DAWSON — LAURENTIAN GRAPHITE. 113
may be considered settled, not only by the adhesion of the greatest
authorities in palaeontology and zoology, but by the discovery of
similar organisms in rocks of the same age elsewhere, by specimens
preserved in such a manner as to avoid all the objections raised to
the mineral condition of the fossil*, and by the discovery of such
modern analogies as that furnished by Bathybius, it may be proper
to invite the attention of geologists more particularly to the evidence
of vegetable life afforded by the deposits of graphite existing in the
Laurentian.
The graphite of the Laurentian of Canada occurs both in beds and in veins, and in such a manner as to show that its origin and deposition are contemporaneous with those of the containing rock. Sir William Logan states† that "the deposits of plumbago generally occur in the limestones or in their immediate vicinity, and granular varieties of the rock often contain large crystalline plates of plumbago. At other times this mineral is so finely disseminated as to give a bluish-gray colour to the limestone, and the distribution of bands thus coloured, seems to mark the stratification of the rock." He further states : — " The plumbago is not confined to the lime-stones; large crystalline scales of it are occasionally disseminated in pyroxene rock or pyrallolite, and sometimes in quartzite and in feldspathic rocks, or even in magnetic oxide of iron." In addition to these bedded forms, there are also true veins in which graphite occurs associated with calcite, quartz, orthoclase, or pyroxene, and either in disseminated scales, in detached masses, or in bands or layers "separated from each other, and from the wall rock by feldspar, pyroxene, and quartz." Dr. Hunt also mentions the occurrence of finely granular varieties, and of that peculiarly waved and corrugated variety simulating fossil wood, though really a mere form of laminated structure, which also occurs at Warrensburgh, New York, and at the Marinski mine in Siberia. Many of the veins are not true fissures, but rather constitute a net-work of shrinkage cracks or segregation veins traversing in countless numbers the containing rock, and most irregular in their dimensions, so that they often resemble strings of nodular masses. It has been supposed that the graphite of the veins was originally introduced as a liquid hydro-carbon. Dr. Hunt, however, regards it as possible that it may have been in a state of aqueous solution‡; but in whatever way introduced, the character of the veins indicates that in the case of the greater number of them the carbonaceous material must have been derived from the bedded rocks traversed by these veins, while there can be no doubt that the graphite found in the beds has
- I cannot, after examination of the specimen, and of others subsequently
obtained by Sir W. E. Logan, attach any value to the supposition of Messrs. Rowney & King that the Tudor specimen has been produced by infiltration of carbonate of lime into veins. The mechanical arrangement of the laminae and their microscopic structure forbid such a supposition, as well as the comparison of them with actual calcareous veins occurring in the same rock.
† 'Geology of Canada,' 1863.
‡ 'Report of the Geological Survey of Canada,' 1866.
VOL. XXVI. PART I. I
