IV-A Quarry and Workshop of the Stone Age in New Brunswick.

By G. F. MATTHEW, M.A., LL.D.

(Read May 29, 1900.)

Some twenty years ago the author in collecting stone implements on the shores of the Kennebecasis river in Kings county, New Brunswick, had met with occasional well finished implements of carnelian, chalcedony and agate.

On comparing the material of which these were made with specimens of these minerals which were in the Gesner museum of the Natural History Society of New Brunswick, no difference of a material kind was observed.

These minerals of the Gesner collection were from Washademoak lake in Queen's county, which occupies a valley some distance to the north of Kennebecasis valley. At the time when the carnelian objects were collected in Kennebecasis valley it seemed probable that they had been fabricated on the Kennebecasis river from pieces of stones swept southward to that river from Wash ademoak valley by glacial ice (as the southward transportation of such material as the surface stones of a country during the glacial period is a well established fact). Rough pieces of agate apparently from such a source were found along the shores of the Kennebecasis river.

More extended observations on the St. John river made at a later period, on the occasion of a summer camp of observation held by the Natural History Society of New Brunswick at French lake in Sunbury county, suggests another interpretation of the occurrence of these stone implements of the ornamental varieties of quartz on Kennebecasis river, namely that they have been carried there by men of the stone age, and not made on the spot, nor transported by ice.

For instance, at Indian Point on Grand lake, which is to the north of Washademoak valley, chalcedonic material similar to that found in this valley has been found mingled with felsitic and other stones used for the manufacture of stone weapons.

Following up the chain of lakes of which Grand lake is the last, but most important, similar varieties of carnelian and chalcedony were found on the shores of Maquapit lake, the next of the chain, and also around French lake the third of the series, which itself is a double lake.

1 See accompanying map of the Lake region of St. John R. valley, p. 63.

No chalcedonic veins similar to those of Washademoak lake are known to the north of these lakes, for beyond them stretches a wide expanse of coal measures, which are devoid of veins of this mineral.

These various finds appear to point to the fact that this material, which readily lends itself to the manipulation of the aboriginal artificer in stone, was really an article of barter; or at least of sufficient importance to be sought for, and carried considerable distances by the men of the stone age.

Interest in these beautiful and finely finished weapons induced the writer to seek the locality from which the material came, of which they were fabricated and to study its distribution.

Dr. Abraham Gesner appears to have discovered the place where this mineral occurs. At page 60 of his third report on the Geology of New Brunswick, he gives the following description of the locality and the rock :

"On the south-east side of a small cove (Belyea's Cove), the shore is strewed to the distance of half a mile with loose masses of hornstone, jasper, Egyptian jasper, chalcedony and quartz. The jasper is chiefly of a red colour and passes into a milky chalcedony, being arranged in spots and clouds, and shaded with smoky imitative figures. Associated with the jasper is that variety called Egyptian jasper, which is distinguished from the other by peculiar zones, circles and clouds of different colours. With these a few small pieces of carnelian were found; but in general, this mineral is too much fractured to afford good specimens. These minerals evidently belong to some trap dyke in the neighbourhood. The sandstones here form cliffs on the shore, or appear beneath its broken fragments."

Prof. L. W. Bailey who has visited the locality from which Dr. Gesner procured his specimens, stated to me that the veins occur in at limestone of Lower Carboniferous age at or near the place mentioned by Dr. Gesner.

The writer did not see this place though he found another locality near McDonald's point,1 where the same mineral occurs in Lower Carboniferous strata, but in somewhat different relations. Here, on searching along the south shore of Washademoak lake, chalcedony was found in thin irregular seams in a low bank of Lower Carboniferous shale on the west side of Belyea's Cove, which is the first important cove on the south side of the lake above its entrance. The locality was detected by numerous fragments of the rock found on the stony beach. in front of the shale bank. This part of the shore was strewed with

1 See the accompanying map.

numerous fragments of chalcedony, carnelian, agate and jasper. The pieces on the shore were of finer quality than the rock showing in the shale bank which was largely composed of gray and dark chalcedony,

and so not showing the bright colour or lucidity of the better quality of stone used in the making of weapons. But pieces of this quality were abundant along the shore. The bank consisted chiefly of purplish red shales, but beneath the chalcedonic bands the rock is a soft green shale,