The majority of those in the first class are on a level with the water, whilst the remainder are elevated above, varying from a few to upwards of sixty feet.

In the second class the level varies, but nearly all are above that of the sea, as will presently be described; none penetrate the earth to a considerable depth, but this may be found to be otherwise as the explorations are continued. In none have animal remains been found, excepting in one instance, and they were discovered loose and not imbedded in stalagmite; and so far as I am aware, not a single object, such as a flint arrow-head or spear, used by the ancient inhabitants of the country, has been observed. This circumstance may in some measure detract from the value of the present communication; that part of the enquiry has still to be worked out, as many of the caverns have been but very partially explored, indeed some have scarcely been examined; and as several of them branch off by means of fissures and galleries, running from distinct chambers (most of the latter containing stalag. mite), we may yet hope for interesting discoveries, particularly in that district of country in which exist the huge caverns of Mono and Eramosa in the Niagara limestone rocks of the Upper Silurian formation. The researches of Mr. Sterry Hunt, of the Canadian Geological Survey, have shown that these limestones are essentially dolomitic, and thus perhaps favourably constituted for the development of caverns.

(As examples of the caverns noticed by Dr. Gibb we take the following:- EDS.)

CAVERNS ON THE SHORES OF THE MAGDALEN ISLANDS. On passing the interesting group of islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence, known as the Magdalens, the observer is struck with their beautiful and picturesque appearance, which is suddenly presented to his view. The cliffs, which vary in height, present equally various colours of red in which the shades predominate; these contrasted with the yellow of the sand-bars, and the green pastures of the hill-sides, the darker green of the spruce trees, and the blue of sea and sky, produce an effect, as Captain Bayfield describes, extremely beautiful, and one which distinguishes these islands from anything else in the Gulf. Such an agreeable picture it has been my own good fortune to witness and admire. The striking feature in their formation is the dome-shaped hills rising in the centre of the group, and attaining a height of from two hundred to five hundred and eighty feet. They are composed of the

Triassic or New Red Sandstone formation, which forms their base, being surmounted or topped by masses of trap rocks. The highest of the Magdalens is Entry Island, with an elevation of five hundred and eighty feet; its red cliffs rise at its north-east point to three hundred and fifty feet, and are what they have been described, truly magnificent and beautiful. The soft and friable character of the brick-red cliffs forming the shores of these islands, with their remarkable capes and headlands, have in many places yielded to the force of the waves, and have become worn into arches and caverns. This is most strikingly manifest at Bryon Island, which is nearly surrounded by perpendicular or overhanging cliffs, which are broken into holes and caverns, and fast giving way to the action of the waves. From the same cause are to be seen detached peninsular masses in a tottering state, which now and then assume grotesque forms. There is something peculiarly interesting in this singular group of islands, lying so isolated about the centre of the great Gulf of St. Lawrence; and curiosity would be well repaid by a visit from one of the neighbouring ports.

CAVERNS AND ARCHED ROCKS AT PERCÉ, GASPÉ.

On the eastern coast of Gaspe, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there is a range of limestone cliffs, which commence on the southwest side of Mal Bay, at the perforated rock, called Ile Percé, and thence run in a north-north-west direction. Immediately south of these cliffs, which are six hundred and sixty-six feet in perpendicular height above the level of the sea, as described by Bayfield, are the Percé mountains, the highest of which, Mount Percé, is twelve hundred and thirty feet, and is visible forty miles out to

sea.

The town "Ile Percé," as it was called in Charlevoix's time, occupies the shores of Percé Bay, running from point Percé to White Head. This writer mentions in the second volume of his "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," p. 71, that Sir William Phipps, in his expedition against Quebec, landed at Ile Percé in Sept., 1690, pillaged the town and robbed the church,

A reef connects the Percé Rock with Point Percé. This remarkable perforated rocky islet, which gives the name of Percé to this locality, is two hundred and ninty-nine feet in height, preeipitous all round, and bold to seaward. This islet and the island of Bonaventure are considered outliers of the conglomerate rocks

which enter into the formation of the main land at Percé, the former would seem especially to be a continuation of the range of cliffs on the south-west side of Mal Bay. The Split Rock is an almost inaccessible mass of this strata, and stands up like a wall, in continuation of the limestone-cliffs of Barry Cape (Point Percé). It is five hundred yards long, one hundred broad, and is remarkable for the presence at its western half of two large holes or arches, through one of which a sloop at full sail can pass at high water. There is a lateral arch at the north east side, scarcely perceptible from the water.

The perforations in this rock have been formed by the action of the waves of the sea, the same cause which has in the progress of time effected the disjunction of these outliers from one another and the main land. From the present position of the islet, which lies almost north and south, I am disposed to consider its northern aspect as the oldest, the two arched openings at that side forming what were once the entrance to deep caverns running into the rock southwards, which in the course probably of ages has been washed away by aqueous denudation. This view is strengthened by an examination of the intervening shores as they exist at present. The coast line of Ile Percé runs along to Bonaventure Island, with an imaginary position of the land at one time between the south-west part of the latter island and the shore at the Bay of Percé, at the point where the cliffs commence at its southern third. This gives the southern coast a semicircular course, with a low shelving beach corresponding to that which now exists at Percé Bay on the one side, and the western coast of Bonaventure on the other; whilst the northern coast is rocky and precipitous, probpierced with many caverns, and gradually diminishing in height to the southward.

BOUCHETTE'S CAVERN, KILDARE.

This cavern was visited and first described by Colonel Bouchette (Surveyor-General of Canada) in the report of his official tour though the new settlements of the lower province in 1824. It is situated in the township of Kildare, about thirty-five miles due north of the city of Montreal, but the precise locality I have been unable to determine, although from the description it may be close to the village of the same name. The southern part of the township is traversed by a broad band of the Potsdam sandstone, in continuation of the same rock running in a north-east direction

from the south-western part of the township of Rawdon. That part of Kildare north of this band is composed of gneiss of the Laurentian system most probably interstratified with some bands of crystalline limestone, in which the cavern is developed.

It was about the year 1822 that two young Canadian peasants, whilst prosecuting their sport of hunting the wild cat, pursued two of their game, until entering an obscure hole a little above the bank of the river, they lost sight of them. The more enterprising of the two attempted to enter the aperture in the rock, at that time barely sufficient to admit of his crawling into it, but without success. Providing themselves with lights, a second attempt was more successful, "for not only did they secure their prey (of which they have preserved the skin to this day), but they discovered," says Colonel Bouchette, "another of the many phenomena of nature, a description of which cannot be uninteresting." The following account is given in the Colonel's words:

"I descended into the cavern by means of a trap-door, which has recently been placed at one of its angles for the facility and convenience of strangers desirous of visiting this singular spot, having as my guides two of the inhabitants of the neighbouring house, bearing lighted tapers. The height of the cave where we entered is five feet, from which angle branch off two caves, the lesser whereof is of the following dimensions :—

25 feet
9

It bears about a south-east course from the entrance.

The other has in length......

Width from....

Height gradually increasing...

70 feet. 7 to 8

"The increase in the loftiness of the cave originates from the declivity of the ground part, which, at the north-eastern extremity, is at least twenty-three feet from the surface. It forms nearly a right angle with the first, at its south-western end, and an angle scarcely obtuse at the other with another cave, whose

At the south-eastern extreme of this cave branches off another of inferior size and consequence, bearing about a due north course,

as may be deduced from the angle it makes with the last describ ed:

"At the outward angle formed by this cave with the preceding one, is to be seen a nearly circular aperture of about a foot and a half in diameter, which leads to a cavern yet unexplored, the extent whereof is not known with any certainty; but conjecture and supposition will have it to extend two arpents-an astonishing distance as a natural subterraneous passage. Summing the lengths of the several caves above-mentioned together, we have a total distance of a hundred and ninety-five feet of subterraneity in the solid rock offering a beautiful rock of crystallized sulphurate of lime, carved as it were by the hand of art, and exhibiting at once the sublimity of nature, and the mastery of the allpowerful Architect of the universe."

From the foregoing description there would seem to be five different caverns or galleries, and probably many more, if the fifth has been since explored. Three of them branch off from the entrance in different directions, whilst the remaining two do so at the termination of the central gallery. The roof throughout is covered with stalactites, but as no mention is made of stalagmite, nor of the presence of bones, we are left to conclude that they were absent, although the chances were much in favor of finding the latter, in consequence of there being a free and unobstructed entrance into the cavern.

ARTICLE XIII.-Flint drift and Human Remains. Extacted from the Duke of Argyll's opening address as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

(From the Edinburgh New Phil. Journal.)

"The attention, not of geologists only, but of men of science in several departments, has, during this and the preceding year, been fully awakened to the importance of a discovery which is really of much older date-viz., that flint implements, the work of man, are found in beds of drift gravel associated with the bones of the last generation of the great extinct mammalia. The full significance of this fact is only now being fully recognized, and many of the conclusions which it may tend to establish are subject to much doubt,