Interestingly, the quarry manager told me that they have crushed 65,000 tons of rock since I was there last.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Wednesday 20 August 2014
A Selection of Fossils from the March Formation in Lanark County, Ontario - Part 2
My posting entitled A Selection of Fossils from the March Formation in Lanark County, Ontario from September 13, 2013 contained photographs of fossils from a quarry in Lanark County about a five minute drive north of Perth. On Tuesday I was at the quarry to order a load of gravel for my driveway, and took the opportunity to look for fossils. Below are photographs of three surfaces that show burrowing parallel to the bedding plane. Two photographs are provided for each surface.
Interestingly, the quarry manager told me that they have crushed 65,000 tons of rock since I was there last.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Interestingly, the quarry manager told me that they have crushed 65,000 tons of rock since I was there last.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Thursday 14 August 2014
Blasting of Outcrops Along Highway 15, including at Elgin
Since the spring the Province of Ontario has been widening Highway 15 between Crosby and the turn off at Hwy 32 to Gananoque, and has been blasting most of the outcrops along Highway 15. A lot of fresh rock has been exposed. Unfortunately, most of the blasted rock has been used to construct the roadbed for the new highway (rather than being saved for geologists and rock hounds).
The geology is complicated. There are good outcrops of Potsdam Group sandstone of late Cambrian age, and outcrops of Precambrian plutonic igneous rock and Precambrian high grade metamorphic rock. The Precambrian basement rocks are part of the Central Metasedimentary Belt of the Grenville Province. I mentioned in my last posting that the Central Metasedimentary Belt is subdivided into a number of terranes. Each of these terranes is characterized by distinct rock assemblages and mineral deposits. This stretch along Highway 15 falls within the Frontenac terrane of the Central Metasedimentary Belt. The Frontenac terrane comprises metamorphosed sedimentary rocks (metaquartzite, quartzofeldspathic gniesses, marble), lacks volcanic rocks, and was affected by the intrusion of plutonic rocks and intense metamorphism in the period of about 1190-1160 Ma. The Frontenac Terrane is preserved at upper amphibolite to granulite facies.
Wynne-Edwards (1967), who conducted the most comprehensive study of these rocks, concluded that the “metamorphic rocks most reasonably represent a sequence of marine sediments deposited in a stable area of relatively shallow water, and brought by deep burial into a metamorphic environment with high temperature and confining pressure [where they were intensely deformed, folded and refolded.] ...The metasedimentary rocks of the Westport map-area are dominantly stratiform quartz-biotite-feldspar gneisses, coarsely crystalline calcite marble ... and smaller amounts of quartzite... Granitic material in the form of pods, layers or lenses is present in all these rocks. ... In addition to this granitic material, large concordant plutons of quartz monzonite and monzonite occur at certain places, particularly in belts of crystalline limestone. These monzonites post-date the main period of metamorphism and have altered gabbroic rocks previously emplaced at the same sites. Diabase dykes and younger porphyritic andesite dykes cut all these rocks. ...
An extended period of erosion before the deposition of the Paleozoic rocks exposed the highly metamorphic rocks at the surface and established much of the existing topography. In some places the ancient land surface is preserved as a deep zone of oxidation and weathering below the Nepean sandstone.”
(Wynne-Edwards, H. R., 1967, Westport map Area, Ontario, With Special Emphasis On the Precambrian Rocks, Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 346, 142 pages at pages 108, 4 and 5
http://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/starweb/geoscan/servlet.starweb?path=geoscan/fulle.web&search1=R=100533 )
Below I’ve provided an extract from the Geological Survey of Canada’s Map 1182A, Westport, Ontario, compiled by H.R. Wynne-Edwards. This shows the geology along Highway 15 from Crosby (at the top left corner of the map) to south of Morton. The large pink oval shape at the bottom right corner of this map extract is the Lydnhurst quartz monzonite pluton.
Below is part of the legend for Wynne-Edwards’ geologic map.
The complete map can be downloaded from http://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/starweb/geoscan/servlet.starweb?path=geoscan/fulle.web&search1=R=108032
Those that have driven along Highway 15 this past summer will have noted that the outcrops of Potsdam Group sandstone at Elgin have changed. In some ways you can see more as the rock is fresh, but some of the weathered surfaces are gone. Below are photographs of three sandstone outcrops near Elgin (the first two showing the unconformity) .
Sam_0544 - Northeast corner of Hwy15 and the main road into Elgin
Sam_0547 - other side of Hwy 15
Sam_0552 - just south of Elgin, west side of road
(If you visit, you might consider taking a stiff broom to clear off the outcrops..)
Below is a photograph of an outcrop of Nepean Formation, Potsdam Group, sandstone. This outcrop is north of Morton on the east side of Highway 15. The ruler is along an inch thick bed of rounded quartz pebble conglomerate that extends the length of the outcrop.
Below I’ve provided photographs of outcrops of gneiss at and just south of Morton, together with close up photographs of pods of granitic material in the gneiss.
South of Morton there are also fresh outcrops of Wynne-Edwards’ Lydnhurst quartz monzonite pluton
I’ve found that looking at the outcrops on the weekends works best, as you do not have to dodge the construction vehicles.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
+++++++++++++++++++++
Addendum:
Wynne-Edwards (1967) did not place the Precambrian rocks that he mapped within a plate tectonics setting, as the theory had not been extended to the Precambrian at the time he conducted his field work and published his memoir. Since that time the general adoption of the theory has led to these rocks being placed in a plate tectonics setting. See, for example:
Davidson, A., and van Breemen, O. (2000), Age and extent of the Frontenac plutonic suite in the Central metasedimentary belt, Grenville Province, southeastern Ontario; Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research 2000-F4,
James M. McLelland, Bruce W. Selleck and M.E. Bickford (2010), Review of the Proterozoic evolution of the Grenville Province, its Adirondack outlier, and the Mesoproterozoic inliers of the Appalachians, The Geological Society of America, Memoir 206, p. 1-29.
Jeff Chiarenzelli, Sean Regan, William H. Peck, Bruce W. Selleck, Brian Cousens, Graham B. Baird and Catherine H. Shrady (2010), Shawinigan arc magmatism in the Adirondack Lowlands as a consequence of closure of the Trans-Adirondack backarc basin, Geosphere 2010;6;900-916
All are available online.
The geology is complicated. There are good outcrops of Potsdam Group sandstone of late Cambrian age, and outcrops of Precambrian plutonic igneous rock and Precambrian high grade metamorphic rock. The Precambrian basement rocks are part of the Central Metasedimentary Belt of the Grenville Province. I mentioned in my last posting that the Central Metasedimentary Belt is subdivided into a number of terranes. Each of these terranes is characterized by distinct rock assemblages and mineral deposits. This stretch along Highway 15 falls within the Frontenac terrane of the Central Metasedimentary Belt. The Frontenac terrane comprises metamorphosed sedimentary rocks (metaquartzite, quartzofeldspathic gniesses, marble), lacks volcanic rocks, and was affected by the intrusion of plutonic rocks and intense metamorphism in the period of about 1190-1160 Ma. The Frontenac Terrane is preserved at upper amphibolite to granulite facies.
Wynne-Edwards (1967), who conducted the most comprehensive study of these rocks, concluded that the “metamorphic rocks most reasonably represent a sequence of marine sediments deposited in a stable area of relatively shallow water, and brought by deep burial into a metamorphic environment with high temperature and confining pressure [where they were intensely deformed, folded and refolded.] ...The metasedimentary rocks of the Westport map-area are dominantly stratiform quartz-biotite-feldspar gneisses, coarsely crystalline calcite marble ... and smaller amounts of quartzite... Granitic material in the form of pods, layers or lenses is present in all these rocks. ... In addition to this granitic material, large concordant plutons of quartz monzonite and monzonite occur at certain places, particularly in belts of crystalline limestone. These monzonites post-date the main period of metamorphism and have altered gabbroic rocks previously emplaced at the same sites. Diabase dykes and younger porphyritic andesite dykes cut all these rocks. ...
An extended period of erosion before the deposition of the Paleozoic rocks exposed the highly metamorphic rocks at the surface and established much of the existing topography. In some places the ancient land surface is preserved as a deep zone of oxidation and weathering below the Nepean sandstone.”
(Wynne-Edwards, H. R., 1967, Westport map Area, Ontario, With Special Emphasis On the Precambrian Rocks, Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 346, 142 pages at pages 108, 4 and 5
http://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/starweb/geoscan/servlet.starweb?path=geoscan/fulle.web&search1=R=100533 )
Below I’ve provided an extract from the Geological Survey of Canada’s Map 1182A, Westport, Ontario, compiled by H.R. Wynne-Edwards. This shows the geology along Highway 15 from Crosby (at the top left corner of the map) to south of Morton. The large pink oval shape at the bottom right corner of this map extract is the Lydnhurst quartz monzonite pluton.
Below is part of the legend for Wynne-Edwards’ geologic map.
The complete map can be downloaded from http://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/starweb/geoscan/servlet.starweb?path=geoscan/fulle.web&search1=R=108032
Those that have driven along Highway 15 this past summer will have noted that the outcrops of Potsdam Group sandstone at Elgin have changed. In some ways you can see more as the rock is fresh, but some of the weathered surfaces are gone. Below are photographs of three sandstone outcrops near Elgin (the first two showing the unconformity) .
Sam_0544 - Northeast corner of Hwy15 and the main road into Elgin
Sam_0547 - other side of Hwy 15
Sam_0552 - just south of Elgin, west side of road
(If you visit, you might consider taking a stiff broom to clear off the outcrops..)
Below is a photograph of an outcrop of Nepean Formation, Potsdam Group, sandstone. This outcrop is north of Morton on the east side of Highway 15. The ruler is along an inch thick bed of rounded quartz pebble conglomerate that extends the length of the outcrop.
Below I’ve provided photographs of outcrops of gneiss at and just south of Morton, together with close up photographs of pods of granitic material in the gneiss.
South of Morton there are also fresh outcrops of Wynne-Edwards’ Lydnhurst quartz monzonite pluton
I’ve found that looking at the outcrops on the weekends works best, as you do not have to dodge the construction vehicles.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
+++++++++++++++++++++
Addendum:
Wynne-Edwards (1967) did not place the Precambrian rocks that he mapped within a plate tectonics setting, as the theory had not been extended to the Precambrian at the time he conducted his field work and published his memoir. Since that time the general adoption of the theory has led to these rocks being placed in a plate tectonics setting. See, for example:
Davidson, A., and van Breemen, O. (2000), Age and extent of the Frontenac plutonic suite in the Central metasedimentary belt, Grenville Province, southeastern Ontario; Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research 2000-F4,
James M. McLelland, Bruce W. Selleck and M.E. Bickford (2010), Review of the Proterozoic evolution of the Grenville Province, its Adirondack outlier, and the Mesoproterozoic inliers of the Appalachians, The Geological Society of America, Memoir 206, p. 1-29.
Jeff Chiarenzelli, Sean Regan, William H. Peck, Bruce W. Selleck, Brian Cousens, Graham B. Baird and Catherine H. Shrady (2010), Shawinigan arc magmatism in the Adirondack Lowlands as a consequence of closure of the Trans-Adirondack backarc basin, Geosphere 2010;6;900-916
All are available online.
Thursday 17 July 2014
An Outcrop that Records the Eruption of Pillowed Basaltic Lava
In an earlier posting I listed various field trip guides, including A. Davidson’s 1995 field trip guidebook on the Grenville Province of the Canadian Shield, and singled out Stop 5-10, which is a photogenic outcrop of pillowed basalts at the junction of County Roads 41 and 506 south of Bon Echo Provincial Park, and north of Kaladar. This past weekend, while driving to Peterborough down Highway 7, I took a short jog up Highway 41 to visit the outcrop, which is just south of Cloyne. Below are four photographs of this glacially polished, pillowed basalt outcrop.
The rounded form of the pillows results from the rapid cooling of basaltic magma that erupts under water. Volcanoes that produce such basalts occur along mid-ocean ridges. The pillows at this location have been stretched during regional metamorphism.
Davidson describes the outcrop as follows:
“Stop 5-10. Pillowed basalts, Tudor formation, Grenville Supergroup
Mafic volcanic rocks along this stretch of highway lie on the east side of the ~1.27-Ga Elzevir tonalite batholith, which intrudes them. Pillows at this stop indicate the flows face away from the batholith. The metabasalts have tholeiitic chemistry; higher in the stratigraphic succession to the east lie andesitic and coarse volcaniclastic rocks that are clearly calc-alkaline....”
[A. Davidson, 1995, Tectonic History of the Grenville Province, Ontario
Field Trip Guidebook A5, Precambrian ‘95, Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 3142
http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/geott/ess_pubs/205/205286/of_3142.pdf ]
I recently found on the web a field trip guide prepared last year by graduate geology students at Ottawa University and Carleton University which includes four stops at volcanic rocks in the area south of Bon Echo Provincial Park and north of Kaladar. They describe the pillowed basalt outcrop as follows:
“Stop 2– Tudor Pillow Basalts - Highway 41 and Highway 506 intersection
This outcrop includes pillowed basalts belonging to the Tudor suite (erupted >1265 Ma),
which display various primary igneous textures such as pillow selvages, hyaloclastite and vesicles. The preservation of these textures allows us to determine which way the pillows were oriented upon eruption ... which way is it? This preservation of primary textures is rare within rocks of the Central Metasedimentary Belt, which has experienced multiple metamorphic events and several intense deformation events (i.e. the Elzevir, Shawinigan and Ottawan orogenic events)”
[ Seamus Magnus, Dave Lowe, Jamie Cutts, and Travis McCarron, 2013,
OCGC Field Trip – September 27th to 29th 2013
earthsci.carleton.ca/sites/default/files/Field%20Guide%202013.pdf ]
Magnus, Lowe, Cutts and McCarron give directions to three other nearby outcrops of volcanic rocks. Here is an abridged version of their description:
“Stop 1 – Mazinaw Lake Metavolcanics
North of Highway 41 and Mazinaw Road intersection
This outcrop contains intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks of the Mazinaw Lake formation (1240-1250 Ma). ... , volcanic breccias and volcaniclastic rocks such as the tuffs observed in this outcrop. ...
Stop 3 – Metavolcanic and Metasedimentary Contact North of O’Donnell Road
Mafic metavolcanic rocks (west) and metapelitic rocks (east) are present on either side of
a small trodden path. This path represents an unconformable contact between the two
units. ...
Stop 4– Kashwakamak Hornblende Dacite
333199E, 4964264N – Ladyslipper Road, off of Myers Cave Road, south of lake
A calc-alkaline dacitic rock erupted at 1276 ±2 Ma (U -Pb zircon).... Interpreted as either a flow or dome, this represents the less dramatic form of intermediate volcanism.”
Given extra time, I would have visited those outcrops. The pillowed basalt, as noted above, records an eruption along a mid-ocean ridge. Dacite is believed to form when basaltic rocks are dragged down and melt along a subduction zone.
These rocks occur within the Mazinaw Terrane of the Central Metasedimentary Belt (“CMB”) of the Grenville Province of the Canadian Shield. Professor Nick Eyles of the University of Toronto commented in 2002 on the Central Metasedimentary Belt as follows:
“A number of different blocks (terranes) occur within the CMB (e.g., Bancroft, Elzevir, Mazinaw) and are separated by shear zones (large faults) that record the slippage between each terrane as they were pushed together. These terranes were separate land masses (basically micro-continents) with intervening seas which were swept together during the Grenville Orogeny.
Some geologists have suggested that modern-day Indonesia , with its subduction zones and limestone reef-fringed volcanic islands, provides a good model for the CMB. Rocks include pillow basalts, typical of oceanic crust, and pyroclastic debris deposited around explosive andesitic volcanoes at modern subduction zones. Mud and gravel that accumulated in the surrounding deep waters were deformed to schist and conglomerate. Other common metamorphic rocks are marbles formed from the alteration of limestone and quartzites derived from quartz rich sandstones. ...”
[Nick Eyles, 2002, Ontario Rocks - three billion years of environmental change, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 339 pages, at page 105 ]
Professor Dugald Carmichael of Queen’s University at Kingston has commented on the rocks of the Central Metasedimentary Belt as follows:
“Starting about 1280 million years ago, ... volcanic eruptions created a chain of islands in the ocean. Like the present-day Antilles or the Philippines, these volcanic islands would have formed along the boundary between two converging tectonic plates. The islands grew larger as basaltic lava erupted from vents and fissures above and below sea level. Later the eruptions became violently explosive, spewing vast amounts of volcanic ash and cinders. In shallow intertidal lagoons around the islands, blue-green photosynthetic bacteria built small laminated mounds on a seafloor of precipitated calcium carbonate. Volcanic ash was eroded from the islands and washed into the lagoons, where later it consolidated into sandy limestone and limy shale. Deep underground beneath the volcanoes, between 1270 and 1240 million years ago, huge volumes of molten magma cooled and crystallized into granite and other types of igneous rock.
Meanwhile a continent, riding on a converging tectonic plate, was approaching the chain of islands. As the intervening ocean narrowed, submarine landslides broke loose from the leading edge of its continental shelf and slumped down the continental slope, mixing with mud to make a spectacular sedimentary breccia. When the continental shelf collided with the chain of volcanic islands, a great range of mountains was uplifted. Cobbles, pebbles, sand and clay were eroded from the mountains and deposited in sedimentary formations atop the eroded surface of what had been the chain of islands. Continuing tectonic convergence squeezed the sedimentary formations into tight folds, and all the older rocks were also squeezed. Deep underground, between 1170 and 1080 million years ago, high temperature and pressure changed the sedimentary and igneous rocks into metamorphic rocks, and once again granitic magma intruded, cooled and crystallized.’
[Bedrock in the Frontenacs, by Dugald Carmichael,
http://naturallyrichfrontenacs.com/bedrock.html ]
Food for thought when you are driving down Highway 7.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
The rounded form of the pillows results from the rapid cooling of basaltic magma that erupts under water. Volcanoes that produce such basalts occur along mid-ocean ridges. The pillows at this location have been stretched during regional metamorphism.
Davidson describes the outcrop as follows:
“Stop 5-10. Pillowed basalts, Tudor formation, Grenville Supergroup
Mafic volcanic rocks along this stretch of highway lie on the east side of the ~1.27-Ga Elzevir tonalite batholith, which intrudes them. Pillows at this stop indicate the flows face away from the batholith. The metabasalts have tholeiitic chemistry; higher in the stratigraphic succession to the east lie andesitic and coarse volcaniclastic rocks that are clearly calc-alkaline....”
[A. Davidson, 1995, Tectonic History of the Grenville Province, Ontario
Field Trip Guidebook A5, Precambrian ‘95, Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 3142
http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/geott/ess_pubs/205/205286/of_3142.pdf ]
I recently found on the web a field trip guide prepared last year by graduate geology students at Ottawa University and Carleton University which includes four stops at volcanic rocks in the area south of Bon Echo Provincial Park and north of Kaladar. They describe the pillowed basalt outcrop as follows:
“Stop 2– Tudor Pillow Basalts - Highway 41 and Highway 506 intersection
This outcrop includes pillowed basalts belonging to the Tudor suite (erupted >1265 Ma),
which display various primary igneous textures such as pillow selvages, hyaloclastite and vesicles. The preservation of these textures allows us to determine which way the pillows were oriented upon eruption ... which way is it? This preservation of primary textures is rare within rocks of the Central Metasedimentary Belt, which has experienced multiple metamorphic events and several intense deformation events (i.e. the Elzevir, Shawinigan and Ottawan orogenic events)”
[ Seamus Magnus, Dave Lowe, Jamie Cutts, and Travis McCarron, 2013,
OCGC Field Trip – September 27th to 29th 2013
earthsci.carleton.ca/sites/default/files/Field%20Guide%202013.pdf ]
Magnus, Lowe, Cutts and McCarron give directions to three other nearby outcrops of volcanic rocks. Here is an abridged version of their description:
“Stop 1 – Mazinaw Lake Metavolcanics
North of Highway 41 and Mazinaw Road intersection
This outcrop contains intermediate to felsic volcaniclastic rocks of the Mazinaw Lake formation (1240-1250 Ma). ... , volcanic breccias and volcaniclastic rocks such as the tuffs observed in this outcrop. ...
Stop 3 – Metavolcanic and Metasedimentary Contact North of O’Donnell Road
Mafic metavolcanic rocks (west) and metapelitic rocks (east) are present on either side of
a small trodden path. This path represents an unconformable contact between the two
units. ...
Stop 4– Kashwakamak Hornblende Dacite
333199E, 4964264N – Ladyslipper Road, off of Myers Cave Road, south of lake
A calc-alkaline dacitic rock erupted at 1276 ±2 Ma (U -Pb zircon).... Interpreted as either a flow or dome, this represents the less dramatic form of intermediate volcanism.”
Given extra time, I would have visited those outcrops. The pillowed basalt, as noted above, records an eruption along a mid-ocean ridge. Dacite is believed to form when basaltic rocks are dragged down and melt along a subduction zone.
These rocks occur within the Mazinaw Terrane of the Central Metasedimentary Belt (“CMB”) of the Grenville Province of the Canadian Shield. Professor Nick Eyles of the University of Toronto commented in 2002 on the Central Metasedimentary Belt as follows:
“A number of different blocks (terranes) occur within the CMB (e.g., Bancroft, Elzevir, Mazinaw) and are separated by shear zones (large faults) that record the slippage between each terrane as they were pushed together. These terranes were separate land masses (basically micro-continents) with intervening seas which were swept together during the Grenville Orogeny.
Some geologists have suggested that modern-day Indonesia , with its subduction zones and limestone reef-fringed volcanic islands, provides a good model for the CMB. Rocks include pillow basalts, typical of oceanic crust, and pyroclastic debris deposited around explosive andesitic volcanoes at modern subduction zones. Mud and gravel that accumulated in the surrounding deep waters were deformed to schist and conglomerate. Other common metamorphic rocks are marbles formed from the alteration of limestone and quartzites derived from quartz rich sandstones. ...”
[Nick Eyles, 2002, Ontario Rocks - three billion years of environmental change, Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 339 pages, at page 105 ]
Professor Dugald Carmichael of Queen’s University at Kingston has commented on the rocks of the Central Metasedimentary Belt as follows:
“Starting about 1280 million years ago, ... volcanic eruptions created a chain of islands in the ocean. Like the present-day Antilles or the Philippines, these volcanic islands would have formed along the boundary between two converging tectonic plates. The islands grew larger as basaltic lava erupted from vents and fissures above and below sea level. Later the eruptions became violently explosive, spewing vast amounts of volcanic ash and cinders. In shallow intertidal lagoons around the islands, blue-green photosynthetic bacteria built small laminated mounds on a seafloor of precipitated calcium carbonate. Volcanic ash was eroded from the islands and washed into the lagoons, where later it consolidated into sandy limestone and limy shale. Deep underground beneath the volcanoes, between 1270 and 1240 million years ago, huge volumes of molten magma cooled and crystallized into granite and other types of igneous rock.
Meanwhile a continent, riding on a converging tectonic plate, was approaching the chain of islands. As the intervening ocean narrowed, submarine landslides broke loose from the leading edge of its continental shelf and slumped down the continental slope, mixing with mud to make a spectacular sedimentary breccia. When the continental shelf collided with the chain of volcanic islands, a great range of mountains was uplifted. Cobbles, pebbles, sand and clay were eroded from the mountains and deposited in sedimentary formations atop the eroded surface of what had been the chain of islands. Continuing tectonic convergence squeezed the sedimentary formations into tight folds, and all the older rocks were also squeezed. Deep underground, between 1170 and 1080 million years ago, high temperature and pressure changed the sedimentary and igneous rocks into metamorphic rocks, and once again granitic magma intruded, cooled and crystallized.’
[Bedrock in the Frontenacs, by Dugald Carmichael,
http://naturallyrichfrontenacs.com/bedrock.html ]
Food for thought when you are driving down Highway 7.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Thursday 22 May 2014
Andrew Dickson, a Founder of Pakenham, Sheriff of Bathurst District, and Geologist
“With the early progress and development of Geology of Canada, the name of Andrew Dickson will always be honorably associated.”
(The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art. July, 1855)
Andrew Dickson (1797 - 1868), the person most associated with the founding of the Village of Pakenham in Lanark County, is principally remembered today as Sheriff Dickson, as he held the position of Sheriff of Bathurst District for a ten year period from 1842 to 1852. At that time Bathurst District encompassed what today is Lanark County, Renfrew County and Ottawa west of the Rideau River. Perth was the most important town in Bathurst District, while Ottawa (then known as Bytown) was a small lumber town. An article on Sheriff Dickson published in 1915 in the Almonte Gazette points out that “when Perth was the judicial, educational and social centre of this part of Ontario, it was a striking sight to see Sheriff Dickson in his shrieval garb, armed, astride his fine horse, taking prisoners from Bytown, to the district gaol in Perth, the prisoners being also mounted on horses and chained to the sheriff.”
Andrew Dickson had a varied career. He was born in Scotland in 1797 and came to Canada in 1819 to take charge of a lighthouse in Nova Scotia. He came to Perth in 1821 and then settled in Fitzroy township in 1823 as a farmer. In 1831 he purchased the mill, river rights and the land in Pakenham township where the Village of Pakenham now stands. ‘Dickson’s Mills’ began to grow. For a number of years Andrew Dickson carried on a lumbering and mercantile business, and later added a carding mill. He held a shop license for the sale of spirituous liquors. He built a lumber slide and charged a toll on all logs passing downstream. He operated a limestone quarry on his land. He set up grinding wheels powered by his mills to polish limestone slabs that were used locally as ornamental stone. He was Dickson’s Mills first postmaster. He built Dickson’s Mills first church. He laid out the village plot for Pakenham, and registered it under the name of Pakenham. In 1835 he was appointed Commissioner of the Courts of Bequests for the District of Bathurst. In 1842 he was appointed Sheriff of Bathurst District. In 1852 he resigned as sheriff to accept the position as Inspector of the Provincial Penitentiary, when he moved to Kingston, Ontario. In 1858 he was appointed Warden of the Reformatory Prison of Lower Canada and moved from Kingston to Isle Aux Noix. In 1860 he returned to Pakenham where he resided until his death in 1868.
In addition to his business interests, Andrew Dickson was a hunter, curler, and Lieutenant-Colonel in the militia. He was also a noted amateur geologist, was elected a member of The Canadian Institute in 1854 and was a member of the Historical and Literary Society of Quebec. Invariably, articles referring to Andrew Dickson refer to him as Sheriff Dickson, and stress this part of his career. It is as a geologist that he should also be remembered.
In a book published in 1925, entitled Pioneer Sketches in the District of Bathurst, Andrew Haydon devotes Chapter VII to Andrew Dickson, Sheriff– A Pioneer of Pakenham. Haydon mentions that “The distinguished geologist, Sir William Logan, was among Mr. Dickson’s personal friends.” Haydon also mentions that “On the Dickson farm at Pakenham here had been opened during the building of the railway a fine quarry of limestone.... in this quarry he had discovered fossil remains in plenty and of a variety for which the much-coveted Bigsby medal had been founded and granted by the Royal Geological Society of England, while yet, outside of Mr. Dickson’s discovery, the fossil was yet almost unknown to the scientific world.” Haydon also mentions that Andrew Dickson exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in 1855 specimens of wood, specular iron, marble, shell marl and sandstone.
The article published in 1915 in the Almonte Gazette mentions both that “ He was one of the most enthusiastic and intelligent geologists in Canada, and succeeded in making a fine collection of specimens. In this connection he rendered material aid to his personal friend, Sir William Logan, in tracing and developing the mineral resources of Central Canada.” and that “A few years ago, when Dr. Ami, the Ottawa geologist, returned from a business trip to the British Museum, he reported that some of the specimens there were known as the "Dicksonia" specimens, in honor of the subject of this sketch.”
An online article entitled Mining in Lanark County mentions that “Sheriff Dickson lectured on geology for the benefit of the Mechanic’s Institute.” I assume these lectures were at Perth’s Mechanics Institute (established in 1844) which in 1903 became the Perth Library, though they may have been given at the Carleton Place Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute (founded 1846). (Mechanics' Institutes were used as libraries for the adult working class, also provided lecture courses, and in some cases contained a museum.)
+++++++++++
The original sources provide more information on Sheriff Dickson’s contributions to the understanding of geology in what is now Ontario. His help was acknowledged by the leading Canadian geologists of his era, including Sir William Logan, Elkanah Billings and Sir John William Dawson.
+++++++++++
On at least three occasions Sir William Logan thanked Andrew Dickson.
First, in his Report of Progress for the year 1845-46, when he discusses the geology of the Ottawa River and some of its tributaries, he mentions that “Ascending the Chats Lake, we made an excursion up the Mississippi River to Pakenham, where Mr. Dickson, the founder of this thriving village, who takes an interest in geological phenomena, was so obliging as to accompany me to several spots in the vicinity, and to supply me with a small collection of specimens illustrative of the rocks of the Township;”
Logan, W.A., 1847, Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for the year 1845-46, at page 9.
+++++++++++
Second, in answer to the question “Do you think any material advantage might be derived from voluntary assistants?” asked by the Select Committee on the Geological Survey of Canada, William Logan answered in 1855 that “There can be no doubt of it. In localities in their own neighbourhood, I have received valuable information from various persons, to whom I have been careful on all occasions to render public thanks. Among those that have favoured me are Mr. Abraham, Dr. Wilson, the Rev. Mr. Bell, Mr. Billings and Mr. Sheriff Dickson . An excellent vein of geological knowledge seems to run up the Ottawa.”
Harrington, Bernard J., 1883, Life of Sir William E. Logan , John Wiley & Sons, New York, at page 288.
Report of the Select Committee on the Geological Survey of Canada– Minutes of Evidence,
The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, 1854'5 , Vol. III, pages 250 - 256 at 254.
+++++++++++
Third, Sir William Logan acknowledges Sheriff Dickson’s help in the acknowledgments to his book the Geology of Canada, where he mentions that “ we are indebted to Mr. A. Dickson of Pakenham for various facts relating to the Post-tertiary formation, and for specimens from this, and from the Lower Silurian rocks.”
Later in the book Sir William Logan relies on Andrew Dickson when he states: “The latter appears to form an isolated patch on the Chazy, in the neighborhood of Dickson's mills in Pakenham ; where, as has already been stated, it is brought, by a dislocation, against the Calciferous, on the south side. Near the mills, the Birdseye and Black River formation yields very large masses of Columnaria alveolata, and some of its beds abound with great orthoceratites, the chambers of which have occasionally been found by Mr. Dickson to hold large quantities of petroleum.”
Logan, W.A., 1863, Geology of Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress from Its Commencement to 1863; at Pages x and 175
+++++++++++
Elkanah Billings, Canada’s foremost paleontologist, singled out Andrew Dickson by naming the fossil Agelacrinites Dicksoni after him.
Agelacrinites Dicksoni, Billings
Plate VIII. Figs. 3, 3a, 4, 4a
“I have dedicated this species to Andrew Dickson, Esq., of Kingston, C. W., one of the best workers in the field of Canadian geology.”
Billings, E., 1858, On the Asteriadae of the Lower Silurian Rocks of Canada, Figures and Descriptions of Canadian Organic Remains, Decade III, at page 34.
Below I’ve provided the plate from Canadian Organic Remains showing the fossil.
+++++++++++
Sir John William Dawson, who from 1855 to 1893 was professor of geology and principal of McGill University in Montreal, mentioned and relied on Andrew Dickson in a number of publications. Below I’ve provided quotations from three of his publications.
II. Fresh-water Shells in the Post-Pliocene Deposits
“... I have been favoured in the past summer, by Andrew Dickson, Esq., with specimens of land and fresh-water shells from the bank of a brook emptying into the Mississippi, a tributary of the Ottawa, two miles below Pakenham Mills. .. They were found in sand and gravel containing Tellina Greenlandica, and which Mr. Dickson thinks to be undisturbed tertiary deposit.”
...
III. Land Plants.
“I am indebted to Andrew Dickson, Esq., for the opportunity of studying a large number of nodules containing plants, collected by him at Green's Creek, on the Ottawa.”
Dawson, J. W., 1859, Additional Notes on the Post-Pliocene Deposits of the St. Lawrence Valley; Canadian Naturalist and Geologist. Volume IV, Article III, at pages 36 and 37.
+++++++++++
“In my examinations of these plants [found in the Leda clay at Green’s Creek in Ottawa], I have been permitted to avail myself of the considerable collection in the museum of the geological survey of Canada, and also in the private collections of Mr. Billings, of Prof. Bell at Queen’s College, and of Sheriff Dickson of Kingston.”
Dawson, J. W., 1868, The Evidence of Fossil Plants as to the Climate of the Post-Pliocene Period in Canada, The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, New Series, Volume 3 at page 70
+++++++++++
“Of this nature are the beds at Pakenham, examined by the late Sheriff Dickson, and which I was informed by him, are arranged as follows:
Sand and surface soil.... 10 feet
Clay...10 feet
Fine gray sand (shells of Valvata, &c.)...2 inches
Clay...1 foot
Gray sand, laminated (Tellina Greenlandica)...3 inches
Clay...8 inches
Light Gray Sand (Valvata, Cyclas, Paludina, Planorbis and Tellina)...10 inches
Clay...1 foot, 2 inches
Brown sand and layers of clay (Planorbis and Cyclas)...4 inches
“The fresh water species are peculiar to this locality, and the only marine shell is Tellina Greenlandica, a species now found farther up in our estuaries than most others.
Mr. Dickson informs me that a similar case occurs near Clarenceville, about four miles from the United States frontier, and at an elevation of about ten feet above lake Champlain.
... In farther connection with these facts, and in relation also to the question why marine fossils have not been found west of Kingston, Mr. Dickson informs me that fossil capelin are found on the Chaudiere lake... and at Fort Coulonge lake..”
Dawson, Sir J. William, 1893, The Canadian Ice Age, Being Notes on the Pleistocene Geology of Canada, Montreal, William V. Dawson, at pages 58-59.
+++++++++++
It is also worth noting that Sheriff Dickson’s fossil collections were relied on by the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada as late as 1905. Dr. H. M. Ami, Assistant Paleontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada, compiled a list of fossils found within the Perth Sheet in Eastern Ontario, and mentioned:
BLACK RIVER FORMATION
VII Pakenham, Ontario. Collection of the late Sheriff Dickson
1. Bythotrephis (Chondrites) succulens, Hall.
2. Stromatocerium rugosum, Hall.
3. Tetradium fibratum, Safford.
4. Columnaria Halli, Nicholson.
5. Orthis tricenaria, Conrad.
6. Actinoceras Bigsbyi, Stokes.
TRENTON FORMATION
IX. Pakenham, Ontario, from the collection of the late Sheriff Dickson
1. Licrophycus minor, Billings-
2. Solenopora compacta, Billings.
3. Prasopora oculala, Foord.
4. Prasopora lycoperdon, Vanuxem. (= P. Selwyni, Nich.)
5. Agelacrinites Dicksoni, Billings
6. Glyptocrinus ramulosus. Billings.
7. Pleurocystites squamosus, Billings.
8. Lingula quadrata, Eichwald, as of Billings.
9. Lingula riciniformis, Hall
10. Plectambonites sericeus, Sowerby.
11. Rafinesquina alternata (Conrad), Emmons.
12. Rafinesquina detoidea, Conrad.
13. Dalmanella testudinaria, Dalman.
1 4. Murchisonia bellicincta, Hall.
15. Fusispira subfusiformis ? Hall.
16. Orthoceras sp.
17. Endoceras proliforme, Hall.
18. Asaphus platycephalus, Stokes
19. Calymene senaria, Conrad.
20. Ceraurus pleurexanthemus, Green.
Ami, H. M., 1904, Preliminary lists of fossil organic remains from the Potsdam, Beekmantown (Calciferous), Chazy, Black River, Trenton, Utica and Pleistocene formations comprised within the Perth Sheet (No. 119) in Eastern Ontario, Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report for 1901, Volume XIV (New Series), Part J, Report No. 790, at pages 84J-85J.
++++++++++++
Perhaps the greatest praise for Andrew Dickson appeared in an article entitled Elementary Geology that was published in the July, 1855 edition of The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art. The article talks about the passion for geology in Ottawa and up the Ottawa valley, the Silurian Society that had formed in Ottawa, and the untimely death of Hugh Miller, a self taught Scottish geologist who was held in high esteem in Great Britain. It continued:
“We do not require to search long or wide for a Canadian Hugh Miller ; one not known to the public by his writings or published discoveries, but rather by a most honourable mention in the report of the Director of the Canadian Geological Survey; by a unique collection of palaeontological monuments of Silurian age ; by unsurpassed mineralogical proofs of the hidden wealth of the Ottawa valley; by a patient and laborious study of Canadian rocks when a Geological Survey of the country was hardly thought of, and by the fact that many of these investigations were carried on, and fossil and mineral treasures discovered and hoarded up, during years of wild and romantic life in the uninhabited parts of Canada and the trackless regions of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory; trusting to his rod and his gun for the support of life, and, like Hugh Miller, exchanging all day-dreams and amusements for the kind of life in which men " toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat every day that they may be enabled to toil." With the early progress and development of the Geology of Canada, the name of Andrew Dickson will always be honorably associated.“
Anonymous, 1855, Elementary Geology, The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, 1854'5 , Vol. III, pages 285 - 287 at 286.
+++++++++
Years after Andrew Dickson’s death, stone from his quarry was used to construct the five span stone bridge at Pakenham, shown below.
The photo is from Library and Archives Canada (MIKAN 3318277) and was taken about 1910 by Augustus L Handford.
Ann P. Sabina (2007) reports that Andrew Dickson’s quarry is now inactive, but that fossils are abundant in Ordovician Black River limestone in the inactive quarry and in rock exposures nearby. She reports that the fossils include corals, cephalopods, trilobites, brachiopods, bryozoans and cystoids. She gives the following directions to the quarry: “The Pakenham quarry is on the face of a hill at the east end of the bridge in Pakenham; it is on the east side of Lanark County Road 20 at a point 5.8 km southwest of its junction with Highway 17.”
Sabina, Ann P. 2007, Rocks and Minerals for the Collector: Ottawa to North Bay and Huntsville, Ontario; Gatineau (Hull) to Waltham and Témiscaming, Quebec. GSC Miscellaneous Report 48
The Ontario Geological Survey lists two abandoned quarries with the name Pakenham Quarry in the Township of Pakenham. As the Village of Pakenham falls within lot 11 of concession 11 of Pakenham Township, the following may be the UTM co-ordinates for Andrew Dickson’s quarry:
Pakenham Quarry
Lot: 11, Concession: 11
UTM Zone: 18
UTM Easting: 399528.012
UTM Northing: 5020897.084
+++++++++++++
Christopher Brett
Perth, Lanark County
(The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art. July, 1855)
Andrew Dickson (1797 - 1868), the person most associated with the founding of the Village of Pakenham in Lanark County, is principally remembered today as Sheriff Dickson, as he held the position of Sheriff of Bathurst District for a ten year period from 1842 to 1852. At that time Bathurst District encompassed what today is Lanark County, Renfrew County and Ottawa west of the Rideau River. Perth was the most important town in Bathurst District, while Ottawa (then known as Bytown) was a small lumber town. An article on Sheriff Dickson published in 1915 in the Almonte Gazette points out that “when Perth was the judicial, educational and social centre of this part of Ontario, it was a striking sight to see Sheriff Dickson in his shrieval garb, armed, astride his fine horse, taking prisoners from Bytown, to the district gaol in Perth, the prisoners being also mounted on horses and chained to the sheriff.”
Andrew Dickson had a varied career. He was born in Scotland in 1797 and came to Canada in 1819 to take charge of a lighthouse in Nova Scotia. He came to Perth in 1821 and then settled in Fitzroy township in 1823 as a farmer. In 1831 he purchased the mill, river rights and the land in Pakenham township where the Village of Pakenham now stands. ‘Dickson’s Mills’ began to grow. For a number of years Andrew Dickson carried on a lumbering and mercantile business, and later added a carding mill. He held a shop license for the sale of spirituous liquors. He built a lumber slide and charged a toll on all logs passing downstream. He operated a limestone quarry on his land. He set up grinding wheels powered by his mills to polish limestone slabs that were used locally as ornamental stone. He was Dickson’s Mills first postmaster. He built Dickson’s Mills first church. He laid out the village plot for Pakenham, and registered it under the name of Pakenham. In 1835 he was appointed Commissioner of the Courts of Bequests for the District of Bathurst. In 1842 he was appointed Sheriff of Bathurst District. In 1852 he resigned as sheriff to accept the position as Inspector of the Provincial Penitentiary, when he moved to Kingston, Ontario. In 1858 he was appointed Warden of the Reformatory Prison of Lower Canada and moved from Kingston to Isle Aux Noix. In 1860 he returned to Pakenham where he resided until his death in 1868.
In addition to his business interests, Andrew Dickson was a hunter, curler, and Lieutenant-Colonel in the militia. He was also a noted amateur geologist, was elected a member of The Canadian Institute in 1854 and was a member of the Historical and Literary Society of Quebec. Invariably, articles referring to Andrew Dickson refer to him as Sheriff Dickson, and stress this part of his career. It is as a geologist that he should also be remembered.
In a book published in 1925, entitled Pioneer Sketches in the District of Bathurst, Andrew Haydon devotes Chapter VII to Andrew Dickson, Sheriff– A Pioneer of Pakenham. Haydon mentions that “The distinguished geologist, Sir William Logan, was among Mr. Dickson’s personal friends.” Haydon also mentions that “On the Dickson farm at Pakenham here had been opened during the building of the railway a fine quarry of limestone.... in this quarry he had discovered fossil remains in plenty and of a variety for which the much-coveted Bigsby medal had been founded and granted by the Royal Geological Society of England, while yet, outside of Mr. Dickson’s discovery, the fossil was yet almost unknown to the scientific world.” Haydon also mentions that Andrew Dickson exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in 1855 specimens of wood, specular iron, marble, shell marl and sandstone.
The article published in 1915 in the Almonte Gazette mentions both that “ He was one of the most enthusiastic and intelligent geologists in Canada, and succeeded in making a fine collection of specimens. In this connection he rendered material aid to his personal friend, Sir William Logan, in tracing and developing the mineral resources of Central Canada.” and that “A few years ago, when Dr. Ami, the Ottawa geologist, returned from a business trip to the British Museum, he reported that some of the specimens there were known as the "Dicksonia" specimens, in honor of the subject of this sketch.”
An online article entitled Mining in Lanark County mentions that “Sheriff Dickson lectured on geology for the benefit of the Mechanic’s Institute.” I assume these lectures were at Perth’s Mechanics Institute (established in 1844) which in 1903 became the Perth Library, though they may have been given at the Carleton Place Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute (founded 1846). (Mechanics' Institutes were used as libraries for the adult working class, also provided lecture courses, and in some cases contained a museum.)
+++++++++++
The original sources provide more information on Sheriff Dickson’s contributions to the understanding of geology in what is now Ontario. His help was acknowledged by the leading Canadian geologists of his era, including Sir William Logan, Elkanah Billings and Sir John William Dawson.
+++++++++++
On at least three occasions Sir William Logan thanked Andrew Dickson.
First, in his Report of Progress for the year 1845-46, when he discusses the geology of the Ottawa River and some of its tributaries, he mentions that “Ascending the Chats Lake, we made an excursion up the Mississippi River to Pakenham, where Mr. Dickson, the founder of this thriving village, who takes an interest in geological phenomena, was so obliging as to accompany me to several spots in the vicinity, and to supply me with a small collection of specimens illustrative of the rocks of the Township;”
Logan, W.A., 1847, Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for the year 1845-46, at page 9.
+++++++++++
Second, in answer to the question “Do you think any material advantage might be derived from voluntary assistants?” asked by the Select Committee on the Geological Survey of Canada, William Logan answered in 1855 that “There can be no doubt of it. In localities in their own neighbourhood, I have received valuable information from various persons, to whom I have been careful on all occasions to render public thanks. Among those that have favoured me are Mr. Abraham, Dr. Wilson, the Rev. Mr. Bell, Mr. Billings and Mr. Sheriff Dickson . An excellent vein of geological knowledge seems to run up the Ottawa.”
Harrington, Bernard J., 1883, Life of Sir William E. Logan , John Wiley & Sons, New York, at page 288.
Report of the Select Committee on the Geological Survey of Canada– Minutes of Evidence,
The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, 1854'5 , Vol. III, pages 250 - 256 at 254.
+++++++++++
Third, Sir William Logan acknowledges Sheriff Dickson’s help in the acknowledgments to his book the Geology of Canada, where he mentions that “ we are indebted to Mr. A. Dickson of Pakenham for various facts relating to the Post-tertiary formation, and for specimens from this, and from the Lower Silurian rocks.”
Later in the book Sir William Logan relies on Andrew Dickson when he states: “The latter appears to form an isolated patch on the Chazy, in the neighborhood of Dickson's mills in Pakenham ; where, as has already been stated, it is brought, by a dislocation, against the Calciferous, on the south side. Near the mills, the Birdseye and Black River formation yields very large masses of Columnaria alveolata, and some of its beds abound with great orthoceratites, the chambers of which have occasionally been found by Mr. Dickson to hold large quantities of petroleum.”
Logan, W.A., 1863, Geology of Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress from Its Commencement to 1863; at Pages x and 175
+++++++++++
Elkanah Billings, Canada’s foremost paleontologist, singled out Andrew Dickson by naming the fossil Agelacrinites Dicksoni after him.
Agelacrinites Dicksoni, Billings
Plate VIII. Figs. 3, 3a, 4, 4a
“I have dedicated this species to Andrew Dickson, Esq., of Kingston, C. W., one of the best workers in the field of Canadian geology.”
Billings, E., 1858, On the Asteriadae of the Lower Silurian Rocks of Canada, Figures and Descriptions of Canadian Organic Remains, Decade III, at page 34.
Below I’ve provided the plate from Canadian Organic Remains showing the fossil.
+++++++++++
Sir John William Dawson, who from 1855 to 1893 was professor of geology and principal of McGill University in Montreal, mentioned and relied on Andrew Dickson in a number of publications. Below I’ve provided quotations from three of his publications.
II. Fresh-water Shells in the Post-Pliocene Deposits
“... I have been favoured in the past summer, by Andrew Dickson, Esq., with specimens of land and fresh-water shells from the bank of a brook emptying into the Mississippi, a tributary of the Ottawa, two miles below Pakenham Mills. .. They were found in sand and gravel containing Tellina Greenlandica, and which Mr. Dickson thinks to be undisturbed tertiary deposit.”
...
III. Land Plants.
“I am indebted to Andrew Dickson, Esq., for the opportunity of studying a large number of nodules containing plants, collected by him at Green's Creek, on the Ottawa.”
Dawson, J. W., 1859, Additional Notes on the Post-Pliocene Deposits of the St. Lawrence Valley; Canadian Naturalist and Geologist. Volume IV, Article III, at pages 36 and 37.
+++++++++++
“In my examinations of these plants [found in the Leda clay at Green’s Creek in Ottawa], I have been permitted to avail myself of the considerable collection in the museum of the geological survey of Canada, and also in the private collections of Mr. Billings, of Prof. Bell at Queen’s College, and of Sheriff Dickson of Kingston.”
Dawson, J. W., 1868, The Evidence of Fossil Plants as to the Climate of the Post-Pliocene Period in Canada, The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, New Series, Volume 3 at page 70
+++++++++++
“Of this nature are the beds at Pakenham, examined by the late Sheriff Dickson, and which I was informed by him, are arranged as follows:
Sand and surface soil.... 10 feet
Clay...10 feet
Fine gray sand (shells of Valvata, &c.)...2 inches
Clay...1 foot
Gray sand, laminated (Tellina Greenlandica)...3 inches
Clay...8 inches
Light Gray Sand (Valvata, Cyclas, Paludina, Planorbis and Tellina)...10 inches
Clay...1 foot, 2 inches
Brown sand and layers of clay (Planorbis and Cyclas)...4 inches
“The fresh water species are peculiar to this locality, and the only marine shell is Tellina Greenlandica, a species now found farther up in our estuaries than most others.
Mr. Dickson informs me that a similar case occurs near Clarenceville, about four miles from the United States frontier, and at an elevation of about ten feet above lake Champlain.
... In farther connection with these facts, and in relation also to the question why marine fossils have not been found west of Kingston, Mr. Dickson informs me that fossil capelin are found on the Chaudiere lake... and at Fort Coulonge lake..”
Dawson, Sir J. William, 1893, The Canadian Ice Age, Being Notes on the Pleistocene Geology of Canada, Montreal, William V. Dawson, at pages 58-59.
+++++++++++
It is also worth noting that Sheriff Dickson’s fossil collections were relied on by the officers of the Geological Survey of Canada as late as 1905. Dr. H. M. Ami, Assistant Paleontologist to the Geological Survey of Canada, compiled a list of fossils found within the Perth Sheet in Eastern Ontario, and mentioned:
BLACK RIVER FORMATION
VII Pakenham, Ontario. Collection of the late Sheriff Dickson
1. Bythotrephis (Chondrites) succulens, Hall.
2. Stromatocerium rugosum, Hall.
3. Tetradium fibratum, Safford.
4. Columnaria Halli, Nicholson.
5. Orthis tricenaria, Conrad.
6. Actinoceras Bigsbyi, Stokes.
TRENTON FORMATION
IX. Pakenham, Ontario, from the collection of the late Sheriff Dickson
1. Licrophycus minor, Billings-
2. Solenopora compacta, Billings.
3. Prasopora oculala, Foord.
4. Prasopora lycoperdon, Vanuxem. (= P. Selwyni, Nich.)
5. Agelacrinites Dicksoni, Billings
6. Glyptocrinus ramulosus. Billings.
7. Pleurocystites squamosus, Billings.
8. Lingula quadrata, Eichwald, as of Billings.
9. Lingula riciniformis, Hall
10. Plectambonites sericeus, Sowerby.
11. Rafinesquina alternata (Conrad), Emmons.
12. Rafinesquina detoidea, Conrad.
13. Dalmanella testudinaria, Dalman.
1 4. Murchisonia bellicincta, Hall.
15. Fusispira subfusiformis ? Hall.
16. Orthoceras sp.
17. Endoceras proliforme, Hall.
18. Asaphus platycephalus, Stokes
19. Calymene senaria, Conrad.
20. Ceraurus pleurexanthemus, Green.
Ami, H. M., 1904, Preliminary lists of fossil organic remains from the Potsdam, Beekmantown (Calciferous), Chazy, Black River, Trenton, Utica and Pleistocene formations comprised within the Perth Sheet (No. 119) in Eastern Ontario, Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report for 1901, Volume XIV (New Series), Part J, Report No. 790, at pages 84J-85J.
++++++++++++
Perhaps the greatest praise for Andrew Dickson appeared in an article entitled Elementary Geology that was published in the July, 1855 edition of The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art. The article talks about the passion for geology in Ottawa and up the Ottawa valley, the Silurian Society that had formed in Ottawa, and the untimely death of Hugh Miller, a self taught Scottish geologist who was held in high esteem in Great Britain. It continued:
“We do not require to search long or wide for a Canadian Hugh Miller ; one not known to the public by his writings or published discoveries, but rather by a most honourable mention in the report of the Director of the Canadian Geological Survey; by a unique collection of palaeontological monuments of Silurian age ; by unsurpassed mineralogical proofs of the hidden wealth of the Ottawa valley; by a patient and laborious study of Canadian rocks when a Geological Survey of the country was hardly thought of, and by the fact that many of these investigations were carried on, and fossil and mineral treasures discovered and hoarded up, during years of wild and romantic life in the uninhabited parts of Canada and the trackless regions of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territory; trusting to his rod and his gun for the support of life, and, like Hugh Miller, exchanging all day-dreams and amusements for the kind of life in which men " toil every day that they may be enabled to eat, and eat every day that they may be enabled to toil." With the early progress and development of the Geology of Canada, the name of Andrew Dickson will always be honorably associated.“
Anonymous, 1855, Elementary Geology, The Canadian Journal of Industry, Science and Art, 1854'5 , Vol. III, pages 285 - 287 at 286.
+++++++++
Years after Andrew Dickson’s death, stone from his quarry was used to construct the five span stone bridge at Pakenham, shown below.
The photo is from Library and Archives Canada (MIKAN 3318277) and was taken about 1910 by Augustus L Handford.
Ann P. Sabina (2007) reports that Andrew Dickson’s quarry is now inactive, but that fossils are abundant in Ordovician Black River limestone in the inactive quarry and in rock exposures nearby. She reports that the fossils include corals, cephalopods, trilobites, brachiopods, bryozoans and cystoids. She gives the following directions to the quarry: “The Pakenham quarry is on the face of a hill at the east end of the bridge in Pakenham; it is on the east side of Lanark County Road 20 at a point 5.8 km southwest of its junction with Highway 17.”
Sabina, Ann P. 2007, Rocks and Minerals for the Collector: Ottawa to North Bay and Huntsville, Ontario; Gatineau (Hull) to Waltham and Témiscaming, Quebec. GSC Miscellaneous Report 48
The Ontario Geological Survey lists two abandoned quarries with the name Pakenham Quarry in the Township of Pakenham. As the Village of Pakenham falls within lot 11 of concession 11 of Pakenham Township, the following may be the UTM co-ordinates for Andrew Dickson’s quarry:
Pakenham Quarry
Lot: 11, Concession: 11
UTM Zone: 18
UTM Easting: 399528.012
UTM Northing: 5020897.084
+++++++++++++
Christopher Brett
Perth, Lanark County
Monday 28 April 2014
Peristerite and its Connection With Lanark County
Peristerite, from peristeria, a pigeon, the colours resembling a pigeon’s neck.
Specimens of Peristerite, a variety of plagioclase feldspar with a bluish opalescence, are on display in the mineral cabinets at the Matheson House Museum on Gore Street in Perth, Lanark County, Ontario. It is fitting that specimens of Peristerite should be on display in Perth, because the first specimens of Peristerite to be reported in the scientific literature were found about eleven kilometers from the Town of Perth.
Peristerite was named in a paper published in 1843 by Dr. Thomas Thomson, M.D., Regius Professor of Chemistry in the University of Glasgow. He named Peristerite after the Greek word ‘peristeria’ which means pigeon, from “the colours resembling a pigeons neck.”. Dr. Thomson named the new mineral based on specimens sent to him by two medical doctors and avid mineral collectors in Canada: Dr. James Wilson, who practiced in the Town of Perth in Upper Canada and Dr. A. F. Holmes, who practiced in Montreal in Lower Canada. Both were graduates of the University of Edinburgh. Dr. James Wilson collected his specimens from the nineteenth lot of the ninth Concession of Bathurst Township, in what is now Lanark County. I have not been able to determine where Dr. Holmes collected the specimens that he found and sent to Dr. Thomson.
I have previously commented on Dr. James Wilson’s life in my posting dated October 9, 2012 entitled New Display of Dr. James Wilson’s Mineral And Fossil Collection at the Perth Museum. Dr. James Wilson (1798-1881) emigrated to Canada and practiced as a physician in Perth, Ontario from 1821 to 1869, and then retired to Scotland. Dr. Wilson was an amateur mineralogist and geologist who is credited with being the first to find the trace fossil Climactichnites Wilsoni, and the minerals Perthite and Peristerite. In addition, he found outcrops that later became apatite (phosphate), mica or graphite mines, and found numerous mineral occurrences. He provided locations and specimens to the Geological Survey of Canada and was a friend of Sir William Logan. In October, 2012 the Perth Museum at Matheson House in Perth, Ontario opened to the public its new Geology Exhibition, which features a display of part of the mineral and fossil collection of Dr. James Wilson, including specimens of Climactichnites wilsoni .
Dr. Andrew Fernando Holmes (1797 -1860) had an even more interesting life. He was born at Cadiz, Spain because the vessel in which his British parents sailed had been captured by a French frigate and taken to Spain as a prize. He received his early education in Montreal and received his licence from the Montreal board of medical examiners. He later received a diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1818 and a Doctor of Medicine degree from University of Edinburgh in 1819. Returning to Canada, he practiced medicine. In 1823 with Dr John Stephenson he founded the first medical school in Canada , which later joined McGill College to become the McGill College Medical Faculty. He was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Montreal in 1827, catalogued the minerals and geological specimens in the society's cabinets, and was a curator of its museum. He was an avid collector of both plants and minerals, and later in life sold his collection of minerals to McGill (where today it forms part of the collection of the Redpath Museum at McGill University). In addition to collecting one of the first specimens of Peristerite, he is credited with collecting the first specimen of Bytownite.
Dr. Thomas Thomson (1773 - 1852), M.D., who named Peristerite, was a leading chemist of his day. Dr. Thomson announced Peristerite to the world in a paper read before the Glasgow Philosophical Society on November 2, 1842, and published in 1843 in Volume XXII of the Philosophical Magazine. Here is the first part of his report:
“Peristerite .–The next mineral which I have to mention was sent to me from Perth in Upper Canada, by Mr. Wilson, and also by Dr. Holmes of Montreal, under the name of Iridescent felspar; but neither its characters nor its composition correspond with that appellation.
The specimens were amorphous masses, and had the appearance of having constituted part of a rock blasted by gunpowder.
It is light brownish red, and exhibits a play of colours, chiefly blue, on the surface. It is translucent on the edges; the lustre is vitreous, and the texture imperfectly foliated: its hardness is only 3.75, which is a good deal less than felspar. Its specific gravity is 2.568.
Before the blowpipe it becomes white but does not melt. With carbonate of soda it melts into a green coloured bead, and on adding nitre the colour becomes red: with borax it fuse into a colourless bead.
Its constituents were found to be
Silica............................................ .72.35
Alumina....... ............................... 7.60
Potash.......................................... 15.06
Lime .............................................. 1.35
Magnesia...................................... 1.00
Oxides of iron and manganese 1.25
Moisture ...................................... 0.50
99.11
The silica is much greater than in felspar, and that alumina much less, while the proportion of potash is nearly the same.”
See: Thomson, T. (1843), Notice of Some New Minerals, Philosophical Magazine, New Series, Volume XXII, page 188 at pages 189-190.
Unfortunately, Dr. Thomas Thomson’s chemical analysis and much of his description contained significant errors.
Within a decade after Dr. Thomson’s paper was published, T. Sterry Hunt, Chemist and Mineralogist to Canada’s Geological Survey, in two nearly identical papers, provided a much more accurate analysis and description of peristerite, from specimens provided by Dr. Wilson of Perth, in part to correct Dr. Thomson’s “unfortunate want of precision in his mineralogical description” and the fact that Dr. Thomson’s chemical compositions “seemed but little accordant with their general physical characters” . T. S. Hunt commented:
“The second species to be noticed is that described by Dr. Thomson under the name of peristerite, in allusion to the beautiful play of colours analogous to that of Labradorite, which it exhibits. The specimens from Bathurst furnished to me by Dr. Wilson, as duplicates of those sent to Dr. Thomson, are composed of a mixture of quartz grains, readily distinguishable by their lustre, greater hardness and want of cleavage, disseminated through a felspar, which still so far predominates as to give distinct cleavages to the mass; such from his analysis, also would appear to be the substance examined by Dr. Thomson. Specimens of the substance furnished to me from the same locality exhibited the mineral in fine cleavable masses, free from quartz, and occasionally in consequence of an admixture of it, passing into the variety just described.
The crystalline form of the mineral shows it to belong to the triclinic system; the faces of cleavage give apparently the angles of albite, but do not admit to accurate measurement. ... The surface P shows a fine play of colours like Labradorite, in which a delicate cerulean blue predominates, occasionally passing into light green and yellow; the face M is often marked with striae parallel to P. The same play of colours and striation on alternate surfaces are distinguishable in the quartzose masses. The hardness of the mineral is 6 and the specific gravity 2.625 -2.627; lustre vitreous inclining to pearly on P; colour white, passing into pearl-gray, and reddish white or flesh-red in the quartzose specimens; translucent fracture uneven.... the analysis of the pure specimen gave:–
I. II.
Silica........................................... 66.80 ............................. 67.25
Alumina....... ............................... 21,80
Potash.......................................... .58
Soda ........................................ 7.00
Lime ........................................ 2.52 .............................. 2.03
Magnesia...................................... .20
Peroxides of iron ......................... .30
Loss on Ignition............................ .60 .................................. .66
99.80
The results of the analysis, conjoined with its physical characters, show this mineral to be albite. ... Thomson, in his analysis of the peristerite, gives a much larger proportion of silica, but as has been before observed, the specimens examined by him were the quartzose mechanical aggregate.”
[T. S. Hunt (1852), Report of T.S. Hunt, Esq., Chemist and Mineralogist to the Provincial Geological Survey, Addressed to W. E. Logan, Esq., Provincial Geologist, Geological Survey of Canada Report of Progress for the Year 1850 - 1851, at pages 37 -38;
T. S. Hunt (1851), Examinations of Some Canadian Minerals, Philosophical Magazine, Fourth Series, Volume 1, page 322, at pages 323-324; ]
For close to 100 years after T. Sterry Hunt’s paper there was debate in the scientific literature as to whether the “Peristerite of Thomson” was simply albite. Today Peristerite is known to represent a submicroscopically exsolved form of plagioclase feldspar in the range of about An2 to An17 (albite to oligoclase), where because of the submicroscopic intergrowths of two different plagioclase feldspars (one a sodium rich albite and the other a more calcium rich oligoclase), interference effects result in iridescence. Another way of saying this is that the original homogeneous plagioclase feldspar has submicroscopically unmixed into two plagioclase components, with one plagioclase component in the range of An0-5 and the other plagioclase component in the range of An20-35. The blue play of colours, the iridescence or schiller, results from the submicroscopic exsolution, and arises from diffusion of light through adjoining crystals of different optical properties, or from reflection and diffraction arising from diffusion of light through adjoining crystals of different optical properties. The exsolved microstructures can take the form of lamellae, tweeds and blebs, with lamellae in the range of 15 to 35 nm thick.
Last summer I attempted, without success, to locate the original type locality in the nineteenth lot of the ninth Concession of Bathurst Township, in Lanark County. I did find an outcrop displaying a graphic intergrowth of quartz with Perthite, and I located two of the abandoned feldspar mines in the ninth Concession (but on different lots than the nineteenth), but didn’t find what I was looking for.
Below is a photograph [Sam_0532] of Peristerite specimens that are on display in the mineral cabinets at the Matheson House Museum in the Town of Perth, Lanark County, Ontario.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Specimens of Peristerite, a variety of plagioclase feldspar with a bluish opalescence, are on display in the mineral cabinets at the Matheson House Museum on Gore Street in Perth, Lanark County, Ontario. It is fitting that specimens of Peristerite should be on display in Perth, because the first specimens of Peristerite to be reported in the scientific literature were found about eleven kilometers from the Town of Perth.
Peristerite was named in a paper published in 1843 by Dr. Thomas Thomson, M.D., Regius Professor of Chemistry in the University of Glasgow. He named Peristerite after the Greek word ‘peristeria’ which means pigeon, from “the colours resembling a pigeons neck.”. Dr. Thomson named the new mineral based on specimens sent to him by two medical doctors and avid mineral collectors in Canada: Dr. James Wilson, who practiced in the Town of Perth in Upper Canada and Dr. A. F. Holmes, who practiced in Montreal in Lower Canada. Both were graduates of the University of Edinburgh. Dr. James Wilson collected his specimens from the nineteenth lot of the ninth Concession of Bathurst Township, in what is now Lanark County. I have not been able to determine where Dr. Holmes collected the specimens that he found and sent to Dr. Thomson.
I have previously commented on Dr. James Wilson’s life in my posting dated October 9, 2012 entitled New Display of Dr. James Wilson’s Mineral And Fossil Collection at the Perth Museum. Dr. James Wilson (1798-1881) emigrated to Canada and practiced as a physician in Perth, Ontario from 1821 to 1869, and then retired to Scotland. Dr. Wilson was an amateur mineralogist and geologist who is credited with being the first to find the trace fossil Climactichnites Wilsoni, and the minerals Perthite and Peristerite. In addition, he found outcrops that later became apatite (phosphate), mica or graphite mines, and found numerous mineral occurrences. He provided locations and specimens to the Geological Survey of Canada and was a friend of Sir William Logan. In October, 2012 the Perth Museum at Matheson House in Perth, Ontario opened to the public its new Geology Exhibition, which features a display of part of the mineral and fossil collection of Dr. James Wilson, including specimens of Climactichnites wilsoni .
Dr. Andrew Fernando Holmes (1797 -1860) had an even more interesting life. He was born at Cadiz, Spain because the vessel in which his British parents sailed had been captured by a French frigate and taken to Spain as a prize. He received his early education in Montreal and received his licence from the Montreal board of medical examiners. He later received a diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1818 and a Doctor of Medicine degree from University of Edinburgh in 1819. Returning to Canada, he practiced medicine. In 1823 with Dr John Stephenson he founded the first medical school in Canada , which later joined McGill College to become the McGill College Medical Faculty. He was a founding member of the Natural History Society of Montreal in 1827, catalogued the minerals and geological specimens in the society's cabinets, and was a curator of its museum. He was an avid collector of both plants and minerals, and later in life sold his collection of minerals to McGill (where today it forms part of the collection of the Redpath Museum at McGill University). In addition to collecting one of the first specimens of Peristerite, he is credited with collecting the first specimen of Bytownite.
Dr. Thomas Thomson (1773 - 1852), M.D., who named Peristerite, was a leading chemist of his day. Dr. Thomson announced Peristerite to the world in a paper read before the Glasgow Philosophical Society on November 2, 1842, and published in 1843 in Volume XXII of the Philosophical Magazine. Here is the first part of his report:
“Peristerite .–The next mineral which I have to mention was sent to me from Perth in Upper Canada, by Mr. Wilson, and also by Dr. Holmes of Montreal, under the name of Iridescent felspar; but neither its characters nor its composition correspond with that appellation.
The specimens were amorphous masses, and had the appearance of having constituted part of a rock blasted by gunpowder.
It is light brownish red, and exhibits a play of colours, chiefly blue, on the surface. It is translucent on the edges; the lustre is vitreous, and the texture imperfectly foliated: its hardness is only 3.75, which is a good deal less than felspar. Its specific gravity is 2.568.
Before the blowpipe it becomes white but does not melt. With carbonate of soda it melts into a green coloured bead, and on adding nitre the colour becomes red: with borax it fuse into a colourless bead.
Its constituents were found to be
Silica............................................ .72.35
Alumina....... ............................... 7.60
Potash.......................................... 15.06
Lime .............................................. 1.35
Magnesia...................................... 1.00
Oxides of iron and manganese 1.25
Moisture ...................................... 0.50
99.11
The silica is much greater than in felspar, and that alumina much less, while the proportion of potash is nearly the same.”
See: Thomson, T. (1843), Notice of Some New Minerals, Philosophical Magazine, New Series, Volume XXII, page 188 at pages 189-190.
Unfortunately, Dr. Thomas Thomson’s chemical analysis and much of his description contained significant errors.
Within a decade after Dr. Thomson’s paper was published, T. Sterry Hunt, Chemist and Mineralogist to Canada’s Geological Survey, in two nearly identical papers, provided a much more accurate analysis and description of peristerite, from specimens provided by Dr. Wilson of Perth, in part to correct Dr. Thomson’s “unfortunate want of precision in his mineralogical description” and the fact that Dr. Thomson’s chemical compositions “seemed but little accordant with their general physical characters” . T. S. Hunt commented:
“The second species to be noticed is that described by Dr. Thomson under the name of peristerite, in allusion to the beautiful play of colours analogous to that of Labradorite, which it exhibits. The specimens from Bathurst furnished to me by Dr. Wilson, as duplicates of those sent to Dr. Thomson, are composed of a mixture of quartz grains, readily distinguishable by their lustre, greater hardness and want of cleavage, disseminated through a felspar, which still so far predominates as to give distinct cleavages to the mass; such from his analysis, also would appear to be the substance examined by Dr. Thomson. Specimens of the substance furnished to me from the same locality exhibited the mineral in fine cleavable masses, free from quartz, and occasionally in consequence of an admixture of it, passing into the variety just described.
The crystalline form of the mineral shows it to belong to the triclinic system; the faces of cleavage give apparently the angles of albite, but do not admit to accurate measurement. ... The surface P shows a fine play of colours like Labradorite, in which a delicate cerulean blue predominates, occasionally passing into light green and yellow; the face M is often marked with striae parallel to P. The same play of colours and striation on alternate surfaces are distinguishable in the quartzose masses. The hardness of the mineral is 6 and the specific gravity 2.625 -2.627; lustre vitreous inclining to pearly on P; colour white, passing into pearl-gray, and reddish white or flesh-red in the quartzose specimens; translucent fracture uneven.... the analysis of the pure specimen gave:–
I. II.
Silica........................................... 66.80 ............................. 67.25
Alumina....... ............................... 21,80
Potash.......................................... .58
Soda ........................................ 7.00
Lime ........................................ 2.52 .............................. 2.03
Magnesia...................................... .20
Peroxides of iron ......................... .30
Loss on Ignition............................ .60 .................................. .66
99.80
The results of the analysis, conjoined with its physical characters, show this mineral to be albite. ... Thomson, in his analysis of the peristerite, gives a much larger proportion of silica, but as has been before observed, the specimens examined by him were the quartzose mechanical aggregate.”
[T. S. Hunt (1852), Report of T.S. Hunt, Esq., Chemist and Mineralogist to the Provincial Geological Survey, Addressed to W. E. Logan, Esq., Provincial Geologist, Geological Survey of Canada Report of Progress for the Year 1850 - 1851, at pages 37 -38;
T. S. Hunt (1851), Examinations of Some Canadian Minerals, Philosophical Magazine, Fourth Series, Volume 1, page 322, at pages 323-324; ]
For close to 100 years after T. Sterry Hunt’s paper there was debate in the scientific literature as to whether the “Peristerite of Thomson” was simply albite. Today Peristerite is known to represent a submicroscopically exsolved form of plagioclase feldspar in the range of about An2 to An17 (albite to oligoclase), where because of the submicroscopic intergrowths of two different plagioclase feldspars (one a sodium rich albite and the other a more calcium rich oligoclase), interference effects result in iridescence. Another way of saying this is that the original homogeneous plagioclase feldspar has submicroscopically unmixed into two plagioclase components, with one plagioclase component in the range of An0-5 and the other plagioclase component in the range of An20-35. The blue play of colours, the iridescence or schiller, results from the submicroscopic exsolution, and arises from diffusion of light through adjoining crystals of different optical properties, or from reflection and diffraction arising from diffusion of light through adjoining crystals of different optical properties. The exsolved microstructures can take the form of lamellae, tweeds and blebs, with lamellae in the range of 15 to 35 nm thick.
Last summer I attempted, without success, to locate the original type locality in the nineteenth lot of the ninth Concession of Bathurst Township, in Lanark County. I did find an outcrop displaying a graphic intergrowth of quartz with Perthite, and I located two of the abandoned feldspar mines in the ninth Concession (but on different lots than the nineteenth), but didn’t find what I was looking for.
Below is a photograph [Sam_0532] of Peristerite specimens that are on display in the mineral cabinets at the Matheson House Museum in the Town of Perth, Lanark County, Ontario.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Friday 7 March 2014
My Hunt for Sir William Logan’s Specimens of Protichnites
It is amazing how time flies by. Since September I’ve been meaning to visit the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Research and Collections Facility on Pink Road in Gatineau, Quebec (across the river from Ottawa) to look at a number of Sir William Logan’s specimens of Protichnites that were collected at Beauharnois, but I’ve not managed to make the time. Since September I’ve been meaning to visit the Redpath Museum at McGill University to look at a specimen that might be one of Logan’s, but again I’ve not managed to make the time. Since September, I’ve been meaning to follow up on a lead at the British Museum, but again I’ve not made the time. What can I say other than that it’s been a long, cold, bitter winter (possibly the coldest in twenty years).
My statement that a number of Logan’s specimens from Beauharnois are in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature will probably come as a surprise to most readers, as the specimens were thought to be missing. Mis-catalogued would be a more accurate description. That other of Logan’s specimens might be in the Redpath Museum and the British Museum, will also seem odd to certain readers. That I’ve not made time to drive to Gatineau or to Montreal over the past few months probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has spent this past winter in Eastern Ontario.
I had initially written this posting last September. I held off posting, waiting to include photos of the specimens from my visit to the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Research and Collections Facility. As it’s been six months, I’ve decided to report what I found, principally as a result of finding references to the specimens in the literature, and contacting various museums. I concentrated on the Canadian Museum of Nature, Logan Hall (the museum of the Geological Survey of Canada), the British Museum, and the Redpath Museum at McGill University. Surprisingly, most of Sir William Logan's ‘missing’ specimens could be in the collections of those museums.
Those that are interested in the trace fossil Protichnites will be aware that in 1851 and 1852 W. E. Logan took a number of specimens and casts to London, that lithographs of the six type trackways and an additional trackway appeared in Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, that a number of the type trackways were figured in Logan’s 1863 publication Geology of Canada, that the original specimens disappeared from the records of the Geological Survey of Canada and have not been seen for over a century, and that within the past decade Dr. MacNaughton and Dr. Hagadorn reported on the plaster casts in the collection of the Amherst Museum, compared them with Logan’s specimens that were figured in the Geology of Canada, and had duplicate casts made for the collection of the Geological Survey of Canada.
The original specimens that were thought to have gone missing are four specimens taken to London by Logan, the specimens for the six type trackways that appeared in Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, and the specimens from Beauharnois that were figured in the Geology of Canada. (There is some overlap in those specimens. For example, (a) one of the slabs taken to London is Professor Owen’s No. 3– Protichnites latus, (b) Professor Owen’s No. 4 – Protichnites multinotatus – is figure 14 in Logan’s Geology of Canada.)
The Specimens Taken To London, England by Logan
In 1851 Logan took to London a small slab and the plaster cast of a large specimen that were found in a quarry near the mill on the left bank of the St. Louis River, village of Beauharnois, south side of the St. Lawrence River. Logan described the specimens as follows:
"The specimens consist of a small slab of sandstone, showing foot-prints on one of its surfaces, and a plaster cast from a longer surface of a similar description. The original is in the museum at Montreal connected with the Geological Survey of Canada... [and] weighs more than a ton. ... The most western portion of what was exposed is that removed to Montreal, like the plaster-cast, measuring 12 ½ feet in length."
In 1852 Logan took to London three slabs and 100 casts. One of the slabs was the original of the cast he had taken in 1851. The three slabs were described by Logan as follows:
First slab, 12 ½ feet in length, No. 7 of Prof. Owen (likely shown in Plate XIV.A of Owen’s 1852 paper), from the quarry on the bank of the St. Louis River, village of Beauharnois;
Second slab, 8 feet in length, No. 3 of Prof. Owen– Protichnites latus, from Henault’s Field, near Beauharnois;
Third slab, with two tracks and ripple-mark upon it, from the Island of St. Généviève in the St. Lawrence River, south of Montreal Island.
A footnote at the bottom of page 212 of Logan’s 1852 paper states that the second slab was “temporarily placed in the Society’s Museum by Mr. Logan.” This was the Museum of the Geological Society of London.
A Specimen at the British Museum, London, England
Interestingly, the British Museum may have one of Logan’s specimen. The British Museum provides a service where it provides photographs of specimens in its collection. In answer to an emailed enquiry that I made in late June asking “Do you have photographs of the specimens of Protichnites that Sir William Logan deposited with the Geological Society in about 1852?” I was informed in July that:
“Our Trace fossil collection was moved off site and I don’t often get the opportunity to visit the store. However, without visiting it I have managed to find an electronic record – a specimen of Protichnites from the Cambrian of Canada, presented to us in 1911 by the Geological Society.
1911 is when the fossil collections of the Geological Society were divided between the Natural History Museum, who received all the foreign and colonial specimens, and the Geological Survey who received the material from the British Isles. I will be visiting the store in September and plan to look for this specimen to see if there is any further labels or information that would link it to Sir William Logan.”
While this could be any specimen of Protichnites from Canada, I am hoping that the specimen at the British Museum could be one of Logan’s. My best guess for the specimen at the British Museum is that it is the missing second slab.
Specimens at the Peter Redpath Museum at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
I suspect that everyone with an interest in geology that has visited Montreal has visited the Peter Redpath Museum at McGill University, if for no other reason than to look at the specimen of Climactichnites and Protichnites from Perth, Ontario that hangs in the stairwell of the museum. While in Montreal a year ago I attended at the museum to look at the specimen, and was not disappointed. It’s a gorgeous specimen.
And I suspect that those that have been reading the papers on Climactichnites and Protichnites that have been published in the last ten years are aware that the Peter Redpath museum has in its collection other specimens of Climactichnites and Protichnites from Perth, Ontario.
Interestingly, the Peter Redpath museum has additional specimens of Protichnites in its collection. In my review of the literature I came across the following reference:
"In the year 1851, Logan exhibited before the Geological Society of London, a small slab of sandstone showing some footprints, and a plaster cast from a larger surface of the similar description. The original, weighing upwards of a ton, is in the Museum at Montreal connected with the McGill University."
Hutchinson, H.N. (1910), Extinct Monsters and Creatures of Other Days, Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London (New and Enlarged Edition).
At first I discounted that reference. However, as it is the most recent reference that I found to the largest missing specimen I followed up on it. In answer to an email that I sent to the Peter Redpath Museum I was informed that they had located two specimens in the basement and was provided with photographs of the specimens.
The first is a slab placed in a wood frame, roughly 24” x 5.5” x 43.5”.
The second is a larger piece that had been separated into four pieces due to its large size. From smallest to largest the pieces are:
18” x 13”, 41 lbs
28” x 26”, 220 lbs
34” x 31”, 325 lbs
43” x 24”, 175 lbs
The measurements are approximate, and the weight of each slab is taken from what is written across the back of the slab. The maximum length of the combined pieces is 123 inches (10 feet, 3 inches) with a total weight of 761 pounds.
The Acting Collections Manager who provided me with the above has told me that he can’t be certain that the larger slab is Protichnites, nor can he confirm that it is Sir William Logan’s specimen. He has promised to dig through the museum’s records to try and find a paper trail.
In the photographs of both slabs appear to be Protichnites. The larger one is too short and too light to be Logan’s 12 ½ feet specimen weighing upwards of a ton, but it is worth further investigation.
Sir William Logan’s Specimens of Protichnites from Beauharnois, Quebec -- Located in the Collection of the Geological Survey of Canada from 1875 to 1896
In his book the Geology of Canada, Logan (1863) provided figures 12 - 17 showing various samples of Protichnites from Beauharnois. It is those specimens, plus a few from Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, that I believe are in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
My research revealed that in the period from at least 1875 to 1886 the Museum of the Survey, first in Montreal and later in Ottawa, had in its collection specimens of Protichnites septem-notatus, Protichnites octonotatus, Protichnites latus, Protichnites multi-notatus, Protichnites lineatus, and Protichnites alternans that were identified as being from Beauharnois, and that the specimens were still in the collection of the Survey as late as 1896. The four key references that I found, arranged chronologically from oldest to most recent are set out below.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. Selwyn - 1875: The Specimens are in the GSC’s Museum in Montreal
First, in his Summary Report of Geological Investigations dated at Montreal on May 1, 1875, that appeared in the Geological Survey of Canada’s Report of Progress for 1874-75, Alfred R. C. Selwyn, Director, reported on Mr. Billings’ duties as Curator of the palaeontological branch of the museum. Selwyn commented on the improvements to the specimens exhibited at the Museum, including the addition of printed labels giving a descriptive notice of the specimen and meaning of its name. As part of his report Selwyn included the label for the Protichnites specimens, part of which follows:
“The tracks occur in the Potsdam Sandstone in several localities, but most abundantly near Beauharnois, about 20 miles from Montreal. There are six kinds of tracks which have been named by Professor Owen as follows:
Protichnites septem-notatus
Protichnites octonotatus,
Protichnites latus,
Protichnites multi-notatus,
Protichnites lineatus,
Protichnites alternans.
All of these are on exhibition in this Museum.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Russell - 1877: The Specimens are in Montreal
Second, in a paper entitled “Concerning Foot-Prints” published in 1877, I. C. Russell mentioned:
“ Splendid specimens of Protichnites can be seen at Montreal, in the rooms of the Geological Survey of Canada, to whose director, Sir William Logan, we owe our knowledge of these interesting animals.”
(Russell, I. C. 1877, Concerning Foot-Prints, The American Naturalist, Volume XI, pages 406 -417 at 412)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Walcott’s Visit in 1886: The specimens are in the Museum in Ottawa
Third, in a book published in 1998 Dr. Yochelson of the Smithsonian provides a newspaper description of Charles Doolittle Walcott’s 1886 visit to Beauharnois where Walcott collected Protichnites specimens, which mentions that Walcott attended at the Museum in Ottawa to take
casts of specimens. The newspaper account is:
“Mr. Walcott, of the United States Geological Survey, is at present in this town, examining specimens of rock. He has found several turtle tracks in the sandstone, and some shells of that in the limestone. Although not so good as those taken by Sir William Logan, some years ago, he says they are very good of their kind. He has visited the Museum at Ottawa, from which he intends taking plaster casts of those placed there by Sir William Logan. These, together with his own, he will deposit in the National Museum at Washington.”
(Yochelson, Ellis Leon 1998, Charles Doolittle Walcott, Paleontologist, Kent University Press)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. Ami’s Report of 1896 - The specimens are in the Geological Survey’s Collection
“POTSDAM SANDSTONE
I. Beauharnois, Que., County of Beauharnois (Geological Survey collection):–
1. Protichnites septem-notatus, Owen
2. Protichnites octonotatus, Owen
3. Protichnites latus, Owen
4. Protichnites multi-notatus, Owen
5. Protichnites lineatus, Owen
6. Protichnites alternans, Owen”
[Ami, Henry. H., 1896, Preliminary Lists of Organic Remains Occurring in the various Geological Formations Comprised in the South-West Quarter-Sheet of the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec, Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series), Volume VII, No. 579, Part J, page 8J, Appendix to the Report by R. W. Ells entitled Report on a Portion of the Province of Quebec Comprised in the South-west Sheet of the “Eastern Townships” Map (Montreal Sheet)]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I expect that most people with an interest in geology who have lived in Ottawa and visited the Canadian Museum of Nature are aware that Canada’s Museum of Nature traces its history back to the Geological Museum of Canada's Geological Survey that was started by Sir William Logan in Montreal. They will also be aware that after Confederation the Survey and its museum were moved to Ottawa from Montreal, and that the Victoria Museum (the original name of Canada’s Museum of Nature) was initially constructed to house the Geological Survey and its museum. Those same people will have visited the Geological Survey of Canada’s current museum, Logan Hall, at 601 Booth Street.
The Museum of Civilization’s web site lists the key dates in the history of Canada’s national museum, including the following:
1843 Following the GSC’s first field season, the Government asks Logan to establish a museum showcasing the Survey’s results. The first GSC museum opens on James Street in Montreal.
1852 Logan supplies casts of animal tracks for a display by London’s Geological Society, establishing the GSC’s interest in areas other than mineralogy. Logan also writes a paper recommending a permanent museum for the Province; the museum was expected to focus on geology but include some human history material.
1856 The Province of Canada passes an act which, among other things, enables the GSC to establish a Geological Museum open to the public.
1877 [By] Act of Parliament [the]... GSC’s official mandate is expanded to include the study of modern flora and fauna, as well as ancient human history, traditions, languages and current living conditions in undeveloped parts of the country.
1881 The GSC and its museum move to a former luxury hotel at the corner of Sussex and George streets in downtown Ottawa.
1910 The GSC and its museum occupy the new Victoria Memorial Museum Building (VMMB) on Metcalfe Street in Ottawa.
1959 The GSC leaves the VMMB for new facilities on Booth Street in Ottawa.
[ http://www.civilization.ca/about-us/about-the-museum/history-of-the-museum-of-civilization ]
Based on my research I believed that it was likely that the missing specimens of Protichnites could be in Ottawa, either in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature or in the collection kept for the Survey’s museum in Logan Hall. Based on that belief I sent emails to curators at both museums asking if they had specimens of Protichnites in their collections, and also sent an email to the person that I thought was responsible for the Survey’s type collection.
My enquiry to the Canadian Museum of Nature was answered by Margaret Currie, Collection Technician, who told me:
“ Regarding the trackways of Protichnites, we have one catalogued trackway in our database - a species called Protichnites multinotatus, which was collected in Quebec in the mid-1850's. We have a few other uncatalogued (and, I believe, unidentified) invertebrate trackways in the collection. But as far as I know, most of the specimens collected at that time are still
housed at the GSC.”
That was truly exciting news.
My enquiry sent to the person that I thought was curator of the GSC’s Logan Hall museum was answered by Michelle Coyne, Curator, Organic Materials Collections, Natural Resources Canada. (I later learned that she is the manager of the National Type Collection of Invertebrate and Plant Fossils as well as several other collections.) She told me that the material “is no longer here” but included valuable information from the GSC’s log books listing the missing specimens. Her reply shows that about 19 specimens of Protichnites and Diplichnites were missing, and fall within the range of specimens given the numbers 4700 to 4713 (including specimens 4703, a-c, 4707 a, b and 4708, a-d). Interestingly, her reply also settles whether Logan or Richardson collected a number of specimens from Beauharnois, identifies the Plesiotypes that are figured in Logan 1863, and identifies figure 15 from Logan 1863 as being from Papineauville, Quebec rather than Beauharnois.
My enquiry to the person that I thought was responsible for the type collection replied that I should be contacting Michelle Coyne.
In the course of the above my emails and the responses were copied to Dr. Robert MacNaughton, the Geological Survey of Canada’s expert on Protichnites. While I had not met Dr. MacNaughton, I had previously corresponded with him by email in my search for the quarry near Perth that was the first source for Climactichnites, and he has been good enough to correct my misidentification of a number of trace fossils, including one that I first thought was Climactichnites and he corrected to Protichnites. Dr. MacNaughton informed me that thanks to a bit of serendipity he had been able to identify the types based on material figured in an existing Canadian Museum of Nature publication and had passed this information on to Michelle Coyne's predecessor, but his other duties had prevented him from doing any further work at that time, or following up with the staff at Canadian Museum of Nature. While I am pleased that my efforts spurred him to communicate his identifications to Margaret Currie, it did ruin a good blog posting, and certainly took the excitement out of going to look at the specimens as they can be looked at in an online publication.
I've looked at Harington, Foster, Holmes & Currie's 2005 publication Photographic catalogue of trackways in the Canadian Museum of Nature. This is available free on the internet from http://archive.org/. I can see why Dr. MacNaughton came to the conclusion that at least some of the GSC's missing type specimens are in the Museum of Nature's collection. The photograph of CMN 34843 jumps off the page as being one of Logan's. It is figure 14 in Logan’s Geology of Canada – Protichnites multinotatus (Owen). And I note that specimen CMN 4702 has the same number as one of the other specimens that Michelle Coyne told me has gone missing.
The Photographic catalogue of trackways in the Canadian Museum of Nature misidentifies a number of specimens as Kouphichnium stating incorrectly that “Protichnites can be distinguished from Kouphichnium by the possession of a double median furrow.” A number of the specimens identified in the publication as Kouphichnium should have been identified as Protichnites and others as Diplichnites.
Michelle Coyne’s email suggests that there are nineteen missing specimens. Harington’s publication includes a specimen identified as P. Multinotatus and numerous specimens misidentified as Kouphichnium (where the locality is not known) that might be Logan’s missing specimens of Protichnites and Diplichnites. The following are worth a look:
Specimen Number Harington’s Identification My Identification
CMN 4702 Kouphichnium Diplichnites
CMN 34834 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34835 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34836 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34838 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34839 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34841 P. Multinotatus (Owen) Protichnites
CMN 34842 Kouphichnium - Diplichnites
“may actually be” Diplichnites
CMN 34843 Kouphichnium Logan’s specimen of Protichnites Multinotatus (Owen)
CMN 34844 Kouphichnium
“likely” Diplichnites Diplichnites
CMN 34848A Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34848B Kouphichnium Protichnites
Those are the specimens that I had intended to look at and photograph at the Museum of Nature.
I had hoped to meet Dr. MacNaughton in Gatineau last fall to look at the specimens at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Research and Collections Facility in Gatineau. That hasn’t happened, and I’m not sure if he has had the chance to look at the specimens. Perhaps others will now take the time to visit and examine the specimens.
Below I’ve provided, for ease of reference, both (a) the page from Logan’s 1863 publication Geology of Canada with the trackways from Beauharnois, and (b) the six plates of the type specimens from Professor Owen’s 1852 paper.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
My statement that a number of Logan’s specimens from Beauharnois are in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature will probably come as a surprise to most readers, as the specimens were thought to be missing. Mis-catalogued would be a more accurate description. That other of Logan’s specimens might be in the Redpath Museum and the British Museum, will also seem odd to certain readers. That I’ve not made time to drive to Gatineau or to Montreal over the past few months probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has spent this past winter in Eastern Ontario.
I had initially written this posting last September. I held off posting, waiting to include photos of the specimens from my visit to the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Research and Collections Facility. As it’s been six months, I’ve decided to report what I found, principally as a result of finding references to the specimens in the literature, and contacting various museums. I concentrated on the Canadian Museum of Nature, Logan Hall (the museum of the Geological Survey of Canada), the British Museum, and the Redpath Museum at McGill University. Surprisingly, most of Sir William Logan's ‘missing’ specimens could be in the collections of those museums.
Those that are interested in the trace fossil Protichnites will be aware that in 1851 and 1852 W. E. Logan took a number of specimens and casts to London, that lithographs of the six type trackways and an additional trackway appeared in Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, that a number of the type trackways were figured in Logan’s 1863 publication Geology of Canada, that the original specimens disappeared from the records of the Geological Survey of Canada and have not been seen for over a century, and that within the past decade Dr. MacNaughton and Dr. Hagadorn reported on the plaster casts in the collection of the Amherst Museum, compared them with Logan’s specimens that were figured in the Geology of Canada, and had duplicate casts made for the collection of the Geological Survey of Canada.
The original specimens that were thought to have gone missing are four specimens taken to London by Logan, the specimens for the six type trackways that appeared in Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, and the specimens from Beauharnois that were figured in the Geology of Canada. (There is some overlap in those specimens. For example, (a) one of the slabs taken to London is Professor Owen’s No. 3– Protichnites latus, (b) Professor Owen’s No. 4 – Protichnites multinotatus – is figure 14 in Logan’s Geology of Canada.)
The Specimens Taken To London, England by Logan
In 1851 Logan took to London a small slab and the plaster cast of a large specimen that were found in a quarry near the mill on the left bank of the St. Louis River, village of Beauharnois, south side of the St. Lawrence River. Logan described the specimens as follows:
"The specimens consist of a small slab of sandstone, showing foot-prints on one of its surfaces, and a plaster cast from a longer surface of a similar description. The original is in the museum at Montreal connected with the Geological Survey of Canada... [and] weighs more than a ton. ... The most western portion of what was exposed is that removed to Montreal, like the plaster-cast, measuring 12 ½ feet in length."
In 1852 Logan took to London three slabs and 100 casts. One of the slabs was the original of the cast he had taken in 1851. The three slabs were described by Logan as follows:
First slab, 12 ½ feet in length, No. 7 of Prof. Owen (likely shown in Plate XIV.A of Owen’s 1852 paper), from the quarry on the bank of the St. Louis River, village of Beauharnois;
Second slab, 8 feet in length, No. 3 of Prof. Owen– Protichnites latus, from Henault’s Field, near Beauharnois;
Third slab, with two tracks and ripple-mark upon it, from the Island of St. Généviève in the St. Lawrence River, south of Montreal Island.
A footnote at the bottom of page 212 of Logan’s 1852 paper states that the second slab was “temporarily placed in the Society’s Museum by Mr. Logan.” This was the Museum of the Geological Society of London.
A Specimen at the British Museum, London, England
Interestingly, the British Museum may have one of Logan’s specimen. The British Museum provides a service where it provides photographs of specimens in its collection. In answer to an emailed enquiry that I made in late June asking “Do you have photographs of the specimens of Protichnites that Sir William Logan deposited with the Geological Society in about 1852?” I was informed in July that:
“Our Trace fossil collection was moved off site and I don’t often get the opportunity to visit the store. However, without visiting it I have managed to find an electronic record – a specimen of Protichnites from the Cambrian of Canada, presented to us in 1911 by the Geological Society.
1911 is when the fossil collections of the Geological Society were divided between the Natural History Museum, who received all the foreign and colonial specimens, and the Geological Survey who received the material from the British Isles. I will be visiting the store in September and plan to look for this specimen to see if there is any further labels or information that would link it to Sir William Logan.”
While this could be any specimen of Protichnites from Canada, I am hoping that the specimen at the British Museum could be one of Logan’s. My best guess for the specimen at the British Museum is that it is the missing second slab.
Specimens at the Peter Redpath Museum at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
I suspect that everyone with an interest in geology that has visited Montreal has visited the Peter Redpath Museum at McGill University, if for no other reason than to look at the specimen of Climactichnites and Protichnites from Perth, Ontario that hangs in the stairwell of the museum. While in Montreal a year ago I attended at the museum to look at the specimen, and was not disappointed. It’s a gorgeous specimen.
And I suspect that those that have been reading the papers on Climactichnites and Protichnites that have been published in the last ten years are aware that the Peter Redpath museum has in its collection other specimens of Climactichnites and Protichnites from Perth, Ontario.
Interestingly, the Peter Redpath museum has additional specimens of Protichnites in its collection. In my review of the literature I came across the following reference:
"In the year 1851, Logan exhibited before the Geological Society of London, a small slab of sandstone showing some footprints, and a plaster cast from a larger surface of the similar description. The original, weighing upwards of a ton, is in the Museum at Montreal connected with the McGill University."
Hutchinson, H.N. (1910), Extinct Monsters and Creatures of Other Days, Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London (New and Enlarged Edition).
At first I discounted that reference. However, as it is the most recent reference that I found to the largest missing specimen I followed up on it. In answer to an email that I sent to the Peter Redpath Museum I was informed that they had located two specimens in the basement and was provided with photographs of the specimens.
The first is a slab placed in a wood frame, roughly 24” x 5.5” x 43.5”.
The second is a larger piece that had been separated into four pieces due to its large size. From smallest to largest the pieces are:
18” x 13”, 41 lbs
28” x 26”, 220 lbs
34” x 31”, 325 lbs
43” x 24”, 175 lbs
The measurements are approximate, and the weight of each slab is taken from what is written across the back of the slab. The maximum length of the combined pieces is 123 inches (10 feet, 3 inches) with a total weight of 761 pounds.
The Acting Collections Manager who provided me with the above has told me that he can’t be certain that the larger slab is Protichnites, nor can he confirm that it is Sir William Logan’s specimen. He has promised to dig through the museum’s records to try and find a paper trail.
In the photographs of both slabs appear to be Protichnites. The larger one is too short and too light to be Logan’s 12 ½ feet specimen weighing upwards of a ton, but it is worth further investigation.
Sir William Logan’s Specimens of Protichnites from Beauharnois, Quebec -- Located in the Collection of the Geological Survey of Canada from 1875 to 1896
In his book the Geology of Canada, Logan (1863) provided figures 12 - 17 showing various samples of Protichnites from Beauharnois. It is those specimens, plus a few from Professor Owen’s 1852 paper, that I believe are in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature.
My research revealed that in the period from at least 1875 to 1886 the Museum of the Survey, first in Montreal and later in Ottawa, had in its collection specimens of Protichnites septem-notatus, Protichnites octonotatus, Protichnites latus, Protichnites multi-notatus, Protichnites lineatus, and Protichnites alternans that were identified as being from Beauharnois, and that the specimens were still in the collection of the Survey as late as 1896. The four key references that I found, arranged chronologically from oldest to most recent are set out below.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1. Selwyn - 1875: The Specimens are in the GSC’s Museum in Montreal
First, in his Summary Report of Geological Investigations dated at Montreal on May 1, 1875, that appeared in the Geological Survey of Canada’s Report of Progress for 1874-75, Alfred R. C. Selwyn, Director, reported on Mr. Billings’ duties as Curator of the palaeontological branch of the museum. Selwyn commented on the improvements to the specimens exhibited at the Museum, including the addition of printed labels giving a descriptive notice of the specimen and meaning of its name. As part of his report Selwyn included the label for the Protichnites specimens, part of which follows:
“The tracks occur in the Potsdam Sandstone in several localities, but most abundantly near Beauharnois, about 20 miles from Montreal. There are six kinds of tracks which have been named by Professor Owen as follows:
Protichnites septem-notatus
Protichnites octonotatus,
Protichnites latus,
Protichnites multi-notatus,
Protichnites lineatus,
Protichnites alternans.
All of these are on exhibition in this Museum.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2. Russell - 1877: The Specimens are in Montreal
Second, in a paper entitled “Concerning Foot-Prints” published in 1877, I. C. Russell mentioned:
“ Splendid specimens of Protichnites can be seen at Montreal, in the rooms of the Geological Survey of Canada, to whose director, Sir William Logan, we owe our knowledge of these interesting animals.”
(Russell, I. C. 1877, Concerning Foot-Prints, The American Naturalist, Volume XI, pages 406 -417 at 412)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3. Walcott’s Visit in 1886: The specimens are in the Museum in Ottawa
Third, in a book published in 1998 Dr. Yochelson of the Smithsonian provides a newspaper description of Charles Doolittle Walcott’s 1886 visit to Beauharnois where Walcott collected Protichnites specimens, which mentions that Walcott attended at the Museum in Ottawa to take
casts of specimens. The newspaper account is:
“Mr. Walcott, of the United States Geological Survey, is at present in this town, examining specimens of rock. He has found several turtle tracks in the sandstone, and some shells of that in the limestone. Although not so good as those taken by Sir William Logan, some years ago, he says they are very good of their kind. He has visited the Museum at Ottawa, from which he intends taking plaster casts of those placed there by Sir William Logan. These, together with his own, he will deposit in the National Museum at Washington.”
(Yochelson, Ellis Leon 1998, Charles Doolittle Walcott, Paleontologist, Kent University Press)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4. Ami’s Report of 1896 - The specimens are in the Geological Survey’s Collection
“POTSDAM SANDSTONE
I. Beauharnois, Que., County of Beauharnois (Geological Survey collection):–
1. Protichnites septem-notatus, Owen
2. Protichnites octonotatus, Owen
3. Protichnites latus, Owen
4. Protichnites multi-notatus, Owen
5. Protichnites lineatus, Owen
6. Protichnites alternans, Owen”
[Ami, Henry. H., 1896, Preliminary Lists of Organic Remains Occurring in the various Geological Formations Comprised in the South-West Quarter-Sheet of the Eastern Townships of the Province of Quebec, Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report (New Series), Volume VII, No. 579, Part J, page 8J, Appendix to the Report by R. W. Ells entitled Report on a Portion of the Province of Quebec Comprised in the South-west Sheet of the “Eastern Townships” Map (Montreal Sheet)]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I expect that most people with an interest in geology who have lived in Ottawa and visited the Canadian Museum of Nature are aware that Canada’s Museum of Nature traces its history back to the Geological Museum of Canada's Geological Survey that was started by Sir William Logan in Montreal. They will also be aware that after Confederation the Survey and its museum were moved to Ottawa from Montreal, and that the Victoria Museum (the original name of Canada’s Museum of Nature) was initially constructed to house the Geological Survey and its museum. Those same people will have visited the Geological Survey of Canada’s current museum, Logan Hall, at 601 Booth Street.
The Museum of Civilization’s web site lists the key dates in the history of Canada’s national museum, including the following:
1843 Following the GSC’s first field season, the Government asks Logan to establish a museum showcasing the Survey’s results. The first GSC museum opens on James Street in Montreal.
1852 Logan supplies casts of animal tracks for a display by London’s Geological Society, establishing the GSC’s interest in areas other than mineralogy. Logan also writes a paper recommending a permanent museum for the Province; the museum was expected to focus on geology but include some human history material.
1856 The Province of Canada passes an act which, among other things, enables the GSC to establish a Geological Museum open to the public.
1877 [By] Act of Parliament [the]... GSC’s official mandate is expanded to include the study of modern flora and fauna, as well as ancient human history, traditions, languages and current living conditions in undeveloped parts of the country.
1881 The GSC and its museum move to a former luxury hotel at the corner of Sussex and George streets in downtown Ottawa.
1910 The GSC and its museum occupy the new Victoria Memorial Museum Building (VMMB) on Metcalfe Street in Ottawa.
1959 The GSC leaves the VMMB for new facilities on Booth Street in Ottawa.
[ http://www.civilization.ca/about-us/about-the-museum/history-of-the-museum-of-civilization ]
Based on my research I believed that it was likely that the missing specimens of Protichnites could be in Ottawa, either in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Nature or in the collection kept for the Survey’s museum in Logan Hall. Based on that belief I sent emails to curators at both museums asking if they had specimens of Protichnites in their collections, and also sent an email to the person that I thought was responsible for the Survey’s type collection.
My enquiry to the Canadian Museum of Nature was answered by Margaret Currie, Collection Technician, who told me:
“ Regarding the trackways of Protichnites, we have one catalogued trackway in our database - a species called Protichnites multinotatus, which was collected in Quebec in the mid-1850's. We have a few other uncatalogued (and, I believe, unidentified) invertebrate trackways in the collection. But as far as I know, most of the specimens collected at that time are still
housed at the GSC.”
That was truly exciting news.
My enquiry sent to the person that I thought was curator of the GSC’s Logan Hall museum was answered by Michelle Coyne, Curator, Organic Materials Collections, Natural Resources Canada. (I later learned that she is the manager of the National Type Collection of Invertebrate and Plant Fossils as well as several other collections.) She told me that the material “is no longer here” but included valuable information from the GSC’s log books listing the missing specimens. Her reply shows that about 19 specimens of Protichnites and Diplichnites were missing, and fall within the range of specimens given the numbers 4700 to 4713 (including specimens 4703, a-c, 4707 a, b and 4708, a-d). Interestingly, her reply also settles whether Logan or Richardson collected a number of specimens from Beauharnois, identifies the Plesiotypes that are figured in Logan 1863, and identifies figure 15 from Logan 1863 as being from Papineauville, Quebec rather than Beauharnois.
My enquiry to the person that I thought was responsible for the type collection replied that I should be contacting Michelle Coyne.
In the course of the above my emails and the responses were copied to Dr. Robert MacNaughton, the Geological Survey of Canada’s expert on Protichnites. While I had not met Dr. MacNaughton, I had previously corresponded with him by email in my search for the quarry near Perth that was the first source for Climactichnites, and he has been good enough to correct my misidentification of a number of trace fossils, including one that I first thought was Climactichnites and he corrected to Protichnites. Dr. MacNaughton informed me that thanks to a bit of serendipity he had been able to identify the types based on material figured in an existing Canadian Museum of Nature publication and had passed this information on to Michelle Coyne's predecessor, but his other duties had prevented him from doing any further work at that time, or following up with the staff at Canadian Museum of Nature. While I am pleased that my efforts spurred him to communicate his identifications to Margaret Currie, it did ruin a good blog posting, and certainly took the excitement out of going to look at the specimens as they can be looked at in an online publication.
I've looked at Harington, Foster, Holmes & Currie's 2005 publication Photographic catalogue of trackways in the Canadian Museum of Nature. This is available free on the internet from http://archive.org/. I can see why Dr. MacNaughton came to the conclusion that at least some of the GSC's missing type specimens are in the Museum of Nature's collection. The photograph of CMN 34843 jumps off the page as being one of Logan's. It is figure 14 in Logan’s Geology of Canada – Protichnites multinotatus (Owen). And I note that specimen CMN 4702 has the same number as one of the other specimens that Michelle Coyne told me has gone missing.
The Photographic catalogue of trackways in the Canadian Museum of Nature misidentifies a number of specimens as Kouphichnium stating incorrectly that “Protichnites can be distinguished from Kouphichnium by the possession of a double median furrow.” A number of the specimens identified in the publication as Kouphichnium should have been identified as Protichnites and others as Diplichnites.
Michelle Coyne’s email suggests that there are nineteen missing specimens. Harington’s publication includes a specimen identified as P. Multinotatus and numerous specimens misidentified as Kouphichnium (where the locality is not known) that might be Logan’s missing specimens of Protichnites and Diplichnites. The following are worth a look:
Specimen Number Harington’s Identification My Identification
CMN 4702 Kouphichnium Diplichnites
CMN 34834 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34835 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34836 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34838 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34839 Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34841 P. Multinotatus (Owen) Protichnites
CMN 34842 Kouphichnium - Diplichnites
“may actually be” Diplichnites
CMN 34843 Kouphichnium Logan’s specimen of Protichnites Multinotatus (Owen)
CMN 34844 Kouphichnium
“likely” Diplichnites Diplichnites
CMN 34848A Kouphichnium Protichnites
CMN 34848B Kouphichnium Protichnites
Those are the specimens that I had intended to look at and photograph at the Museum of Nature.
I had hoped to meet Dr. MacNaughton in Gatineau last fall to look at the specimens at the Canadian Museum of Nature’s Research and Collections Facility in Gatineau. That hasn’t happened, and I’m not sure if he has had the chance to look at the specimens. Perhaps others will now take the time to visit and examine the specimens.
Below I’ve provided, for ease of reference, both (a) the page from Logan’s 1863 publication Geology of Canada with the trackways from Beauharnois, and (b) the six plates of the type specimens from Professor Owen’s 1852 paper.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
Wednesday 29 January 2014
Cylindrical Structures in Potsdam Group Sandstone in Eastern Ontario
Cylindrical sandstone structures that cut across the bedding in Potsdam Group sandstones in Eastern Ontario at locations north of Kingston have been written about by geologists for over one hundred years. Two of the earliest reports were written by T.C. Weston of the Geological Survey of Canada and report the results of his visit in 1888 to the locality, a quarry about twelve miles north of Kingston on the east bank of Cataraqui River four miles above the locks of the Rideau Canal at Kingston Mills. The two references are:
Weston, T.C. (1895), Notes on Concretionary Structure in Various Rock Formations in Canada, Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, Session of 1891-92, Volume VIII, Being Volume I of the Second Series, pages 137 - 142 (a paper read November 9th, 1891 before the Nova Scotian Institute)
Weston, T.C. (1899), Reminiscences Among The Rocks, Warwick Brothers & Rutter, Toronto, Ontario, at pages 247 -248 (an autobiography recording Weston’s employment with the Geological Survey of Canada).
This is how Weston (1899) described his visit:
“During this year, 1888, much discussion prevailed concerning the discovery of supposed fossil trees, many examples of which are seen in the Cambrian (Potsdam) formation on the banks of the Rideau Canal, Kingston, Ont. The attention of the director of the Canadian Geological Survey [Dr. Selwyn] was drawn to these singular forms; he visited the locality and caused a section of one measuring four feet in diameter to be sent to the museum in Ottawa.
On the director's return I was requested to visit the locality, and on the 16th of October, accompanied by Mr. Topley, the Government photographer, we started, and on arriving at Kingston found several people much interested in the discovery of these so called “fossil trees." In a shop window we saw a section of one labelled “Section of a stone tree." Hiring a team we drove through the historical city of Kingston. Our twelve mile drive to the celebrated quarry where these so-called fossil trees occur was a pleasant one.
We found quite a number of these cylindrical forms, some examples would weigh many tons; some of the weathered sections show irregular concentric rings which resemble somewhat the lines of growth in exogen plants. No fossil trees have yet been discovered in the Cambrian formation to which these deposits belong, and the conclusion arrived at was that these tree-like bodies are of concretionary structure, formed probably in geyser cavities. The "potato-stones" found in these sandstones are nodules, formed of the same material which composes these rocks. The photographs taken at this interesting locality are the property of the Geological Survey and can be seen at that institution.”
Two drawings of the cylindrical structures were provided in Weston (1895). The first is provided below.
Below is a photograph of the same outcrop provided in a guidebook published in 1913 that was prepared by M. B. Baker [Baker, M.B. (1913), Excursion A9 - Mineral Deposits Near Kingston, Excursions in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the Eastern Part of Ontario, Guide Book No. 2, 12th International Geological Conference in Canada 1913]
When Weston visited the quarry it was known as the Gildersleeve quarry. In Baker’s guide it is called Blake’s quarry. It is now known as the Hughes quarry. Interestingly, that outcrop is still visible at the ‘Park of Pillars’ at the Hughes quarry, Lots 8 and 9, Concession V, Pittsburgh Township. See both:
(1) the photographs that are Figure 40 in B.V. Sanford and R.W.C. Arnott (2010), Stratigraphic and structural framework of the Potsdam Group in eastern Ontario, western Quebec and northern New York State, GSC Bulletin 597
(2) the photograph of Site E15 at Let’s Rock,
http://planetrocks.ca/e15-geologic-columns-tracking-weird-structures-in-the-potsdam-sandstone/
The second drawing of the cylindrical structures from Weston (1895) is a weathered cross-section showing well defined concentric rings.
William James Topley
William James Topley (1845 - 1930), the photographer that accompanied T.C. Weston to look at the “fossil trees”, was one of the most important photographers in Canada in the late 1800's. Over 150,000 of Topley’s negatives and photographs are in the collection of Archives Canada. Unfortunately, it is not presently possible to search the whole of the collection online, and I could not locate his original photographs of the cylindrical structures in the archives.
I may have found one of Topley’s photographs in the following publication of the New York State Museum: Cushing, H. P., Fairchild, H.L, Ruedemann, R. And Smyth, C.H. Jr. (1910), Geology of the Thousand Islands Region, New York State Museum Bulletin 145. Plate 13 of that publication contains two photographs from the Gildersleeve quarry. The right hand photograph was taken by Dr. H. M. Ami of the Geological Survey of Canada. The left hand photo is credited simply to the Geological Survey of Canada, and may be one of Topley’s. The photos of the cylindrical structures from Ontario were included “because, while corresponding precisely to the New York State examples, it furnishes a much better illustration than any there seen.”
Theories for The Origin of the Cylindrical Structures
There have been many theories proposed to explain the origin of the cylindrical structures. The weight of authority currently favours dewatering processes, but numerous other theories have been advanced over the years. Sixty-one years ago R. V. Dietrich, in a report on similar structures in the Potsdam Sandstone of New York State, summarized the prevailing views as follows:
“Similar structures in the Potsdam sandstone of this region have been previously described and interpreted to represent concretions, concretionary structures formed in geyser cavities, sediments deposited in whirlpools in potholes, and typical flat-lying Potsdam sandstone in which the original pigmentation was modified by the rising of springs through the unconsolidated Potsdam sand, the affected areas subsequently undergoing concretionary cementation.
...
[Sir William Dawson] (1889) suggested that the structures in the Potsdam sandstone in the Ontario-New York area represent concretions that formed around organic cores. Weston (1899) suggested that the structures are concretions formed in geyser cavities. Ells (1905) referred to the structures as cylindrical concretions, but offered no explanation for their shape or origin. W.G. Miller (1906) and Cushing (1910) concurred with the connotation, concretion, and also refrained from giving a generic discussion. Baker (1916) suggested that they represent sediments deposited by whirlpools or other edying water in potholes. Hawley and Hart (1934) ... concluded that they “...are considered to have formed during, or after, deposition of sand, but before final cementation. The concentric, cylindrical color banding is believed to be concretionary in nature, localized by the presence of vertical cylinders of uncemented and not excessively disturbed sand. The formation of these is attributed to the actions of currents of water, rising vertically through the strata from, possibly, a buried fault line or other controlling structure...”.”
[Dietrich, R.V. (1953), Conical and Cylindrical structures in the Potsdam Sandstone, Redwood, New York, New York State Museum Circular 34, at pages 5 & 9]
Interestingly, Dietrich favoured a “slumping” origin and concluded that “Field relationships suggest that the structures at the Redwood locality were formed by the movement of unconsolidated and/or partly consolidated sand into cavities developed in underlying sand by falling of that sand into cavities in the underlying marble of the Precambrian Grenville Series.”
A more recent summary of the differing views for their origin can be found in B.V. Sanford and R.W.C. Arnott (2010), Stratigraphic and structural framework of the Potsdam Group in eastern Ontario, western Quebec and northern New York State, GSC Bulletin 597, at page 41, where they comment:
“The origin of these structures has been the subject of speculation for a great many years, and the controversy likely will not be settled until such time as one of the columns can be dismantled at its base to determine whether it originated from the bottom or top. ... The origin of these structures... has been attributed to fossil tree trunks, potholes excavated and later infilled with sand, concretions, collapse or local slumping of sand into cavities in underlying Precambrian marble, and dewatering processes. As proposed by Sanford (2007), a logical explanation for the origin of the columns is that of potholes later infilled with sand, as a fair amount of evidence suggests that they were drilled from the top down by rotating quartzite cobbles caught up in vortices on the floor of high energy systems, much like the motion of a diamond bit drilling into bedrock.”
That suggestion notwithstanding, the majority of recent commentators favour dewatering processes.
Locations in Ontario Where the Cylindrical Structures Have Been Found
Cylindrical sandstone structures that cut across the bedding in Potsdam Group sandstones in Eastern Ontario have been found at three quarries to the north of Kingston and Gananoque, namely:
A) the Hughes quarry, Lots 8 and 9, Concession V, Pittsburgh Township, Frontenac County;
B) the Sloan quarry, Lot 11, Concession VI, Storrington Township, Frontenac County;
C) the Ellisville quarry at Ellisville, Ontario, Lots 19 and 20, Concession VII, Rear of Leeds and Lansdowne Township, United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.
Similar structures have been reported in two cliffs in lots 21 and 22 , Concession X of Storrington Township, “on the sandstone tongue, along which the road runs, at the north side of Dog Lake” (Baker, M.B. (1916), The Geology of Kingston and Vicinity, Ontario Bureau of Mines, Vol. XXV., Part III, No. 4, page 19).
Cylindrical sandstone specimens were also collected from Potsdam sandstones near Almonte (See: Dawson, W. J. (1889), Remarks of the President on Certain Ancient Concretions, Canadian Record of Science, Volume 3, pages 293-294 (read November 26, 1888 before The Natural History Society, Montreal); Dawson, W. J. (1890) On Burrows and Tracks of Invertebrate Animals in Palaeozoic Rocks , and Other Markings, London Quart. Journal Geol. Soc. 46, pp. 595-617 at pages 609-610 (Read May 14, 1890).
Dawson (1890) also reports that “Many years ago specimens were obtained from the Potsdam Sandstone of Ontario, by the late Sir William Logan, which presented the aspect of large cylindrical trunks, a foot or more in diameter. ... showing obscure concentric lines on the ends. No opinion was, I believe hazarded at that time respecting their origin...” I have not been able to determine where in Ontario Logan obtained those specimens.
I’ve been told by two geologists that they are also present in the sandstone around Charleston Lake.
I have not yet found a similar structure in the Potsdam Group sandstones close to Perth, but I'll keep looking.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
[Added: September 30, 2015:
For cylindrical structures at Charleston Lake Provincial Park see:
Donaldson, J.A. and Chiarenzelli, J. R.,2004,
Pre-Cambrian Basement and Cambrian-Ordovician Strata, as Displayed in Three Provincial Parks in Canada, Trip A-1, New York Geological Association, 76th Annual Meeting Field Trip Guidebook, pages 63-78. Stop 6 - Charleston Lake Provincial Park, Giant Cylinder in Nepean Formation, at page 74. Figure 11 at page 76 has the caption “The cylindrical structure along Sandstone Island Trail, Charleston Lake Provincial Park.
Forsyth, D.A. and Forsyth, M.E., 2011,
Pillars in the Park,
GAC/AGC - MAC/AMC - SEG - SGA Joint Annual Meeting, Ottawa 2011, Abstracts Volume 34, at page 66
They report on “sandstone cylinders or pillars” in Charleston Lake Provincial, noting that “At least 8 cylinder sites are hosted by the sandstone plateau in the Provincial Park. These “water escape” features in the form of cylinders or pillars may be the lithified remains of water table spring conduits that developed in response to water flow through very clean and well sorted sand overlying undulating Precambrian surface topography. Various cylinder forms resemble active, lithified and unconsolidated structures reported from the USA and the Himalayas as well as some reported from more recent glacial sand deposits in Quebec.” ]
Weston, T.C. (1895), Notes on Concretionary Structure in Various Rock Formations in Canada, Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, Session of 1891-92, Volume VIII, Being Volume I of the Second Series, pages 137 - 142 (a paper read November 9th, 1891 before the Nova Scotian Institute)
Weston, T.C. (1899), Reminiscences Among The Rocks, Warwick Brothers & Rutter, Toronto, Ontario, at pages 247 -248 (an autobiography recording Weston’s employment with the Geological Survey of Canada).
This is how Weston (1899) described his visit:
“During this year, 1888, much discussion prevailed concerning the discovery of supposed fossil trees, many examples of which are seen in the Cambrian (Potsdam) formation on the banks of the Rideau Canal, Kingston, Ont. The attention of the director of the Canadian Geological Survey [Dr. Selwyn] was drawn to these singular forms; he visited the locality and caused a section of one measuring four feet in diameter to be sent to the museum in Ottawa.
On the director's return I was requested to visit the locality, and on the 16th of October, accompanied by Mr. Topley, the Government photographer, we started, and on arriving at Kingston found several people much interested in the discovery of these so called “fossil trees." In a shop window we saw a section of one labelled “Section of a stone tree." Hiring a team we drove through the historical city of Kingston. Our twelve mile drive to the celebrated quarry where these so-called fossil trees occur was a pleasant one.
We found quite a number of these cylindrical forms, some examples would weigh many tons; some of the weathered sections show irregular concentric rings which resemble somewhat the lines of growth in exogen plants. No fossil trees have yet been discovered in the Cambrian formation to which these deposits belong, and the conclusion arrived at was that these tree-like bodies are of concretionary structure, formed probably in geyser cavities. The "potato-stones" found in these sandstones are nodules, formed of the same material which composes these rocks. The photographs taken at this interesting locality are the property of the Geological Survey and can be seen at that institution.”
Two drawings of the cylindrical structures were provided in Weston (1895). The first is provided below.
Below is a photograph of the same outcrop provided in a guidebook published in 1913 that was prepared by M. B. Baker [Baker, M.B. (1913), Excursion A9 - Mineral Deposits Near Kingston, Excursions in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the Eastern Part of Ontario, Guide Book No. 2, 12th International Geological Conference in Canada 1913]
When Weston visited the quarry it was known as the Gildersleeve quarry. In Baker’s guide it is called Blake’s quarry. It is now known as the Hughes quarry. Interestingly, that outcrop is still visible at the ‘Park of Pillars’ at the Hughes quarry, Lots 8 and 9, Concession V, Pittsburgh Township. See both:
(1) the photographs that are Figure 40 in B.V. Sanford and R.W.C. Arnott (2010), Stratigraphic and structural framework of the Potsdam Group in eastern Ontario, western Quebec and northern New York State, GSC Bulletin 597
(2) the photograph of Site E15 at Let’s Rock,
http://planetrocks.ca/e15-geologic-columns-tracking-weird-structures-in-the-potsdam-sandstone/
The second drawing of the cylindrical structures from Weston (1895) is a weathered cross-section showing well defined concentric rings.
William James Topley
William James Topley (1845 - 1930), the photographer that accompanied T.C. Weston to look at the “fossil trees”, was one of the most important photographers in Canada in the late 1800's. Over 150,000 of Topley’s negatives and photographs are in the collection of Archives Canada. Unfortunately, it is not presently possible to search the whole of the collection online, and I could not locate his original photographs of the cylindrical structures in the archives.
I may have found one of Topley’s photographs in the following publication of the New York State Museum: Cushing, H. P., Fairchild, H.L, Ruedemann, R. And Smyth, C.H. Jr. (1910), Geology of the Thousand Islands Region, New York State Museum Bulletin 145. Plate 13 of that publication contains two photographs from the Gildersleeve quarry. The right hand photograph was taken by Dr. H. M. Ami of the Geological Survey of Canada. The left hand photo is credited simply to the Geological Survey of Canada, and may be one of Topley’s. The photos of the cylindrical structures from Ontario were included “because, while corresponding precisely to the New York State examples, it furnishes a much better illustration than any there seen.”
Theories for The Origin of the Cylindrical Structures
There have been many theories proposed to explain the origin of the cylindrical structures. The weight of authority currently favours dewatering processes, but numerous other theories have been advanced over the years. Sixty-one years ago R. V. Dietrich, in a report on similar structures in the Potsdam Sandstone of New York State, summarized the prevailing views as follows:
“Similar structures in the Potsdam sandstone of this region have been previously described and interpreted to represent concretions, concretionary structures formed in geyser cavities, sediments deposited in whirlpools in potholes, and typical flat-lying Potsdam sandstone in which the original pigmentation was modified by the rising of springs through the unconsolidated Potsdam sand, the affected areas subsequently undergoing concretionary cementation.
...
[Sir William Dawson] (1889) suggested that the structures in the Potsdam sandstone in the Ontario-New York area represent concretions that formed around organic cores. Weston (1899) suggested that the structures are concretions formed in geyser cavities. Ells (1905) referred to the structures as cylindrical concretions, but offered no explanation for their shape or origin. W.G. Miller (1906) and Cushing (1910) concurred with the connotation, concretion, and also refrained from giving a generic discussion. Baker (1916) suggested that they represent sediments deposited by whirlpools or other edying water in potholes. Hawley and Hart (1934) ... concluded that they “...are considered to have formed during, or after, deposition of sand, but before final cementation. The concentric, cylindrical color banding is believed to be concretionary in nature, localized by the presence of vertical cylinders of uncemented and not excessively disturbed sand. The formation of these is attributed to the actions of currents of water, rising vertically through the strata from, possibly, a buried fault line or other controlling structure...”.”
[Dietrich, R.V. (1953), Conical and Cylindrical structures in the Potsdam Sandstone, Redwood, New York, New York State Museum Circular 34, at pages 5 & 9]
Interestingly, Dietrich favoured a “slumping” origin and concluded that “Field relationships suggest that the structures at the Redwood locality were formed by the movement of unconsolidated and/or partly consolidated sand into cavities developed in underlying sand by falling of that sand into cavities in the underlying marble of the Precambrian Grenville Series.”
A more recent summary of the differing views for their origin can be found in B.V. Sanford and R.W.C. Arnott (2010), Stratigraphic and structural framework of the Potsdam Group in eastern Ontario, western Quebec and northern New York State, GSC Bulletin 597, at page 41, where they comment:
“The origin of these structures has been the subject of speculation for a great many years, and the controversy likely will not be settled until such time as one of the columns can be dismantled at its base to determine whether it originated from the bottom or top. ... The origin of these structures... has been attributed to fossil tree trunks, potholes excavated and later infilled with sand, concretions, collapse or local slumping of sand into cavities in underlying Precambrian marble, and dewatering processes. As proposed by Sanford (2007), a logical explanation for the origin of the columns is that of potholes later infilled with sand, as a fair amount of evidence suggests that they were drilled from the top down by rotating quartzite cobbles caught up in vortices on the floor of high energy systems, much like the motion of a diamond bit drilling into bedrock.”
That suggestion notwithstanding, the majority of recent commentators favour dewatering processes.
Locations in Ontario Where the Cylindrical Structures Have Been Found
Cylindrical sandstone structures that cut across the bedding in Potsdam Group sandstones in Eastern Ontario have been found at three quarries to the north of Kingston and Gananoque, namely:
A) the Hughes quarry, Lots 8 and 9, Concession V, Pittsburgh Township, Frontenac County;
B) the Sloan quarry, Lot 11, Concession VI, Storrington Township, Frontenac County;
C) the Ellisville quarry at Ellisville, Ontario, Lots 19 and 20, Concession VII, Rear of Leeds and Lansdowne Township, United Counties of Leeds and Grenville.
Similar structures have been reported in two cliffs in lots 21 and 22 , Concession X of Storrington Township, “on the sandstone tongue, along which the road runs, at the north side of Dog Lake” (Baker, M.B. (1916), The Geology of Kingston and Vicinity, Ontario Bureau of Mines, Vol. XXV., Part III, No. 4, page 19).
Cylindrical sandstone specimens were also collected from Potsdam sandstones near Almonte (See: Dawson, W. J. (1889), Remarks of the President on Certain Ancient Concretions, Canadian Record of Science, Volume 3, pages 293-294 (read November 26, 1888 before The Natural History Society, Montreal); Dawson, W. J. (1890) On Burrows and Tracks of Invertebrate Animals in Palaeozoic Rocks , and Other Markings, London Quart. Journal Geol. Soc. 46, pp. 595-617 at pages 609-610 (Read May 14, 1890).
Dawson (1890) also reports that “Many years ago specimens were obtained from the Potsdam Sandstone of Ontario, by the late Sir William Logan, which presented the aspect of large cylindrical trunks, a foot or more in diameter. ... showing obscure concentric lines on the ends. No opinion was, I believe hazarded at that time respecting their origin...” I have not been able to determine where in Ontario Logan obtained those specimens.
I’ve been told by two geologists that they are also present in the sandstone around Charleston Lake.
I have not yet found a similar structure in the Potsdam Group sandstones close to Perth, but I'll keep looking.
Christopher Brett
Perth, Ontario
[Added: September 30, 2015:
For cylindrical structures at Charleston Lake Provincial Park see:
Donaldson, J.A. and Chiarenzelli, J. R.,2004,
Pre-Cambrian Basement and Cambrian-Ordovician Strata, as Displayed in Three Provincial Parks in Canada, Trip A-1, New York Geological Association, 76th Annual Meeting Field Trip Guidebook, pages 63-78. Stop 6 - Charleston Lake Provincial Park, Giant Cylinder in Nepean Formation, at page 74. Figure 11 at page 76 has the caption “The cylindrical structure along Sandstone Island Trail, Charleston Lake Provincial Park.
Forsyth, D.A. and Forsyth, M.E., 2011,
Pillars in the Park,
GAC/AGC - MAC/AMC - SEG - SGA Joint Annual Meeting, Ottawa 2011, Abstracts Volume 34, at page 66
They report on “sandstone cylinders or pillars” in Charleston Lake Provincial, noting that “At least 8 cylinder sites are hosted by the sandstone plateau in the Provincial Park. These “water escape” features in the form of cylinders or pillars may be the lithified remains of water table spring conduits that developed in response to water flow through very clean and well sorted sand overlying undulating Precambrian surface topography. Various cylinder forms resemble active, lithified and unconsolidated structures reported from the USA and the Himalayas as well as some reported from more recent glacial sand deposits in Quebec.” ]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)