It may also be found that the beds of limestone are fewer and their
repetitions more numerous than had been supposed, and that the
Grenville series may be closely associated locally, at least, with
beds hitherto of uncertain age, or associated with the Lower Huronian.
The Huronian proper, on the other hand, may be considerably extended,
and the Kewenian and Animiké series overlying it have already been
ascertained by the Canadian Geological Survey to overlap the Huronian
and Laurentian over vast areas between the great lakes and the Arctic
sea, evidencing much submergence at the close of the Huronian age, and
opening of the Palæozoic. I have noticed in the text the apparently
wide development of deposits of this age over the area of the Rocky
Mountains of Canada, and the corresponding territories in the United
States. There would seem to be in these regions a great thickness of
unaltered sediments between the Lower Cambrian and the crystalline
rocks below, representing the Huronian and Laurentian. In these very
few fossils have yet been found, but they afford perhaps the most
promising field, next to their representatives in Newfoundland and
New Brunswick, for the discovery of the predecessors of the Olenellus
fauna, and the forms of life connecting these with those known in the
Huronian and Laurentian. [For summaries of facts on the last-mentioned
subject, see Report of Dr. G. M. Dawson on the Kamloops map-sheet, in
"Reports of Geological Survey of Canada," vol. vii. B, new series,
pp. 29 _et seq._; also Reports of Dr. C. D. Walcott, U. S. Geological
Survey, vol. xiv., Part I., pp. 103 _et seq._, and Part II., pp. 503
_et seq._]
* * * * *
B. Preservation of Organic Remains by Injection with Hydrous Silicates.
The late Dr. T. Sterry Hunt contributed to the original paper on
Eozoon in the Journal of the Geological Society, a valuable essay on
the mineralization of fossils by serpentine, glauconite, and allied
hydrous silicates. This was in part reprinted in the notes appended
to one of the chapters of "The Dawn of Life," and the subject was
further discussed by Hunt in his invaluable work, "Chemical and
Geological Essays," and more especially in the chapter on the "Origin
of Crystalline Rocks," a chapter which every geologist deserving the
name should study with care.
I give here some of the more important facts referred to by Hunt, and
may add that subsequent microscopic studies have familiarized me with
the occurrence of serpentine and other hydrous silicates as fillings
of the cavities of fossils of various geological ages, insomuch that I
have come to regard the occurrence of these rocks in association with
fossiliferous limestones as among the best available means to enable us
to ascertain the minute structures of shells, Foraminifera, corals, etc.
The following remarks and analyses further illustrate Hunt's views on
the relations of these minerals, with some of the facts on which they
are based:--
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