[50] Job xxxviii. 7.
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
A. Geological Relations of Eozoon, Archæozoon, etc.
I
IN the text I have given the arrangement of the pre-Cambrian rock-formations of Canada, as understood by me at the time of the delivery of the lectures on which this work is based—an arrangement which I believe will, in the main, be sustained by the work of the future, but which cannot as yet be received as final. The work of Logan and Murray, so far as I have had opportunity to go over their ground, was admirable; but since their time the progress in the settlement of the country, the extension of railways, and other means of communication, and the opening up of mineral deposits have greatly increased the means of obtaining information, and detailed explorations have been in progress under the Geological Survey of Canada. At this moment, under the new Director of the Survey, Dr. G. M. Dawson, much work is being done in this difficult field, more especially by Dr. Ells, Dr. Adams, and Mr. Barlow, which it may be hoped will go far to settle finally the arrangement and distribution of pre-Cambrian rocks in the Northern part of the American Continent. The maps and detailed reports representing these explorations are not yet before the public, but from some preliminary notices which have appeared in scientific periodicals, it may be inferred that the distinction between the fundamental gneiss, with its associated igneous products, and the Upper Laurentian, will become greater than was supposed by Logan. The Lowest Laurentian or Trembling Mountain series of Logan now represents a very widely extended basement formation, not so far as can be ascertained, composed of sedimentary rocks in a metamorphosed state, but rather of peculiar aqueo-igneous materials, different from the greater part of those which succeeded them, and associated with varied and extensive igneous intrusions and in-meltings like those which Keilhau ascertained long ago in the case of similar rocks in Norway. The Grenville series, on the other hand, may prove to be a remnant of an overlying system, originally less extensive or bordering the older group, and greatly attenuated by the enormous denudation which the whole region has undergone.
Fig. 60.—Eozoon Canadense.
Portion of a large specimen. Nature-printed. Showing the laminæ, and irregular cavities filled with serpentine, perhaps corresponding to the funnels.
[To face p. 296.