^J. IMAGE EVALUATION TESr TARGET (MT-3) V M/. y 5f /^/. 1.0 I.I 1.25 112.8 |M 2.2 12.0 1.8 U i 1.6 V] i«m/ Ms, WK NOTICE OF TEETIAKY EOSSILS PROM LABRADOR, MAINE, &c., AXiD REMARKS ON THE CLIMATE OP CANADA, W TFi NEWER PLIOCBNB OR PLBISTOCBNB PERIOD. I am indebted to Capt. Orlebar, R.N., for a small collection of fossils from the vicinity of Tertiary Bay on the coast of Labrador, X locality in which similar collections were made several years Hince by Adm^ Bayfield. They occur iu clay a little above high water mark ; but the species present indicate a considerable depth at the time of the deposition of the bed in which they are contained, so that it cannot properly be regarded as merely a raised beach. The species contained in the collection are as follows; those found in the newer Pliocene of Canada being marked with asterisks. Balanus joorcatus.^ Spirorhis vitrea, attached to shells.* Sp. carinata. Bxccinum undatum^^ A Aporrhais occidcntalis. Natica, (fragincnL probably oi N. Clausa.)* Saxicavd rugosa, var. Arctica.^ Tellina proxima, {calcarca) •'^ Actarie dliptlca. Rhynconclla psittacca.^ Echinus granulatus. IlijypotJioa catetmlaria, (altachei-l to sbclls) * Lepralla pcrtusa.* L. (not determined.) Cythcrc. The f^reater number of the above species have already been recognised in t'ue tertiary days of Canada ; * but the following cxceptionp are deserving of notice. Spirorhis vitrea, has not been named in my previous papers; but I now find, on comparison with the specimens from Labrador and recent examples from Gaspe, that it is this and not Spirorbis sinistrorsa as prtviously stated, that occurs in the tertiary beds at Montreal and Quebec. It is at present a deep water species in the Gulf of St. Lawronce and on the banks of Newfoundland. Spirorbis carinata has not previously been observed in the ter- tiary beds ; but is common on the coast of Labrador and Gaspb.f Aporrhais occidentalism the American representative of the " Pelican's-foot Spout-shell" of Britain, and rema'-kablo in the adult state for its siug^ularly expanded outer lip, is a deep water shell somewhat widely though not very abundantly distributed on the American coast. 1 have specimens from Labrador, Sable Islund, and Portland, where a very fine liviug specimen was dredged for me last summer by Mr. Fcrrier. ilaxicava ruyosa, occurs in the Labrador collection under the form described r.s S. Arctica by Forbes and Hanley. Tliis form \i not prevalent though sometimes seen among the Saxicavoe of the St. Lawrence valley deposits, and at present is I think found only in deep water. The intermediate specimens prove it to be merely a variety of the common species. Astarte clliptica is the common Astartc of the Gulf of St. * Soe papers hy the author in Canadian Naturalist, Vols. 2 and 4. t See paper on Spirorbes of the Gulf of St. Lawrence iu last number •f this Jgurnal. \o oil ^^^^-^ O^l msf tf Z4:^^m^t'.y9u/jm Lawrence at present. Great nuinueis Lave been dredged by Mr Bell on the coast of Gaspo in about CO fathoms. Along with them are found a few specimens having the characters of the typical Astartc sulcata of Great Britain, aii'i others having the characters of A. compressa, a species much more nearly related than the others to the fossil A. Laurcntlana, though quite distinct. I can recognise in the collections made by Mr. Bell and myself all the above species or variclies, and in addition the J.. Arctica, which I have found only in the pleistocene beds near Port- land. A. Laurcntiana and A. Arctica are without doubt distinct species from Sulcata, but different views have been entertained as to the others. The distinction based by some . ithors on the cronulated or smooth margin, and on which the species A. Scotica and A. Damuoniensis have been founded, is evidently worthless, depending as it does on age ; but the distinctions of external form and marking are apparently constant at all ages, and do not shade into each other. Although therefore Dr. Gould and Mr. Stimpson retain the name sulcata for all our American forms, I think it admits of a doubt whether the same distinctions made by Forbes and Hanley in Britain do not hold here. Mr. P. P. Car- penter when in Montreal very kindly went over my collections with me, and expressed himself satisfied that we have the forms recognised in Britain as elliptica, sulcata, and conipressa, what- ever their specific value. My impression at present is that coni' ^■ressa is a good species, but that sulcata and elliptica as we have them may be varieties of one. It is curious that while A. Lati- rentiana prevails exclusively iti the St. Lawrence deposits, the modern species is found at Labrador ; and very possibly, especially when we regard the more inland position and greater elevation o tlie former, this indicates a difference of age in the deposits. The clay attached to and in the interior of Capt. Orlebar's spe- cimens is very rich in the minute Foraminifera. It contains specimens of all the forms found in the clays of, Montreal and described in my former papers, and in addition the following : RotoUna ohlonga, Fig. 1. Bulimina pupoidcs, Fig. 2. B, auriculata ? OrhuUna universal Ttxtularia variabilis, Fig. 3. Nbnionina Lahradorica^ N. sp. Fig. 4. Truncatulina lohata Fig. 5. - Jk rft^5**^CSlS^~ i\^ ^:^w^?' \ All of these except one are well known hvmg species and a 11 except Textularia variabilis have been found in the Gulf o( St. Lawrence. This last statement however could not have been made but for specimens obtained from clay taken up by the sounding leaa otf the coast of Anticosti, from depths varying from 144 to 313 fathoms, and for which also I am indebted to Capt Orlebar. In these soundings there also occur Globigenna lulloides^ spreics world-wide in its distribution and iVoc?osa.t« pynda, neither of which have as yet been found in Uie tertiary beds of Canada. With these recent shells there is a C>/there like C anqulata of the British seas, and numerous spicules of spou- ses- there are also immense numbers of the round perforated silicious shields of CuscinocZisd apparently the C. hncatns ax^d C. radiatus of Ehrenberg. It is a remarkable and at present unac- countable fact that while in the pleistocene beds there is a great abundance of foramimfera, sponge spicules, and valves ot cvthere imbedded in calcareous clays like those of the deep sound- ings of the Gulf, the Coscinodisci and other diatoms arc abseut or at least have not been recognised. Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. l.—Rotalina oblonga. 2. — Bulimina pupoides. 3. — Textularia variabiliis. Fig. 3 Truncatulina lohata. The last species in the list is a little parasitic foraminiferous shell adhering to shells, stones, and zoophytes. It abounds in Mr. Bell's and Mr. Richardson's recent collections from Gaspe, and since I observed it in Capt. Orlebar's collection, 1 have found it also at Montreal. It is the Nautilus stellaris of Fabricius. The Nonionina which I name iV. Lahradonca, and which is found both recent and fossil, is a very beautiful species. It is pc.fecily equilateral, smooth and remarkably white and lustrous. It is most readily characterised by the great expansion of the last chamber, which spreads laterally and extends in two lobes on wwms^i^wm^m t = f / » ir/joFa either side of the earlier whorls. When seen f.^m one side it resembles Rotalina turgida, for which indeed I mistook it at first ' but when viewed in front it is seen to be equilateral and to have the characteristic .eptal aperture of Nonionina It is about equal in size to iV. umbiUcatula, and has the last chamber nflated even in young shells. X \ i.- Fi". 4. Ficc. viv, 4..— iVbniont/ia Labradorka, X. sp. r>. '■Truncatulina Jo''ai-'. The Forar/iniferafron- vhedoci^or parts of the Gulf arc usually of small size, and this appli.-i, also to those from the pleistocene of Labrador. In the past summer another deposit of pleistocene shells was discovered by Sir W. E. Logan at the Mingan Islands, Labrador. The specimens obtained from it consist of Mya arenaria and """llina pvxima in hn'd sand, and have the aspect of a littoral aeposlt corresponding to the " saxicava sand" of the vicimty of Montreal. 2. Portland, Maink. In last August I enjoyed some opportunities of examining the tertiary deposits at and near Portland, and also at Pond Cove, Cape Elizabeth, where a small patch of thi. deposit occurs nearly at the level of the sea. At the south end of the city of Portland, in a deep railway cutting, the tertiary beds arc well seen, and consist, in ascending order, of boulder clay, fossiliferous stratified clay and sand, and stratified sand and gravel. These beds appear to be very irrogular, being entangled in ledges of metamorphic rock, which sometimes ri«c through them. The distinction between the deeper water and shallow water parts of the deposits is in '^<5v Vvl£, • ■ ^iSirli^^^'^^^^i I consequence less strongly marked than at Montreal, but is indi- cated by beds containing Mytihis eduUs alone, overlying those ■Nvhich contain shells chavactcristic of the open sea. At Capo Elizabeth the pleistocene claya occupy depressions between ridges of slate. At the only place wheru I observed fossils, the deposit is a hard gray stony clay containing a mixture of deep sea and littoral shells. The bivalves are mostly in detached valves and often on edge, as if the bed had been subjected to the pressure of ice after its deposition. The fossils observed in the above mentioned beds are as fol- lows, — those common to Portland and the S:. Lawrence valley bcino: marked with asterisks : Balanus crcmttus/'' Fusus deccmcostatus, (var. horealis,) Bucclnum undalum^^ Fusus scalarifonnis, Natica clausa,-'^ Mjjtllus cdidls;''' Mactra ovalis, Saxicava rugosa;''' Astarte dUptlcn, A. comprcssa, A, arctica, Tdllna j^rbxlma,^'^ Pectcn Islandiciis/^- My It tnincata^'' Nucxda Jachsoni, AphroditG Grocnlandlca, Lepndla variolosa, L. BcIUi^ Memhranlpora, (undetermined.) The assemblage of shells in the above list cannot be said to indicate any very great change of climate, though more like that of the Gulf of St. Lawrence than of Portland at present. With the exception of Astarte arctica not now found on the Ameri- can coast, and Niicida Jacksoni which is possibly extinct, they are * A new species, now living in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and de- eribed in the Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1858. ^■'mrsLi^^smmM B ' ■, /m ir/jks .11 couunon Aniovican spcio. It is cunoa. iha. m t^e -llect on of the Canadian Goologicai Survey, the group of shells obtamed by Mr. Bell and Mr. Richardson in dredging on the north coast o? ol^pe in about GO fathoms, is almost precisely that of those Portland beds c, t .vrence tortiarieB, it will be seen Oh comparison NYilh tne St. Lav. renctterii.ould under such a stateof things be greatly reduced in mean temperature, the climate of America would suffer a less reduction of its mean temperature, but would be much less extieme than at present ; the general effect being the establishment of a more equable bit lower temperature throughout the northern hemisphere. It is perhaps necessary to add that the existence on the land, during this period of depres- sion, of large elephantine mammals in northern latitudes, as for instance the Mammoth and Mastodon, does not contradict this con- clusion. We know that these creatures were clothed in a manner to fit them for a cool climate, and an equable rather than a high tem- perature was probably most conducive to their welfare, while the more extreme climate consequent on the present elevation and dis- tribution of the land may nave led to their extinction. The establishment of the present distribution of land and water, giving to America its extreme climate, leaving its seas cool and throwing on the coasts of Europe the heated water of the tropics, would thus afreet but slightly the marine life of the American coast, but very materially that of Europe, producing the result so often referred to in these papers, that our Canadian Pleistocene fauna differs comparatively little from lliat now existing in the gulf of St. Lawrence, though in so far as any difference subsists it is in the direction of an arctic character. The changes that have occurred are perhaps all the less that so soon as the Lau- rentidc hills to the north of the St. Lawrence valley emerged from the sea, the coasts to the south of these hills would be effectually protected from the heavy northern ice drifts a'ld from the arctic currents, and would have the benefit of the full action of the summer heat, advantages which must have existed to a less extent in western Europe. It is farther to be observed that such subsidence and elevation would necessarily aftord great facilities for the migration of arctic marine animals, and that the difference between the modern and newer pliocene faunas must be greatest in those localities to which the animals of temperate regions could most readily migrate after the change of temperature had occurred. It has been fully shown by many previous writers on tliis sub- ject, that the causes above referred to arc sufficient to account for all the local and minor i)henomena of the stratified and unstra )4 M ;iTfa 13 tified drifts, and for the driftage of boulders and other matemls, and the erosion that accon^panied its deposition. Into these subjects 1 do not propose to enter; my object in these remarks be4 merely to give the reasons for my belief stated m previous papers on this subject, that the difference of climate between pleistocene and modem Canada, and the less amount of that diffe- rence relatively to that which has occurred in western Europe may be explained by a consideration of the changes of level which the structure and distribution of the boulder clay aud the over- lying fossilifcrous beds prove to have occurred.