
on the two first rings of the axis and ribs of the lateral third (about four spines on the
rings and about six on the ribs.) The mould of the inner surface is smooth,
This pygidium is supposed to belong to C. elegans, because it is one of the three most
abundant pygidia of Conocoryphean type found in the shales of Division 1c. at St. John;
the granulate and punctate surface also accords with the ornamentation on the test of
this species.
VARIETIES. (Mg. 34.)
Var. a. granulatus. This differs from the typical form in the absence of spines and
tubercles, the surface being closely granulated; only large individuals are known; the
most perfect had very wide cheeks and three raised bars across the summit of the glabella ;
the front of the marginal fold appears to be narrow and not triangular, but this may be
an accident of preservation.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE YOUNG.
The series of heads of this species is defective and the history of its growth is there-
fore imperfect. :
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 117
SHIELD 2 x 4 mm. (Fig. 31.)—This is widely different from the adult in many re-
spects; the cheeks are unusually tumid, and the glabella and anterior marginal fold,
especially the latter, already possess the form peculiar to this species.
The anterior margin inclines to be straight across the front and angulated at the lateral
third. The fold is thick and wide in front, but fades away near the front of the lateral
third, where the tumid cheek is devoid of protecting rim; the triangular enlargement at
the front is not so marked as in the adult, owing to the furrow being less decidedly im-
pressed. The genal spines are about half as long as the posterior diameter of the shield,
and are distinctly incurved at the points.
The posterior margin (in the only example known) appears to extend into a mantle, or
membrane, which connects the points of the genal spines with a central spine haying
a mesian furrow; this mantle arches forward between the three spines, and is of
great tenuity ; but is bounded posteriorly by a delicate, though distinct, thickened mar-
gin; no posterior marginal fold is visible, but a small tubercular elevation marks the
point where the posterior fold in the adult is angulated; though the fold is absent, the
posterior marginal furrow is distinctly impressed ; it arches forward in the inner two-
thirds, and outward in the outer third.
The glabella at this stage appears cylindrical rather than conical, owing to the high
relief of the anterior end, and the wide depression which at the posterior end separates it
from the cheeks. The first pair of furrows is sufficiently distinct; they are directed back-
ward at a sharp angle, and reach the posterior slope of the glabella, but do not connect
with each other; the second pair can be detected, but they are very faint ; their direction
is nearly parallel to the first.
The cheeks are quite tumid in the middle and at the anterior end, but are flattened at
the posterior inner angle, and, in a less degree, toward the outer angle. The ocular ridge
is distinct ; it begins on the inner slope of the cheek, opposite the point where the dorsal
furrow begins to bend around toward the front of the glabella; at this point there is a
small, sharp, lenticular elevation, from which the ridge arches forward across the front
slope of the cheek, and descends, arching backward, along the outer slope until it is lost
in the anterior marginal furrow, somewhat behind the middle of the lateral third of the
anterior margin.
The occipital ring is well marked and prominent; it projects behind the line of the
posterior margin, and is crowned by a distinct, though not a long, spine. The outer third
of the occipital furrow is heavily impressed, but does not extend far enough to sever the
ring from the cheek, there being a narrow connecting ridge.
Sculpture —All projecting parts of the shield are finely but, when viewed with a lens,
distinctly granulated, and a few tubercles are visible.
SHIELD 44 X 8 mm. (Fig. 32.)—At this age the shield has a much nearer resemblance,
in general aspect, to the adult. The front margin is more distinctly arched, and the cheeks
have the rhomboidal form of those of the full-grown animal. The facial suture can at
this stage be detected ; it cuts the anterior marginal fold as far from the posterior angle as
that angle is from the occipital ring. The posterior marginal fold is thin but distinct.
Sculpture —Not only is the surface granulated, but the tubercles are distinct and are
arranged as described in the account of the sculpture of the adult. A double row of
118 G. F, MATTHEW : ILLUSTRATIONS OF
tubercles may be seen at this stage, arching around the inner slope of the cheek, and other
rows around the outer edge; the outer rows are not perfectly regular and continuous, as
other rows run into them from the upper slopes of the cheek.
SHIELD 8 X 154 mm. (Fig 33.)—At this stage, in the examples I have, the tubercles
on the cheeks do not show so regular an arrangement as in smaller tests; but those of the
glabella continue to exhibit great regularity, as described of the adult on a previous page.
In this size the general aspect of the shield is more like the adult than it is in the smaller
tests. All the furrows are now present and are deeply impressed ; the central, trian-
gular part of the anterior marginal fold is wide and decidedly elevated. The posterior mar-
ginal fold, however, continues narrow and sharp. The ocular ridge now presents num-
erous branches spreading toward the anterior margin.
SHIELD 19 x 38 mm.—At this, which is near the adult stage, the mature form, except
in the matter of width, is nearly or quite attained, the tubercles are more irregularly
scattered over the surface of the test, and the posterior margin is strengthened.
SHIELD 20 X 46 min.—This, the adult form, exhibits the completed expansion of the
shield laterally. The simplicity in the arrangement of the tubercles, so well seen at the
8 X 154 stage, is here apparently lost, but, on careful examination, traces of it can still be
detected in the apparently confused grouping of raised points on the surface of the
glabella. And the same may be said of the tubercles on the cheeks, which along the front
still exhibit a rude parallelism. To the heavier tubercles along the back, or higher part
of the anterior marginal fold, numbers of smaller tubercles are added in these later
stages, the whole being graded to quite small tubercles along the verge of the shield.
- The additional tubercles scattered over the surface of the shield in the larger tests are
not always present, there being smooth individuals, which have no more tubercles than
those found on the smaller tests.
The following table will show the changes in the proportions of the cephalic shield
and glabella of C. elegans during growth :—
COMPARATIVE SIZE OF HEAD AND GLABELLA OF C. ELEGANS AT DIFFERENT AGES.
Size of Cephalie Size of Glabella. Proportion of
| Shield. Glabella to
Axial |Transverse
Diameter. | Diameter.
| |
(Length. Width. Length.) Width.
One head..... 21 44 | 12 13 ‘57 -29 Flattened.
| Average of two} 193 | 38 | 11 104 -56 28 Well rounded.
| One head..... 16 30/7) 7 ait o “56 30 Narrowed ? |
Ke Pre 13 261% 7 “54 "207. Flattened.
Average of two) 81 153 45 |" 43 “58 +30 Somewhat shortened.
One head..... | 41 S| 2b) 25 “50 28 Well rounded.
on Tada | 2 | a) | @]- -66 -21 | Tumid.
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 119
This species resembles C. bufo (Hicks) of the English Cambrian rocks, but differs in the
following particulars: it grows to a larger size and has no eyes’, the front margin is not
so heavily impressed, nor is the triangular part so wide, the tubercles on the shield are
more numerous than represented in the figure of C. bufo, and there is no tubercle on the
outer posterior corner of the cheek. It may be found at St. Jehn, Radcliff’s, etc., in
Division Ic. ‘
3.—CONOCORYPHE WALCOTTI, n. sp. (Figs. 36 and 366.)
Only the cephalic shield is known; this is semi-circular, without spines.
The anterior margin well arched forward, with a narrow and well rounded fold. Suture
in about the same position as that of C. Baileyi ; in specimens that are shortened by pressure,
the initial point is about as far from the apex of the shield as that is long; in others that
are narrowed, the distance from the front equals the combined length of the glabella and
occipital ring.
The glabella rather flat, bounded by a distinct furrow. The glabellar furrows are
three pairs, not well defined in the examples known, but apparently similar in course and
length to those of C. Baileyi.
The occipital ring as in that species, but with the tubercle more distinct, and always
carrying a slender spine; in the examples known, the ring projects behind the posterior
line of the shield.
The posterior margin is bent forward at the extremity. Fold rather narrow. Furrow
well marked, arched forward in the middle, widening toward the extremity.
The cheeks are high next the glabella, descending toward the front and sides; they
are rather higher than the glabella, and are connected in front. The ocular ridge begins
more than a third from the front and extends across the cheek to the posterior corner ;
ramifying ridgelets are numerous, crowded, and not very distinct.
Sculpture-—The surface is closely covered with fine granulations without, but marked
on the inner surface also by numerous minute pittings, which, in the mould of the interior
of the test, have the appearance of small spines. These pits, or pores, are connected by
numerous fine, thread-like striæ. These striæ are similar to those found on the inner sur-
face of the test in Ctenocephalus Malthewi, but in the species Walcotti they have a more net-
like arrangement, and are found covering a band that crosses the cheek behind the eyelobe ;
they are also found on the front of the glabella: in the two other tuberculated species
occurring at St. John, the striz connecting the tubercles, or pores, are confined to the
eyelobe and anterior marginal fold and the space between them.
Thorax and Pygidium unknown.
Development of the Young.—The examples of the young tests in this species are not
sufficiently numerous or perfect to form the basis of remarks on changes during the period
of growth. The following will show that it differed but little from C. Baileyi in its pro-
portions :—
‘The eyes of that species appear to be rudimentary, for Dr, Hicks speaks of them as “small and scarcely
visible.”
120 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
Proportion of Glabella
: : Size of
Size of Shield. i
Glabella.
1, We | ae SN Moria | otre
One, diagonally distorted....| 19 x 36 1ak el} “58 33
“ well rounded......-..+. 153 x 30 19} x 11 “61 37
‘“ narrowed............. 153. x 22 9 X 7 *58 34
Average of three heads...... 74 X 13 43 X 43 *56 33
This somewhat rare species seems to have had a very thin and flexible test, as all the
examples known are more or less distorted. Owing to the granulated and porous test,
fragments of it may easily be mistaken for those of Cf. Matthewi or C. elegans, but the
species is really closely related to C. Baileyi by its form and general appearance.
I have at times been in doubt as to whether this should not be considered a variety
of C. Baileyi, but, although so very like that species in outline, it is always distinct by its
thin test and ornamented surface. It will be difficult to distinguish its young from that
species, as the surface markings of all the species are obscure or wanting in the earliest
stages. In appearance this species is much like C. Sulzeri of Europe, but differs in the.
suture, etc. It may be found at St. John, in Division ic.
COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS.
In comparing the development of the young in this group of trilobites (Conocory-
phea) with that of the Paradoxides, as described in my former paper, some points of re-
semblance and others of dissimilarity may be observed.
1. In Paradoxides there is an extended anterior border which by degrees is absorbed ;
and the fold of the rim is strengthened. In the Conocoryphea there is no such expanded
border, but the marginal fold nevertheless.grows, as in Paradoxides, from a comparatively
weak “doubleur.”
2. In Paradoxides there is an enlargement of the glabella in all directions during
growth, and a retreat of the anterior furrows from the front. This feature in the Cono-
coryphea is manifested differently; the shortening of the glabella in these carries the
furrows backward; but the enlargement of the glabella takes place at the base, in accord-
ance with the different expression of development required by the characteristics of this
group.
3. In Paradoxides there is a transverse lengthening and axial condensation of the oc-
cipital ring during growth. In this point the two groups are in harmony, though in the
Conocorypheans the ring, in the early stages, is decidedly triangular.
4. The enlargement and strengthening of the posterior margin is common to both
families.
5. A longitudinal contraction of the eyelobe takes place in Paradoxides during
growth. The change in the position of the eyelobe which occurs in the Conocoryphea
may be considered parallel; it is most clearly seen in Ct. Matthewi, because in the adult of
this species the glabella is small, and in the young we are able to recognize a more ele-
+
THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 121
mentary form than in the other Acadian species of this group; but it can be proved for
the others of which embryonic and larval stages are known; for the retreat of the eyelobe
from the front of the shield proceeds pari passu with the axial contraction of the glabella.
Among the Acadian Conocorypheans occur several species which may be considered
representative of Old World forms, as has already been remarked in the opening part of
this paper; and it may be said that among the Paradoxides similar representation occurs.
This is very obvious on a comparison of P. Eteminicus wiih P. rugulosus (Corda); and P.
Acadicus, notwithstanding its diminutive size and differing eyelobe, may not inaptly be
placed beside Plutonia Sedgwickii ; in both species we have a granulated surface and deeply
cut glabellar grooves; and in both may be traced peculiarities of form which ally the
shield to that of Anopolinus.
It is a notable fact, however, that no Paradoxides with short eyelobes and no Anopo-
leni have been recovered from the Acadian strata, although the latter genus occurs in
Newfoundland and the large Paradoxides are found both there and in Massachusetts. It
may be remarked, however, that in both of these areas the above types wanting in the
Acadian region are associated with genera that range upward in the Cambrian formation ;
and the reason why they are not found at St. John is probably, that the known fossiliferous
belt in the Acadian area belongs to a lower or older horizon in the Cambrian formation,
than has yet been reached in these other Cambrian areas on the Atlantic coast.'
The antiquity of the Acadian fauna can best be appreciated when its forms are com-
pared with those of the British Cambrian rocks, for that is the nearest of the European
areas occupied by rocks of this age and the one which contains the largest number of sim-
ilar species. The great thickness of the Welsh bed has distributed the genera of Cam-
brian age over a wide vertical range, and thus given a better opportunity of estimating
their chronological value.
It has been the custom to speak of the fauna of the Acadian horizon in the St.
John group as equivalent tothe Menevian. But the Menevian, as now limited by Dr. Hicks,
does not include all the measures originally assigned to it. These have been found to con-
tain two faunas—an upper, which is now called Menevian, and a lower, that of the Solva
group.
The more we know of the Acadian fauna, the less does the restricted Menevian seem
the horizon to which it should be assigned. The wonderful richness and variety of the
Menevian fauna tempts one to adopt this correlation; but this very feature of the Old
World group should put us on our guard against carelessly associating with it an equally
rich assemblage of living forms, which, from their very abundance, are likely to contain
a number of representative species.
In the Acadian fauna, as thus far known, the great Paradoxides with short eyelobes
are wanting; so also are the genera Anopolinus, Agraulos (Arionellas) of the type A. ceticepha-
lus, Microdiscus of the type M. punctatus, Erinnys holocephalina, etc. Tf, on the other hand,
the fauna of the Acadian horizon be compared with the oldest British Cambrian fauna,
a strong resemblance between the species on the two sides of the Atlantic is at once ap-
' Except the fossils of Manuel Brook, Newfoundland, which appear to be of the Acadian horizon.
? A similar species occurs in the St. John group, but apparently at a different horizon.
Sec. IV., 1884. 16.
122 G. F. MATTHEW: ILLUSTRATIONS OF
parent. Except the missing types, 6 and 7, all the Solva trilobites are represented by
corresponding forms in the Acadian fauna, which should therefore be compared to the
Solva or Longmynd fauna rather than to the Menevian :—
Sorva Group. ACADIAN Fauna.
1. Microdiscus sculptus, Hicks. Microdiscus Dawsoni, Hartt.
2. Conocoryphe Lyelli, « Ptycopharia Robbii, &c., Hartt (sp.)
3. cS Solvensis, “ Ctenocephalus Matthewi, “ s
4, G bufo, “É Conocoryphe elegans, Se L
5. Paradoxides Harknessi, “ ! Paradoxides Eteminicus, Matthew.
6. ss aurora, Salter. (2)
7. Plutonia Sedgwickii, Hicks. = @)
8. Agnostus Cambaensis, “ Agnostus (Sp.) undescribed.
Another point bearing upon this question is the development of the eyelobe in Para-
doxides. In my first article read before this Society, on the Paradoxides of the St. John
Group, it was shown that, among the changes of form in various parts of the cephalic
shield which occurred during the growth of the individual trilobite, the shortening of the
eyelobes was a distinct feature. It is true that even in the adult stage, all the Acadian
Paradoxides have continuous, or nearly continuous, eyelobes, and therefore the contrac-
tion of this member is not conspicuous; but there being such a change, even to a small
extent, during the growth of the animal, a continuous eyelobe is likely to be an embryonic
feature of the later Paradoxides, and suggests the inquiry as to whether there was a
corresponding change in the species of Paradoxides as they occur in chronological
succession.
Taking the species of the British Cambrian rocks as a criterion, there may be
observed in the Middle Solva beds the species P. Harknessi with continuous eyelobes.
Advancing a grade higher, there is found in the Upper Solva beds the species P. aurora,
with half-short eyelobes, a rather small species. Next there is found in the Lower Mine-
vian the species P. Hicksii, in which the contraction of the eyelobes has proceeded so far
as to leave a suture behind the eyelobe as long as the eyelobe itself. But the greatest
advance of development in respect of the eyelobe is manifested by the great Paradoxides
of the Welsh measures, P. Davidis, whose oval eyelobe has left behind it a suture twice
its length. This species belongs to the Middle Minevian. The shortening of the eye-
lobe in the Welsh Paradoxides therefore corresponds to the geological age of the species.
As the Middle Solva beds are the British strata which hold the Paradoxidean forms
equivalent to the species of the Acadian measure, the latter may be regarded as older
than Menevian.
Another point, which is worthy of consideration in this connection, is the peculiar
dorsal suture of the Acadian species of Conocoryphe. This does not agree with the suture
of the species taken as the type of this genus, nor with that of any in the Menevian group
proper, but if it be compared with the suture of C. bufo of the Solva group a very close
resemblance is apparent. But while this suture is shown for one only of the Welsh Cam-
brian species, it belongs to three of the species of the Acadian fauna.
As the Conocoryphe of the St. John group differ in the course of the suture from the
? Dr. Hicks compares this species with P. rugulosus (Corda), which is very closely allied to the Acadian species
P. Eteminicus,
: THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP. 128
typical Bohemian form so also does the Ctenocephalus, for in it the suture extends on the
underside only two-thirds toward the apex, but in C. coronatus about seven-eighths. In
this genus also, as in Conocoryphe, the trilobites of the Acadian horizon present a peculiar
facies agreeing on both sides of the Atlantic, but differing from the species which appeared
in Bohemia, Spain and Britain in the Menevian period. The wall-like front and crest of
Ct. coronatus are not found in the Ctenocepaloid species of the antecedent period. The
fauna of Division 1c of the St. John group may, therefore, be said to contain within
itself evidence of a great antiquity, and at the same time is the richest in the number and
variety of forms of any assemblage of species of similar age.
In conclusion, I would here return my thanks to several gentlemen who have aided me
in the investigation of these ancient fossils. To Dr. Henry Hicks I am greatly indebted for
copies of his papers on the Cambrian fauna of Wales and of others relating to the earlier
formations of Great Britain. To Mr. C. D. Walcott, of the United States Geological Survey,
Tam indebted for communicating in advance of publication the principal points of his
study of the type-specimens of the Cambrian species, described by Prof. Hartt, and now
deposited in Cornell University. Ihave to thank Prof. Alpheus Hyatt for information
respecting Ct. coronatus, and Mr. J. F. Whiteaves for affording me facilities at the Museum
in Ottawa.
124
G. F. MATTHEW: THE FAUNA OF THE ST. JOHN GROUP.
EXPLANATION OF PLATE.
Fig. 1.—Paradoxides Acadicus, Fry, magnified 5 diam.
206.
21:
22. Conocoryphe
(Bailiella) Baïleyi,
ce “
23.
230.
24.
25.
“
lamellatus.
“
Ctenocephalus
(Hartella) Matthew,
[1 iT
Baileyi ?
Walcotti,
“
Pygidium of small individual of this species? Magnified 2 diam.
, Hartt, young, magnified, 2 diam.
Side view of same head.
Pygidium of a larger species, to show scars, &c.
| Hartt, sp., head-shield of adult, flattened. E
Front view of same head.
Genal spines of this species.
Glabella, &c., of young, magnified 3 diam. to show arrangement of the spines.
Cheek of adult enlarged 2 diam. to show ocular ridge and ramifications.
Thorax of half-grown animal, showing seven segments.
Thorax of var. y. side view, showing fourteen segments.
Pygidium of adult, natural size.
sf # magnified 2 diam. to show the markings of the surface.
“ ce “ “ “ “ “ side view.
re a var., half-grown, with curved base.
Embryonic stage (?) magnified 10 diam.
First stage, magnified 10 diam.
Third stage, magnified 5 diam.
Fourth stage, &
Fifth stage, Xe 2
Size9x17 mm. “ 1}
N.B.—A specimen, having only the part of the head below the, dotted line
a....a, possesses genal spine and part of thorax.
Segments of this thorax enlarged to show spines on the edges of the pluræ.
Individual nearly full grown with pentagonal frontal lobe.
TS
} Hartt, sp., typical form shortened by pressure, with distinct furrows.
Var. a, with smooth test.
Same variety in profile.
Pygidium.
A very young individual, magnified 5 diam.
Another small shield, magnified 4 diam.
Larger, = Ty RS
Hartt, sp., below the adult size.
Front view of a head of this species.
Pygidium. :
A very young individual, magnified 5 diam.
A larger one, RD a
A still larger shield, “ AY ASE
Var., flattened by pressure, shewing transverse ridges on the glabella.
Young, magnified 3 diam., shewing transverse ridges on the glabella.
N. sp., somewhat distorted.
Markings of inside ot test, magnified.
SECTION IV., 1884. 25m] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
VI.—A Historical Account of the Taconic Question in Geology, with a Discussion of
the Relations of the Taconic Series to the Older Crystalline and to the Cambrian
Rocks. By Tuomas Sterry Hunt, LL.D. (Cantab.), FRS.
SECOND PART.
(Presented May 21, 1884.)
VIIL—The Taconic History Reviewed.—Types of American Cambrian. Recent paleontological studies. Various
opinions as to the age of the Lower Taconic rocks. The metamorphic hypothesis considered.
TX.—Conelusion.—Summary. Wide distribution of rocks like Taconian. Contents of sections and Note.
VIII.—Tue Taconic History REVIEWED.
§ 136. In the Transanctions of this Society for 1883, (Vol. I, Part IV, pages 217-270),
will be found the first part of this account of the Taconic Question. In this second and
concluding part, we shall continue the numbering of chapters and of sections begun in the
first. It is proposed to notice, in the first place, some of the characteristic differences of
the Cambrian or Upper Taconic rocks as seen in different parts of North America, to follow
the results of paleontological investigation from the disturbed region in eastern Canada
southward into Vermont and New York, and thus to prepare the way for a consideration
of the varying and contradictory hypotheses which have been from time to time put forth
as to the age of both the Upper and Lower Taconic series.
§ 187. The Cambrian rocks of New York, as originally described by its Geological
Survey, were known only in the stable and little disturbed region around the Adiron-
dack Mountains, including the area west of Lake Champlain and the Ottawa basin, where
the series is represented by the quartzites and magnesian limestones of the Potsdam and
Calciferous subdivisions, which are shallow-water deposits, corresponding, apparently,
to small portions only of Cambrian time. The conditions of the Mississippi area are
similar to those of the Adirondack region. In Wisconsin, where the Potsdam beds rest
in a nearly horizontal position upon highly disturbed strata, often of Keweenian age,
these sandstones and magnesian limestones of the Cambrian, lying in undisturbed succes-
sion, have about 1,000 feet in thickness, and are overlaid by the St. Peter sandstone, which
divides them from the succeeding Trenton and may itself be regarded as the base of the
Ordovician. When, however, we reach the Cordilleras, we find a great augmentation in
the thickness of these lower rocks. In the Eureka district of Nevada, according to the
late studies of Arnold Hague and Wolcott, the fauna of the so-called Lower and Upper
Potsdam ranges through more than 6,000 feet of strata, and is succeeded by that of the
Chazy and Trenton subdivisions.
§ 138. A similar great development of these lower rocks exists in north-western New-
foundland, where, from his studies of their organic remains, the late Mr. Billings was led
to admit a succession of over 9,000 feet of paleozoic strata below the Trenton horizon,
126 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
The subdivisions there recognized by him in ascending order were: 1. Lower Potsdam ;
2. Upper Potsdam ; 3. Lower Calciferous ; 4. Upper Calciferous ; 5. Levis; and 6. Phyllo-
graptus beds. The second and third of these were regarded by Billings as the represen-
tatives of the Adirondack Potsdam and Calciferous, while the Phyllograptus beds at the
summit were considered the equivalent of the Welsh Arenig, which belongs to the base of
the Bala group, or the second fauna. It is evident, as Billings declared, that we have, in
this great thickness in north-western Newfoundland, a much more complete sequence than
in the Adirondack region, where the Upper Potsdam, Calciferous and Chazy subdivisions
represent the whole succession from the ancient gneiss up to the Trenton limestone.
§ 139. Keeping in view the great development of the Cambrian alike in the Cordil-
leras and in Newfoundland, as compared with the Cambrian of the Adirondack and Mis-
sissippi areas, we are better prepared to understand the remarkable type assumed by this
series in the Appalachian area, on the eastern margin of the American paleozoic basin, from
near the Gulf of Mexico north-eastward to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to Newfound-
land, along the western base of the Atlantic or Appalachian belt. These Cambrian rocks
throughout this extent, wherever preserved, are characterized by great thickness and con-
siderable diversities in composition, due to the accumulation of mechanical sediments de-
rived from the disintegration and decay of the various groups of pre-Cambrian rocks which
made up the adjacent eozoic land. To this, and to repeated movements of the land during
and after the Cambrian period, they owe their complex constitution, their great volume,
their disturbed and faulted condition, and their unconformities. All of these characters
serve to distinguish them widely from the horizontal and comparatively thin quartzites
and magnesian limestones, their representatives along the northern border of the great
basin as seen in the Adirondack and Mississippi areas. It is this Appalachian Cambrian,
many thousand feet in thickness, which, as we have already seen, constitutes the First
Greywacke of Eaton, the Upper Taconic of Emmons, the Quebec and Potsdam group of
Logan, and a large part of the original Hudson River group.
§ 140. That the Levis limestones and Phyllograptus shales, found at the summit of
this series, mark the beginnings of the second fauna, has already been noticed, as well as
the fact that still higher strata, of Ordovician and Silurian ages, are found over portions of
this Appalachian Cambrian series, among the strata of which they have sometimes been
involved by subsequent movements. It will also be borne in mind, first, that this great
mass of 10,000 feet or more of diversified and folded Cambrian strata is soon exchanged
to the west for a far more simple type of but a few hundred feet in thickness; and,
secondly, that erosion has removed this great series wholly or in part from over large por-
tions of its original area, particularly south of the parallel of 45° north latitude.
§ 141. With these explanations before us, we are now prepared to consider the rela-
tions of the Cambrian and Ordovician series, in their two unlike types of the Appalachian
and Adirondack areas, to the Lower Taconic limestones. It has already been shown that
Emmons, in 1842, in his final Report on the Geology of the Northern District of New York,
defined, with the present names, the lower subdivisions of the New York paleozoic sys-
tem, from the Potsdam to the Oneida, both inclusive, to which he gave the collective ap-
pellation of the Champlain division. He at the same time proposed for the granular
quartz-rock and the granular lime-rock of Eaton, found in western Massachusetts, the name
of the Taconic system, which he followed Eaton in assigning to a lower horizon than
TACONIC QUESTION IN GHOLOGY. 127
the Potsdam sandstone, and in regarding as entirely distinct from the New York system.
The upper limits of this Taconic system, and its relations to the members of the Cham-
plain division on the east side of the Champlain and Hudson valleys, were not at that
time clearly defined by Emmons.
§ 142. In 1843 appeared the final Report by Mather upon the Geology of the Southern
District of New York, in which he rejected entirely the notion of the Taconic system, and
the whole teaching of Eaton, asserting that the Taconic was nothing more than a modified
form of the Champlain division of Emmons. The granular quartz-rock of the Taconic he
declared to be Potsdam ; the granular lime-rock, the Calciferous sand-rock with the suc-
ceeding Chazy and Trenton limestones; while the overlying argillites, including the so-
called Hudson River group, were the Utica and the Loraine shales. A similar suggestion
had been put forth by Messrs. H. D. and W. B. Rogers, in 1841, for the like rocks in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, and was cited by Mather in support of his view. When, later,
in 1858, H. D. Rogers published his final Report on the Geology of Pennsylvania, the
Lower Taconic rocks of Massachusetts had been by Emmons traced south-westward through
the great Appalachian valley, in Pennsylvania, and the adjacent and subordinate Lancas-
ter valley. These rocks, under the names of Primal, Auroral and Matinal, were now de-
scribed by H. D. Rogers as local modifications of the Champlain series,—the great Auroral
limestone being assumed to be the representative of the Calciferous, the Chazy and the so-
called Birdseye and Black River subdivisions, while the Matinal slates were supposed to
represent the upper part of the Trenton, with the Utica and the Loraine shales. For
many extended details with regard to the facts in § 141 and 142, and for other points in
the Taconic history, the reader is referred to the author’s volume on Azoic Rocks, published
as Report E of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, in 1878.
§ 143. Coupled with this hypothesis of Mather was that of a progressive alteration of
these uncrystalline rocks of the Champlain division, supposed to be traced through the
Taconic strata into the crystalline schists of western New England, designated by Mather
as Metamorphic rocks; between which and the Taconic, it was said by him: “No well-
marked line of distinction can be drawn, as they blend into each other by insensible
shades of difference.” He was at length led to extend this same view to the more massive
gneisses and crystalline limestones of southern New York, and to conclude that these also
were, wholly or in great part, but altered rocks of the Champlain division,—a notion which
has lately found an advocate in Dana, who has also revived Mather’s view of the Champlain
age of the Taconic quartz-rock and granular limestone, as will be noticed farther on.
§ 144. In Chapters V and VI of this essay we have told the story of the Taconic
series as farther studied by Emmons. He soon became aware that the uncrystalline and
occasionally fossiliferous series of sandstones, shales. and limestones, constituting the
the First Graywacke, was not, as maintained by Mather, newer, but older than the Tren-
ton, and coupled these with the original Taconic, under the name of Upper Taconic. This
upper division was subsequently clearly recognized by him as a distinct and well defined
group, which, as early as 1846, he declared to be the stratigraphical equivalent of the Pots-
dam and the Calciferous of the Champlain division, while the whole Lower Taconic,
including not only the granular quartz-rock and the granular lime-rock, but the imme-
diately succeeding schists and argillites (Transition Argillite of Eaton), was assigned to an
. horizon below the base of the Champlain division, and consequently older than the Pots-
128 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
dam. It was in 1846 that he declared the so-called Red Sand-rock of Vermont to belong to
the base of the Champlain series, and to overlie the Lower Taconic, but it was not till
1855 that this Sand-rock, with its succeeding Graywacke series, was described under the
name of Upper Taconic.
§ 145. These conclusions as to the age of the Red Sand-rock of Vermont were opposed
by ©. B. Adams and by W. B. Rogers. The former maintained in 1846, after the
announcement of Emmons, the opinion that this sand-rock was newer than the Champlain
division, and referred it to “the period of the Medina sandstone and the Clinton group,”
while W. B. Rogers, in 1851, discussing the same subject, conceived that the reddish
limestones which, near Burlington, Vermont, are associated with this sand-rock, were
probably “a peculiar development of the upper portion of the Medina group.” As regards
the relations of this Red Sand-rock and its succeeding limestone to the granular quartz-
rock and granular lime-rock of the Lower Taconic, Adams maintained that “the Taconic
quartz-rock was probably but a metamorphic equivalent of the Red Sand-rock,” and
ascribed the change to a supposed “igneous agency.” He farther conceived that the
granular lime-rock “or Stockbridge limestone of the Taconic system is the equivalent of
the caleareous rocks which overlie the Red Sand-rock, rather than that of the lower lime-
stones of the Champlain division, as has been commonly supposed.” Allusion is here made
by Adams to the views of Mather and the brothers Rogers, who, as already seen, had
supposed this same limestone to be the equivalent of the Calciferous, Chazy and Trenton.
This opinion of Adams, which, in 1851, was, as we have shown, supported by W. B.
Rogers, was again maintained by the latter in 1860, when, after the reading of an essay
by C. H. Hitchcock before the Boston Society of Natural History, Rogers cited from his
paper of 1851 the conclusions above mentioned, and announced his opinion, “that there
is no foundation for what Mr. Emmons called his Taconic system—a mixture of Silurian
and that the Dorset limestone (the Stockbridge limestone of the Lower
v1
and Devonian
Taconic) is newer than the Lower Silurian, and probably Upper Silurian or Devonian.
§ 146. The explanation of this new opinion as to the horizon of the Lower Taconic
limestone is made apparent by reference to the Report on the Geology of Vermont, then
in process of publication by the Messrs. Hitchcock. Therein Dr. Edward Hitchcock writes,
with regard to the limestone in question, then named by him Eolian limestone, and said
to be best displayed in Dorset Mountain: “We have found, mostly in strata from below
the middle of the limestones, fossils which, though obscure from metamorphism, are
clearly referable to genera characteristic of Devonian rocks, viz: Euomphalus, Stromato-
pora, Zaphrentis, Chaetetes and encrinal stems.” “Nor is it at all improbable, as we shall
shortly show, that the Eolian limestone may be as recent as the Carboniferous rocks.*”
Accompanying this will be found a notice of these organic forms as determined by Prof.
James Hall, who declared them to be of Upper Silurian and Devonian types. They are
compared by Hitchcock to those found to the east of the Green Mountains, in the valley
of Lake Memphramagog, the horizon of which is well known.
§ 147. We have already noticed the occurrence of outliers of Lower Helderberg lime-
stone on St. Helen’s Island, near Montreal, and on Belceil Mountain, a few miles farther
1 Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. History ; vii, 238.
2 Geology of Vermont, 1861; pp. 421 and 418, 419.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 129
east; in the first locality resting unconformably upon Ordovician strata, and in the second,
upon a mass of eruptive rock which breaks through similar strata (§ 117). In this connec-
tion may be recalled the like occurrence at Becraft’s Mountain, near the town of Hudson,
on the east side of the Hudson River, long known, and lately re-examined by W. M.
Davis. Here, resting upon shales referred to the Hudson River group and, from the
locality, probably of Loraine age, there is found, in a small synclinal area, a mass of con-
torted strata, including 150 feet or more of fossiliferous Lower Helderberg limestones over-
laid by as great a thickness of Cauda-galli shales, to which succeed a few feet of
cherty limestone regarded as the equivalent of the Corniferous or Upper Helderberg.* In
all of these localities, as well as at Rondout, also reexamined by Davis, we note the
absence, beneath these Silurian strata, of the great mass of mechanical sediments, including
the Oneida and Medina sandstones, which, farther west, are so conspicuous in the lower
part of the Silurian series, and belong to the Second Graywacke of Eaton.
§ 148. As already mentioned in § 118, Augustus Wing, having detected in Vermont
fossiliferous limestones of Trenton age, the locality was examined by Billings. In a section
eastward from Crown Point, in New York, the latter found what was described as the
Red Sand-rock, with Olenellus, brought up by a fault, on the east side of the Loraine
shales, and followed eastward by strata carrying the fauna of the Calciferous sand-rock,
succeeded by some forms of the Levis, and then by the Chazy and Trenton; to the east of
which another dislocation brings up again a limestone abounding in the typical fauna of
the Levis limestone. The close association of the latter with the white marbles quar-
ried in this region, led Billings to refer these to the Levis horizon.* It is worthy of notice
that it was in the same vicinity, which furnished Billings with Calciferous, Levis, Chazy
and Trenton forms, that the organic remains had been found which were referred by Hall
to the Niagara and still higher horizons, and which led Edward Hitchcock and W. B.
Rogers to conjecture that the marbles of this region might be of Devonian age or younger.
So perplexing were these facts to Wing, that we find him led to the conclusion, announced
in a letter to J. D. Dana in 1875, and recently cited with approval by the latter,’ that
“ The Eolian limestone of the Vermont Geological Report embraced not only the Trenton
and the Hudson River beds, but all the formations of the Lower Silurian as well, and even
limestones and dolomites of the Red Sand-rock (Potsdam sandstone) series.”
§ 149. Another hypothesis touching the age of the Taconic marbles was now offered
to the perplexed geologist, and this time by the Geological Survey of Canada. We have
already shown that forced by the paleontological evidence (which had previously been
urged by Emmons), Logan, in 1860, adopted the views of the latter as regards the horizon
of the Upper Taconic, long before traced from New York to below Quebec on the St. Law-
rence. This, in accordance with the conclusions of Mather, and the earlier published view
of Emmons, had been described by Logan as consisting of the Hudson River group with
3 Amer. Jour. Science, xxvi, 381 and 389.
4 Hunt, On Some Points in the Geology of Vermont, 1868, Amer. Jour. Science, xlvi, pp. 222, 229. This paper,
from data furnished by Billings, was written while the writer still accepted the untenable view of Logan, from the
first opposed by Billings, which assigned the Levis to a position near the base of the Cambrian series, instead of
its summit.
5 Dana, The Age of the Taconic System, Quar. Geol. Jour., xxxviii, 402.
Sec. IV., 1884. 17.
130 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
the addition of the Oneida sandstone. The study of its fossils by Billings now led Logan
to see that its position was really below and not above the Trenton limestone; but instead
of adopting Emmons’ name of Upper Taconic, he gave to the series, as seen near Quebec,
the name of the Quebec group, then described by Logan as a stratigraphical equivalent of
the Calciferous sand-rock. Taking as a type the well-known section there displayed upon
the St. Lawrence, he called the apparently superposed sandstone the Sillery, and the
underlying fossiliferous limestones and shales (the Sparry lime-rock of Eaton,) the Levis
division. This was a reversal of the order described by former observers, and there can
be no doubt that the section at Quebec is really an inverted one, the Sillery sandstone
being the oldest and not the youngest member of the series as there displayed. This his-
tory has already been given at length in Chapter VI of this essay.
§ 150. We have there also explained how Logan’s view of the position of the Sillery
sandstone was made to support the notion that the crystalline schists which have been
found to underlie it were the altered representatives of the sedimentary strata found be-
tween the Sillery and the Levis, which he had called the Lauzon division. Following
the rocks of his Quebec group southward into Vermont until he met the granular marbles
of the Lower Taconic, Logan was led to include these also in the Quebec group, and to re-
gard them as the Levis limestone in an altered condition. This, as already set forth in
§§ 115-116, is seen in his large geological map of Canada and the Northern States, pub-
lished in 1866, after he had spent some time in tracing these rocks through western Ver-
mont and Massachusetts into eastern New York. Therein the Lower Taconic limestone
in Massachusetts is represented as an uninterrupted continuation of the Levis limestone:
from the province of Quebec, brought up along an anticlinal, and having on both sides
overlying it, successively, the Lauzon and Sillery divisions,—these, on the west side of
the anticlinal, having the ordinary type of the uncrystalline First Greywacke or Upper
Taconic, but being represented on the east side by the crystalline schists of the Green
Mountain range, their supposed equivalents. Few will now question that Logan was
wrong in this latter point, or will doubt the greater antiquity of these crystalline rocks.
On the other hand it is to be noted that, in thus asserting the infraposition of: the Lower
Taconic marbles to the First Graywacke or Upper Taconic series, Logan but confirmed the
older observations of Eaton and Emmons, and only erred in having, by a false interpreta.
tion of the succession of the latter series near Quebec, assigned the Levis limestone to its
base, by which he was led to confound it with the Lower Taconic limestone. In either
view, he placed the latter below the series of several thousand feet of sandstones, conglom-
erates and shales, which constitute the First Graywacke of Eaton and the Upper Taconic
of Emmons.
§ 151. We have already seen that Emmons, as early as 1846, had recognized the fossil-
iferous character of the First Graywacke, which he afterwards called Upper Taconic; that
he described and figured, in 1855, trilobitic forms found therein, and did not hesitate, in
1861, to declare that it corresponded with the Primordial zone of Barrande.’ Thus it hap-
pened that Barrande, Marcou, and after him Perry assumed the Taconic system to be the
equivalent of the Primordial zone or Cambrian of Great Britain, Bohemia and Spain,—they
having failed to recognize the distinction which Emmons had made between the Lower
5 See, in this connection, Barrande and Marcou on the Primordial Fauna and the Taconic System; Proc. Bos-
ton Soc. Nat. Hist., Dec., 1860, vol. vii, pp. 369-382.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 131
or original Taconic, and the Upper Taconic or Cambrian. In 1867, J. B. Perry described the
Taconic system of Vermont as composed of three parts: 1. Lower, consisting of quartz-
ites, marbles and talcoid schists, the original or Lower Taconic of Emmons ; 2 and 3. Mid-
dle and Upper, including the uncrystalline fossiliferous Scranton and Georgia slates, and
the overlying Red Sand-rock, which he regarded as the equivalent of Potsdam. The suc-
ceeding graywacke, constituting a great part of the Upper Taconic of Emmons, was by
Perry supposed to be separated by an unconformity from the Red Sand-rock, and he was
disposed to divide it from the Taconic and connect it with the Champlain division.’
§ 152. Still more recently Marcou has given us his own latest views of these rocks in
Vermont. The true or typical Taconic is, according to him, the Upper Taconic of Emmons,
and rests unconformably upon the Lower Taconic. This upper series he divides into four
parts, in ascending order, designated the St. Albans, Georgia, Phillipsburg and Scranton
eroups. In these are found, besides the Primordial fauna, fossils of the second fauna
in included limestones, a fact which he explains as indicating centres of creation in which
the forms of the second fauna first made their appearance; the whole of these being, ac-
cording to him, below the horizon of the Red Sand-rock, which he supposes to overlie, un-
conformably, the Upper Taconic.* That the forms of the second fauna, found in portions
of this region, belong to a lower horizon than the Potsdam, is in discordance alike with
with the facts of paleontology and of stratigraphy, and is opposed to the conclusions of all
other observers in that region, including alike Emmons, Logan and Perry. Marcou’s con-
clusions would seem to be based on some of the frequent cases of inversion of strata, or of
dislocation and upthrow, to which we have elsewhere alluded, and which led Logan to
place the Levis limestone near Quebec at the base of his Quebec group, and to represent
the Taconic marbles of southern Vermont as passing below the crystalline schists of the
Green Mountain range.
It should, however, here be said, at the same time, that in a disturbed region like
eastern Vermont, where areas of the higher rocks of the second fauna exist, and have prob-
ably at one time been more widely spread than now, it is not impossible that there may
be outliers of a sandstone of Oneida or Medina age, such as in Pennsylvania we have
described as overlying unconformably Lower Taconic rocks, and also that such Silurian
sandstones may have been confounded with the older Cambrian or Potsdam sandstone,
and thus afford a seeming justification for the strange hypothesis advanced by Marcou,
that the whole of the Appalachian Cambrian in Vermont is older than the Potsdam
sandstone. The absence of these Silurian sandstones at the base of the outliers of Silu-
rian limestones at Montreal, at Hudson and elsewhere, as already noticed in § 147,
renders, however, their presence in Vermont less probable.
§ 153. The studies of the last few years have thrown much light on the character of
the lower portions of the Cambrian in its development to the east and south-east of the
Adirondack area. It has been noticed that the Red Sand-rock, and its accompanying slates
and limestones near Burlington, Vermont, referred by Emmons to the Potsdam, but by
Adams, and W. B. Rogers to the Medina, and by Logan to the summit of the Hudson River
group, were subsequently by Billings called Lower Potsdam, to indicate that the fauna of
these rocks belongs to a somewhat lower horizon than the typical Potsdam of the New
‘The Red Sandrock of Vermont, etc., J. B. Perry ; Proc. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist., 1867, vol. xi.
# Marcou, Bull. Soc. Géol. de France, 1880, (3) ix, pp. 18-46.
132 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
York system, The subsequent studies of Logan in western Vermont, as given by him in
1863, showed that these ancient rocks are brought up by a north and south dislocation,
with upthrow on the east, from beneath rocks of Trenton, of Chazy, or of Levis age, which
latter here occupy their natural position at the summit of the Upper Taconic or First Gray-
wacke group.’ Billings, also in 1868, as already pointed out, had shown that farther
southward in Vermont the Red Sand-rock, or Lower Potsdam, is in like manner brought
up by a dislocation, so as to overlie on the east the Loraine shales.
§ 154. It now became clear that much of what had been called Hudson River group,
to the east of the Hudson Valley, and of Lake Champlain, consisted, not as taught by
Mather and his followers, of disturbed and altered strata newer than the Trenton lime-
stone, and of the age of the Loraine shales, but of older rocks, carrying in part, at least, the
forms of the first fauna. We have already seen (§ 112) how, in view of these facts, Hall
expressed his opinion in 1862, as to the relations of these newer strata to the older ones. In
1877, he returned to the subject and, after retracing the history of investigation, concluded
that “ we now know approximately the limits between the newer and the older forma-
tions, and there is now no longer any question that the newer series, or the rocks above
the Trenton limestone, do occupy both sides of the Hudson River for nearly one hundred
miles, and continue along the valley for many miles farther towards Lake Champlain. The
term, Hudson River group, has, therefore, a definite signification, from absolute knowledge
of superposition and fossil remains. The error lay in extending the term to rocks on the
eastward, at a time when their fossil contents had not been studied, and were, in fact, un-
known, and their geological position had not been determined by critical examination.” ”
We have already shown, in $$ 13-14, how Vanuxem had devised this term to include,
besides the true Loraine shales, other disturbed and apparently non-fossiliferous rocks of
controverted age, which he supposed might be included with the former, and thus intro-
duced much of that confusion which has prevailed in the use of the name of Hudson River
group as the equivalent to that of Loraine shales.
§ 155. The eastern limit of the rocks of the second fauna, along the Hudson valley, being
defined, as stated by Hall, and as already shown by him for that region on Logan’s geolo-
gical map previously published, it was important to determine the age of the uncrystal-
line rocks along their eastern border, and to decide whether these were, (as mapped by
Logan), portions of the so-called Quebec group, or of the still older Potsdam, which had been
found in this position at several points in Vermont. Nothing has contributed more to the
solution of this problem than the careful studies of Mr. 8. W. Ford, who, in 1871, discovered
the existence of fossiliferous rocks of this lower horizon at Troy, New York, and, following
up his investigations, showed that these strata, containing an abundant fauna of Lower
Potsdam age, (corresponding to the Olenellus slates of Georgia, Vermont, and to the beds
at Bic, Quebec, and at the Strait of Belleisle, in Labrador,) are at Troy brought up on the
eastern side of a fault, against the Loraine shales." Continuing his studies, Ford has re-
cently traced these Lower Potsdam rocks, under similar conditions, through various parts
of Columbia and Duchess Counties, the stratigraphical break and the upthrow of the
Cambrian strata on its eastern side being well defined. He does not attempt to estimate
® Geology of Canada, chap. xxii, pp. 844-860.
1 Hall, Proc. Amer. Assoc. Ady. Science, 1877, p. 263.
1 Amer. Jour. Science, 1873, vi, p. 185,
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 133
the thickness of this series of Cambrian sandstones, shales, conglomerates and limestones,
but says that it “is manifestly very great in eastern New York.” ”
§ 156. It is hardly necessary to mention that this series of Cambrian fossiliferous rocks,
traced by Ford through Rensselaer, Columbia and part of Duchess Counties, along the
eastern side of a belt of Loraine shales, is a part of the great Graywacke belt, the age of
which was disputed between Emmons and Mather, (the Hudson River group of the latter),
and which Logan, after his examination of the region with Hall, in 1863, described and
subsequently mapped as Quebec group. These observers, as has been already stated
(§ 115), and as may be seen on Logan’s map of 1866, then traced a narrow but persistent belt
of Loraine shales along the eastern side of the Hudson, from Washington County south-
ward to a point a little above Hyde Park, where they found the boundary between these
shales and the older group to cross to the west side of the Hudson. The accuracy of this
delineation is confirmed by Ford, who, while remarking that the distribution of the upper
rocks might entitle them to be called the Hudson River group, suggests, in view of the
perplexities which have attended its use, that it would be better “to discard altogether
the designation, and go back to the old term, Loraine shales.” Ford farther speaks of the
“oreat dislocation,” which, at so many points from western Vermont to the Hudson in
Duchess County, brings up the Cambrian rocks against newer strata of Ordovician age.
A reference to the sections of Logan and Billings, already cited, will, however, show the
existence, not of a single dislocation, but of parallel dislocations, with upthrows on the
east side, towards the barrier of older rocks. Of such parallel faults we find, in fact, re-
peated examples, not only east of the Hudson, but farther southward, along the eastern
border of the Appalachian valley, as already shown in § 101.
$ 157. The one continuous break, with an upthrow on the south and east of 7,000
feet, extending from Gaspé to Alabama, imagined by Logan, was required in his struc-
tural scheme, because he had assumed the Levis limestone, (which near Quebec is brought
to adjoin the Loraine shales,) to occupy a position at the base of his Quebec group, and to
have been originally buried 7,000 feet beneath the Loraine shales in a great con-
formable series. The strata along the west side of these dislocations in Canada and in
Vermont are, according to Logan, either Levis, Chazy, Trenton or Loraine, the Lower
Potsdam being on the east side. Ina section described by Billings, and already noticed
(§ 148), where the first dislocation brings up the Lower Potsdam—which is successively
overlaid by Calciferous, Levis, Chazy and Trenton—against the Loraine, a second parallel
fault, a little farther to the east, brings up the Levis against the Trenton. We see, from the
late studies of Ford, that the great belt along the eastern border of the Loraine shales,
which Logan described and mapped as Quebec group, is in large part Lower Potsdam.
The whole series must now be farther studied in the present light: we must know the
real thickness of the Cambrian in the region in question; the interval therein which
separates the Lower Potsdam from the Levis fauna; and how much of the Quebec group
of Logan is to be included in the Potsdam.
§ 158. As regards the relations of the Cambrian and Ordovician rocks over this area,
we have already shown that there is every reason to believe that there exists a stratigraph-
ical break between them, (as is also the case between the Lower Taconic and Cambrian),
™ Amer. Jour, Science, 1884, xxviii, pp. 85 and 206,
134 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
and, farther, that the lower members of the Ordoyician series, (the limestones of the Tren-
ton group), thin out and present irregularities to the south and east. Although, according
to Hall and Logan, it appeared that the line between the Loraine shales and the inferior
series passed from the east to the west bank of the Hudson near Hyde Park in Duchess
County, subsequent studies have shown the existence of the higher strata farther south-
ward, on the east bank." Dale, in 1877, found fossils of the Loraine period in shales at
Poughkeepsie, and Dwight soon after detected abundant forms of Trenton age in the lime-
stone of the Wappinger valley, a little farther south, as well as at Newburg, on the west
bank of the Hudson. These discoveries were soon followed by that of a remarkable fauna
of Calciferous age in other limestones in the Wappinger valley, thus showing the presence
here, as in Vermont, to the east of the outcrop of the Potsdam, of strata carrying the fos-
sils of the Calciferous, the Trenton and the Loraine subdivisions. These remarkable dis-
coveries by Dwight were made in 1877-1880," and, joined to the observations of Dale, and
those of Ford, show the existence, in what has been called Hudson River group and Quebec
group, of fossiliferous strata ranging from the Lower Potsdam to the Loraine, both in-
clusive,—a result identical to that already arrived at in Canada for the area which had
been successively mapped as Hudson River group and Quebec group.
§ 159. Having thus recalled the latest results of paleontological research among
the so-called Upper Taconic, and shown the association of areas of Ordovician rocks with
the predominant Cambrian, we may proceed to notice the views of Prof. J. D. Dana on
the Taconic question. He, in 1872 and 1873, published an extended series of papers on
the rocks of the Taconic range, as seen in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and reasoning
from the organic forms found in association with similar limestones in Vermont, reached
the conclusion that the Stockbridge limestone “is mainly Trenton,” the overlying schists
being of the Hudson River group.” This latter statement, supported by a stratigraphical
argument, may be found in a paper on the Geological Age of the Taconic System, in the
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, for August, 1882. Herein, giving
a historical introduction to the subject, Dana takes for a definition of the Taconic system
the statements made by Emmons in his Geology of the Northern District of New York,
published in 1842, while his views were yet vague, and before he had clearly defined, or
even studied the relations of the granular quartz-rock, the granular lime-rock, and the
interstratified and immediately overlying schists and argillites, together constituting the
Lower Taconic, with the great Graywacke series which Eaton, Emmons, Mather and
Logan have alike placed above it, and which was subsequently called Upper Taconic by
Emmons. This latter series, as we have seen, appears along the western base of the
Taconic range, and presents a great mass of faulted and disturbed uncrystalline strata
between that range and the narrow band of Loraine shales which extends for a long
distance southward along the east bank of the Hudson.
§ 160. In describing, in 1842, the rocks of the Taconic range in western Massachusetts,
Emmons notices the occurrence of three parallel belts of limestone, with accompanying
shales, the western one of which he designates as the Sparry limestone—the Sparry lime-
# Amer. Jour. Science, xvii, 57.
* Thid., xvii. 389; xix, 50; xxi, 78; and xxvii, 249.
16 Tbid., vi, 274.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 135
rock of Eaton—followed to the east by two other belts, differing from the first in lith-
ological characters, and constituting the Granular lime-rock of Eaton. Emmons then pro-
ceeds to inquire whether these three may not be one and the same bed repeated, or, in
case there should be two or more distinct beds, which belt is the oldest. “It is,” he says,
“a question whether these three several belts of limestone may not belong to one bed; it
is at least worthy of attentive examination. It is, however, a question that I have often
sought to solve, but I have not yet succeeded in a way which is satisfactory to my mind,
but I have concluded to regard them as distinct, inasmuch as there are differences of some
importance,” etc. It had been customary, he tells us, to look upon the most easterly belt
as the oldest, and that at the western base of the Taconic range as the newest, notwith-
standing the fact that the most westerly belt seems to dip beneath the eastern. At the
same time he remarks that, in the absence of fossils, “ we must judge of their age by their
relative position, or by superposition, and, so long as the most western belt, by this rule,
is the inferior one, I can see no necessity in the case to suppose a series of complicated
changes, in order to make it coincide with our conjectures.” '°
~ § 161. A careful perusal of the page from which these extracts are taken, and, indeed,
of the citations themselves, suffices to show that Emmons was at that time—1842—in
doubt which of these limestones should be regarded as older and which younger, or, in-
deed, whether they were not all repetitions of the same belt, These doubts were, how-
ever, resolved by him, and those familiar with his subsequent studies and publications are
well aware that he soon afterward saw reason to follow Haton in assigning the Sparry
lime-rock of the western belt to the summit of the great Greywacke or Upper Taconic
series, which he showed to be fossiliferous and Cambrian in age. The whole history of
this is before the world in Emmons’ later publications of 1846, 1855 and 1860, but of this,
in 1882, Dana tells us nothing, and, after asserting that the Taconic rocks constitute one
conformable series—which, so far as regards the Lower Taconic, has never been questioned
—refers to the well-known fact that the limestones of the western belt described by Em-
mons, have since yielded not only a Cambrian, but an Ordovician fauna, and then, falling
back on the words of Emmons in 1842, already cited, declares that ‘if Professor Emmons’
view is right with regard to the western and eastern limestones and the intermediate Ta-
conic schists, namely, that the order of superposition is the order of age, then the western
is the oldest of the three ;” but, “inasmuch as the western limestone is partly of Trenton
age, it makes the eastern limestone younger still, or, a part of the Hudson River group.” ”
Dana, however, adds that he accepts the alternative conjecture of Emmons in 1842,—which
he assumes to be established,—that the eastern and western limestone belts in question are
but repetitions of one and the same stratum, and thence argues that the granular marbles
of the Taconic range are altered lower paleozoic limestone.
§ 162. The different views with regard to the geological horizon of the Lower Taconic
or Stockbridge limestones of Emmons—the Granular lime-rock of Eaton—may be resumed
as follows :— 5
I. That they are pre-Cambrian, and occupy a position below the Potsdam sandstone
or Red Sand-rock, and the Quebec group of Logan, which together constitute the First or
16 Emmons, Geology of the Northern District of New York, p. 147.
* Quar. Geol. Journal, xxxyili, 465,
136 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
Cambrian Graywacke of Eaton and the Upper Taconic of Emmons, as shown in the
table, § 18. (Eaton, Emmons, Perry, Marcon.)
IT. That, although lying beneath the greater part of this Graywacke series, they
are not distinct therefrom, but are the altered representative of the Levis limestone or
Sparry lime-rock, imagined by Logan to lie between the Red Sand-rock below and the chief
part of the Quebec group above. (Logan, in his geological map of 1866.)
III. That they are the altered representatives of the whole of the limestones which, in
the New York system as seen in the Adirondack area, appear between the Potsdam sand-
stone and the Utica slate. (Mather, H. D. and W. B. Rogers, J. D. Dana.)
IV. Allied to the last is the view expressed by Wing, in 1875, that they include the
representatives of the limestones of the Potsdam and Quebec groups of Logan, together
with the Trenton and the Loraine or Hudson River group, or, in other words, the whole
of the Champlain division of the New York system, from the Potsdam to the base of the
Oneida.
V. That they belong to a horizon above the Champlain division, and are true Silurian
and Devonian. (C. B. Adams, Ed. Hitchcock, W. B. Rogers.)
§ 163. We have already briefly set forth the arguments on which these various and
contradictory hypotheses have been based. While the fifth supposes the Lower Taconic
limestone to hold a position above the Oneida sandstone, and consequently superior to the
Second Graywacke, the third was devised at a time before the existence of the First Gray-
wacke, (maintained by Haton and Emmons, but denied by Mather,) had been again brought
into favor by the conversion of Logan to the teaching of Emmons, and by his farther admis-
sion that the Lower Taconic limestones in Vermont and Massachusetts are inferior to a
great mass of sandstones, conglomerates and shales many thousand feet in thickness, con-
stituting what he called the Lauzon and Sillery divisions of the Quebec group.
§ 164. It was not until after his change of view as to the geological horizon of this
great sedimentary or Graywacke series, or in other words, after he had recognized the fact
that its place was below and not above the Trenton limestone, that Logan began to ex-
amine the Lower Taconic rocks in western New England. Having then, by a misconcep-
tion, placed the Levis or Sparry lime-rock at the base instead of the summit of the Gray-
wacke, and still holding to the notion of Mather that the crystalline rocks along the
eastern border of the great Appalachian valley were but a portion of the paleozoic strata
in a so-called metamorphic condition, Logan was led to look upon the Lower Taconic
limestone as an altered representative of the Levis limestone, and its underlying quartzite
as Potsdam; the immediately overlying schists and the succeeding sandstones, con-
glomerates and shales of the Graywacke series being referred to the Lauzon and Sillery
divisions of his Quebec group. Hence the wide difference between the view of Logan,
given under II, and that of Mather and his followers, which we have numbered III.
While both would place the Lower Taconic limestones above the Potsdam and
below the Oneida, Mather imagined the slates and sandstones overlying them to be
Ordovician and Silurian (that is, Utica, Loraine and Oneida) or the Second Graywacke of
Eaton. Logan, on the other hand, conceived the same overlying beds, as seen by him in
Vermont, Massachusetts and New York, to belong to the Cambrian or First Graywacke.
The error of Mather and of H. D. Rogers was that both failed to recognize this great series
of sandstones, conglomerates and slates, which are so conspicuous in the Appalachian
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY, 137
_ valley, and confounded them with the Second Graywacke. This error it was which
completely misled the Geological Survey of Canada up to 1860, and continues to obscure
the subject in the minds of many American geologists to the present time.
$ 165. It should be remembered that, as already pointed out in Chapters IT and III,
the overlying Graywacke or Upper Taconic does not include the schistose rocks immedi-
ately above the Lower Taconic limestone, but that a considerable amount of crystalline
schists and argillites occurs, both interstratified with and overlying this limestone, and
forming an integral part of the Lower Taconic series. We have, moreover, set forth in
Chapter V, evidences of the distinction between the Upper and the Lower Taconic, and
have shown that the latter is not limited to the great Appalachian valley, which confines
the former, but is met with in more or less interrupted belts lying upon the crystalline
rocks of the Atlantic region, south and east of the great valley, from New Brunswick to
Georgia. Thus, in North Carolina, not less than four distinct and separate parallel bands of
the Lower Taconic are met with between that of the great valley and the overlying terti-
ary strata of the coast, while similar narrow bands of the same rocks are found in southern
New York and New Jersey, lying upon the ancient gneisses. With none of these Lower
Taconic belts outside of the great valley, so far as is known, is the Upper Taconic to be
found, its absence being due either to erosion, or more probably, as suggested by Emmons,
to the elevation of these areas above the sea during Cambrian time.
§ 166. On the other hand, it has been shown in Chapter VI, that what Mather re-
garded as a continuation of the great Graywacke series from the east of the Hudson, ex-
tends south-westward across Orange County and, according to Horton, there rests, with a
high eastern dip, on the north-west side of the gneissic belt of the Highlands. From cen-
tral Vermont, north-eastward along the great valley, to the St. Lawrence below Quebec,
the Lower Taconic is not known, and the Upper Taconic or Graywacke series rests di-
rectly upon older crystalline schists, as in Orange County, New York. The same condi-
tion of things is again seen in Newfoundland. These facts, already given in detail, serve
to show the distinctness and independence of the crystalline Lower Taconic from the un-
crystalline Upper Taconic or Cambrian series, which two were probably separated by a
considerable interval of time, corresponding to the stratigraphical break, long since pointed
out by Eaton, at the base of the First or Transition Graywacke.
§ 167. The student who refers to Dana’s paper of 1882, already noticed, on “The Age
of the Taconic System,” will obtain no light on the question of the Graywacke series, nor
indeed any evidence that the author has ever seriously studied the literature of the ques-
tion, or comprehended its relation to the complex question before us. He will get no
notion of the two opposing views as to this series of rocks, or its position as above or be-
low the Trenton limestone, or even of its existence as a great succession of uncrystalline
sediments, many thousand feet in thickness and distinct from the Lower Taconic lime-
stones, as maintained alike by Eaton, by Emmons, by Mather, and by Logan, and as set
forth in the preceding chapters. We leave it to the reader to seek for an explanation of
this incompetent and partial statement of the great geological problem under discussion
by one who assumes to be alike an investigator, a teacher, and a critic, and forbear to fol-
low him into the details of his criticisms.
§ 168. The hypothesis of Mather and H. D. Rogers as to the Lower Taconic rocks was
Sec. IV., 1884. 18.
138 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
devised at a time when the progress of geology in New York had made known, in the
northern district of that state, a great series of nearly horizontal fossiliferous strata resting
upon the upturned granitoid gneiss of the Adirondacks and including the now well-
known subdivisions of the paleozoic, from the Potsdam sandstone upwards. The relations
tions and succession of these various rocks were simple and evident. To the east and south-
east of this region, however, beyond Lake Champlain and the. Hudson River, there were
found other crystalline rocks unlike the ancient gneiss, and other uncrystalline sediments
very different in physical character and in stratigraphical attitude from the paleozoic strata
of the northern district of New York. The question then arose as to the correlation of
these unlike rocks in the two regions. Amos Eaton, by a grand generalization, had al-
ready arrived at a system of classification in which he recognized the existence in the
eastern or Appalachian region, of types of Primitive crystalline rocks other than the granit-
oid gneiss, and of great masses of sedimentary strata to which nothing similar was found
in the contemporary series in the Adirondack region.
§ 169. Rejecting the teachings of Eaton, and falling back on the metamorphic doctrine
which was then so generally received, Mather maintained, in 1848, that whatever to the
east of the Hudson differed lithologically from the ancient gneiss on the one hand, and
from the paleozoic rocks of New York system, as seen in the Adirondack region, on the
other, could be nothing else than these same paleozoic rocks folded and subjected to
successive stages of so-called metamorphism, as seen in the Lower Taconic quartzites and
marbles and the crystalline schists which accompany them, as well as those others that
succeed them farther to the east. All of these were, according to Mather, nothing but
the more or less altered equivalents of the members of the New York system, from the
Potsdam sandstone to the Loraine shales, both inclusive ; while the great Graywacke belt,
extending along the east side of the Hudson from Duchess County northward through
Vermont, was not, as maintained by Eaton, older than the Trenton limestone, but newer
than the Loraine shales.
§ 170. The considerations which lent probability to this scheme were, first, the gen-
eral resemblance of this Graywacke series to the Oneida, Clinton, and Medina subdivisions
of the New York system, to which it was by Mather referred ; and secondly, the fact that
the argillites with unctuous schists, granular limestones and granular quartzite, which he
agreed with Eaton and Emmons in placing below the adjacent Graywacke, presented a
certain resemblance to the Loraine and Utica shales, the Trenton and Chazy limestones,
the so-called Calciferous sand-rock, and the underlying Potsdam sandstone. This general
parallelism from the top of the Graywacke downward, which suggested to the mind of
Eaton only the great law of cycles in sedimentation (since generally recognized), was
accepted by H. D. Rogers and by Mather as a proof of identity. In fact the Lower Taconic,
as seen along the Appalachian region, in its regular succession of granular quartzites,
with granular limestones and intervening and overlying soft schists and argillites, presents,
notwithstanding its many mineralogical differences, its crystalline character, and its great
thickness, that general parallelism to the Champlain division which is so often remarked
in groups of sedimentary strata at very various geological horizons. It is thus, in certain
respects, more like the Adirondack Cambrian and Ordovician, with which it has been
confounded, than their Appalachian representatives. These resemblances were coupled
with the fact that along the base of the South Mountain, in Pennsylvania, this succession
TACONIC QUESTION INZGEOLOGY. 139
is found lying between the ancient granitoid gneiss beneath, and the Oneida sandstone
above, precisely as the Potsdam-Loraine succession in northern New York intervenes bet-
ween the same gneiss and the same sandstone.
§ 171. It was not, therefore, surprising, that the geologists then engaged in the study
of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York, should have accepted this plausible
and, at first sight, natural explanation of the apparent lithological parallelism presented
between these regions and northern New York, or that Mather endeavored to extend it to
the rocks east of the Hudson. This attempt led him to assign to the great Graywacke
series, which we now know to be of Cambrian age, a position above the Loraine shales,
or, in other words, to confound it with the Oneida, Medina and Clinton subdivisions of
northern New York and of Pennsylvania, and thus to mistake the First for the Second
Graywacke of Eaton, and, in fact, to deny the existence of the former as a great series
lying above the Lower Taconic and below the horizon of the Trenton limestone. The
brothers Rogers and Mather, forty years since, reasoning from the paleozoic succession as
displayed in the Adirondack area, were not prepared to admit that, in a region so near as the
great Appalachian valley, the paleozoic sediments beneath the Trenton horizon could as-
sume a type so unlike the well-known Potsdam and Calciferous subdivisions of the north-
ern district of New York, or that these subdivisions could be represented in the Appa-
lachian area by the vast and lithologically unlike series of the First Gray wacke, which
Eaton had already, ten years before, assigned to its true position below the horizon of the
Trenton limestone. Hence came the great mistake in American stratigraphy, the denial
by Mather and his followers of the distinctness of the First Graywacke of Eaton, and the
assertion of its identity with the Second Graywacke of the same author. So long as this
false position was maintained, there was a plausible argument to be made for the original
hypothesis of the brothers Rogers and Mather as to the age of the Lower Taconic series ;
but with the recognition of the correctness of Eaton’s view of the First Graywacke, the
fallacy of this hypothesis became obvious, and those who would still advocate it can only
do so by ignoring alike the results of stratigraphical and paleontological study for the last
generation.
§ 172. The absence from the granular quartz-rock, the granular marbles and their in-
tercalated and conformably overlying schists and argillites of the Lower Taconic series, of
the organic remains of the various members of the Champlain division, or, indeed, of any
organic form save the peculiar Scolithus of the granular quartz-rock already noticed,
($ 23) was explained by those who maintained the paleozoic age of the series by the con-
venient hypothesis of a chemical change, attended by crystallization or so-called meta-
morphism, which was supposed to have effaced the original characters of the sediments
and obliterated their organic remains. In accordance with this hypothesis, it was believed
that great series of strata might, within short distances, assume a new aspect, not
through any original differences in the sediments, but from transformations wrought in
these after deposition, in virtue of which, fossiliferous and earthy limestones, losing all
traces of their organic remains, could be converted into granular limestones containing,
instead, only crystalline silicates, while ordinary sandstones and argillites might become
micaceous, chloritic, or hornblendic schists, and even gneisses and granite-like rocks.
§ 173. These views, a development of the Huttonian school in geology, were, as is
well known to students, accepted a generation since by a large number of geologists, both
140 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
in Europe and America, and were carried to an extreme in America. Mather, in his final
Report on the Geology of the Southern District of New York, declared that “the Taconic
rocks are of the same age with those of the Champlain division, but modified by meta-
morphic agency and by the intrusion of plutonic rocks.” They were, however, designated
by him as “imperfectly Metamorphic rocks,” while the various crystalline schists of New
York and western New England, included by him in his group of proper Metamorphic
rocks, were declared to be the same series in a still more highly altered condition (§ 121).
Respecting these, he asserted that where the Taconic and Metamorphic rocks come together,
“no well-marked line of distinction can be drawn, as they pass into each other by in-
sensible shades of difference.” Mather was disposed to admit, in addition to these, an
older or so-called Primary series of crystalline rocks in the Highlands of the Hudson, but,
in the course of his Report, ended by declaring that the Primary limestones of southern
New York and northern New Jersey, with their associated granitic and hornblendic rocks,
were nothing more than modifications of the members of the Champlain division. He had
been led to believe that the Primary limestones in question “can be easily traced through
all the changes from a fossiliferous to a crystalline white limestone, containing crystal-
lized minerals and plumbago.” From the interstratification of these crystalline limestones,
supposed by him to be paleozoic, with gneissic and hornblendic rocks, he was brought to
maintain the paleozoic age of these, and thus to doubt whether a part, at least, of what he
had called Primary gneiss was not also paleozoic.
§ 174. Apart from the crystalline rocks of the Highland or South Mountain belt, whose
primary character was in part questioned by Mather, the great area of crystalline rocks
lying to the south and east of this range in New York, comprising those of Westchester and
New York Counties, and embracing Manhattan Island, was by him included, with the adja-
cent rocks of western New England, in his Metamorphic series, and declared to be
“nothing more than the rocks of the Champlain division, modified greatly by metamorphic
agencies and by the intrusion of granitic and trappean aggregates.” In this area of
southern New York he noticed hornblendic rocks, gneiss, mica-schists and crystalline
limestones, besides granite, syenite and serpentine, the latter three being regarded by him
as intrusive rocks.
§ 175. The doctrine of the Metamorphic school of forty years since, as then resumed
and formulated by Mather, was briefly as follows: the different groups of crystalline
stratified rocks in south-eastern New York and western New England, (with the
doubtful exception of the gneissic belt which he had designated Primary), including the
Lower Taconic series, the series of micaceous gneisses and mica-schists, as well as the
massive granitoid and hornblendic gneisses with their crystalline limestones, all belong to
one and the same geological period, and are contemporaneous in age with the paleozoic
rocks of the Champlain division of northern New York, from the Potsdam sandstone to
the Loraine shales, both inclusive. These various and unlike, though contiguous groups
of crystalline rocks, were, according to Mather, all produced from the same uncrystalline
Cambrian and Ordovician sediments, through a mysterious process of transformation, by
18 For the details of these views see Mather’s Geology of the Southern District of New York, 1843, passim.
A summary of Mather’s somewhat diffuse statements will be found in the author’s volume on Azoic Rocks, Re-
port E of the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, 1878, pp. 38-42,
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 141
what he called “ metamorphic agencies,” and the intrusion of igneous rocks, in which cate-
gory he included not only the interbedded serpentines, but apparently, under the name of
granites, much of the granitic gneiss, which characterizes large areas of the region, as well
as the abundant endogenous granitic veins,—true intrusive or exotic granites being rare in
the region. In Mather’s cosmogony there was nothing in the geological sequence, at least
in north-eastern America, between the New York paleozoic series, as seen in the Adiron-
dack area, and the fundamental Laurentian gneiss which there underlies it. Consequently
all crystalline rocks which could not be referred to the latter, were, unless plutonic, the
result of some unexplained transformation of the lower part of this paleozoic column,
designated by him as the Champlain division.
§ 176. This hypothesis, extravagant as it now seems, was, during the next few years,
accepted by many geological students on the authority of Mather and the brothers, H. D.
and W. B. Rogers. These latter, in 1846, extended this view of Mather to the White
Mountains of New Hampshire, and suggested that the gneissic, hornblendic and micaceous
rocks of this series, since named Montalban, instead of belonging, as hitherto believed, to
the “so-called Primary periods of geological time,” were probably altered paleozoic strata
of Silurian age, including the Oneida, Medina and Clinton subdivisions of the New York
system. These observers then proceeded to name many species of characteristic organic
forms of the Silurian period, which they thought to recognize in certain crystalline aggre-
gates in the mica-schists of the region. In 1847, however, the same observers announced
that they no longer considered these forms of organic origin, ” and, although they did not
then formally retract their opinion as to the paleozoic age of the gneisses and mica-schists
of the White Mountains, are known, from their subsequent writings, to have abandoned it
as unfounded, though it was for some years afterward maintained, with some variations,
by Logan, Lesley and the present writer.”
§ 177. As regards the ancient crystalline series of the Highlands of the Hudson and
of New Jersey, which differs in lithological characters from the last, we find that H. D.
Rogers, while he did not accept the notion of Nuttall and of Mather that its gneisses are
altered paleozoic sediments, imagined the crystalline limestones, which are really inter-
stratified with them, to be portions of a younger limestone, altered by supposed igneous
agencies. In the words of Lesley, Rogers, while maintaining the Primary age of the
Highland gneisses, “mistook the crystalline limestone engaged among the Highlands for
metamorphosed synclinal outlyers of No. II, as at Franklin,” in New Jersey, whereas Cook
has since shown that the horizontal strata of this later period overlie the upturned crys-
talline limestones of Franklin.” As a consequence of this, H. D. Rogers was quoted by
Mather as supporting the extreme notions of metamorphism maintained by Nuttall in
1824, which Mather himself accepted, and which, as I have elsewhere said, “ were adopted
by H. D. Rogers, as far as regards the crystalline limestones of the Highlands in New
Jersey,” * while he soon after applied the same doctrine, in its fullest extent, to the great
gneissic series of the White Mountains.
1 Amer. Jour, Science, [2] i, 411, and v, 116,
“See, for historical notes, Hunt, Amer. Jour, Science, vol, 1, 84; also Azoic Rocks, pp. 62, 181, 182, and Trans:
Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. i, sec. iv, p. 195.
2 Lesley, Amer. Jour. Science, 1865, xxxix, 222,
7 Hunt, Azoic Rocks, p. 41.
142 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
§ 178. To sum up in a few words the views of the Metamorphic school forty years since
(1840-1846) : we find that H. D. and W. B. Rogers then maintained the paleozoic age of the
Lower Taconic series, of the White Mountain gneisses and mica-schists, and also of the
crystalline limestones found among the gneisses of the New York and New Jersey High-
lands, though admitting the primary age of these Highland gneisses. Mather, again,
while holding, in like manner, to the paleozoic age of the Lower Taconic, was not acquainted
with the White Mountain series, but maintained that the whole of the gneisses, mica-
schists and crystalline limestones of south-eastern New York, with the possible exception
of the Highland belt, were paleozoic, and of one age with the Taconic series.
It is worthy of note that on the geological map of the State of New York, published
in 1842 “by legislative authority,” of which the Southern District was prepared by Mather
himself, there is no distinction of color between the gneissic rocks of the Highlands and
those lying adjacent to them on the south and east, described by him in his final Re-
port, in the following year, as metamorphic paleozoic strata. The serpentine of the region,
as seen in Staten Island, is colored on the map like the adjacent intrusive triassic diabase, *
but no attempt is there made to designate other eruptive rocks than these.
§ 179. In opposition to the views of this Metamorphic school, there were not wanting
some, like Emmons and Charles T. Jackson, who maintained the Primitive age of the whole,
or a part, of these crystalline rocks of New England, though recognizing, as Eaton had
done, their lithological distinctness from the gneiss of the Adirondacks, and of the High-
lands of the Hudson. Already, moreover, in 1824, Bigsby had discovered, around Lake
Superior and beyond, the existence of two series of crystalline rocks, and distinguished
the younger of these as belonging to the Transition series. More than twenty years later
the Geological Survey of Canada, while adopting for the crystalline rocks of New England,
and their extension into Canada, the hypothesis of their paleozoic age, reexamined these
Transition crystalline schists of Bigsby, as seen both on Lakes Superior and Huron, and on
the upper Ottawa, and described them as forming a distinct group between the base of
the paleozoic series and the ancient gneiss, upon which it was found to rest unconform-
ably. This intermediate series, first described in 1847, was by the present writer designa-
ted, in 1855, by the name of Huronian,—the underlying gneissic series having, in 1854,
received the name of Laurentian.
§ 180. In 1858 appeared the final Report of H. D. Rogers on the Geology of Pennsyl-
vania, in which we find no recognition of the extreme doctrines of metamorphism main-
tained by Mather in 1843, and by W. B. Rogers and himself in 1846. Not having come to
an understanding of the question of the First Gray wacke, H. D. Rogers regarded the Lower
Taconic series in Pennsylvania as an altered form of the Champlain division, and consid-
ered the granular quartz-rock with Scolithus to be the equivalent of the New York Pots-
dam sandstone." The characteristic crystalline rocks of western New England and south-
eastern New York, described by Mather as altered paleozoic, pass beneath the mesozoic
sandstone in New Jersey and reappear in south-eastern Pennsylvania. These rocks were ©
now, in 1858, described by H. D. Rogers as forming two great groups, an older or so-called
* See, for details with regard to this and the other serpentines of the region, the present writer on the Geolog-
ical History of Serpentines, 1883, Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, vol. i, sec. iv, pages 172-174.
** For Lesley’s doubts as to the precise equivalence of the Primal quartzite of Pennsylvania and the New
York Potsdam, see Amer. Jour. Science, 1865, xxxix, 223.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 143
Hypozoic gneiss system, and a younger one of crystalline schists, which he called Azoic
and placed beneath the horizon of the Scolithus sandstone. The views of H. D. Rogers,
in 1858, with regard to the crystalline rocks of the Atlantic belt, were thus, as I have else-
where said, “a return to those held by Eaton and by Emmons, but were in direct opposi-
tion to that of Mather, which had been adopted by Logan and the present writer,’” and,
so far as regards the White Mountains, were maintained by the Messrs. Rogers themselves
in 1846.
§ 181. Henry D. Rogers died in 1867, but his venerable brother, William B. Rogers,
survived till 1882, and fully shared the views set forth by the former in 1858, as to the
pre-paleozoic age of the great groups of crystalline rocks. His careful and extended
studies in Virginia during many years had convinced him of the fallacy of the metamor-
phic hypothesis of Mather. In a sketch of the geology of that state, contributed by him
as late as 1878 to Macfarlane’s “ Geological Railroad Guide,” Rogers makes it plain that
the crystalline rocks of that region are all pre-paleozoic, and older than what he calls the
Primal or Potsdam group. This he describes as lying on the western slope, and in the
west-flanking hills of the Blue Ridge, “often by inversion dipping to the south-east, in
seeming conformity, beneath the older rocks of the Blue Ridge, but often, also, resting
unconformably upon or against them.” These older rocks, he tells us, “comprise masses
referable probably to Huronian and Laurentian age,” and, farther, he informs us that the
letters, A, B, C and D, used in his tabular view, “mark four rather distinct groups of
Archean rocks found in Virginia, of which the first three may probably be referred to the
Laurentian, Huronian and Montalban periods respectively, and the fourth to an inter-
mediate stage,—the Norian or Upper Laurentian.”
§ 182. It should here be remarked that this Primal group of the valley of Virginia,
also called by Rogers, Lower Cambrian, is no other than the base of the Lower Taconic
series, which he continued to regard as in some sense the representative of the Cambrian
Potsdam of the Adirondack region. In this connection, as showing the relations of this
group to the crystalline rocks, and the apparent inverted succession, I venture to make the
following extracts from a letter from W. b. Rogers, written to me in 1877, for publication
in my volume on Azoiec Rocks, after an examination with him of some forty unpublished
transverse sections, made across the Blue Ridge during his geological survey of Virginia.
In many of these sections “illustrating the position of the Lower Cambrian, (our Primal
conglomerate, etc.,) in their contact with the crystalline and metamorphic rocks of the
Blue Ridge in Virginia,” “ the unconformity of the Cambrian upon and against these crys-
talline and metamorphic rocks is unmistakable and conspicuous ; the lower members of
the Primal being seen to rest upon the slope of the Ridge, with north-west undulating
dips, on the edges of the steeply southeastward-dipping older rocks. In other cases, the
Primal beds, thrown into south-east dips in the hills which flank the Blue Ridge, are made
to underlie, with more or less approximation to conformity, the older rocks forming the
central mass of the mountain.” Here follow details as to localities, for which the reader
is referred to the letter as published.”
§ 183. While, therefore, the brothers Rogers and others with them held, and still hold,
# Hunt, the History of Pre-Cambrian Rocks in America and Europe, 1880, Amer, Jour, Science, xix, p. 272,
25 Hunt, Azoic Rocks, p. 198.
144 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
to the paleozoic age of the Lower Taconic rocks, the view put forward by Mather, that
the great region of gneisses and crystalline schists with limestones, lying to the east of
these, consists of more highly altered paleozoic strata, had become discredited It was, as we
have seen, abandoned by H. D. Rogers for Pennsylvania, in 1858, and by W. B. Rogers for
Virginia, where he recognized in the pre-Taconian rocks the same great divisions which I
had elsewhere pointed out. The history of the studies of Thomas Macfarlane and my
own, which showed conclusively the pre-paleozoic age of the extension of the New Eng-
land crystalline schists into the Province of Quebec, has already been told elsewhere.”
§ 184. It was, therefore, with some surprise that geological students found J. D. Dana,
in 1880, attempting to resuscitate, in its completeness, the discarded view of Mather. In
an elaborate paper on “The Geological Relations of the Limestone Belts of Westchester
County, New York,” which appeared that year, Dana, following up the reasoning already
noticed (§ 161), by which he sought to sustain the paleozoic age of the Lower Taconic
rocks, proceeds to assume that the crystalline marbles enclosed in the gneisses, as well as
the gneisses and crystalline schists of the region named, are altered rocks of paleozoic
age. To quote his conclusions: “The limestone of Westchester County and of New York
Island, and the conformably associated metamorphic rocks, are of Lower Silurian age,”
and, farther, “the limestone and the conformably associated rocks of the Green Mountain
region, from Vermont to New York Island, are of Lower Silurian age.
in favor of these assumptions, appears to be briefly this: that the crystalline limestones of
28
His argument
the gneissic series, the granular Lower Taconic marbles, and the fossiliferous Cambrian
and Ordovician limestones found among the uncrystalline sediments of the Appalachian
valley, along the western flank of the crystalline belt north of the Highlands, are but
three different conditions of one and the same calcareous series, and, hence, that the great
area of crystalline rocks south of the narrow range of the Highlands (of which he admits
the eozoic age) consists of paleozoic strata, Cambrian or Ordovician in age.
§ 185. Dana, having announced his conclusions as above, adds.: “The evidence which
has been adduced, though then but partly discerned, led Professors W. B. and H. D. Rogers,
and Professor W. W. Mather, nearly to the results here reached.” In support of this asser-
sertion, he refers to Mather’s report of 1843, in which, as we have seen, the hypothesis was
advanced, and also, under the head of “ Professors Rogers,” to a paper by them in 1841, in
the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, as well as to a statement in the
American Journal of Science for 1872 (Vol. IV, page 363). This, the reader will find to be
nothing more than Dana’s assertion that the Messrs. Rogers, in that same paper of 1841,
maintained the Champlain age of the Lower Taconic series,—a view which, as we all are
aware, one of them, some years later, abandoned for that of its Devonian age. These
eminent geologists did, for a time, put forward the view (afterwards relinquished) that
the gneissic series of the White Mountains consists of altered Silurian (Oneida-Clinton
strata), and Mather, in his argument, made the most of the error of H. D. Rogers, who
mistook, in 1840, certain interstratified crystalline limestones among the Primary gneisses
of New Jersey for superincumbent limestones in an altered condition, but Dana fails to
show that the Messrs. Rogers ever maintained the paleozoic age of the great series of
# Hunt, Azoic Rocks, pp. 182-188, and Amer. Jour. Science, 1880, xix, 272-27
* Amer. Jour. Science, 1880, xx, 455.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY. 145
crystalline rocks in south-eastern New York, as he would have his readers infer. When,
in 1858, H. D. Rogers had occasion, in his final Report on the Geology of Pennsylvania, to
describe the continuation of these same rocks into that State, he distinctly assigned them
to a horizon below the base of his paleozoic series, proposing, at the same time, a Hypozoic
and an Azoic system to include them.
§ 186. The Highland range on the east side of the Hudson traverses Putnam county,
and, passing south-westward to the river, occupies but a small area in the north-west cor-
ner of Westchester County. Along its south-east base, at Annsville and at Oregon, is met a
narrow belt of scarcely crystalline limestone, accompanied by an argillite or talcoid slate,
and resting unconformably upon the ancient gneiss. This belt, apparently a Lower Ta-
conic outlier, is regarded by Dana as partially altered Lower Silurian, and “the grade of
metamorphism” is declared by him to become more intense to the south and east, giving
rise to the whole gneissic area of Westchester and New York Counties. The gneisses and
conformably interstratified crystalline limestones of this large area are, as we have seen,
supposed by Dana to be metamorphosed Lower Silurian, though they are really undis-
tinguishable from the rocks of the adjacent Highland range, which he admits to be Archean
or Primary. In support of his startling proposition, Dana might be expected to point out
some distinctions between the rocks of the two areas. He begins by suggesting certain
differences as to more or less micaceous or hornblendic gneisses in the two regions in ques-
tion, but confesses that “there are gradations between the two, in both respects, which
make the application of a lithological test very perplexing,” and admits that “the litholog-
ical evidence of diversity of age is weak,” * a criticism which the intelligent reader will
conclude is equally applicable to Dana’s stratigraphical argument. I am familiar with
the rocks of many parts of Westchester County, and since the publication of Dana’s
paper in 1880 have taken repeated opportunities to examine, in various localities, the rocks
called by him Metamorphic Lower Silurian, as at Singsing, Tarrytown, Yonkers, Spuyten
Duyvil and Kingsbridge, along the Hudson. I have also studied the same rocks farther to
the east, along the River Bronx and the Harlem Railroad to Pleasantvale, as well as between
this line and the Hudson, and have crossed eastward to Long Island Sound and examined
the exposures on the shore at and near New Rochelle. Being already familiar with the
Laurentian rocks throughout Canada, as well as in parts of the Adirondacks, and in the
Highlands from Putnam County, New York, through New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the
Schuylkill and beyond, I do not hesitate to say that these gneisses and their associated
erystalline limestones of Dana’s so-called Metamorphic Lower Silurian, in Westchester
County, cannot be distinguished from the typical Laurentian. I believe that the judgment
of an impartial observer would be that the notion of any difference between the Lauren-
tian gneisses and limestones of the areas mentioned, and the gneisses and their interstrat-
ified limestones of Westchester County, has no foundation in fact.
§ 187. Passing now from Westchester County to the adjacent Manhattan Island, the
same Laurentian gneiss is seen in its northern portion, between Seventh and Eighth
Avenues, especially in a cutting at One Hundred and Forty-fifth Street, and thence in a
ridge some distance farther south, the strata being nearly vertical and of grayish horn-
* Amer. Jour. Science, 1880, xx, 373.
Sec. IV., 1884. 19.
146 DR. THOMAS STERRY HUNT ON THE
blendic gneiss, and a band of crystalline limestone appearing a little farther to the east,
on Harlem River. A quarter of a mile to the west of this ridge, in Mount St. Vincent,
is seen a distinct type of highly micaceous gneiss and mica-schists, and similar rocks are
exposed at intervals in the western part of the island, as far south as Fifty-ninth Street.
Farther eastward, in the southern part of Central Park, just above Fifty-ninth Street, the
numerous rock-exposures are all of similar mica-schists and micaceous gneisses, often at
moderate angles. They include endogenous granitic veins, occasionally presenting in
their structure a marked bilateral symmetry, and sometimes transverse, but at other times
interbedded. Several perched blocks here found are of similar endogenous granite, and
are apparently boulders of decomposition, left in the subaerial decay of the rocks of the
region. These micaceous rocks are unlike those of Laurentian areas, but, on the contrary,
closely resemble those of the White Mountains and of Philadelphia which I have called
Montalban, and are like the younger gneissic series of the Alps and the Scottish High-
lands. JI, therefore, as long ago as 1871,” noticed these rocks as belonging to this
younger series, and have since expressed the opinion that the Laurentian “of Manhattan
Island appears to be overlaid in parts by areas of younger gneisses and mica-schists, the
remaining portions of a mantle of Montalban.”* It is, however, by an error for which I
am not responsible, that in Macfarlane’s “ Geological Railroad Guide,” in 1878, the Montal-
ban of Manhattan Island has been represented as extending upward along the Hudson
River Railroad by Spuyten Duyvil, Yonkers, Tarrytown and Singsing, as far as Croton,
before meeting the Laurentian of the Highlands. There appears to be, however, an outlier
of Montalban rocks at Cruger’s Station, just above Croton, and there may be others in
various parts of Westchester County.
§ 188. It has been deemed necessary to notice thus at length, in this connection,
Dana’s resuscitation of the ancient views of Mather, for two reasons: first, because therein,
both the Lower Taconic rocks and various crystalline rocks just noticed, are supposed by
him to be contiguous portions of the same Cambrian and Ordovician (Lower Silurian)
sediments in different stages of transformation ; and secondly, because the manner in which
the names of the brothers Rogers are cited to Dana in conjunction with that of Mather is
such as to lead the reader to the false conclusion, that those eminent geologists supported
Mather’s hypothesis of 1843 as to the Cambrian and Ordovician age of these same crystal-
line rocks, as well as of the Lower Taconic series; which latter view, as we have shown,
W. B. Rogers repudiated a few years later, in 1851 and again in 1860.
§ 189. The rise and fall of the doctrine of regional metamorphism, which is but an
extravagant development of the Huttonian hypothesis of the origin of crystalline rocks,
forms a curious chapter in the history of geology. I have elsewhere related the early
application of this doctrine to the crystalline rocks of Mont Blanc by Bertrand, about 1797,
and its subsequent restatement by Keferstein in 1824, until it was taken up and popu-
larized by Lyell, Murchison, and various continental geologists, so that the view became
generally accepted that the gneisses and mica-schists of the Alps are but altered secondary
and tertiary strata. The story of the refutation of this hypothesis for the Alps by the
* President’s Address before the Amer. Assoc. Ady. Science, 1871, in Chem. and Geol. Essays, pp. 248 and
197.
# Smithsonian Report for 1883, Progress of Geology.
TACONIC QUESTION IN GEOLOGY, 147
studies of Favre, Pillet, Gastaldi and others has also been told.” 1 : ; ; ia UJ "
‘oD of ; ; : à 2 AR i i.
a 1 - ie: ru : i Pa
à 7
à i 1 \
7 7 ‘ a,
' tn rai \ Û
\ ‘
*
‘ i ,
J P a.
i ;
;
a
i
r
f
mi 1
Fr
-
"
.
L .
SECTION IV., 1884. [23m] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
XIII.— Note on a Decapod Crustacean from the Upper Cretaceous of Highwood River,
Alberta, N. W. T. By J. ¥. WHITEAYES.
(Read May 21, 1884.)
Remains of crustaceans allied to the lobster and crab of recent seas, though compara-
tively frequent in the Cretaceous rocks of Europe and the United States, have not yet
been recorded as occurring in deposits of the same age in Canada.
In 1876, however, while engaged in studying the fossils collected by Mr. James Rich-
ardson from the Lower Shales of Skidegate Inlet, in the Queen Charlotte Islands, which
are now believed to be the equivalents of the Gault, and in attempting to remove the
matrix which covered one side of an Ammonite, the writer had the good fortune to expose
to view a nearly perfect specimen of a small crab, which has been sent to Dr. Henry
Woodward, of the British Museum, for examination and description.
The fossil, which it is the more immediate object of this paper to describe, is a rather
remarkable example of a macrurous decapod or lobster-like crustacean, collected by Mr.
R. G. McConnell, in 1882, from the Cretaceous shales of the Highwood River, a tributary
of the Bow.
The specimen originally consisted of an elongate-oval and flattened concretionary
nodule of soft argillite, with a small piece broken off from one end, but enough of the
matrix has been removed to show most of the carapace and the upper surface of a few of
the abdominal segments. The anterior extremity of the carapace, with the rostrum, is
unfortunately not preserved, and the tail, with some of the posterior abdominal segments,
was broken off when the nodule was found. The ambulatory feet are preserved, but it
was found to be scarcely possible to remove the soft shale from around them without
running the risk of spoiling the specimen.
The carapace, like that of most of the macrura, is elongated and comparatively narrow,
with nearly parallel sides, and, when perfect, its length must have been about twice as great
as its breadth. A little in advance of the midlength a single, broadly V-shaped, deep and
rather wide groove or furrow crosses the carapace transversely. The posterior half of the
carapace is depressed and rather distinctly three-keeled in a longitudinal direction, though
it is most likely that these appearances are mostly or wholly due to a considerable and
abnormal compression from above. Be this as it may, in the specimen collected by Mr. Mc-
Connell, a central keel, or narrow but prominent raised ridge, which is about three times
as broad posteriorly as it is anteriorly, and which is bounded on each side by a deep and
angular furrow, extends from the posterior end of the carapace to the centre of the
V-shaped groove which transverses it, This central keel is much more strongly marked
than the broad and comparatively obtuse lateral keels, which latter are placed near the
outer margin of each side. The surface of the posterior half of the carapace (and perhaps
that of the anterior also) is covered with rather distant, small, isolated conical tubercles,
which, under the lens, look as if they might have each borne a bristle at the summit, and
238 J. F. WHITEAVES ON A DECAPOD CRUSTACEAN.
which, occasionally, are surrounded by a minute annulus at the base; and the three
keels each have a single series of larger conical tubercles, whose pointed apices are directed
forward.
In front of the transverse and V-shaped furrow the carapace is very badly preserved,
and the anterior margin with the rostrum is broken off. The two lateral and tubercu-
lated keels appear to be prolonged to within a short distance of the front margin of the
carapace, though they are somewhat less distinct in front of the transverse furrow than
they are behind it. On the anterior side of the furrow the central keel is absent, and the
median portion of this part of the carapace bears a number of comparatively large and
prominent, distinct and conical tubercles, which are somewhat peculiarly arranged. Next
to the furrow, and in advance of it, in the median line, there are five tubercles arranged,
in two convergent rows of two pairs and an odd one, which, if connected by lines,
would have much the shape of an isosceles triangle, with its base near to the furrow.
Between the space bounded by these five tubercles and each lateral keel, there is a shal-
lowly concave and rather broad depression of the carapace. In front of these five tuber-
cles, again, there are four others and still larger ones, (the two anterior ones apparently of
considerable size), arranged somewhat in the form of a square, any of whose sides would
be greater than the base of the isosceles triangle indicated by the other five.
The upper surface of each of the abdominal segments bears a tubercle in the centre,
on its anterior edge, and another one on the margin of each of the sides. The most prom-
inent characteristic of the species, in fact, is the possession of three widely distant, longi-
tudinal and tuberculated keels, which extend over nearly the whole length of the upper
surface of the body.
To the right of the carapace, in front, there are indications of what appears to have been
a large pinching claw, and, if the appearances presented are correctly interpreted, the
sides of the fixed ramus of that claw are also coarsely tuberculated.
Until its exact generic position shall have been settled by the collection of more per-
fect specimens, it may be convenient to designate the present species as Hoploparia (?)
Canadensis, though it is by no means certain that it belongs to McCoy’s genus of that
name.
SECTION IV., 1884. 23 ON] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA.
XIV.—Description of a New Species of Ammonite from the Cretaceous Rocks of
Fort St. John, on the Peace River. By J. F. WHITEAVES.
(Read May 28, 1884.)
Several specimens of an apparently undescribed Ammonitoid shell were collected by
Mr. (now Dr.) A. R. C. Selwyn, in 1875, at Fort St. John, mostly from large concretionary
nodules in shales which, from their position, may possibly represent the Fort Benton Group
of the Upper Missouri Cretaceous. The only other fossils obtained from these shales are a
Pecten, an Oxytoma, one, or perhaps two, species of Inoceramus, and a cast of a Natica or
Lunatia, all of which are too imperfect to be specifically determined. When found in
nodules, these Ammonites occur in the condition of imperfectly preserved and much
flattened casts of the interior of the shell, which vary in size from one inch and a half to
nearly eight inches in their greatest diameter. The nodules have been split open in such
a way as to expose to view only one side of each cast, upon which no vestiges of the
sutures of the septa can be traced.
At all stages of growth the whorls of the species now under consideration appear to
have been so strongly involute that the inner ones are nearly, if not quite, covered by the
outer volution. The umbilicus or umbilical depression, consequently, is very small and
narrow, but as its boundaries are indistinctly defined, and as the specimens are generally
much crushed and distorted, it is difficult to estimate its proportionate width with much
accuracy.
The smallest specimens are compressed at the sides and regularly ribbed, but the
ribs, which are somewhat flexuous, are much narrower than the broad, shallow grooves
between them, and each rib bears a prominent and narrowly elongated tubercle close to
the periphery, and at a right angle to the side of the shell. At this stage of growth the
characters of the central portion of the periphery are unknown.
Two half-grown individuals, which measure respectively four and four and a half
inches in their greatest diameter, though not altogether free from distortion, are much less
abnormally compressed than any of the others. Judging by these specimens, which are
almost entirely free from the matrix, and which look as if they might have been collected
from the bedded rock, the breadth or thickness of the shelly tube, of which the outer volution
is composed, must have been considerable, and nearly or quite equal to its dorso-ventral
diameter. The periphery is broadly compressed, as are also the sides, so that the outline
of the outer portion of the aperture is nearly square, but this may be the result of a slight
amount of distortion, and the siphonal edge may have been regularly rounded in its nor-
mal condition. With this advance in age, the ribs become converted into broad and
rounded, but not very flexuous, prominent and obliquely transverse, radiating folds. In
the smaller of the two specimens, the primary folds bifurcate widely at the umbilicus, and
for the most part alternate with shorter and simple intercalated plications. The points
at which the primary folds bifurcate are each marked by a single transversely elongated
240 J. F, WHITEAVES ON A NEW SPECIES OF AMMONITE,
tubercle, whose summit is obtusely rounded, and each branch bears a similar tubercle
near the outer edge of each side of the periphery. The secondary folds also each bear a
single tubercle on both sides, near the margin of the periphery, but become obsolete and
consequently devoid of tubercles on the umbilical margin. In the larger of the two half-
grown specimens, the primary folds are simple and do not bifurcate, but bear transversely
elongated tubercles on the umbilical margin, and alternate with shorter secondary plica-
tions. In both specimens the primary and secondary folds are continuous across the peri-
phery, and the siphonal region is entirely devoid of any kind of keel.
On the largest examples collected, the radiating folds become nearly or quite obsolete,
and the outer volution bears a circle of seven or eight widely distinct, very large and
prominent conical tubercles around and on the umbilical margin, and about double that
number on each side, near the outer edge of the periphery. In addition to the tubercles,
the surface is marked with coarse and irregularly disposed radiating striæ, together with
a few indistinct remains of the folds which characterized it at an earlier stage of growth.
At all stages of growth the tubercles, whether large or small are placed at a right or
nearly right angle to the sides of the shell.
The generic position of this species must, of course, remain doubtful until the sutural
line of the latter shall have been observed. In the meantime, however, judging by analo-
gies in external form and surface ornamentation, the present species seems to be somewhat
nearly related to the Buchiceras Swallovi (the Ammonites Swallovi of Shumard) of the Utah
Cretaceous, and may, therefore, be provisionally referred to that genus, under the name
Buchiceras (?) cornutum, although it is quite as likely to be an Acanthoceras or an Hoplites.
The close involution of its whorls and the ornamentation of their sides are very like those ~
of some species of Placenticeras, but the broad siphonal edge of the Peace River shell seems
to forbid its reference to that genus. The most prominent characters of B. cornatum are its
small umbilicus and the large size of the tubercles on the adult shell. In B. Swailovi, the
umbilicus is stated to be so large as to exhibit “a large part of each of the inner volutions ” ;
the nodes or tubercles on the sides of the shell are comparatively small, and there is a double
row of tubercles near the margin of the periphery, whereas in B. cornutum there is only a
single row.
SECTION IV., 1884. [ 241 ] Trans. Roy. Soc. CANADA,
ABSTRACTS, 1884.
I.— The Geology and Economic Minerals of Hudson Bay and Northern Canada.
By ROBERT Bey, MD. LL.D., C.E. Assistant Director of the Geological Survey,
(Read May 23, 1884.)
Since the reading of this paper before the Royal Society, the author has been named
as the scientist and medical officer to accompany the Government expedition to be sent to
Hudson Bay during the present summer, and as he will then enjoy rare opportunities for
obtaining new information in regard to the geology of these regions, he considers it best
to give only the following abstract of his paper, and to defer the publication of the map
which accompanied it until a future time, when fuller details may be given.
The paper contained a sketch of the geology of those great tracts of the Dominion
stretching northward from the organized provinces into the polar regions, and which
may be properly designated Northern Canada. With reference to the country around
Hudson Bay, the author’s remarks were based entirely upon his own observations. In
regard to the Northwest Territories his information was derived partly from his own
explorations and partly from the journals of earlier travellers, while the geology of the
Arctic regions was taken from the maps and writings of the scientific men who had
accompanied the various expeditions of discovery to the northern seas. In illustration of
the paper, a map of North America was exhibited, on which the author had colored the
distribution of the rock-formations, as far as known up to the present time. The char-
acter and extent of the successive divisions were then described in their chronological
order, beginning with the oldest.
Hitherto it had been customary to represent the geographical area of the main body
of the Laurentian system as consisting of two wide arms extending north-eastward and
north-westward from the great lakes, but it might be more correctly described as of a
somewhat circular form, including Greenland, which appears to be mostly Laurentian,
Hudson Bay lies in the centre of the Laurentian area of the mainland, but its shores are
fringed to a considerable extent by newer rocks.
It was evident, as Dr. Bell shewed by his geological map, that the distribution of the
Huronian series was intimately connected with that of the Laurentian, being found
mostly within the general limits of the latter. The rocks of this system appeared to rest
conformably upon the Laurentian in all cases which he had observed. The Huronian
might be characterized as the great metalliferous series of Canada. The largest areas of
Sec. IV., 1884, 31.
242, DR. ROBERT BELL ON THE GEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC
these rocks which had been distinctly traced out lie between the upper lakes of the St.
Lawrence and James Bay, but other areas are known to exist far to the north-west and
north-east. They occur in considerable force on the northern side of Athabasca Lake, and
rocks which appear to correspond with them are abundant to the north of Great Slave
Lake. Dr. Bell had found a basin of Huronian rocks, measuring about 180 miles in
length, to the north-east of Lake Winnipeg. They are reported in various parts of the
Labrador peninsula as far as the Ungava River, and the author had found them on the east
side of Hudson Bay, at Cape Hope, the Paint Hills and Richmond Gulf, and had obtained
specimens of similar rocks from near Mosquito Bay. Specimens which he had procured
through the officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Eskimo from the west side of
the Bay between Chesterfield Inlet and Knap Bay, indicated the existence of the Huron-
jan series along that coast.
At Marble Island, on the same side of Hudson Bay, and opposite the part of the coast
which has just been referred to, a white rock is reported to be largely developed. The
author had received specimens of it from officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and found
it to consist of a fine-grained white quartzite, resembling saccharoidal marble, from which
circumstance the island has probably derived its name. This rock appears to be identical
with the quartzites which form so conspicuous a feature in the typical Huronian of Lake
Huron, and we may have, on this part of Hudson Bay, a repetition of the same series. Dr,
Bell had found boulders of white quartzite thickly scattered on the surface at the Methy
Portage, and he had been informed by Mr. Roderick Ross that similar boulders were
abundant in various parts of the country to the north-east of Lake Athabasca.
Around the mouth of the Churchill River, on the same side of the Bay, and for some
miles along the coast to the east of it, are found massive and also thinly-bedded grey
argillaceous quartzites with conglomerate beds (the well-rounded pebbles of which are
mostly of white quartz), interstratified with an occasional thin shaley layer of a rather
darker color than the mass. These strata may form part of the Huronian series, but they
also resemble the gold-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia, and, like them, hold veins of white
quartz. Assays of samples from six of these veins, all of which contained more or less
specular iron, did not, however, show any traces of the precious metal.
On the Little Whale River and in Richmond Gulf, on the east side of the Bay,
another set of rocks is found following the Huronian and underlying unconformably the
Nipigon series, which occurs in great force on this part of the coast. This intermediate
formation consists of great beds of hard red silicious conglomerate and red and grey sand-
stones with some red shales, and appears to have a considerable volume.
Captain H. P. Dawson, R.A., who had charge, during 1883, of the Observatory station
of the Circumpolar Commission at Fort Rae, on Great Slave Lake, collected specimens of
the rocks in situ, and made notes on the geology of the surrounding country at Dr. Bell’s
request. On the shores and islands of the long northern arm of the lake, he found a red
conglomerate which may be equivalent to that which occurs at Richmond Gulf; also
fine-grained grey and green quartzites. Mr. A. 8. Cochrane, one of the writer’s assistants,
found a hard red sandstone and conglomerate with white quartz pebbles at the east end .
of Lake Athabasca, and similar rocks are reported to occur on the Clearwater River above
the Methy Portage, and again to the south of Cree Lake, which lies between Isle a la
Crosse and Lake Athabasca. Sir John Richardson describes a rock between the eastern
MINERALS OF HUDSON BAY AND NORTHERN CANADA. 243
part of Great Bear Lake and Coronation Gulf, which appears to correspond with the hard
red conglomerates and sandstones just described.
The Nipigon formation is largely developed along the East-main coast of Hudson Bay,
between Cape Jones and Cape Dufferin, and consists of compact non-fossiliferous bluish-
grey limestone, coarse cherty limestone-breccia, quartzites, shales, diorites, amygdaloids
and manganiferous clay-ironstones. The limestones of Lake Mistassini, in the interior of
the Labrador peninsula, bear a strong resemblance to those of the Hast-main coast, and are
probably of the same age. Similar limestones, associated with trap, are described by
Richardson as occurring on the shores of the Arctic Sea, between the Mackenzie and the
Coppermine Rivers. The native copper of the former stream is associated with rocks,
which, from Richardson’s description, appear to be similar to those of the Nipigon series.
Non-fossiliferous limestones, like those of this formation, form the greater part of the spurs
of the Rocky Mountains, which run north-eastward across the lower: part of the Mac-
kenzie River, and we may have here a great development of the Nipigon formation.
A border of Silurian rocks (principally limestones) extends along a considerable por-
tion of the western shore of Hudson Bay, and stretches inland one hundred miles on the
Nelson River. To the west and south-west of James Bay, Silurian limestones and marls
form a wide belt between the great Devonian basin of that region and the Laurentian
rocks of the interior, their base, or western limit, on the main Albany River, being 200
miles, in a straight line, from the sea, and 230 miles on the Kenogami or principal south-
-western branch of the same stream. On the western side of the Laurentian nucleus,
Silurian limestones run north-westward through Manitoba and may be traced as far as
Isle à la Crosse Lake. But these strata are most widely spread in the north over the great
islands beyond the Arctic Circle, between Baffin Bay and the open ocean to the west, and
the polar sea to the north.
Devonian rocks, consisting of limestones, shales and marls, with gypsum and clay-
ironstone, form a large basin to the south-west of the head of James Bay. Strata of this
age are found here and there, following a north-westerly course, all the way from the
southern part of Manitoba to the mouth of the Mackenzie River. They do not, however,
appear to occupy so extensive an area as had been supposed by the earlier explorers.
What they had described as “bituminous shales,” belonging to this system, were found by
Dr. Bell to be really soft, fine-grained, Cretaceous sandstone, saturated and blackened by
petroleum, and which, after exposure to the weather, scaled off in flaggy pieces, which,
at a short distance, resemble coarse shale. In this region the Devonian rocks, rich in fossils,
lie in immediate and almost conformable contact with these blackened strata, so that
this error was easily made. The same conditions may extend northward, from the mouth
of the Mackenzie to Banks Land, and the Melville archipelago and the supposed Carbon-
iferous rocks of these regions may consist of lignite-bearing Cretaceous sandstones, asso-
ciated with Devonian strata, in which some of the fossil forms resemble others in the Car-
boniferous.
Fossils, supposed to be of Liassic age, have been found at Capes York, Horsburgh and
Warrender, in bright red sandstones, which form conspicuous features in the landscapes
at these points; and, again, on Exmouth, Bathurst and Prince Patrick Islands; and
Richardson states that Liassic strata occupy a basin along the 77th parallel of latitude, all
the way from the 95th to the 120th meridian.
244 DR. ROBERT BELL ON THE GEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC
The Cretaceous deposits are very widely spread throughout the whole length of the
Northwest Territories. They fill up the greater part of the wide depression between the
Rocky Mountains and the Laurentian hills, all the way from the United States boundary
to the Arctic Ocean. Southward, they continue to the Gulf of Mexico, so that the Cre-
taceous system forms a wide belt running north and south completely through the
continent.
The deposits overlying the Cretaceous system in the Saskatchewan and Alberta dis-
tricts, which have been classed as Tertiary, are supposed to occur in some places in the
valley of the Mackenzie, one of which is at the junction of the Bear Lake River. Tertiary
strata are well known to occur at Disco and neighboring places on the west coast of
Greenland, and lignite, probably of the same age, is reported to be found near Cumber-
land Bay, on the west side of Davis Strait.
The Post-tertiary deposits of many parts of the northern regions, which had been
traversed by Dr. Bell, were described as of much interest. In the valleys of the Moose
and Albany Rivers, they contained beds of lignite resembling the lignites of the Tertiary
period in the western territories. Dr. Bell had obtained the remains of both the mastodon
and the mammoth around Hudson Bay. The latter had also been noted at a few places
in the Northwest territories, and a number of bones and tusks of mammoths had been
found on the Rat or Porcupine River, a tributary of the Yukon, near the eastern border
of Alaska.
In referring to the economic minerals, Dr. Bell said that even the coarser ones, such as
granite, cement-stone, gypsum, clays, marls, ochres, sand for glass-making, moulding, etc.,
might yet have their value in some parts of the regions under consideration, and he had
always carefully noted them. Soapstone, mica, plumbago, asbestus, chromic iron, apatite,
salt and iron pyrites in economic quantities had been discovered in different localities.
Various ornamental stones had been noted, amongst them lazulite, malachite, jade, agate,
carnelian, chrysophrase, etc. Lignites, it was well known, are found in many places in
the great region constituting the valley of Athabasca-Mackenzie, and on the coast and
islands of the Arctic Sea; also at Disco, in Greenland, and probably near Cumberland
Bay. The Post-tertiary lignites of the Moose River have been already mentioned. An-
thracite of good quality, but apparently only in small quantities, associated with rocks of
the Nipigon series, had been found on Long Island, on the east side of Hudson Bay.
Petroleum, which proceeded from the Devonian strata, as it does in Ontario, Pennsylvania
and Ohio, was very abundant along the Athabasca and Mackenzie, and had also been
found on the Peace River, and in other localities in the far Northwest, some of which had
been described by the author, in the “ Canadian Journal”, a few years ago. Vast quantities
of asphalt, resulting from the drying up and oxidation of the exuding petroleum, were
found on the Athabasca, around Great Slave Lake, and at some places in the northern for-
ests, far from any large river or lake.
Of the metailic ores, iron was stated to be very abundant. Inexhaustible quantities
of rich manganiferous ore existed on the Nastapoka Islands, near the east coast of Hudson
Bay. The ore was in the form of beds lying at the surface, and the frost had broken it
into pieces of convenient sizes for shipping. Valuable deposits of magnetic iron had been
found on Athabasca and Knee Lakes, and an extensive mass of pure limonite on the
Matt agami River. Captain H. P. Dawson, R. A., had discovered a vein of foliated specular
Pan)
MINERALS OF HUDSON BAY AND NORTHERN CANADA. 245
iron on Great Slave Lake. Copper ore had been met with on Hudson Bay, and the native
metal, which from private accounts appeared to exist in great quantities, had long been
known to occur on thé Coppermine River, which flows into the Arctic Sea. Lead ore was
abundant in the vicinity of Little Whale River and Richmond Gulf, on the East-main
coast. Zinc, molybdenum, antimony and manganese had also been collected in different
parts of the regions under consideration. The galena of Richmond Gulf contained silver,
and this metal was also found in iron pyrites in the same part of the country. Nuggets
of native silver were washed out of the gravel, along with those of gold, on the upper
waters of the Peace River. Gold had been detected in veins on the East-main coast, and
in quartz from Repulse Bay; and alluvial gold had been obtained in streams among the
mountains to the west of the lower part of the Mackenzie River. This region, for various
reasons, Dr. Bell regarded as the most promising one yet known in the Dominion for the
precious metals. He thought that even the gold of the drift deposits, which are cut
through by the Saskatchewan River at Edmonton, and for a distance above and below it,
might have been originally derived from this quarter, although a number of years ago he
originated the idea that the gold of these drift deposits may have come from Huronian
strata, which might exist to the north-east. Large areas of these rocks have since been
discovered on the north side of Athabasca Lake ; still he considered it quite as likely
that the Edmonton gold had been derived from the western side of the Mackenzie valley.
It was certain, from various facts which he mentioned, that it had not come down the
Saskatchewan River itself from the Rocky Mountains.
II.—WNotes on Observations, 1883, on the Geology of the North Shore of Lake
Superior. By A. R. C. SELWYN, LLD. FRS. F.GS.
(Read May 21, 1884.)
The author stated, briefly, the result of observations made on the stratigraphical rela-
tion of the great columnar masses of trap which form the summit of Thunder Cape, Pie
Island, McKay Mountain and other hills in the vicinity, and which have been designated
the “ crowning overflow,” and considered to be newer than the rocks of the Nipigon and
Keeweenian series. It was stated that, while those named are clearly a part of the Ani-
mikie series, there are other similar flows at a much higher horizon, such.as those at Red
Rock and in the hills on the north side of Nipigon Bay. Further, that no evidence of
unconformity could be found from the base of the Animikie series to the top of the Kee-
weenian, as developed between Thunder Bay and the east end of Nipigon Bay, where, in
certain islands, the red and white rocks of the Nipigon series are well exposed in contact
with the dark argillites of the Animikie series, with, in some cases, intervening layers of
vertically columnar trap, probably diabase, but similar to that of Thunder Cape, etc.
Between Silver Islet and the islands above named, the Animikie series appears to be com-
pletely overlapped by the Nipigon, and has not been certainly recognized, anywhere to
the east of Nipigon Bay.
Trans om
SY
NATURAL HISTeRs!
Trans. R.S.C,1884. CONCORYPHEA. Etc. Sec .IV, Plate I.
The Burland Lithogeaphing Co, Monteyal
To illustrate Mr.G.E Matthew's Paper on the Fauna of the St.John Group.
*
toe | “Naren 1)
BL WHO! Library - Serials
MI) NI
5 WHS
ere
Corey ee
in
dur
qe \ ÿ
ARE ET
San
CN RAC NA,
Pere
R
ie
MU
ah
: ae f i Y
any
46 Bits
5
44 tt
Day
Dati 7 ie
oi
DHL fait
i se Saat a: Ke
SPRICE My
ES
Hat
tues
We
‘J 4
ayes) fi
fo 4
wat WALLED
(4 Nye À
eine
Rae wie
PA i iy 2. ry ret ?. DATA
FO SPIP APS ARR NT SD eee EE AMEN
baie =f; ¥ 53% Mee SE th 334 reat i ne)
as HA ASA CD
Et
OI TA P]
oies
54
VE