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ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


THE 


GHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE, 


ORGANIC REMAINS, AND MINERAL RESOURCES 


OF 


NOVA SCOTIA, NEW BRUNSWICK, AND PRINCE 
EDWARD ISLAND, 


BY 


JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON, M.A., LL.D. F.RS., F.GS. 


PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF i3GILL COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL; 
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, PHILADFLPHIA} FELLOW OF THE 
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, AND OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL 
SOCIETY ; FOREIGN CORRESPONDING FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
OF EDINBURGH; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF 
NATUBAL HISTORY; ETC., ETC. 


Third Edition. 


WITH A MAP AND, NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, AND 
A SUPPLEMENT. 


London: 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 


: EDINBURGH: OLIVER AND BOYD. MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS. 
| HALIFAX: A. AND W. MACKINLAY. NEW YORK: VAN NOSTRAND. 


} —_— — 


1878. 


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ADVERTISEMENT T0 THE THIRD EDITION. 


In the nine years which have elapsed since the appearance of the 
second edition of this work, much has been added to our knowledge 
of the Geology of the Maritime Provinces of the Dominion of Canada ; 
and thus the book hag been, in some respects, falling behind the 
requirements of the time. In these circumstances, instead of revising 
the whole, I have thought it best to add to it a Supplement containing 
such additions and corrections as have been required by the lapse of 
time. In this way the work will be brought up to the state of know- 
ledge in 1878; while, as the Supplement will be issued separately, 
-those who possess the second edition will be able to procure the new 
matter alone. 

Though the work is one of local Geology, yet the region to which 
it relates has afforded so many facts of general interest, and the topics 
discussed are so wide in their bearing, that it is hoped that this new 
issue will be found useful and interesting to Geologists generally. 


J. W. Dawson. 


- 


M'‘Giuu CoLiece, January 1878. 


TO 


SIR CHARLES LYELL, Bart, M.A, F.R.S., Ere, 


My pDEAR §rr, 

After an interval of twelve years, it 
affords me much pleasure to renew the dedication of this 
work to you; and in doing so to repeat my grateful ac- 
knowledgments, for the kind aid and encouragement extended 
to me as a young geologist, and for the friendly interest 
which you have ever manifested in the labours of my riper 


years. 


I an, 
With sincere gratitude and respect, 
Yours faithfully, 


J. W. DAWSON. 


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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 


In the Preface to the First Edition of this Work, its intention was 
stated to be—to place within the reach of the people of the districts 
to which it relates, a popular account of the more recent discoveries 
in the Geology and mineral resources of their country, and at the 
same time to give to geologists in other countries a connected view 
of the structure of a very interesting portion of the American conti- 
nent, in its relation to general and theoretical Geology. Inthe Edition 
now issued, it is hoped still more completely to fulfil this design, with 
reference to the present more advanced condition of knowledge. 
With regard to the purely local Geology, the author has en- 
deavoured to convey a knowledge of the structure and fossils of the 
region in such a manner as to be intelligible to ordinary readers, and 
has devoted much attention to all questions relating to the nature and 
present or prospective value of deposits of useful minerals. It is 
proper to add that, as he has no pecuniary interest in the mines of 
the Acadian provinces, and has received no public aid in furtherance 
of his explorations, he has had no inducement to write otherwise than 
impartially ; and where he may appear to give undue prominence to 
one district in comparison with another, this is merely because his 
descriptions are necessarily limited by the scope of his opportunities 
of observation. When he makes positive statements as to the eco- 
nomical value of deposits of useful minerals, these may be relied on 
as the results of his inquiries as to the facts; and in all cases of un- 
certainty, he has endeavoured to avoid everything likely to lead to 
unfounded hopes or baseless speculations. It has been a source of 
much gratification to him to find that the First Edition of this Work 


vi PREFACE. 


has had an important influence on the recent rapid development of 
the mineral resources of his native country; and he hopes that the 
present Edition will prove still more extensively useful; and, in any 
case, that it will be received in the spirit in which it is offered, as a 
contribution toward the progress of Acadia, from one of her sons. 

In theoretical Geology, the following may be mentioned as points 
of general interest more fully discussed in this Edition, or which have 
been introduced into it for the first time :— 

(1.) The Pre-historic Human period in Acadia, in comparison 
with that of Europe. 

(2.) The character and origin of the Boulder Clay and Surface 
Glaciation, in connexion with prevailing theories on these subjects. 

(3.) The Flora of the Carboniferous period, more especially with 
reference to the affinities of the several genera of plants, and their 
relative importance in relation to the formation of Coal—a subject 
which will be found more fully illustrated in this work than in any 
previous publication. 

(4.) The still more curious and ancient Devonian Flora as dis- 
played in New Brunswick. 

(5.) The Land Animals of the Carboniferous and Devonian periods, 
of which Acadia has afforded so many examples. 

(6.) The peculiarities in the nature and age of the Auriferous 
Deposits of Nova Scotia. 

(7.) The remarkable Primordial Fauna of Southern New Brunswick, 
and the peculiar development of the Lower Silurian in the eastern 
slope of North America. 

(8.) Descriptions and illustrations of Fossils from the various 
formations. 

I may add that I shall have occasion to show, in the following 
pages, that the rocks of Acadia have, among other important addi- 
tions to geological science, contributed the first known indications of 
Carbeniferous Reptiles,* and the only known Carboniferous Enalio- 
saurian, the only Carboniferous land Shells known, the first Carbon- 
iferous Myriapod, the first Devonian Insects, the only well charac- 
terized Primordial Fauna in America, and the richest known Devo- 
nian Flora. 


* 1842, see page 354. 


 "y~ 7) on 
ea a 
o 

+ 

7 


Twelve years ago, when the First Edition of this Work was issued, 
the cultivators of geological science in Acadia were few, and most of 
these have passed away. Dr Robb, Dr Gesner, Professor Chipman, 
Dr Harding of Windsor, and Dr Webster of Kentville rest in the 
grave; and Mr Brown of Sydney has left the scene of his labours for 
an honourable retirement in his native country. But others have 
arisen in their room, and it has been my good fortune to enjoy the 
friendship, and to profit by the correspondence, of nearly all these 
more recent Geologists of the Acadian provinces. I may here mention 
specially, as among those who have aided me in the preparation of 
this edition,—L. W. Bailey, M.A., the worthy successor of Professor 
Robb in the chair of Natural History in the university of New Bruns- 
wick; Rev. Dr Honeyman, F.G.S., Provincial Geologist, Nova 
Scotia; H. How, D.C.L., Professor of Chemistry in King’s College, 
Windsor; G. F. Matthew, Esq., of St John’s, New Brunswick; Pro- 
fessor C. F. Hartt, M.A., formerly of St John’s, now of the Vassar 
College, New York; Henry Poole, Esq., of Glace Bay, Cape Breton ; 
W. Barnes, Esq., Mining Engineer, Halifax; and J. Campbell, Esq., 
of Halifax. The names of other contributors will be found men- 
tioned in the Explanation of the Map, and in various places in the 
body of the Work. 

It will also be observed in the list of publications in Chapter L, 
that, in addition to the previous labours of Lyell and Logan, several 
Geologists from abroad have, in recent years, aided in the work of 
geological exploration in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Among 
these are Hind, Lesley, Silliman, Hitchcock, and Marsh. Acadian 
Geology is also indebted to Hall, Davidson, Billings, Hartt, and 
Scudder, for labours of great value in the department of Paleontology, 
some of them kindly undertaken at the request of the author. 

I have endeavoured to acquaint myself with the labours of all these 
cultivators of Acadian Geology, and to refer to them in every case 
where I have availed myself of the results of their researches. If in 
any respect I have failed duly to appreciate their investigations, or 
have misunderstood their conclusions, I shall be glad to make amends 
in any way in my power. 

While the progress made in the Geology of Acadia since the publi- 
cation of the First Edition of this Work is most satisfactory, it also 


PREFACE. vii 


viii PREFACE. 


suggests the fact that the present Edition, probably the last which the 
author will be permitted to issue, merely marks a stage in that 
progress ; and that the time will soon arrive when its imperfections 
will be revealed by the discovery of new facts, when many things now 
uncertain may have become plain, and when some things now held 
as certain will be proved to have been errors. When that time shall 
come, I trust that those who may build on the foundations which I 
have laid, if they shall find it necessary ‘to remove some misplaced 
stone or decaying beam, will make due allowance for the difficulties 
of the work, and the circumstances under which it was executed.* 
Many portions of the Work are intended only for reference. I 
would therefore advise the reader, when he finds his progress arrested 
by a dry catalogue, a sectional list, or descriptions of fossils, to pass 
on to the next readable portion. Should he meet with terms or 
allusions which are not intelligible, by referring to the General Index 
he will find their explanation in some other portion of the Work. The 
Index will also be found very useful to those who desire to refer to 
the structure of particular localities, the description of fossils, or the 
notices of useful minerals. A “Classified List of Illustrations,” 


pI 


an “Index to Economic Geology,” and an “Index to Subjects in 
General Geology,” have been added to the Table of Contents, in order 
to facilitate such reference. 

The lovers of the lighter kind of scientific literature may be 
disappointed in not finding in this work any incidents of travel or 
illustrations of the aspects of social life in Acadia. I have been 
obliged by the pressure of graver and more important matter to resist 
all temptation to dwell on these; but may perhaps find some future 
occasion to introduce the public to the incidents and adventures of 
my geological excursions. 

Some explanation may be necessary as to the use of the terms 
Canada and Acadia in this volume. While the Work was in pre- 
paration, that political change was inaugurated whereby the name of 


* In connexion with the latter, I think it only just to myself to state that my note- 
books contain a large amount of local geological detail, which, however appropriate in 
the Reports of a Survey, could not be inserted in a Work of this description ; and that 
in the following pages a few lines must often represent facts collected in the arduous 
labour of days or weeks. Much matter will also be found in the papers which I have 
published, more especially in the Journal of the Geological Society of London, and 
which it has been impossible to reproduce here. 


: 


Pa 
N) >. 


Upper Canada was changed to Ontario, that of Lower Canada to 
Quebec, and the name Canada was extended by the Imperial Parliament 
to the whole Dominion, including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
This change of nomenclature the author has found it impossible fully 
to adopt, in consequence of the necessity established by stubborn 
geological facts, of comparing Acadia collectively with the remaining 
provinces of the Dominion of Canada. The reader will therefore 
kindly understand, that wherever in the following pages the terms 


PREFACE. ix 


Canada and Acadia are used in contradistinction, the former includes 
the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the latter the provinces of New 
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. In other words, 
for the purposes of this volume, I regard the Dominion of Canada, 
with Prince Edward Island, as divisible into the two natural regions 
of Canada Proper and Acadia. 

I may add that, though, as a Nova Scotian, I must sympa- 
thize with the natural indignation of my countrymen, in view 
of the hasty and, I fear, ill-advised Imperial legislation which has 
deprived them, for the present at least, of their cherished provincial 
independence and direct connexion with the mother country, and has 
attached them to the new and untried Canadian ‘‘ Dominion,” I shall 
rejoice if the confederation shall result in the effectual extension of 
the labours of the Canadian Geological Survey, under the able 
management of my friend Sir William E. Logan, to the whole of 
British America: a union for scientific purposes, open to none of the 
objections which may be urged against the recent political changes, 
and which I strongly advocated in my First Edition. 

For myself, I confess that at an earlier period of my life it was a 
cherished object of ambition with me, that it might be my lot to work 
out in a public capacity the completion of some, at least, of the de- 
partments of geological investigation opened up to me in my native 
province; but it has been otherwise decreed ; and however I may 
regret the want of that extraneous aid, which would have enabled me 
to devote myself more completely to original researches, by which 
my own reputation and the interests of my country might have been 
advanced, I am yet thankful that I have been enabled to do so much 
by my own unaided resources, and that I have also been able to assist 


x PREFACE. 


and encourage others, who may now carry on the work more effectually 
in connexion with an organized Geological Survey. 

The numerous additional Illustrations in this Edition have been 
engraved by Mr J. H. Walker of Montreal, principally from my own 
drawings or from photographs. The post-pliocene fossils are from 
figures in the Canadian Naturalist; the Carboniferous Brachiopods 
have been copied from Mr Davidson’s figures; the Devonian Insects 
are from drawings by Mr Scudder; and the Primordial Fossils have 
been drawn by Mr Smith of the Geological Survey of Canada. By 
reference to the Classified List of Illustrations, it will be seen that 
more than two hundred and fifty species of fossils have been figured ; 
and I have added a note referring to the Memoirs which contain illus- 
trations of those new species of fossils noticed but not figured in this 
Work. 

In the Explanation of the Geological Map will be found references 
to the authorities consulted in its preparation. 


M'‘Gitu CoLuece, Montreal, 1868. 


EXPLANATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


Tue Map in this Edition, though greatly improved, is still to be re- 
garded as merely a rude approximation to the truth, and the colouring 
in many places, more especially in the interior, remote from the coast 
lines, is little more than conjectural. 

With the permission of Sir W. E. Logan, I have adopted the scale 
and geographical lines of his large Geological Map of Canada, in 
which he has spared no pains to obtain the most accurate representation 
possible of the coast and river lines. To Sir William’s Map I am 
also indebted for the geological lines of the part of the province of 
Quebec included in my Map, as well as for the geology of portions of 
the state of Maine and of the province of Newfoundland, in regard to 
which Sir William has carefully collated and harmonized the observa- 
tions of Professor Hitchcock and Mr Murray with his own work in 
Canada. For the geology of New Brunswick I am indebted, in 
addition to my own observations, principally to the published Maps 
ef Professor Robb, Professor Bailey, and Mr Matthew, and to MS. 
Maps and Notes on the limit lines, kindly communicated by Professor 
Bailey. I have also consulted Professor Hind’s Preliminary Report, as 
to the limits of formations, more especially in Northern New Bruns- 
wick, and have availed myself of the reduction of all these observations 
by Sir William Logan for his Map. In preparing the General Section, 
I have been guided, in so far as New Brunswick is concerned, by 
a MS. section constructed by the late Professor Robb, and communi- 
cated to me by his brother, Mr C. Robb of Montreal. I have coloured 
the little-known island of Grand Manan, from notes kindly given to 
me by Professor A. E. Verrill of New Haven, and which I publish 
in the Appendix. It is, however, doubtful whether the formations 


xii EXPLANATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


occurring on this island are Lower and Upper Silurian or Upper Silu- 
rian and Devonian. 

In Nova Scotia I have, as heretofore, trusted principally to my own 
observations, and to those of Mr Brown in Cape Breton. Valuable 
corrections of limit lines have been received from Rev. Dr Honeyman, 
F.G.S.; and I am indebted to Mr J. B. Moore of Montreal, Mr Poole 
of Glace Bay, Mr Mosely of Halifax, and other friends, for MS. Maps 
and Sections illustrating the distribution of the Coal formation in 
Pictou and Cape Breton. I have also, on the Carboniferous districts, 
consulted the Reports of Professor Lesley and Mr Lyman, and many 
reports made in the interests of the several Coal Companies. 

The Laurentian and Huronian formations in Southern New Bruns- 
wick are given according to the latest observations of Mr Matthew 
and Professor Bailey. Some uncertainty may be supposed to rest on 
the precise equivalency of these beds with the formations so named 
in Canada; but that they are below the base of the Silurian, and that 
they correspond in mineral character with the Laurentian and Huronian, 
cannot be disputed. 

The boundaries of the Lower and Upper Silurian, more especially 
in Northern and Western New Brunswick, and in Western Nova Scotia 
and Cape Breton, are still very uncertain, and the limits of the igneous 
veins and masses occurring among these altered beds are only vaguely 
known. One colour has been employed to represent all the intrusive 
rocks associated with the formations older than the Trias. The most 
important of these is the Granite of the age of the Newer Devonian ; 
but there are also numerous dikes and masses of Syenite, Diorite, 
Compact Felspar, Porphyry, and Dolerite, some of which may be newer 
and others older than the Granite. I have endeavoured to indicate 
some of the more important of these; but there are numerous others 
of minor dimensions which I have not attempted to delineate; as 
they could be given correctly only on a large scale, and after more 
minute surveys of their courses and extent. ; 

In Northern New Brunswick, both Professor Hind and Professor 
Bailey state that the granitic rocks constitute several bands, tra- 
versing the Lower Silurian; but as I do not know the limits of 
these bands, I have adhered in the main to the colouring on Logan’s 
Map. In Nova Scotia, also, I have no doubt that whenever a detailed 


- 
’ 
‘ 
F 


EXPLANATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. xiii 


Map shall be prepared, showing the courses and limits of the quartzite 
and slate bands, of the gneiss and mica-slate, and of the many irre- 
gular dikes and masses of granite and other eruptive rocks, it will 
present an appearance marvellously intricate and complex, in com- 
parison with the broad colouring of the present Map. In the 
meantime, I have been enabled to improve the limit lines formerly 
given, by reference to the papers of Dr Honeyman, and the Reports 
presented to the Government of Nova Scotia by Mr Poole and Mr 
Campbell, to which I may also refer for a great number of minor 
details of distribution which I could not introduce in the Map. 

The only area in Nova Scotia coloured as Devonian is that of 
Nictaux and its vicinity in the west. There are, however, at and near 
the limits of the Silurian and Carboniferous, in the eastern part of the 
province, many spaces which may be of this age, but which I am not 
able to separate from the Upper Silurian and Carboniferous, and have 
therefore left as in the former Map. Areas of this kind occur in 
Colchester, in Pictou, and, according to Dr Honeyman, in Antigonish, 
and have been mentioned in the text, though I must leave their 
delineation on the Map to future and more detailed researches. In 
the Carboniferous areas I have thought it best not to adopt, as in 
many recent Maps, a distinct colour for the Lower and Upper Car- 
boniferous ; but have included the whole under one tint, as constituting 
one great geological system. The propriety of this will, I think, be 
obvious, when it is considered that the lines of separation between the 
subdivisions of the Carboniferous are not sharp and definite, that 
marine beds coéval with the Coal formation may readily be confounded 
with the true Lower Carboniferous, and that new discoveries are 
constantly being made, which show that more local intermixture of 
the several members of the Carboniferous exists than had been sus- 
pected. The boundary of the Lower Carboniferous has, however, 
been indicated by a dotted line, and special marks show the position 
of the principal beds of marine limestone, and of the more important 
beds of coal. 

Considerable beds of interstratified trap oceur in the Lower 
Carboniferous of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They are in- 
cluded under the general colouring, in consequence of their small 
superficial extent, and the uncertainty of their limits. The only 


em, 


xiv EXPLANATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


exception is a remarkable band, probably of this age, extending around 
the Bay de Chaleur, and which is given after Sir William Logan. 
Many similar beds of trap are believed to exist on the northern margin 
of the Carboniferous area of New Brunswick. 

The northern part of the General Section does not coincide precisely 
with that of the Map, in consequence of the introduction of several 
trappean masses not indicated in the colouring of the latter. These 
are given as they occur in Dr Robb’s Section, and may represent inter- 
stratified igneous rocks. I have thought it best to leave them as 
given by Professor Robb, not having myself explored the district. 

I may also state that the General Section attached to the Map is 
intended to give the arrangement of the formations on the large scale 
only, and makes no pretension to represent the numerous minor 
undulations and fractures. 


ea. 


XVili 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 
The name “Acadia”—Geological Bibliography of the Acadian Provinces, . 1 


CHAPTER II. 


General description of the Acadian Provinces—Table of Formations, —. 14 


i CHAPTER III. 


Tue Mopern Periop. 


Marshes—Submarine Forests — Intervals — Lake Deposits — Infusorial 
Earth—Lake Margins—Peat Bogs—Drift Sand—Earthquakes, . ‘ 21 


CHAPTER IV. 
Tue Mopern Periop—Continued. 
Pre-historic Man—Results of Forest Fires, . E ' : é : 41 


CHAPTER V. 


: 
Tue Post-pLiocene PERiop. . 
7 


Unstratified Drift—Travelled Boulders—Striated Rocks—Glacial Pheno- 
mena—Peat under Boulder Clay—Marine Shells—Stratified Gravels— 
Remains of Mastodon, . ; : ; : : . : - : 58 


CHAPTER VI. 


Tue Trias or New Rep SAnpstTone. 


General Distribution—Red Sandstones—Trap—Truro to Avon Estuary— 
Blomidon to Briar Island, . ; : : : - 3 : : 86 


CHAPTER VII. 


Tue Trias—Continued. 
Truro to Cape d’Or—General Remarks—Minerals of the Trap and Red 


Sandstone, 99 


xiv 


CONTENTS. 
exceptic 
the P CHAPTER VIII. 
sé Tue Trras—Continued. 
“ Prince Edward Island — Fossil nN RE oc sre Remains — Useful Page 
Minerals and Soil, ; 2 oh tee : ; : ; é : oo ee L 


CHAPTER IX, 


Tue Permian BLay«, : ; ; ee 


CHAPTER X. 


Tue CARrBoNIFEROUS PERIOD. 


General Remarks—Synoptical Table—Geographical STE Cae 
parison with the United States and Europe, ; : : : eee 


CHAPTER XI. 
Tue Carzonirerous Pertop—Continued. 


District of Cumberland—Section at the South Joggins, . : : . 150 


CHAPTER XII. 
Tue Carconirerous Periop—Continued. 


Explanation of Joggins Section—Animal Remains of the Coal Measures, 179 


1 CHAPTER XIII. 


Tue Carsonirerous Pertop—Continued. 


Inland extension of the Coal Measures of the Joggins—Shores of North- 
umberland Strait—Useful Minerals of Cumberland, . : ; ot (2S 


CHAPTER XIV. 


Tue Carsonirerous PEriovp—Continued. 


District of New Brunswick—General Observations—Structure of the : 
Coal-field—Lower Carboniferous Rocks—Fossils—Useful Minerals, . 224 


CHAPTER XV. 


Tue CarzoniFerous Periop—Continued. - 


District of Colchester, Hants, etc.—Useful Minerals, : 3 ; + ee 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Tue Carzonirerous Periop—Continued. 


Subdivisions of the Carboniferous Limestone —Marine Fossils, ; ozs 


CHAPTER XVII. 


Tue Carponirerous Perion—Continued. 


Districts of Pictou, Antigonish, and } Guysborough—Iaolated 1 Patches at 
Margaret’s Bay, ete, .  . z 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


Tue Carzonirerous Periop—Continued. 
Land Animals of the Coal Period—Reptiles—Pulmonates—Insects, 


CHAPTER XIX. 
Tue Carsonirerous Periop— Continued. 


District of Richmond and Southern Inverness—Useful Minerals—District 
of Northern Inverness and Victoria— Useful Minerals—District of Cape 
Breton County—Useful Minerals, 


CHAPTER XX. 


Tue Carsonirerous PER1Iop—Continucd. 


The Flora of the Coal Formation—Tissues in fon rama List of 
Plants—Note on Xylobius, . ‘ : , : - 


CHAPTER XXI. 


Tue Deryonran PeEriop. 


Lower Devonian of Nova Scotia—Devonian of Southern New Brunswick 
—Section of “‘ Fern Ledges” —Useful Minerals—Crustaceans and Insects, 


CHAPTER XXII. 


Tue Devontan PEeriop— Continued. 
The Flora of the Devonian in New Brunswick—List of Plants, 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Tue Urrer StruriAn Peron. 


Upper Silurian of Nova Scotia—Of New Brunswick—Useful Minerals— 
Fossil Remains—Metamorphism of Sediments—Igneous Rocks, . 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
Tue Lower Sivurtan Perron. 


Lower Silurian of Nova Scotia—Gold—Lower Silurian of New Brunswick 
—* Acadian Group ”—Useful Minerals—Primordial Fossils, . 


Crees ‘a —_ 


XVli 


Page 


315 


353 


390 


421 


497 


531 


557 


613 


XVii CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


Tue Huronian AND LAURENTIAN PERIODS. 


Introductory Remarks—The Huronian System—The Laurentian System 
—Summary of the Geological History of Acadia—Conclusion, 2 


APPENDIX. 


(A.)\—Micmac Language and Superstitions, 
(B.)—Peat as Fuel, 

(C.)—Cone-in-Cone Concretions, 

(D.)—Tabular View of the Lower Coal aca 
(E.)—Grand Manan, 

(F.)—New Minerals from Nowa Rookine 
(G.)—Mining Laws and Regulations, 
(H.)—Additional Information on Mines, 
(I.)—Structure of Northern Cape Breton, 
(K.)—Fossils of the Paleozoic Rocks, 
(L.)—Huronian of New Brunswick, ; 
(M.)—Lower Carboniferous of Southern New paeee 


Page 


658 


673 
675 
676 
678 
679 
680 
681 
682 
684 
686 
686 
687 


“ 


INDEX 10 ECONOMIC GEOLOGY, 


AGATE, 

ALBERTITE, 

OM,” : F 
ANHYDRITE, 


_ ANKERITE, 


ANTIMONY, 

Barytes, : 3 ‘ ‘ ‘ 

Brrumen, Earthy, 

Cement, Water, 

Cray, 3 

Coat of Simabertand, 

—— of Colchester, 

— of Pictou, 

—— of Antigonish, 

—— of Richmond, 

—— of Inverness and Witsioria, 

—— of Cape Breton, 

— of New Brunswick, 

—_ probabilities of, in Prince Edward Taland 

Coprer Ores in Triassic Trap, 
—- in Coal Formation, . ; ; : P 
~ in Devonian and Silurian Rocks, 


FREESTONE, . A 5 2 ‘. ‘ : . 249; 


Gotp of Nova ne 
—— of New Brunswick, 


GRANITE, 

GRAPHITE, 

GRINDSTONE, i r , ‘ : 

GypsuM, . s 7 . 222, 249, 271, 345, 
Iron Ore of Trinssic Trap, 3 


— of Carboniferous, . : 3. r . ; “999, 
— of Silurian and Devonian, . : A 5 
Tron Ochres, . F : . ’ ; , x B40, SOL, 
JASPER, ‘ 
Limestone, 3 
Leap, Ores of, . ’ R 
MANGANESE Ore, . . ; A : 5 : en Olly 


229, 249, 271, 345, (351, 


Marsie, . : : : - : ; - : 345, 


NICKEL, 

Pear, ; . ; : 5 : 1 

PETROLEUM, 

Porpuyry, 

Quartz, smoky, 

Savr Springs, 

SILVER, 

Sire, 5 : . : : 

Soms, . ee, 21, 112, 123, 233, 
SHALE, Biienaincus, : : : - 
Unser, 

Zinc, 


276, 345, 592 


Page 
114 
231, 247 
249 
249, 263 
583 
640 


248, 339 
: 351 
275, 345, 635 


: 123 
102, 107, 113 
345 

527, 592, 640 
344, 351, 404 
277, 624 

640 

635 

664 

222, 249 


399, 403, 419 


bee ci.) 
271, 344, 419 
526, 582, 641 
583, 584, 590 
Sah 
“403, 419, 663 
275, 351, 640 
272, 345, 641 
399, 419, 593 
641 

. 85, 675 
248 

593 

: 593 
248, 276, 349 
640 
eee 
‘593, 617, 623 
248 

351 

641 


INDEX OF SUBJECTS IN GENERAL GEOLOGY ILLUSTRATED 
OR DISCUSSED IN THIS VOLUME, 


Bey 
F : Page 
Albertite, Origin of, : . : : A je uacall 
ue Antholithes, Nature and Affinities ae : : : : , 460 
Calamites, Structure and Affinities of, . : ; : : - 194, 441 
Carboniferous System, Structure. of, : : , ‘ . 128, 147, 156 
Coal, how Accumulated, .. . : : : ‘ ; 131, 138, 201 
—— Structure of, . : d ‘ ; : : ; : ; 461 
Colour of Sediments, . : ; : al ere : : : 24, 623 
Concretionary Structures, : Rath : : : : . 676 
Cycles in Geological Time, A Pe Er Ne 
Cordaites, Nature and Affinities of, . : : : ; p 5 456 
Copper, Native, Origin of, - ‘ ; : : : : s 107 
Erect Trees, Preservation of, : ; : : : 3 > 2S Sie aton 
Footprints in Aqueous Deposits, : 3 : : : = : 26 
Frost, Action of, . . 2 : : ‘ : : ; 505: 64 
; Forest Fires, . - “ A 5 : P : z 47 
" Flora of the Coal Eaae Peleg Pet Sanne 421 
of the Devonian Period, . : : : : ‘ : : 531 
Gold, Origin of, and Mode of Occurrence, ; : ; ; : 624 
Glacial Action, . : : : : ; ; : j ; 3 65 
Gypsum, Origin of, : : 5 : : - : . . 261, 391 
Huronian Period, : : ; : ‘ : ; Ape 3 659 
Ice, Transporting Power of, . : : - : : : : 64 
Insects of the Coal Period, . A é ; : ; ‘ é : 386 
of the Devonian Period, . : : : : 5 : 523 
Life in the Coal Lagoons and Estuaries, . : : : - : 202 
Life in the Carboniferous Sea, : : : ; ‘ 4 . 254, 285 
Lepidophloios, Nature and Affinities, . : : : 5 : ; 456 
Lepidodendron, Nature and Affinities, . : : : : : 450 
Laurentian Period, . : : : 3 A 662 
Lower Silurian, Peculiarities in astern esses ‘ s : - 620, 637 
Megaphyton, Nature and Affinities of, : - 2 : é - 449 
Metamorphism, : : : : : : - : - 610 
Modern Alluvia, : : : : : ; : i ~ 21 
Pre-historic Man, . a i é ‘ a 41 
Permian, Absence of, in Bastern Ameceas , ; : A . : 125 
Plaster-pits, Origin of, . : . : : - : : 398 
Pulmonates of the Coal Beded., s s 2 : é : P 383 
Primordial Fauna, . : ‘ : : : ; s lta 642 
Rain-marks, : ; : f : - : ; . 26, 410 
Reptiles of the Coal Pasion : : : ‘ E - - : 353 
Sand Dunes, , ‘ 3 é : ‘ 5 : : J 36 
Submarine Forests, . ; ‘ : ; : : 5 28 
Sigillaria, Nature and Affinities Ole ; . ; : : , 430 
Sternbergia, Nature of, . : - : : - ; - : 424 
Stigmaria, Nature of, . : - : - : : . . 179, 436 
Triassic Period, Conditions of, 4 : : é ‘ - ‘ oMtele 
Trigonocarpum, Nature and Affinities of, . : : . : - 459 
Tracks of Worms and Crustaceans, : - : ; : . 256, 410 
Upper Silurian of Eastern America, . : - 3 : 411, 572, 610 


aOrON > 


aed 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


I. MAPS. 


. General Geological Map—end of the Volume. 
. Map of Pictou Coal-field, 
. Map of Cape Breton Coal-field, 


II. SECTIONS. 


. General Section across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—on the Map, 
. Generalized Section, 

. Submarine Forest, Fort Prana, 

. Stratified Gravel on Drift, 

. Trias and Carboniferous, Petite River, 

. Horton to Cape Blomidon (Trias), 

. At Swan Creek (Trias), s 
. General Section Western Cetmberlind oa oaraferonsy, 
. Junctions of Formations, 

. Denudation and filling up, J ogging, 

. Beds with Erect Trees, do, 

. Base of Erect Sigillaria, do. 

. Beds over Joggins Main Coal, 

. Lower part of Subdivision xxvii., Joggins, 

. Beds with Erect Tree, Cape Malagash, 

. South Joggins to Albert Mine, 

. Coal Creek, Richebucto, . 

. Arched and Bent Strata, Albert Winey: 

. Vein of Albertite, Albert Mine, 


Do. do. do. 
Do. do. do. 


. Lower Carboniferous at Walton, . : : 
. East River, Pictou (Carboniferous), 


Do. do. (Ideal Sections), 


. Plaister Cove, 

. Plaster Pits, : 

. Junction of Granite and Slate, : 
. Devonian, etc., near St John, . 

. Cape Poroupine, 

. Barrel Quartz, 


III. FOSSILS. 


PLANTS, 


. Devonian Vegetation— Frontispiece. 
. Diatomacess (Modern), 

. Sigillaria Brownii (Carboniferous) 
. Calamites Voltzii, roots (do. ) 


—_ Cistii, leaves (do.) 


35 
180 
194 
194 


74) 


Xxli 

6. Calamites Suckovii (Carboniferous) 

7. Sphenopteris munda (do.) 

8. latior (do.) 

a —— Canadensis (do.) 
10. Alethopteris grandis (do.) 
11. Neeggerathia dispar (do.) 
12. Lepidodendron corrugatum (do.) 
13. Cyclopteris Acadica _-(do.) 
14. Cordaites (do.) 
15. Foliage of Coal Formation  (do.) 
16. Araucarites (do.) 
17. Dadoxylon, 3 species (do.) 
18. Sternbergia (do.) 
19. Sigillariz, 8 species (do:)i='< 
20. Calamodendron (do.) 
21. Calamites, 3 species (do.) 
22. Equisetites curta (do.) 
23. Asterophyllites trinervis  (do.) 
24. Annularia sphenophylloides (do.) 
25. Sphenophyllum erosum (do.) 
26. Pinnularia ramosissima (do.) 
27. Odontopteris subcuneata (do.) 
28. Neuropteris cerdata (do.) 
29. Alethopteris lonchitica (do.) 
30. Dictyopteris obliqua (do.) 
31. Neuropteris cyclopteroides (do.) 
32. Phyllopteris antiqua (do.) 
33. Megaphyton magnificum, = (do.) 
34, Paleopteris Harttii (do.) 
35. Acadica (do.) 
36. Lepidodendron corrugatum (do.) 
37. — 5 species  (do.) 
38. -—— 2 species  (do.) 
39. Lepidophloios, 3 species (do.) 
40, Acadianus  (do.) 
41. Cordaites borassifolia (do.) 
42. Diplotegium retusum (do.) 
43. Antholithes, 4 species (do.) 
44, Trigonocarpum, 3species (do.) 
45, Cardiocarpum, 2 species (do. ) 
46, Sporangites papillata (do.) 
47. Trigonocarpum Hookeri _— (do.) 
48. Tissues from Coal (do.) 
49. Stigmaria (do.) . 
50. Dadoxylon Ouangondianum (Devonian) 
51. Calamites transitionis (do.) 
52. Asterophyllites, 2 species (do.) 
‘a3 parvula (do.) 
54. Sphenophyllum antiquum (do.) 
55. Lycopodites Matthewi (do.) 
56. Lepidodendron Gaspianum (do.) 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Pal CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


be 
57. Psilophyton elegans (Devonian) 
58. Cordaites Robbii (do.) 
-59. Cyclopteris Jacksoni, (do.) 
60. Ferns, various species (do.) 
61. Neuropteris Dawsoni (do.) 
62. Fruits, ete. do.) 


Antmats—fadiata. 


1, Polystomella striatopunctata (Post-pliocene) . 
2. Dentalina priscilla (Carboniferous) 
3. Lithostrotion Pictoense do.) 
4. Zaphrentis Minas (do.) 
5, Cyathophyllum Billingsi (do.) 
6. Stenopora exilis (do.) 
7. Chaetetes tumidus (do.) 
8. Dictyonema Websteri (Silurian) 
9. Paleaster parviusculus —(do.) 
10. Eocystites (do.) 
; Antmats—WMollusca. 
1. Mytilus edulis (Post-pliocene) 
2. Tellina Greenlandica (do.) 
~ 3. —— calcarea (do.) 
4 4. Saxicava rugosa (do.) . 
5. Mya truncata (do.) 
6. Buccinum undatum (do.) . 
7. Natica clausa (do.) 
8. Naiadites carbonaria (Carboniferous) 
9. —— elongata (do.) 
10. — laevis (do.) 
ik. —— arenacea (do.) 
12. —- angulata (do.) 
13. Fenestella Lyelli (do.) . 
14, Terebratula sacculus (do.) 
15. Athyris subtilita (do.) 
16. Spirifera glabra (do.) 
17. — cristata (do.) . 
18. — acuticostata (do.) 


19. Camerophoria globulina _(do.) 
20. Rhynchonella Dawsoniana (do.) 
Acadiensis (do.) 
22. Strophomena analoga (do.) 
23. Streptorhynchus crenistria (do.) 
24. Productus semireticulatus (do.) 


25. — _ cora (do.) 
26. Centronella Anna (do.) 
27. Modiola Pooli (do.) 
28. Pteronites Gayensis (do.) 
29. Macrodon Hardingi (do.) 
30, Shubenacadiensis (do.) 


ora ee rer ae a 


XXIV CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
31. Edmondia Harttii (Carboniferous) 
32. — _ anomala (do.) 
33. Cypricardia insecta (do.) 
34. Pleurophorus quadricostatus, (do.) 
35. Cardinia sub-angulata (do.) 
36. Cardiomorpha Vindobonensis (do.) 
37. Conocardium Acadianum © (do.) 
38. Aviculopecten Lyelli_ (do.) 
39. — reticulatus (do.) 
40. — simplex (do.) 
41. a Acadicus (do.) 
42. oe cora (do.) 
43. Debertianus _(do.) 
44, Conularia planicostata (do.) 
45. Euomphalus exortivus (do.) 
46. Naticopsis Howi (do.) 
47. dispassa (do.) 
48. Platischisma dubia (do.) 
49. Loxonema acutula (do.) 
50. Murchisonia gypsea (do.) 
51. Nautilus Avonensis (do.) 
52. Gyroceras Harttii (do.) 
53. Orthoceras dolatum (do.) 
54. Vindobonense (do.) 
55. —  laqueatum (do.) 
56. —— __ perstrictum (do.) 
57. Actinoceras inops (do.) 
58. Anthracosia Bradorica (do.) 
59. Pupa Vetusta (do.) 
60. Zonites (Conulus) priscus (do.) 
61. Spirifer Nictavensis (Devonian) 
62. Crania Acadiensis (Silurian) 
63. Chonetes Nova Scotica (do.) . 
64. —— _ tenuistriata (do.) 
65. Tremastospira Acadiz (do.) 
66. Leptocelia intermedia (do.) 
67. Modiolopsis rhomboidea (do.) 
68. Clidophorus concentricus (do.) 
69. — erectus (do.) 
70. elongatus (do.) 
71. Nuculites (Orthonota) carinata (do.) 
72. Tellinomya attenuata (do.) 
73. Megambonia cancellata (do.) 
74, Avicula Honeymani (do.) 
75. Holopea reversa dos) =. 
76. Orthoceras punctostriatum (do.) ~ 
dike elegantulum (do.) 
78. Lingula Matthewi (do.) 
79. Discina Acadica (do.) 
80. Orthis Billingsi (do.) 


ieee ee eee 


Le Ch oeee 


CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. XXV 


Animats—A rticulata. 


Page 
1. Balanus Hameri (Post-pliocene) ; F ‘ . : ‘ 74 
2. Cytheridea Mulleri (do.) ‘ q ‘ P F re 74 
3. Spirorbis carbonarius (Carboniferous) . ; : : ” --, 182 
4, Cythere (do.) : P : ‘ : : 182 
5. Spirorbis carbonarius (do.) ¢ : + oer i ' - . 205 
6. Bairdia (do.) E : ; : : 206 
7. Cytherella inflata (do.) ‘ ; ; : : ‘ ¥ 206 
8. Cythere (do.) : : : . : : 206 
9. Diplostylus Dawsoni (do.) : : : . ‘ j . 207 
10. Eurypterus (do.) 3 : : ; : . 208 
11. Cythere (do.) : : ‘ , ; ; . ° 256 
12. Leperditia Okeni (do.) : < - : : - 256 
13. Beyrichia (do.) ; : : . ‘ : 2 256 
14, Estheria (do.) = ‘ : : - . 256 
15. Leaia Leidii (do.) : : : : ; : go> BOG 
16. Trails of Worms (do.) 3 P : ? ; , 256 
17. Rusichnites carbonarius (do.) : : : : P ; . 257 
18, Serpulites, Hortonensis (do.) . ‘ : - : : 312 
19. 8. annulatus (do;)} : - : i ; : els 
. 20. Beyrichia Jonesii (do.) : : : : : é 313 
21. Phillipsia Howi (0) | an 3 ‘ : : ' se Ss 
22. Xylobius Sigillariz (do.) : : 3 : : : 385 
23. Haplophlebium Barnesii _—_(do.) : : : : 4 : rie te 
24. Archimulacris Acadicus (do) - . : : 2 , : 388 
25. Rusichnites Acadicus (do.) : 3 : ; , 2 ¢ 4410 
26. Eurypterus pulicaris (do.) ; : : ; ; , 523 
27. Amphipeltis paradoxus (do.) : , : : : : - 523 
28. Platephemera antiqua (do.) P ‘ ‘ A : 524 
29. Homothetus fossilis (do.) : ; : : : : Sozo 
30. Lithentomum Harttii (do.) : : : : : S 525 
31. Xenoneura antiquorum (do.) : A : : ; : a B20 
82. Homalonotus Dawsoni (Silurian). . ; : : : - 607 
33. Dalmania Logani (dox)#, >: ; : ; ; : - 1608 
34. Beyrichia pustulosa (do.) : ; ; bags : 609 
35. —  equilatera (do.)= -. ; ; ; : : - 609 
36. Conocephalites Matthewi = (do.) 3 ; ‘ : : : 646 
37. —— Orestes Ee, (d0.). = : : : : ; . 649 
38. —— Ouangondianus (do.) 2 - : : : : 651 
39. — Halli (1: Par ae ; ; : . ~ 653 
40. Microdiscus Dawsoni (do.) ‘ : 4 ; 3 " 654 
41, Agnostus Acadicus (do.)  . - : ; : : ~ 655 
42. Heads of Paradoxides (do.) : ? ! : ; 4 656 
43. Paradoxides, restored, ‘ ~ PF : : : ; : Bremen iy 
Animas — Vertebrata. 
1. Mastodon, femur (Post-pliocene) - ‘ = i : ; 84 
- —~ molar (do.) : : - , ‘ . 84 
3. Bathygnatus borealis (Trias). ; : At f hae? Fe 


— 
ee ee 


? 


XXV1 CLASSIFIED LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Page 
4, Dendrerpeton Acadianum (Carboniferous) . - : - ; 189 
5. Ctenoptychius cristatus (do.) . F F : A o> S209 
6. Conchodus plicatus (do.) : - - : : a 209 
7. Psammodus (do:): |: $7 ae : : ‘ » 209 
8. Gyracanthus duplicatus (do.) : : S : ‘ ; 210 
a magnificus (do.) . ae We : : E a 200 
10. Rhizodus lancifer ‘(do.) : : ; : : ; 210 
11. Diplodus, soi (d0:) =, 9 : : : . ; Semel 
12. Paleoniscus Alberti — (do.), 3 Mee Caine Oe 231 
13. Rhizodus Hardingi (do.) . ovals ; : : . 204 
14. Acrolepis Hortonensis (do.) F : 5 Bee : < Saee 
15. Ctenacanthus (do.) . : : : : : . 254 
16. Baphetes planiceps (do.) : : ; ; : 3 328 
17. Reptiles restored (do.) . : ; : : é . 3852 
18. Footprints (do. ) : é : 3 : : 356 
19. Footprints of Sauropus (do.) . - ; : : - - 858 
20. Baphetes planiceps, (do.) 4 Sheer: ae. 860 
21. Dendrerpeton Acadianum (do.) . : - - . ; . 364 
22. Oweni (do.) . : . : : : 369 
23. Hylonomus Lyelli (do.) . : : : : : . 373 
24, — _ aciedentatus (do. ) - : : : > : 377 
25. —, Wymani (do.) . : ; : - : SNe 62: 
26. Hylerpeton Dawsoni, (do.) : : , : : 3 380 
27. Eosaurus Acadianus (do.) . é - : : : . 382 
IV. MISCELLANEOUS. 
Impressions of Rain (Modern and Carboniferous), . - : : . 27 
Do. Shrinkage Cracks (do.) : : : : 27 
Rill Marks (do.) . : 3 » ei : 27 
Sand Hills, New London, . . “ 3 2 ‘ : = a) Laer moe 
Micmac Heads, 5 : - - : ’ : : 5 . ‘ 41 
Stone Implements, . : ; . , - = : ‘ = 43 
View of Cape Blomidon, . : - : - : : : é 3 90 
Basaltic Cliffs, Briar Island, : - ‘ “ : a ¢ 5 98 
View of the Joggins Shore, . : ; : : : ‘ - « 179 
Erect Sigillaria, 8. Joggins, : . . . : ‘ ; : 192 
Cliff of Crystalline Gypsum, . : : : 3 : . . a ome 
Fall of Economy River, : : : : : é 557 
Granite Hill and Lake near St Mary’ S Rive, n - : © G18 
Waverley Mine, . : : : ; : : : : : 627 
Cone-in-cone Concretion, 5 4 Z : : ge - + 686 


Note.—Figures of most of the new species of Fossils, noticed and not illus- 
trated in this work, may be found in the Author’s Memoirs on these subjects, 
as follows :— 

Carboniferous Plants—Journal of Geological Society of London, vol. xxii. 

Devonian Plants—Ibid., vols. xviii. and xix., and Canadian Naturalist and 

Geologist, 1st Series, vol. vi. : 

Carboniferous Reptiles, ete.— Air-breathers of the Coal Period,” Montreal and 

London, 1863, and Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, 1st Series, vol. viii. 


ERRATA. 


Page 3, ete., Maliceet is better spelled Maliseet. 
» 28, for Zellina Balthica read Tellina Greenlandica. The true 
T. Balthica is a different species. 
138, line 4 from bottom, for clay read marl. 
213, » top, for Macean read Maccan. 
241, +, Jor pure read fine. 
bottom, for this read his. 
top, for coast read cost. 
1 or those read these. 
» for Steviacum read Billingsi. 
bottom, for ten-thousandth read (in some copies) 
thousandth. 
» top, for or read of. 
» 8 4, 4, jor these read those. 
413, Description of map, for Schooner Point read Schooner Pond. 
444, Description of figure, for trinerne read trinervis. 


al If the reader should discover any other errors in addition to those above noted, 
he is requested to make some allowance for the difficulty of correcting proofs, 
oe 7 _ when the author is on one side of the Atlantic and the printer on the other. 


. 


Os 
& 


ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


CHAPTER I. 


THE NAME “ ACADIA ’—GEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ACADIAN 
PROVINCES. 


Tue old and beautiful name Acadia or Acadie, by which Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick, and the neighbouring islands were known to the 
early French colonists, though it has a classic look and sound, is 
undoubtedly of aboriginal origin. Long before I was aware that 
any doubt or controversy existed as to its derivation, it was explained 
to me by an ancient Micmac patriarch named Martin St Pierre, or, 
as he pronounced it, ‘‘ Maltun Sapeel,”’ who used to visit my father’s 
house, asking alms, when I was a boy. According to him, the name 
signifies ‘‘ Plenty here,” and he illustrated this by the word Shuben- 
acadie, which still remains as the name of one of the principal rivers 
of Nova Scotia. Shuben, he said, or “ Sgabun,”’ means ground-nuts, 
or Indian potatoes; and Shubenacadie, a place where ground-nuts are 
abundant. On the authority-of this venerable Micmac philologist, 
I gave, in the first edition of this work, the following explanation 
of the term :— 

“The aboriginal Micmacs of Nova Scotia, being of a practical turn 
of mind, were in the habit of bestowing on places the names of the 
useful things which could be found in them, affixing to such terms 
the word Acadie, denoting the local abundance of the particular 
objects to which the names referred. The early French settlers 
appear to have supposed this common termination to be the proper 
name of the country, and applied it as the general designation of the 

A 


2 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


region now constituting the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, 
and Prince Edward Island, which still retain Acadia as their poetical 
appellation, and as a convenient general term for the Lower Provinces 
of British America as distinguished from Canada. Hence the title 
“ Acadian Geology ”’ is appropriate to this work, not only because that _ 
name was first bestowed on Nova Scotia, but because the structure 
of this province, as exposed in its excellent coast sections, furnishes 
a key to that of the neighbouring regions, which I have endeavoured 
to apply to such portions of them as I have explored.” 

I find, however, that the Commissioners on the Settlement of the 
North-eastern Boundary had previously given a very different explana- 
tion of the name. They say, as quoted by Prof. Hind :—* 

“The obscurity which has been thrown in past times over the 
territorial extent of Acadia, that country of which De Monts re- 
ceived letters patent in 1603, was occasioned by not attending to 
the Indian origin of the name, and to the repeated transfer of the 
name to other parts of the country to which the first settlers after- 
wards removed. Even before the appointment of De la Roche, in 
1598, as Lieutenant-General of the country, including those parts 
adjacent to the Bay of Fundy, the bay into which the St Croix 
empties itself was known to the Indians of the Moriseet (Maliseet) 
tribe, which still inhabits New Brunswick, by the name Peska dum 
quodiah, from Peskadum, fish, and Quodiah, the name of a fish 
resembing the cod,’’—which fish is supposed to be that known as 
the “ Pollock.” 

They further state that the French softened this word Quodiah 
into Quadiac, Cadie, and finally Acadie, while the English have 
changed it into Quoddy, as in the well-known name Passamaquoddy, 


still applied to the bay above mentioned. Independently of the 


natural objection of an Acadian to believe in the derivation of this 
honoured and euphonious name from a word meaning a kind of 
cod-fish, I had great doubts as to the correctness of this etymo- 
logy in any respect; and with the view of fortifying myself in the 
belief of the derivation of my old friend St Pierre, I have applied 
to the Rev. Mr Rand of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, whose acquaint- 
ance with the Micmac and Maliseet languages is second to that of 
no man living, and am happy to say that he confirms my previous 
opinion, and illustrates it in many curious ways, 80 that we need not 
any longer speak of the meaning and origin of the name Acadia as 
doubtful. 

Mr Rand informs me that the word, in its original form, is Kady 


* Report on Geology of New Brunswick. 


iy a 
= 
vy 


THE NAME * ACADIA.” 3 


or Cadie, and that it is equivalent to “region, field, ground, land, or 
place ;” but that when joined to an adjective, or to a noun with the 
force of an adjective, it denotes that the place referred to is the 
appropriate or special place of the object expressed by the noun or 
noun-adjective. Now, in Micmac, adjectives of this kind are formed 
by suffixing a” or “wa” to the noun. Thus, in the word before 
quoted, Segubbun is a ground-nut ; Segubbuna, of or relating to ground- 
nuts; and Segubbuna-kaddy is the place or region of ground-nuts, or 
the place in which these are to be found in abundance. The following 
may be given as examples of actual Indian names formed in this 
way :— 

Soona-Kaddy (Sunaeadie)—Place of cranberries. 

Kata-Kaddy—Kel- ground. 

Tulluk-Kaddy (Tracadie)—Probably place of residence ; dwelling: 
place. 

Skudakumoochwa-Kaddy—Ghost or spirit land—is the somewhat 
difficult name of a large island in the Bras d’Or Lake, once used as 
a burial-ground. 

Buna-Kaddy (Bunacadie or Benacadie)—Is the place of bringing 
forth; a place resorted to by moose at the calving-time. 

Segoonuma-Kaddy—Place of Gaspereaux, Gaspereau or Alewife 
River. 


According to Mr Rand, Quodiah, or Codiah, is merely a modification 
of Kaddy in the language of the Maliceets, and replacing the other 
form in certain compounds. Thus: 

Nooda-Kwoddy (Noodiquoddy or Winchelsea Harbour)—Is place 
of seals, or, more literally, place of seal-hunting. 

Kookejoo-Kwoddy—Giant-land, or land of giants. 

Boonamoo-Kwoddy—Tom-cod ground; and, lastly,— 

Pestumoo-Kwoddy—Pollock-ground; which brings us back to 
Passamaquoddy, and to the learned derivation of the Commissioners, 
who, as unsuccessful in etymology as in the just settlement of the 
boundary, have merely changed the meaning of the first component 
of the word into a general term for fish,'and have taken kwoddy for 
the equivalent of pollock, very likely because its sound resembled 
that of cod, or because some Maliceet Indian had rendered the name 
into his imperfect English by the words “ Pollock fish here.” 


So much for the etymology of Cadie or Quoddy ; now as to its applica- 
tion to the large region known as Acadia. ‘Two explanations may be 
given of this. First, the name may be a mere alteration, as suggested 
by the Commissioners, of that of the bay which lay at the western 


4 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


extremity of Acadia, and whose aboriginal people were called by the 
English the Quoddy Indians, perhaps because of the frequent occur- 
rence of the word in their names of places. This name. remains 
in Quoddy Head, the last point of the United States next to Acadia. 
Secondly, the name, as suggested by me in the first edition of “Acadian 
Geology,” may have originated in the frequency of names with this 
termination in the language of the natives. The early settlers were 
desirous of information as to the localities of useful productions, and 
in giving such information the aborigines would require so often to 
use the term “Cadie,” that it might very naturally come to be 
regarded as a general name for the country. I still think the latter 
explanation the more probable. 

Acadia, therefore, signifies primarily a place or region, and, in 
combination with other words, a place of plenty or abundance. 
Thus it is not only a beautiful name, which should never have been 
abandoned for such names as New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, but it 
is most applicable to a region which is richer in the “chief things of 
the ancient mountains, the precious things of the lasting hills, and 
the precious things of the earth and of the deep that coucheth 
beneath,” than any other portion of America of similar dimensions. 

Farther, since by those unchanging laws of geological structure 
and geographical position which the Creator himself has established, 
this region must always, notwithstanding any artificial arrangements 
that man may make, remain distinct from Canada on the one hand, 
and New England on the other, the name Acadia must live; and I 
venture to predict that it will yet figure honourably in the history of 
this western world. The resources of the Acadian provinces must 
necessarily render them more wealthy and populous than any area of 
the same extent on the Atlantic coast, from the Bay of Fundy to the 
Gulf of Mexico, or in the St Lawrence valley, from the sea to the 
head of the great lakes. Their maritime and mineral resources 
constitute them the Great Britain of Eastern America; and though 
merely agricultural capabilities may give some inland and more 
southern regions a temporary advantage, Acadia will in the end 
assert its natural pre-eminence. 

The above considerations justify me in retaining the title of 
“ Acadian Geology’’ for the present edition of this work, notwith- 
standing that the name has been overlooked in the new political 
constitution recently bestowed on Acadia and Canada by the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain; and in which the name “Canada” is extended 
over the whole of British North America. The title is farther 
appropriate for a work of this nature, from the circumstance that the 


*4¢ 
A 


¢ 
YI 


GEOLOGY OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES. 5 


Acadian provinces form a well-marked geological district, distin- 
guished from all the neighbouring parts of America by the enormous 
and remarkable development within it of rocks of the Carboniferous 
and Triassic systems. 

- Nova Scotia, which is in a geological point of view the most 
important of the Acadian provinces, has not enjoyed the full benefit 
of a public geological survey, though some preliminary explorations 
have been made under the auspices of the Government. Yet, its 
mineral resources have been very extensively developed by mining 
enterprise, its structure has been somewhat minutely examined, and 
it has afforded some very important contributions to our knowledge 
of the earth’s geological history. Circumstances of a_ political 
character, rather than any want of liberality or scientific zeal on the 
part of the people, have delayed the public and systematic exploration 
of the geology and mineral resources of the country; while the pos- 
session of useful minerals, deficient in all the neighbouring regions, 
has made it of necessity one of the most important mining districts in 
North America. Unfortunately, in one sense, for the colony, its 
abundant mineral wealth attracted attention at a period when the 
Government of the mother country was not actuated by the liberal 
spirit that now characterizes its dealings with its dependencies, and 
when the rights of the colonists were not so jealously or ably guarded 
as at present. The valuable minerals were reserved by the Crown, 
and were leased to an association of British capitalists, who opened 
the principal deposits of coal, and largely exported their produce, and 
some of whose agents have zealously and successfully aided in explor- 
ing the geology of the country. The Provincial Legislature, how- 
ever, evinced a very natural disinclination to expend the public money 
in the examination of deposits in which its constituents had no direct 
interest, and which long continued to be a fertile subject of controversy 
with the mining company and the Imperial Government. 

These impediments to public action on the subject of geological 
exploration have now passed away. Arrangements have been entered 
into between the province and the mother country, in virtue of which 
the control of the mines will revert to the former on the expiry of 
the lease. A recent act of the Legislature has empowered the Pro- 
vineial Government to grant leases of unopened mines to private 
speculators. The provincial lines of railway have opened up many of 
the inland mineral districts. Valuable metallic minerals have been 
discovered in localities which had escaped the reservation; and 
arrangements have been made with the General Mining Association, 
which have thrown open the coal districts of the province to mining 


6 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


enterprise. In all these facts there is promise that the Provincial 
Government will soon find itself in a position to institute a thorough 
scientific investigation of the structure and productions of the country, 
and it is to be hoped that this will be done by competent persons and — 
on a liberal scale; and not, as has been the case in some neighbouring 

colonies, in a manner too imperfect to afford trustworthy results. 

The excellent survey of Canada now in progress under Sir W. E. 

Logan, is a model to the other provinces in this respect ; and it is to 
be hoped that, under the new political constitution provided for these 

colonies, its benefits may be extended to the whole of British North 

America. 

In the meantime, Nova Scotia may congratulate herself, that the 
neble monuments of the earth’s geological history exposed in her 
coast cliffs have induced eminent geologists from abroad to: occupy 
themselves with the more interesting parts of the structure of the 
province, and have cherished a strong taste for geological inquiry 
among her own sons; and that much has thus been effected as a 
labour of love, which in other countries would have cost a large 
expenditure of the public wealth. Much, no doubt, still remains to 
be done, especially in those districts less fertile in facts interesting 
to the naturalist; but a glance at the list of publications in the 
following pages, is sufficient to show how much labour has been 
voluntarily and gratuitously expended, as well as the importance and 
interest of the discoveries that have been made. 

But though a large amount of valuable information has been 
accumulated, it is scattered through the numbers of scientific journals 
and other publications, inaccessible to the general reader, and not 
easily referred to by the geological student; and it is in its nature 
fragmentary, and incapable of affording a complete view of the structure 
of the country. These considerations, and the possession of a mass of 
unpublished notes which had been accumulating for fourteen years, 
induced the author, in 1855, to undertake the present work, and 
to believe that, in doing so, he would render an acceptable service not 
only to his own countrymen and to the inhabitants of the other 
Acadian provinces, but to those geologists in Britain and America 
who may be acquainted with his published papers, and may desire 
a more complete acquaintance with Acadian geology. Ten years 
have now elapsed since the publication of the first edition of “ Acadian 
Geology.” In that time a great additional quantity of geological 
information has accumulated,—the science itself has made much 
progress, and a remarkable development of the mineral wealth 
of the Acadian provinces has occurred. The author has, it is true, 


GEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF TITE ACADIAN PROVINCES. 7 


been removed in the meantime from the scene of his former labours, 
and now dwells in the great Silurian plain of Lower Canada; but 
he still retains a lively interest in the geology of his native province, 
and has endeavoured to carry forward to completion some of the 
subjects left unfinished in 1855, and to acquaint himself as far as 
possible with the results of the researches of other observers. 

In the edition of 1855, Nova Scotia was not only taken as the 
typical region for the whole of the Acadian provinces; but the scope 
of the work was in a great degree limited to that province. In the 
present edition it has become necessary to take a wider range, more 
especially in regard to New Brunswick, since the researches of Dr 
Robb, Professor Bailey, Mr Matthews, Mr Hartt, and Professor 
Hind, have developed to a remarkable extent the geology of the 
latter province, and have disclosed there some geological formations 
of great importance not as yet recognised in Nova Scotia. 

The earliest account of the geology of Nova Scotia with which I 
am acquainted, is contained in an elaborate paper in Silliman’s 
American Journal of Science for 1828, by C. T. Jackson and 
F. Alger, Esqs., of Boston, United States. Messrs Jackson and 
Alger directed their attention principally to the trap and red sandstone 
formations of the western districts, and the interesting crystallized 
minerals contained in the former; but they also gave a tolerably 
correct view of the distribution of the rock formations throughout 
the province, and made the earliest attempt to represent them on 
a geological map. Their determinations of the minerals of the trap 
district are accurate, and their catalogue of these minerals still admits 
of little extension. This paper was published in a separate form in 
1832. 

An important addition was made to the geology of the province in 
1829, in a chapter contributed to Haliburton’s History of Nova Scotia, 
by Messrs Brown and Smith, then exploring the province on behalf 
of the General Mining Association; and the former of whom has 
subsequently been one of tlre most successful investigators of the 
geology of the coal formation. The article in Haliburton relates 
principally to the eastern districts, and is chiefly remarkable as 
containing the most accurate views of the development of the carbo- 
niferous system in Nova Scotia promulgated previously to the visit of 
Sir Charles Lyell in 1842. 

In 1836, a volume, entitled ‘Remarks on the Geology and 
Mineralogy of Nova Scotia,” by A. Gesner, F.G.S., was published in 
Halifax, and was the first work on the local geology extensively cireu- 
lated in the province. This work was in great part a popular resumé of 


8 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


the previously published discoveries of Jackson and Alger, but with 
many additional facts collected by its author in the course of careful 
examinations of the coasts of the Bay of Fundy, and more hurried 
journeys in other parts of the province. Gesner’s work was of great 
service in directing popular attention within the province to the subject 
of geology, and it is still an excellent guide to the localities of in- 
teresting mineral specimens. ‘The Industrial Resources of Nova 

Scotia,” a second work by the same author, was published in 1849. 

In 1841, Sir W. E. Logan, now provincial geologist of Canada, made 
a short tour in Nova Scotia, and contributed a paper on the subject to 
the Geological Society of London. In 1843, in passing through Nova 
Scotia on his way to Canada, he visited the South Joggins, and 
executed the remarkable section which he published in 1845 in his 
first Report on the Geology of Canada. This section, which includes 
detailed descriptions and measurements of more than fourteen thousand 
feet of beds, and occupies sixty-five octavo pages, is a remarkable 
monument of his industry and powers of observation, and gives a 
detailed view of nearly the whole thickness of the coal formation of 
Nova Scotia. 

The year 1842 forms an epoch in the history of geology in Nova 
Scotia. In that year Sir Charles Lyell visited the province, and 
carefully examined some of the more difficult features of its geological 
structure, which had baftled or misled previous inquirers. Sir Charles 
also performed the valuable service of placing in communication with 
each other, and with the geologists of Great Britain, the inquirers 
already at work on the geology of the province, and of stimulating their 
activity, and directing it into the most profitable channels. The writer 
of the present work gratefully acknowledges his obligations in these 
respects. The results obtained by Sir Charles, which much modified 
and enlarged the views previously entertained of the structure of Nova 
Scotia, were communicated to the Geological Society, and a popular 
account of them was given in his “ Travels in North America.” 

Since 1842, a great number of papers on the geology of Nova Scotia © 
and the neighbouring provinces have been published in the scientific 
journals and otherwise. The following list includes such of these as 
have been consulted in the preparation of this work, arranged accord- 
ing to their dates :— = 


On the upright Fossil Trees found at different levels in the Coal Strata 
of Nova Scotia. Lyell, Geol. Proc. iv. pp. 176-178. 

On the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, and on the Age of the Gypsum. 
Lyell, cbid. pp. 184-186. 


GEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES. 9 


A Geological Map of Nova Scotia. By A. Gesner, Geol. Proc., 
p- 186. 4to map. 

Geological Excursion in Prince Edward Island. J. W. Dawson, 
Haszard’s Gazette, 1842. 

Geological Survey of New Brunswick. A. Gesner, 1839-1843. 

On the Geology of Cape Breton. R. Brown, Journal of Geol. Society 
of London, i. p. 23. 4 woodcuts. 

On the Lower Carboniferous or Gypsiferous Formation of Nova Scotia, 

J. W. Dawson, ibid. p. 26. 6 woodcuts. 

On the Geology of Cape Breton. R, Brown, ibid. p. 207. 3 wood- 
cuts. 

On the Newer Coal Formation of the Eastern part of Nova Scotia. 
Dawson, ibid. p. 322. 4to map, 4 woodcuts. 
Report on the Geology of Prince Edward Island. A. Gesner. 1846, 
Notice of some Fossils found in the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, 

_ Dawson, Geol. Journal, ii. pp. 132-136. 1 woodcut. 

Notes on the Fossils communicated by Mr Dawson. Bunbury, ibid. 
pp. 136-139. 1 8vo plate. 

On a group of erect Fossil Trees in the Sydney Coal Formation, Cape 

_ Breton. R. Brown, ¢bid. pp. 393-396. 3 woodcuts. 

Report on the Coal Fields of Caribou Cove and River Inhabitants. 
Dawson, Journals of the Legislature of Nova Scotia, 1846. 

On the Boulder Formation and Superficial Drift of Nova Scotia. 
Dawson, Abstract, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
1847. 

On the Mode of Occurrence of Gypsum in Nova Scotia. Dawson, 

_ Abstract, zbéd. 1847. 

On the Gypsiferous Strata of Cape Dauphin, Cape Breton. R. Brown, 
Geol. Journ. iii. pp. 257-260. 2 woodcuts. 

Description of an upright Lepidodendron, with Stigmaria Roots, 
Sydney, Cape Breton. R. Brown, Geol. Journ. iv. pp. 46-50. 7 
woodcuts. 

On the New Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia. Dawson, ibid. pp. 50-59. 

_ 4to map and section. 

On the Colouring Matter of Red Sandstones, and the White Beds 
associated with them. Dawson, Geol. Journ. v. pp. 25-30. 

On the Gypsum of Nova Scotia. Gesner, ibid. pp. 129, 130. 1 
woodcut. 

Notice of the Gypsum of Plaster Cove. Dawson, iid. pp. 335-339. 
3 woodcuts. 

Description of erect Sigillariae, Sydney, Cape Breton. R. Brown, ibid. 
pp- 354-360. 9 woodcuts. 


10 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


On the Lower Coal Measures of the Sydney Coal Field, Cape Breton. 
R. Brown, Geol. Journ. vi. pp. 115-133. 9 woodcuts. 

On the Metamorphic and Metalliferous Rocks of the East of Nova 
Scotia. Dawson, zbid. pp. 347-364. 4 woodcuts. 

Notice of the Occurrences of upright Calamites near Pictou, Nova 
Scotia. Dawson, zbzd. vii: pp. 194-196. 3 woodcuts. 

On a Fossil Fern from Cape Breton. Bunbury, ibid. viii. pp. 31-35. 


1 plate. 
Dr Robb’s Notices of the Geology of New Brunswick in Johnston’ s 
Report. 1849. 


Jackson’s Report on the Albert Coal Mine (New Brunswick). 1851. 

Deposition of R. C. Taylor, etc., on the Albert Mine. 1851. 

Notes on the Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia. Dawson, Geol. Journ. 
pp. 398-400. 2 woodcuts. 

On the Remains of a Reptile and a Land-shell in an erect Fossil Tree 
in the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia. Lyell, Dawson, Wyman, 
and Owen, Geol. Journ. ix. pp. 58-67. 3 plates, 1 woodcut. 

On the Albert Mine, New Brunswick. Dawson, zbid. pp. 107-115. 
7 woodcuts. 

On the Coal Measures of the South Joggins. Dawson, ibid. x. pp. 
1-42. 25 woodcuts. 

On the Structure of the Albion Coal Measures. Dawson; with 
Journals of Exploratory Works, by H. Poole. Jbid. x. pp. 
42-47, 

On a Fossil imbedded in amass of Pictou Coal. Professor Owen, ibid. 
x. pp. 207, 208. Lithographic plate. 

Notice of the Discovery of the above-mentioned Reptilian Skull. 
Dawson, ibid. xi. p. 8. 

On a Modern Submerged Forest at Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia. 
Dawson, zbid. xi. p. 119. 

Leidy on Bathygnathus Borealis, an extinct Saurian of the New Red 
Sandstone of Prince Edward Island. Proc. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. 
1854. 

On the Lower Carboniferous Coal Measures of British America. 
Dawson, Journ. of Geol. Soc. xv. p. 62. 

On the Vegetable Structures in Coal. Dawson, lithog. plates, bd. 
XV. p. 626. - 

On a Terrestrial Mollusk, a Millepede, and new Reptiles, from the Coal 
Formation of Nova Scotia. Dawson, ibid. xvi. p. 268. 

On an Undescribed Fossil Fern. Dawson, zbid. xvii. p. 5. 

On Elevations and Depressions of the Earth in North America, 
Gesner, zbid. xvii. p. 381. 


GEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES, 11 


On a new Starfish of the Genus Palzaster from Nova Scotia. Billings, 
woodcut, Canad. Naturalist, v. p. 69. 

On the Silurian and Devonian Rocks of Nova Scotia. Dawson, 
woodcuts, ibid. v. p. 132. 

On the Coal Field of Pictou. Poole, Can. Nat. v. p. 285. 

On new Localities of Fossiliferous Silurian Rocks in Nova Scotia. 
Honeyman, ibid. v. p. 293. 

On Natro-Boro-Calcite. How, Ed. Phil. Journ., and Silliman, 1857. 

On Faroelite and other Minerals. How, zbid. 1858. 

On Analysis of three new Minerals from the Trap of the Bay of Fundy. 
How, zbid. 1859. 

On the Oil Coal of Nova Scotia. How, Silliman’s Journ., 2d ser. 
xxx, p. 74. 

Notice of Additional Reptilian Remains from the Coal of Nova Seotia. 
Dawson, Journ. Geol. Soc. xviii. p. 5. 

Note on a Carpolite and an erect Sigillaria from Nova Scotia. Daw- 
son, Journ. Geol. Soc. xvii. p. 522. 

On the Pre-Carboniferous Flora of New Brunswick, Maine, and Eastern 
Canada. Dawson, Canad. Naturalist, vi. p. 161. 

On the recent Discoveries of Gold in Nova Scotia. Dawson, ibid. vi. 
p. 417. 

On Natro-Boro-Calcite from Nova Scotia. How, Silliman’s Journ., 
2d ser. xxxii. p. 9. 

On Gyrolite. How, ibid. xxxii. p. 13. 

On Gold in Nova Scotia. Marsh, zbid. xxxii. p. 395. 

Remains of an’ Enaliosaurian in the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, 
1 plate. Marsh, cbid. xxxiv. p. 1, and Journal of Geol. Soc. xix. 
p- 52. 

On the Flora of the Devonian Period in N.-E. America, Dawson, 
Journ. Geol. Soc. xviii. p. 296. ; 

On the Geology of the Gold Fields of Nova Scotia. Honeyman, did. 
XViii. p. 342. 

On the Lower Carboniferous Brachiopoda of Nova Scotia. David- 
son, ¢bid. xix. p. 188. 

On Sew Crustaceans from the Chihoahorte and Devonian Rocks of 
British America. Salter, zbid. xix. p. 75. 

Further Observations on the Devonian Plants of Maine, Gaspé, and 
New York. Dawson, ibid. xix. p. 458. 

On a new Species of Dendrerpeton, and on Dermal Coverings of Fossil 
Reptiles. Dawson, ibid. xix. p. 469. 

On a new Species of Phillipsia from Nova Scotia. Billings, Can. Nat. 
viii. p. 209. 


12 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


On the Geology of St John County, New Brunswick. Matthew, Can. 
Nat. viii. p. 241. 

On the Mineral Waters of Nova Scotia. How, zbid. viii. p. 370. 

On the Footprints of a Reptile from the Coal Formation of Cape 
Breton. Dawson, zed. viii. p. 430. 

A Lecture on Sable Island. Gilpin, Halifax, 1858. 

Synopsis of the Carboniferous Flora of Nova Scotia. Can. Nat. viii. 
p- 431. : 

On Mineral Localities in Nova Scotia. Marsh, Silliman’s Journ., 2d 

. series, xxv. p. 210. 

On the Coal Measures of Cape Breton; with section. Lesley, zbid. 

. 2d series, xxxvi. p. 179. 

On the Geology of Arisaig, Nova Scotia. Honeyman, Journ. Geol. 
Soc. xx. p. 33. 7 

Notes on the Geology and Botany of New Brunswick. Bailey, Can. 

- Nat. new series, 1. p. 81. 

On Fossils of the Genus Rusichnites. Dawson, zbid. i. p. 363. 

The Gold of Nova Scotia of Pre-Carboniferous Age. Hartt, zbid. vol. 
i, p. 459. 

Air-Breathers of the Coal Period. Dawson, ibzd. Ist series, viii. p. 1, 
etc.; and in separate Work. 6 plates, Montreal, 1863. 

On the Barrel Quartz of Nova Scotia. Silliman, Sil. Journal, 2d 
series, Xxxviil. p. 104. 

Gold Mines and Gold Mining in Nova Scotia. Perley, Can. Nat. new 
series, ii. 198. 

On the Azoic and Paleozoic Rocks of New Brunswick. Matthew, 

_ Journ. Geol. Soc. xxi. p. 422. 

On the Albert Coal of New Brunswick. Hitchcock, Silliman’s Journ., 

_ 2d series, xxxix. p. 267. 

On the Conditions of Accumulation of Coal, and on the Coal Flora of 
‘Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 8 plates. Dawson, Journ. Geol. 
Soc. xxii. p. 95. 

On Characteristic Fossils of the Coal Seams of Nova Scotia. Poole, 
Trans. N. 8. Inst. i. p. 30. 

Gold and its Separation from other Metals. Gesner, ibd. p. 54. 

On a Trilobite from the Lower Carboniferous Formations of Nova | 
Scotia. How, zbed. 87. : 

On the Waters of the Mineral Springs of Wilmot. How, zed. ii. p. 26. 

The Rocks in the Vicinity of Halifax. Gossip, ibid. p. 44. 

Notes on the Economic Mineralogy of Nova Scotia, parts 1, 2, and 3, 
How, ibid. p. 78. 

On some Brine Springs of Nova Scotia. How, ibid. p. 75. 


GEOLOGICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES, 13 


Reports of the Chief Commissioner of Mines, Nova Scotia, 1863 to 
1866. 

Contributions to the Mineralogy of Nova Scotia. How, Lond. Ed. 
and Dub. Phil. Maga. 1866. 

Reports on Minerals collected in Geol. Surveys by authority of the 
Provincial Government. How, Journals of Assembly of Nova 
Scotia, 1862-65-66. 

Report on Nova Scotia Gold Fields; and section. Campbell, Halifax, 
1863. 

Observations on the Geology of Southern New Brunswick. Map 
and section. Bailey, Frederickton, 1865. 

Preliminary Report on the Geology of New Brunswick. Hind, 
Frederickton, 1865. 

Report on the Gold Fields of Nova Scotia. Silliman, 1864. 


I have endeavoured to introduce into this edition some notice of the 
more important facts and conclusions contained in the foregoing 
publications, along with such additional matter as my own observa- 
tions have supplied. There will, however, be frequent occasion to refer 
to them in the following pages for details which my space does not 
permit me to introduce. 


14 


CHAPTER IL. 


GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES — TABULAR 
ARRANGEMENT OF FORMATIONS. 


Let the reader glance at the map, and he will readily perceive some 
of the principal physical features of the region we have to describe. 
Nova Scotia consists of a peninsula and island, situated between north 
latitude 43° 25’ and 47°, and between west longitude 59° 40’ and 66° 
25’; and bounded on the south-eastern side by the Atlantic, and 
on the western and northern sides by the Bay of Fundy, New 
Brunswick, and the Gulf of St Lawrence. The peninsular part, 
Nova Scotia proper, is 250 miles in length, and about 100 in its 
extreme breadth, and is attached to the mainland of North America 
by a low isthmus sixteen miles in width. Its form is nearly trianguiar, 
and its surface is occupied by several rock formations, arranged for 
the most part in lines corresponding with its longest or Atlantic coast 
line. The insular part, Cape Breton, barely separated from the 
mainland by the narrow strait of Canseau, is 100 miles in extreme 
length and eighty in breadth; and its rock formations are similar to 
those of Nova Scotia proper, though more irregularly distributed. 

The three sides of the triangle formed by Nova Scotia proper are, 
as seen on the map, distinguished by marked differences of outline. 
That fronting the north-west is deeply indented by large arms of 
the sea, separated by precipitous promontories. The longest side, 
that facing the Atlantic, is dotted with innumerable islands, and 
penetrated everywhere by small inlets and indentations. The northern 
shore, fronting the Gulf of St Lawrence, is comparatively smooth 
and uniform in its coast lines. This is also the character of the 
eastern coast of Cape Breton; while its remaining sides are very 
irregular, and its interior is occupied by a lake-like arm of the sea, 
which, but for the isthmus of St Peter’s, less than a mile in width, 
would cut it into two parts. 

It will be observed that the characters of these several coast lines, 
as well as the different physical districts of the province, are well 


y Tate pan 
z i 
ts 


GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES, 15 


marked by the arrangement of the tints which distinguish the different 
geological formations. The boundaries of these often coincide with 
those of ranges of hills, and the general direction both of the hills 
and lines of rock formation is N.E. and 8.W., which is the prevailing 
direction of the structure of the whole eastern part of North America. 
The whole contour of the country indeed, as well as the directions of 
its coasts, rivers, and hills, depends on the nature and arrangement 
of its rocks, and on the elevatory movements to which they have 
been subjected. The former determine the minor details of the 
surface and the coast lines: the latter, the elevation and distribution 
of the rocky masses on the great scale. For illustrations of this, 
I may refer the reader to the general section annexed to the map, 
in connexion with the following explanation of the colours represent- 
ing the several formations. 

The carmine and purple portions of the map, representing the 
oldest rocks in the province—rocks partly ejected in a molten state 
from the interior of the earth, and partly very ancient sediments 
metamorphosed or altered by heat and other chemical agencies—extend 
in an unbroken band along the whole Atlantic coast, wide at its 
western end, and tapering to a point in the eastern. This belt of 
country is in some parts low, rugged, and broken, and in others 
boldly undulating. It is traversed by many rocky ridges, and 
abounds in lakes, bogs, and streams. Its soils are often sterile and 
stony, though it has also large tracts of fertile soil, supporting noble 
forests, and fine agricultural settlements. Its maritime situation and 
numerous harbours have made it the abode of a large fishing and 
trading population; and these advantages have also given to it the 
capital of the province, and several of the most prosperous towns 
and villages, while its recently discovered gold veins have added 
to it in recent years great importance as a mining district. This 
district is low at the Atlantic coast, and gradually rises to the height 
of a few hundreds of feet at its northern limit, where it descends 
somewhat suddenly to the level of the inland valleys, which, in the 
greater part of its length, separate it from the district next to be 
mentioned. 

The very irregular bands and patches, of a blue colour, with 
carmine lines and spots, also consist of altered rocks, with others of 
igneous origin, poured through them from beneath; but the whole of 
somewhat later age than the rocks of the Atlantic coast. This 
district consists in great part of elevated ridges. It includes the 
highest and most continuous hills in the province, none of which, 
however, exceed 1200 feet in height, and the sources of all the 


ase 


i 


16 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


principal rivers. Its hills are covered with fertile soil, and in their 
natural state support some of the finest forests in the country; and 
it includes valuable deposits of metallic minerals. Its deep ravines, 
cascades, and fine wood-clothed precipices, afford the nearest approach 
to picturesque mountain scenery that a country so little elevated as 
Nova Scotia can boast. 

The portions coloured gray or neutral tint and red represent low 
and undulating districts, stretching in. plains or narrow valleys 
between and into the higher lands already described. The larger 
of these, that coloured gray, is the great carboniferous district, 
including all the valuable deposits of coal, freestone, grindstone, 
gypsum, and limestone, and having fertile soils over the greater part 
of its surface. It is therefore the principal abode of the mining, 
quarrying, and agricultural population. The red district, which is of 
comparatively small dimensions, represents the New Red Sandstone, 
a later formation covered by light and productive soil, and containing 
some of the oldest and finest agricultural settlements. 

The long crimson band, extending along the hilly district on the 
south coast of the Bay of Fundy, and the isolated patches of the 
same colour on the opposite side of Minas Channel and Basin, are 
the most recent rocks in Nova Scotia, being masses of volcanic origin 
which have been poured through the New Red Sandstone formation. 
They constitute marked and picturesque features in the scenery of 
the western counties, and along their flanks and on their summits 
afford fertile soils and support valuable forests. 

Lastly, the recent alluvium produced by the tides of the Bay of 
Fundy, and forming marsh soils of almost inexhaustible fertility, is 
represented by certain limited stripes and patches of a brown colour. 

While, however, each of the geological formations which appear 
on the map has its special influence on the contour, coast outlines, 
scenery, and industrial resources of the country, there is a great 
variety of minor differences within each; for a geological formation, 
though it often includes a group of rocks characterized, merely as 
rocks, by many features in common, is distinguished from others, 
not so much on this ground, as by the period when it was formed, 
and the fossils characteristic of that period which it contains; con- 
sequently we shall often find very dissimilar conditions and mineral 
productions in neighbouring parts of the same geological district. 

If we turn to New Brunswick, we shall find there, with some 
differences of detail, a repetition of the features of Nova Scotia on a 
broader and more uniform scale. Stretching along the southern coast, 
from the head of the Bay of Fundy to the frontier of Maine, is a 


Pee Sir id fa 
4 ~ : . 


tt 


GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE ACADIAN PROVINCES, 17 


belt of ancient and partially altered rocks, forming a somewhat broken 
and hilly country. At the south-western extremity of the province 
this belt is joined by another still more extensive, stretching south-west- 
ward from the Bay de Chaleur, and forming, with the other, a gigantic 
letter V, between the arms of which lies the wide triangular area 
of the New Brunswick coal field; while beyond the northern arm 
of metamorphic and igneous rocks a plain of unaltered Silurian beds 
extends to the highlands, along the south side of the St Lawrence. 
The carboniferous plain of New Brunswick corresponds to, and, at 
its eastern extremity, is connected with that of Nova Scotia; and its 
hilly ranges of altered and igneous rocks form, with those of Nova 
Scotia, outlying ridges rudely parallel to the great Appaiachian breast- 
bone of America, and, like it, descending under the level of newer 
deposits and of the sea at their north-eastern extremities. Where they 
thus die out and leave the beautifully arched southern bay of the 
Gulf of St Lawrence, bordered, from Gaspé to Cape Breton, with the 
coal-bearing rocks, Prince Edward Island bends like a crescent across 
their extremities, and displays its bright red shores of later age than 
the carboniferous period, its low but beautifully undulating surface, 
and its fertile soil unsurpassed in Eastern America. 

The whole of this Acadian region is characterized, like other parts 
of the Atlantic slope of North America, as distinguished from its , 
interior plains, by a varied and uneven surface, and by great variety 
of soil and mineral products. In the latter, the Acadian provinces 
are especially rich; and in these and their maritime situation, they 
bear to the inland regions of Canada much the same relation with 
that which the British Islands bear to the plains of Central Europe. 
Nova. Scotia, more particularly, is most richly endowed with coal, iron, 
and gold; and these, with its other resources, its admirable har- 
bours and the hardy and intelligent population, which it possesses in 
common with the other Acadian provinces, must in time make it the 
England of North-Eastern America, and must give it an eminence in 
wealth and influence altogethet disproportioned to its limited area. 

It is, however, of the nature of mineral wealth such as that of 
the Acadian provinces, to be more slowly developed than the merely 
superficial richness of the soil and forests of the great interior plains; 
and consequently this region has appeared to linger behind Western 
Canada in its improvement. Its progress, however, is now very rapid, 
and must proceed at an accelerated rate. 

Such being the general physical features of Acadia, it belongs 
to us, as geologists, to inquire into the structure of its different rock 
formations, the various materials of which they are composed, the 

B 


18 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 


manner in which they were formed, the periods of the earth’s history 
in which they were produced, and the evidences they afford of the 
condition of the earth in those periods, the fossils which are embedded 
in them, and the useful minerals which they contain. No farther 


introduction will be required to enable the non-geological reader to 


understand the conclusions. arrived at on these subjects, as well as 
in some degree the manner in which geologists reach these con- 
clusions. Nature, when carefully examined and minutely described, 
is her own best interpreter; and I have endeavoured so to arrange 
the subjects treated of as to lead gradually from those modern: causes 
and changes with which nearly all are familiar, to the more ancient 
natural processes and events, which can be understood only by calling 
the modern conditions of the earth’s surface as witnesses to prove the 
nature and origin of their. predecessors. Fortunately, Nova Scotia 
affords in its modern deposits many remarkable parallels to the 
conditions evidenced by its rock formations; and when we fail to 
discover such analogies within the province, they can generally be 
obtained by a reference to other countries with which the greater 
number of intelligent persons are familiar. Should any farther aid 
be required, it may be obtained by a reference to any of those ele- 
mentary geological works which are now so numerous and accessible. 
For these reasons, I shall not detain the reader with any geological 
information of a general character, other than that contained in the 
following table, which shows the formations already noticed in con- 
nexion with the map and sections, in their relation to the complete 
geological series, as represented in the rocks of Britam and those 
of the great mainland of North America. 


Tabular View of the Geological Formations of the Acadian Provinces, 
compared with those of Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. 
I, Carnozorc, on Moprern anp Tertiary. 


Formations recognised in the Representatives in 


Acadian Provinces. Canada. United States. Britain. 
= ( Peat Bogs, Lake Deposits ae 
> 3”) p ’ « hiv 
es Intervales, Marshes, Sand ee Similar deposits. pes 2 
= ( Dunes, ete. P : OPO 


3 { Terraces, Raised Beaches, | Saxicava River Terraces. |Cave Deposits 
& | and Gravel Ridges. Sand. and River 
y : Gravels. 

| E Marine Clays of St John, | Leda Clay. | Champlain Clay. | Marine 
Calmetc: Clays. 
° | Boulder Clay. | Boulder Clay.| Boulder Clay. Glacial Drift. 


i 
& 
z 
+. 
“ 
P 
« 
i 
M 


A. 
oo 


TABULAR ARRANGEMENT OF FORMATIONS. 


Representatives in 
United States. 


Formations recognised in the 
Acadian Provinces. Canada, 


Newer Tertiaries 
Not found. Not found. | of Southern 
States. 


Middle Tertiaries 
of Southern 
States and 
Nebraska, 


Not found. Not found. 


Miocene. i 


Older Tertiaries 
Not found. Not found. of Southern and 
Middle States. 


Eocene, 


Il. Masiaants or SECONDARY. 


Limestone of 
Not found. Not found. | New Jersey, 

Alabama, Texas, 

Missouri, ete. 


Cretaceous, 


Limestones, etc., 
Not found. Not found. | of Black Hills, 
Dakota. 


Jurassic, 


Sandstones of 
Connecticut 
Valley, ete., 
Coal Measures 
of Richmondand 
Deep River, ete. 


Newer Red Sandstone and 
Trap of Western Nova 
Scotia, Southern New | Not found. 
Brunswick, and Prince 
Edward Island. 


Triassic. 


III. Panmozoic, or Prmary. 


& = represented unless by |. ‘| Limestone, 
FA 1 the lower part of the Sand- | Not found. Marls, etc., of 
2 | stones of P. E. Island. Kansas. 
Upper Coal Formation. Not found. | Upper Coal 
Measures. 
% | Middle Coal Formation. Not found. | Lower Coal 
5 Measures. 
‘3 \ Millstone Grit. Not found. 
3 | Gypsiferous Series, Lime- | Bonaventure | ‘‘ Sub-Carbon- 
a stones, ete. Formation. | iferous” or 
Lower Coal Measures. Lower Car- 
boniferous. 


19 


I. Carnozorc, on Mopern anv Tertrary,— Continued. 


Britain. 


Crag, ete. 


Hempstead 
Beds, ete. 


Headon 

Series, Bag- 
shot Beds, 
London - 
Clay, ete. - 


Chalk, Gault, 
Greensand, 
Wealden. 


Upper, 
Middle, and 
Lower 
Oolite, and 
Lias. 


White Lias, 
Saliferous 
Marls and 
Newer Red 
Sandstones 
of Cheshire, 
ete. 


fom 
| 
| 
eel lam 
; 


Magnesian 


Limestone, 
Marl-Slate, 
and Lower 
New Red 
Sandstone. 


Coal Forma- 


tion. 


Millstone Grit. 
Carboniferous 


Limestone. 


Lower Coal 
Measures. sa.) 


————ee 


20 ACADIAN GEGLOGY. 


III. Panmozorc, or Primary,— Continued. 


Formations recognised in the 
Acadian Provinces. 


Plant-bearing beds of St 


. | John, N. Brunswick. 


1an. 


4 Sandstones of Restigouche. 
Slates, Sandstones, and [ron 

Ore, of Bear R., Nictaux, 
{| ete. 


{ Upper Arisaig Series. 
(Cobequid Mt. Series.) 
Limestones, ete., of Dal- 
housie and Restigouche. 
New Canaan Slates, ete. 
Lower Arisaig Series. 
(Kingston Series, N. B.) 


Devon 


1an. 


Upper Silur 


Lower Silurian. 
_——— Se eee 


Upper Members not found. 


Atlantic Coast Metamor- 
phic Series, and Metamor- 
phic Band of Northern 
New Brunswick. 


St John, or Acadian Series. 


rian. 


Coldbrook Group, N. B. 


Camb 


Canada. 


Portage & Che- 


mung Series.* 


| Hamilton ,, 


Corniferous 


- Limestone ,, 


Oriskany _,, 


Lower Helder- 
berg Series. 
Onondaga ,, 
Guelph ,, 
Niagara ,, 
Clinton ,, 
Medina ,, 
(Anticosti Gr.) 


Hudson R. Ser. 


Utica ~ 
Trenton ,, 
Black R. ,, 


Chazy = 
Quebec, 
Calciferous. 

U. Potsdam. 


L. Potsdam. 


Huronian 
Series. 


Representatives in 


United States. 


Portage and 
Chemung. 
Hamilton. 


Upper Helder- 


berg. 
Oriskany. 


Lower Helder- 


berg. 
Salina. 


Niagara. 

Clinton. 

Medina and 
Oneida. 


Hudson R. 
Utica. 
Trenton. 
Black R. 


Chazy. 
Quebec. 
Calciferous. 
U. Potsdam. 


L. Potsdam. 


Huronian 
Series. 


IV. Eozoic, or LAuRENTIAN. 


Bs 
Britain. 


Upper, 
Middle, and 
Lower 
Devonian. 


Up' & Lower 
Ludlow. 

Wenlock 
Limestone 
and Shale. 

Upper and 
Lower 
Llandovery. 


Caradoc and 
Bala. 


Llandeilo. 


Tremadoc. 
Lingula 
Flags. 


Longmynd 
Series. 


= Upper Lauren- ic 

3 | Posto Series. tian. Adirondack tsa 
= St John, N. B. Lower Lauren-| Series. Hebrides 
ck tian. . 


In the above Table the formations of Canada have been taken 
from Logan’s Report, those of the United States from Dana, and 
those of Great Britain from Murchison and Lyell. 


* In Eastern Canada, Gaspé Sandstones. 


“suoTR}aduoqUy quazagip JO JUIpY pojuasordas syouy oy} Jo Auvai pu ‘uoroas [¥OPT UB Asinod Jo st 4 
P JO STAT 


“OMNTOA SID UL paqiosap suo IywULIOY o119 Jo JUOWASUBLUL [eauas alqnqoad oy} 03 sv Aoyjne ayy Aq yuesaid 4% pourezsojue AMAIA OY} Syuaseidad UOIqOeg AA0q¥ 9T,1,] 


“‘Sy00Y oltunin 4 “‘snolajtuoqung “f “UBLINTIG Jamory ‘9 
*dvay oisseuyy, ‘y ‘uvImoAag ‘a ‘uvluoInyy ‘9 
‘stiry, ‘6 ‘uBLinyig Jeddgq ‘p “UBI}UaIN] ‘vo 


‘VILOOS VAON ‘XV GNOHVNW OL ‘MOIMSNOANA MAN ‘MOOLSGOOM WOUd ANIT V NO 


‘VIGVOV dO S¥00U% FHL AO NOILOAS GAZITVAANAD 


21 


CHAPTER III. 
THE MODERN PERIOD. 


MARSHES — SUBMARINE FORESTS — INTERVALES — LAKE DEPOSITS — 
é INFUSORIAL EARTH—LAKE MARGINS—PEAT BOGS, DRIFT SAND, ETC. 


Tuose parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick bordering on the 
Bay of Fundy present some interesting examples of marine alluvial 
soils, which, while of great practical value to the inhabitants, are equally 
fertile in material of thought to the geologist. The tide-wave that 
sweeps to the north-east, along the Atlantic coast of the United States, 
entering the funnel-like mouth of the Bay of Fundy, becomes com- 
pressed and elevated, as the sides of the bay gradually approach each 
other, until in the narrower parts the water runs at the rate of six or 
seven miles per hour, and the vertical rise of the tide amounts to sixty 
feet or more. In Cobequid and ‘Chiegnecto Bays, these tides, to an un- 
accustomed spectator, have rather the aspect of some rare convulsion of 
f nature than of an ordinary daily phenomenon. At low tide, wide flats 
of brown mud are seen to extend for miles, as if the sea had altogether 
retired from its bed; and the distant channel appears as a mere stripe 

of muddy water. At the commencement of flood, a slight ripple is 
seen to break over the edge of the flats. It rushes swiftly forward, 
and, covering the lower flats almost instantaneously, gains rapidly on 

the higher swells of mud, which appear as if they were being dissolved 

in the turbid waters. At the same time the torrent of red water enters 

all the channels, creeks, and estuaries; surging, whirling, and foaming, 

and often having in its front a white, breaking wave, or “ bore,’’ which 
runs steadily forward, meeting and swallowing up the remains of the 

ebb still trickling down the channels. The mud flats are soon covered ; 

and then, as the stranger sees the water gaining with noiseless and 
steady rapidity on the steep sides of banks and cliffs, a sense of inse- 
curity Creeps over him, as if no limit could be set to the advancing 
deluge. In a little time, however, he sees that the fiat, ‘ Hitherto 
shalt thou come, and no farther,” has been issued to the great bay 


22 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


tide: its retreat commences, and the waters rush back as rapidly as 
they entered. 

The rising tide sweeps away the fine material from every exposed 
bank and cliff, and becomes loaded with mud and extremely fine sand, 
which, as it stagnates at high water, it deposits in a thin layer on the © 
surface of the flats. This layer, which may vary in thickness from a 
quarter of an inch to a quarter of a line, is coarser and thicker at the 
outer edge of the flats than nearer the shore; and hence these 
flats, as well as the marshes, are usually higher near the channels 
than at their inner edge. From the same cause,—the more. rapid 
deposition of the coarser sediment,—the lower side of the layer is 
arenaceous, and sometimes dotted over with films of mica, while the 
upper side is fine and slimy, and when dry has a shining and polished 
surface. The falling tide has little effect on these deposits, and hence 
the gradual growth of the flats, until they reach such a height that 
they cau be overflowed only by the high spring tides. They then 
become natural or salt marsh, covered with the coarse grasses and 
Carices which grow in such places. So far the process is carried on 
by the hand of nature; and before the colonization of Nova Scotia, 
there were large tracts of this grassy alluvium to excite the wonder 
and delight of the first settlers on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. 
Man, however, carries the land-making process farther; and by diking 
and draining, excludes the sea water, and produces a soil capable of 
yielding for an indefinite period, without manure, the most valuable 
cultivated grains and grasses. Already there are in Nova Scotia more 
than forty thousand acres of diked marsh, or “dike,” as it is more 
shortly called, the average value of which cannot be estimated at less 
than twenty pounds currency per acre. The undiked flats, bare at low 
tide, are of immensely greater extent. 

The differences in the nature of the deposit in different parts of the 
flats, already noticed, produce an important difference in the character 
of the marsh soils. In the higher parts of the marshes, near the chan- 
nels, the soil is red and comparatively friable. In the lower parts, . 
and especially near the edge of the upland, it passes into a gray or 
bluish clay called “blue dike,” or, from the circumstance of its con- 
taining many vegetable fragments and fibres, “‘corky dike.” These 
two varieties of marsh differ very materially in their agricultural value. 
It often happens, however, that in the growth of the deposit, portions 
of blue marsh become buried under red deposits, so that, on digging, 
two layers or strata are found markedly different from each other in 
colour and other properties; and this change may be artificially pro- 


duced by digging channels to admit the turbid red waters to overflow 
the low blue marsh. 


MARSHES. 23 


The red marsh, though varying somewhat in quality, is the best soil 
in the region, and much of it compares favourably with the most 
celebrated alluvial soils of the old and new worlds, The foliowing 
analysis of recently deposited marsh mud from Truro, will serve to 
show the composition of this kind of soil :— 


Moisture, ‘ ; - ‘ P "5 
Organic matter, z : , ae 
Ser as common salt, . ; cas 
? 
Potash, . ‘ : ‘ i ‘ 013 
Soluble in Water. Sulphuric Acid, ; 073 
linc, as gypsum, . : O61 
| Alumina, : , : : : 005 
Magnesia, . ‘ : ‘ A 004 
Carbonate of Lime, : : ~ eeu 
Oxide of Iron, : : 4 ee 
Soluble in Macon ; . y 4 : tm 
Hydrochloric Acid. Soda and Potash, . : ; : 8 
Phosphoric Acid, . ‘ . ; ‘09 
4 Silicious Sand (very fine), ; . 88-00 


So valuable is this soil, though nearly destitute of organic matter, 
that it is found profitable to cart it upon the upland asa manure. Its 
best varieties have now been cropped without manure for more than 
two centuries, without becoming unproductive; though there can be 
no question that under this treatment a gradual diminution of its 
fertility is perceptible. The weakest point of the marsh land, judging 
from the above analysis, is its small proportion of phosphates. It is 
probable, however, that this is in part compensated by the presence of 
fish bones and other matters of organic origin, which do not appear 
in an analysis. Yet I have no doubt that the cheapest manure for 
failing marsh will be found to be bone dust or guano, which, by sup- 
plying phosphates, will restore it nearly to its original condition. 
There seems no reason to suppose that a soil with the fine mixture of 
mineral ingredients present in the marsh mud, requires any artificial 
supply of ammoniacal matters. Draining is well known to be essen- 
tial to the fertility of the marshes, and many valuable tracts of this 
land are now in an unproductive condition from its neglect. The 
fertility of failing marsh may also be restored by admitting the sea to 
cover it with a new deposit. This remedy, however, involves the loss 
of several crops, as some years are require! to remove from the new 
soil its saline matter. It is, however, observed, that in some situations 
the newly diked marsh produces spontaneously a crop, of couch grass 


= 


24 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


and other upland plants, the seeds of which must have been washed 
into the sea by streams and deposited with the mud. 

The low or inner marsh, which I have previously mentioned 
under its other names of blue marsh and corky dike, is much less 
valuable than the red. It contains, however, much more vegetable © 
matter, and sometimes approaches to the character of a boggy swamp; 
so that when a quantity of it is taken out and spread over the upland, 
it forms a useful manure. It emits a fetid smell when recently turned 
up, and the water oozing from it stains the ground of a rusty colour. 
It produces in its natural state crops of coarse grass, but when broken 
up is unproductive, with the sole exception that rank crops of oats 
can sometimes be obtained from it. 

The chemical composition of this singular soil, so unlike the red 
mud from which it is produced, involves some changes which are of 
interest both in agriculture and geology. The red marsh derives its 
colour from the peroxide of iron. In the gray or blue marsh, the iron 
exists in the state of a sulphuret, as may easily be proved by expos- 
ing a piece of it to a red heat, when a strong sulphurous odour is ex- 
haled, and the red colour is restored. The change is produced by the 
action of the animal and vegetable matters present inthe mud. These 
in their decay have a strong affinity for oxygen, by virtue of which 
they decompose the sulphuric acid present in sea-water in the forms 
of sulphate of magnesia and sulphate of lime. The sulphur thus liber- 
ated enters into combination with hydrogen, obtained from the organic 
matter or from water, and the product is sulphuretted hydrogen, the 
gas which gives to the mud its unpleasant smell. This gas, dissolved 
in the water which permeates the mud, enters into combination with 
the oxide of iron, producing a sulphuret of iron, which, with the 
remains of the organic matter, serves to colour the marsh blue or gray. 
The sulphuret of iron remains unchanged while submerged or water- 
soaked; but when exposed to the atmosphere, the oxygen of the air 
acts upon it, and it passes into sulphate of iron or green vitriol,—a 
substance poisonous to most cultivated crops, and which when dried. 
or exposed to the action of alkaline substances, deposits the hydrated 
brown oxide of iron. Hence the bad effects of disturbing the blue 
marsh, and hence also the rusty colour of the water flowing from it. 
The remedies for this condition of the soil are draining and liming. 
Draining admits air and removes the saline water; lime decomposes 
the sulphate of iron, and produces sulphate of lime and oxide of iron, 
both of which are useful substances to the farmer.* 


* Since the publication of the first edition of this work, the blue marsh of Nova 
Scotia has been extensively improved by this process. 


MARSHES. 25 


This singular and complicated sei ies of processes, into all the details 
of which I have not entered, is of especial interest to the geologist, 
as it explains the causes which have produced the gray colour and 
abundance of sulphuret of iron observed in many ancient rocks, which, 
like the blue marsh, have been produced from red sediment, changed 
in colour by the presence of organic matter. It also explains the 
origin of those singular stains which, in rocks coloured by iron, so 
often accompany organic remains, or testify to the former existence of 
those which have passed away. It farther shows the reason of the 
paucity of organic remains in red rocks, for the red oxide of iron, when 
present in excess, tends to corrode and destroy any organic matter 
which may be present; and on the other hand, an excess of organic 
matter tends to deoxidise the iron and remove it in a state of solution, 
or change it into a sulphuret, according to circumstances,—the colour 
of the sediment being changed in either case. 

Much geological interest attaches to the marine alluvium of the Bay 
of Fundy, from the great breadth of it laid bare at low tide, and the 
facilities which it in consequence affords for the study of sun-cracks, 
impressions of rain-drops, foot-prints of animals, and other appearances 
which we find imitated on many ancient rocks. The genuineness of 
these ancient traces, as well as their mode of preservation, can be 
illustrated and proved only by the study of modern deposits. I 
quote a summary of facts of this kind from a paper on rain-prints 
by Sir Charles Lyell, who was the first to direct attention to these 
phenomena as exhibited in the Bay of Fundy.* 

“The sediment with which the waters are charged is extremely fine, 
being derived from the destruction of cliffs of red sandstone and shale, 
belonging chiefly to the coal measures. On the borders of even the 
smallest estuaries communicating with a bay, in which the tides rise 
sixty feet and upwards, large areas are laid dry for nearly a fortnight 
between the spring and neap tides, and the mud is then baked in 
summer by a hot sun, so that it becomes solidified and traversed by 
eracks caused by shrinkage... Portions of the hardened mud may then 
be taken up and removed without injury. On examining the edges of 
each slab, we observe numerous layers, formed by successive tides, 
usually very thin, sometimes only one-tenth of an inch thick,—of un- 
equal thickness, however, because, according to Dr Webster, the night- 
tides rising a foot higher than the day-tides throw down more sediment. 
When a shower of rain falls, the highest portion of the mud-covered 
flat is usually too hard to receive any impressions; while that recently 
uncovered by the tide, near the water’s edge, is too soft. Between 
* Journal of London Geological Society, vol. vii. p. 239. 


}} 


i} 


y 


26 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


these areas a zone occurs almost as smooth and even as a looking-glass, 
on which every drop forms a cavity of circular or oval form; and if 
the shower be transient, these pits retain their shape permanently, 
being dried by the sun, and being then too firm to be effaced by the 
action of the succeeding tide, which deposits upon them a new layer ~ 
of mud. Hence we find on splitting open a slab an inch or more thick, 

on the upper surface of which the marks of recent rain occur, that an 

inferior layer, deposited perhaps ten or fourteen tides previously, 

exhibits on its under surface perfect casts of rain-prints which stand 

out in relief, the moulds of the same being seen in the layer below.” 

After mentioning that a continued shower of rain obliterates the 
more regular impressions, and produces merely a blistered or uneven 
surface, and describing minutely the characteristics of true rain-marks 
in their most perfect state, Sir Charles adds :— 

“On some of the specimens the winding tubular tracks of worms 
are seen, which have been bored just beneath the surface. Some- 
times the worms have dived beneath the surface, and then reappeared. 
Occasionally the same mud is traversed by the foot-prints of birds 
(Tringa minuta), and of musk rats, minks, dogs, sheep, and cats. 
The leaves also of the elm, maple, and oak trees have been scattered 
by the winds over the soft mud, and having been buried under the 
deposits of succeeding tides, are found on dividing the layers. When 
the leaves themselves are removed, very faithful impressions, not only 
of their outline, but of their minutest veins, are left imprinted on 
the clay.” 

We have here a perfect instance, in a modern deposit, of phenomena 
which we shall have to notice in some of the most ancient rocks; 
and it is only by such minute studies of existing nature that we 
can hope to interpret those older appearances. In some very ancient 
rocks we have impressions of rain-marks, or their casts, on the under 
surface of the overlying beds, quite similar to those which occur 
in the alluvial mud of the Bay of Fundy. In these old rocks, 
also, and especially in the coal formation, we find surfaces netted . 
with sun-cracks precisely like those on the dried surfaces of the 
modern mud flats, and faithful casts of these taken by the beds 
next deposited. A still more curious appearance is presented by 
the rill-marks produced by the flowing of the receding tide, or of 
rain, down inclined surfaces of mud. The little streamlets flowing 
together into larger channels, form singular patterns, which may be 
compared to graceful foliage or to the ramifications of roots, and which 
have often been mistaken for fossils. In the following figures (Figs. 
1, 2, 3) I have endeavoured to represent the surface of a small 


RAIN-MARKS IN MARINE ALLUVIUM. 27 


Fig. 1.—Impressions of Rain-Drops.—Modern.—Bay of Fundy. 
» 2.—Impressions of Rain-Drops.—Carboniferous.—Tatmagouche. 
» 8.—Impressions of Continued Rain.—Carboniferous. 
» 4—Shrinkage Cracks and Rain Marks.—Carboniferous.—Reduced in size. 
» 5—Cast of Rill Marks.—Carboniferous.—Reduced in size. 


gs; * THE MODERN PERIOD. 


rain-marked slab of modern mud, presented to me by Dr Webster, 
and beside it the casts of rain-drops from the showers which fell 
in Nova Scotia in the carboniferous period. I have also given 
specimens of rill-marks and sun-cracks from the coal field of Cape 
Breton, which are quite similar to those to be seen at low tide 
in the Bay of Fundy; and farther on will be found representations 
of worm-tracks and foot-prints of animals found on rocks of the 
same age, and the mode of formation and preservation of which 
is explained by these same modern deposits (Figs. 4, 5). 

A still more striking geological fact connected with the marshes, 
is the presence beneath them of stumps of trees still rooted in 
the soil, and other indications which prove that much if not the 
whole of this marine alluvium rests on what once was upland 
soil supporting forest trees; and that, by some change of level, 
these ancient forests have been submerged and buried under the 
tidal deposits. To illustrate this, I may notice one of the best 
instances of these submarine forests with which I am acquainted, 
and which I described in the Journal of the Geological Society 
in 1854. It occurs on the edge of the marsh near the mouth 
of the La Planche river, in Cumberland county, at the extremity 
of Fort Lawrence ridge, which separates the La Planche from 
the Missaquash, and may be well seen in the neighbourhood of 
a pier which has recently been erected there. 

The upland of Fort Lawrence slopes gently down toward the 
diked marsh, on crossing which we find, outside the dike, a narrow 
space of salt marsh thinly covered with coarse grass and samphire 
(Salicornia), and at the outer edge cut away by the neap tides 
so as to present a perpendicular step about five feet in height. 
Below this is seen, at low tide, a sloping expanse of red mud, 
in places cut into furrows by the tides, and in other places covered 
with patches of soft recently deposited mud. On this slope I saw 
impressions of rain-drops, sun-cracks, tracks of sandpipers and crows, 
and abundance of the shells of the little Zellina Balthica,* a shell. 
very common in the muddy parts of the Bay of Fundy. There 
were also a few long straight furrows, still quite distinct in August, 
but which, I was informed, had been ploughed by the ice in the 
past spring. At the distance of 326 paces from the abrupt edge 
of the marsh, and about 25 feet below the level of the highest 
tides, which here rise in all about 40 feet, I saw the first of the 
rooted stumps, which appear in a belt of sand, gravel, and stones 


* This shell is the 7. Greenlandica of some authors, and is Psammobia fusca of Say, 
Sanguinolaria fusca of Conrad, Macoma fusca of the Smithsonian check-lists. 


SUBMARINE FORESTS. 29 


mixed with mud, which intervenes between the slope of mud already 
mentioned and the level of low tide. Beyond the stump first seen, 
and extending to a depth of at least 30 to 35 feet below the level 
of high tide, other stumps were irregularly scattered as in an open 
wood. The lowest stump seen was 135 paces beyond the first; 
and between it and the water level there was a space of 170 paces 
without stumps, but with scattered fragments of roots and trunks, 
which may have belonged to rooted trees broken up and swept away 
by the ice (Fig. 6). 


Fig. 6.—Submarine Forest.— Fort Lawrence. 


LEVEL OF LOW TICE 


(2) Marsh. (6) Soil with rooted stumps. (c) Mud and Stones. 


On digging under and around some of the stumps, they were 
-. found to be rooted in a soil having all the characters of forest soil. 
In one place it was a reddish sandy loam, like the ordinary upland 
of Fort Lawrence: in another place it was a black vegetable soil 
resting on a white sandy subsoil. Immediately over the soil were 
the remains of a layer of tough bluish clay, with a few vegetable 
fibres, apparently rootlets of grasses, which seemed to have been 
the first layer of marsh mud deposited over the upland soil. All the 
rootlets of the stumps were entire and covered with their bark, 
and the appearances were perfectly conclusive as to their being 
in the place of their growth (Fig. 7). 


Fig. 7.—Stump of Beech in the Submarine Forest. 


(a) Mud. (b) Vegetable soil. (c) Loamy subsoil. 


Of thirty or forty stumps which I examined, the greater number 
were pine (Pinus strobus), but a few were beech (Fagus ferruginea) ; 
and it is worthy of note that these are trees characteristic rather of 
dry upland than of low or swampy ground. The pine stumps were 
quite sound, though somewhat softened and discoloured at the 
surface. The beech, on the other hand, though retaining much 


30 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


of the appearance of sound wood in the interior, was quite charred 
at the surface, and was throughout so soft and brittle that large 
trunks and roots could be cut through with a spade or broken with 
a slight blow. Owing to their softness, the beech stumps were worn 
down almost to the level of the mud, while some of the pines projected 
more than a foot: even these last were, however, much crushed by 
the pressure of the ice, which, with the tides, must eventually remove 
them. The largest stump observed was a pine two feet six inches 
in diameter, and showing more than two hundred annual rings 
of growth. I was informed by respectable and intelligent persons 
that similar appearances have been observed on the opposite side 
of the La Planche, and in various other places in the Cumberland 
Basin. It is only, however, in places where the marsh is being cut 
away by the current that they can be seen, and the stumps, when 
laid bare, are soon removed by the ice. Similar beds of stumps 
and vegetable soil are also occasionally disclosed in digging ditches 
in the shallower parts of the marshes, and there appears little reason 
to doubt that the whole of the Cumberland marshes rest on old 
upland surfaces. A submerged forest is also said to appear at the 
mouth of the Folly River in Cobequid Bay; and peaty soils and 
trunks and stumps of trees are of frequent occurrence in digging 
in the marshes of King’s and Annapolis counties. It would seem, 
therefore, that these appearances are somewhat general throughout 
the marsh country. 

With respect to the age of these submerged stumps, there can 
be little difference of opinion. They belong to the modern period 
in geology, and, judging from the state of preservation of the 
wood, after making every allowance for the preservative effect of 
the salt mud, not to the very oldest part of that period. Yet 
their antiquity is considerable. The marshes are known to have 
existed in their present state for two hundred and fifty years; 
and since these trees grew and were submerged, all the mud of the 
marshes must have accumulated, at least in its present position. 
Here then we have a modern phenomenon involving great physical 
changes in the relations of land and water, and rivalling some of 
those geological events of which we have evidence in the older rocks. 

How did this change of the sea level occur? Only two causes 
can be assigned. It must have been either the rupture of a barrier 
previously excluding the sea water, or an actual sinking or subsidence 
of the whole of the western part of the province. The first of these 
suppositions is that which most readily recommends itself to the 
popular mind, and we h:ve at no great distance an instance on a 


SUBMARINE FORESTS. 31 


small scale of the effect which might be produced by the rupture 
of a sea barrier. At the mouth of the St John River, there is a 
transverse ridge of rock which obstructs the entrance of the tide and 
the exit of the river water. At low tide, the river water falls outward 
over the ridge. At about half tide, the water within and that 
without are on a level. At high tide, there is a strong fall of the 
tide water inward. Without the barrier, the tide rises from twenty 
to twenty-five feet; within, it raises the level of the water only about 
four feet. Now there can be no question that, if this barrier were 
' removed, the tide would daily raise the river to a height which 
it now attains only in times of flood, while at low tide it would 
be laid dry to a great depth. If such a change had occurred at 
some former period, marshes might be found to exist in places 
which had at one time supported terrestrial plants. Against the 
application of this explanation, however, to the submarine forests 
of the Bay of Fundy, we have the great extent of the barrier 
required, the absence of any existing remains of it, and the great 
depth below high water at which the remains exist; as it is difficult 
to suppose that the existence of any barrier, even if it wholly 
excluded the tide, could produce dry upland at such a level. The 
effect would rather be the production of a lake, or, at the utmost, 
of a morass. For these reasons it can scarcely be supposed that 
any cause of this kind can apply. It only remains to believe that 
a subsidence has taken place over a considerable area, and to a 
depth of about forty feet. We have no distinct evidence to show 
whether this has been sudden or gradual, but analogy would lead 
us to suppose that it was the latter. 

If a gradual subsidence of this kind has occurred in times 
geologically modern, the question remains, has it ceased, or is the 
country still subsiding, as Newfoundland and the south of Sweden 
are supposed to be doing? There are some facts which would seem 
to indicate that it is. In some localities portions of marsh formerly 
reclaimed have been abandoned, and it is said that it is now more 
difficult to maintain the dikes than formerly. We may, however, 
readily account for all this by supposing that the mud has settled, 
or that the tides have increased in height or have changed in their 
direction, in consequence of the contraction of the channels by the 
diking of new portions of marsh land. We are not therefore under 
the necessity of arriving at the unpleasant conclusion that our fertile 
marshes are again settling down beneath the level of the sea, or that 
the waters of the bay are likely to overflow the upland farms. 

I should add, however, that, since the publication of the above 


32 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


remarks, Professor Cook presented to the meeting of the American 
Association in Montreal, in 1857, an interesting summary of indi- 
cations of modern subsidence observed on the coasts of New England, 
New York, and New Jersey, and estimated the average rate of 
sinking at two feet in a century, under the impression that it is 
still in progress, which would coincide with the view above-mentioned 
as entertained in some parts of the marsh districts of Nova Scotia, that 
the tides now rise higher than formerly. Additional interest is thus 
given to the Fort Lawrence instance, as indicating the great vertical 
amount of this very extensive subsidence. In 1861 also, Dr Gesner, 
in his paper on “ Elevations and Depressions of the Earth in North 
America,” noticed several additional instances of modern submergence 
in various parts of the British Provinces and the United States, and 
inferred that such submergence is still in progress, or, .at least, 
has occurred in very recent times. Within the limits of Acadia, 
and in addition to the examples above referred to, he mentions 
Grand Manan, Bay Verte, Louisburg in Cape Breton, and Cas- 
cumpee in Prince Edward Island, as places in which there is 
evidence of subsidence since the European colonization of the 
country. 

I would ask the non-geological reader to pause here, to remark 
that, in the mud-deposits of the Bay of Fundy, we have an example 
of a geological formation enclosing remains and traces of several 
of the animals and plants now inhabiting the land or its shores; 
and that if, in consequence of the colonization of the country, or 
any physical change, these creatures or any of them were to become 
extinct, we might find, in digging into the marshes or by examining 
their borders, evidence of the former existence of such extinct 
animals or plants, just as the remains of the now extinct European 
beaver and Irish gigantic stag are found in the peat bogs and lake 
deposits of Great Britain. Farther, we have in the submarine 
forests the evidence of extensive changes of level; and if we suppose 
that, by such changes occurring in the future, the marshes were 
to be buried under new deposits until they had been consolidated 
into rock by pressure, by aqueous infiltration of mineral substances, 
or by internal heat, and then elevated again to the surface, we 
should discover in their hardened masses a variety of fossils, which, 
if properly interpreted, would throw much light on the present 
condition of the country. By bearing in mind these obvious con- 
clusions, much time and perplexity may be avoided, when we arrive 
at the consideration of ancient formations to which changes of these 
kinds have actually happened. ‘ 


DIKED MARSHES.—FRESH-WATER ALLUVIA. 33 


The principal localities of diked marshes in Nova Scotia are, 
Chiegnecto Bay and Cumberland Basin, Cobequid Bay, Minas Basin, 
and Annapolis Basin, all of which are parts of the Bay of Fundy. 
The quantity of marsh in these several places appears from the 
census of 1851 to be as follows :— 


Chiegnecto Bay and Cumberland Basin, . 16,170 acres. 
Cobequid Bay, : ; ; : , 75189 | site 
Minas Basin, . : : : ; . 40,280 
Annapolis Basin, —. , : , , 2,793 


36,382 


_ A considerable breadth of marsh on the New Brunswick side of 
Chiegnecto Bay is not included in the above statement. 

The value of the marshes in an agricultural point of view can 
hardly be overrated. For the maintenance of cattle, and the pro- 
duction of butter and cheese, the marsh counties of Nova Scotia and 
__~ New Brunswick possess facilities unsurpassed and perhaps unequalled 
____ by those of any other part of North America. 


The principal Fresh-water Alluvia are the river intervales, and 
the deposits forming in the beds of lakes. The intervales occur 
on the banks of all the streams. They usually consist of fine friable 
soil resting on hard gravel, and they constitute most productive 
land for farming purposes, while their fine elms and alder copses 
form most pleasing features in our river valleys. I am not aware 
that they present any geological features requiring detailed notice. 
z The rivers of Nova Scotia are of small size, and do not present, 
____ in so far as I am aware, any marked examples of high-level gravels 

or river terraces; and the gravel ridges which oceur on the sides 
of their valleys are rather to be attributed to the action of the sea 
before the elevation of the country. On the larger rivers of New 
Brunswick, and especially the St John River, there are alluvial 
___ deposits on a more extensive scale; and Professor Hind has pointed 
out some terraces, of no great elevation, as distinct from those which 
belong to the sea-margins of the Post-Pliocene period. The lake 
deposits must be very considerable in amount, as there is an immense 
number of lakes all receiving sediment from the streams which 
flow into them. On the most detailed maps of Nova Scotia, about 
four hundred lakes, varying in length from half a mile to fifteen miles, 
may be counted, and these are but a part, perhaps not much more 
c 


| 


34 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


than half, of the whole number. The mud forming in the bottoms 
of these lakes must contain large quantities of the remains of fresh- 
water fishes, shell-fish, and other animals, as well as of. terrestrial 
quadrupeds that have been drowned in them or killed on their 
margins; and should these lakes be artificially drained, such remains 
may excite much interest. At present, however, I shall refer to 
only one kind of lake deposit, which is curious as an evidence 
of the large quantity of matter that may be accumulated by the 
growth and death of successive generations of creatures too small 
to be observed individually except by the microscope. © This is 
the substance known to naturalists as Infusorial earth, and which 
has been found to abound not only in the deposits from modern 
waters, but in some ancient rocks, of which it appears indeed 
sometimes to form the mass. It is, as found in Nova Scotia, a 
white and, when dry, very light friable earth, having a floury 
texture, and showing, when examined in a bright light, an infinity 
of minute shining specks. A little of it diffused in a drop of water, 
and viewed through a powerful microscope, presents thousands of 
curiously formed cylindrical, bow-shaped, and rounded transparent 
bodies, which consist of pure silica or flint, and are the coatings 
which strengthened the cell-walls of certain minute organisms at 
one time regarded as animals, but now as one-celled plants of the . 
family Diatomacew. They grow in the waters of some of our 
lakes in such numbers that their indestructible silicious coverings, 
in the course of time, accumulate in layers several feet in thickness. 
The hardness, sharpness, and minute size of these shells render 
the mass composed of them useful as a polishing material; the 
best tripoli being, in fact, an earth of this description: The only 
specimens of this infusorial earth in my possession, and found in 
Nova Scotia, are from lakes in the hills of Earlton and Cornwallis. 
That from the last-named locality is the finer of the two. It was 
discovered by Dr Webster of Kentville. The late Professor Bailey 
of West Point, the well-known microscopist, to whom I forwarded 
specimens from one of the above-named localities, states* that 
the species contained in it are common to Nova Scotia and the 
northern parts of the United States. He mentions the following 
as occurring in specimens from Nova Scotia:—Pinnularia viridis, 
P. inequalis, Coceconema cymbeforme, Gallionella distans, Eunotia 
monodon, etc., Himantidium arcus, Gomphonema acuminatum, Sur- 
irella splendida, Stauroneis Bayleii ; Spongiolites, ete. Some of 
these species are represented in Fig. 8. 


* Silliman’s Journal, vol. x!viii. 


LAKE MARGINS.—BOGS AND PEATY SWAMPS. 35 


‘, Fig. 8.—Coverings of Diatomacene from Recent Fresh-water Deposits, Nova Scotia,—magnified. 
a 


Lake Margins in Nova Scotia are of some geological interest, 
from the effects of ice-pressure which they exhibit. The expansion 
of the thick icy sheet which forms on the surface of our lakes in 
winter, and its drifting to and fro when loosened from the shores 
by the thaws of spring, heap up very remarkable ridges and embank- 
ments of stones, gravel, and earth. In low and muddy shores, 
these actions of the ice, I believe principally the latter, push up long 
mounds, which look as if an attempt had been made to raise an 
artificial dike; and where the shores consist of small stones and 
gravel, still more regular structures are sometimes produced. Oc- 
easionally there are two mounds, one within the other, marking 
different levels of the water; and I have seen these mounds still 
remaining, in places where lakes and ponds had been long since 
filled up and converted into bogs. On rocky shores, large stones 
are pushed against the bank and packed together until they form 
huge sloping Cyclopean walls, which testify not only by their mass, 
but by the manner in which they have been wedged together, to 
the force that has been applied to them. This last appearance is as 
well seen in some of the upper lakes of the Shubenacadie as in any 
others that I have examined. These modern effects of ice-pressure 
will serve to explain some of the phenomena of the drift or boulder 
formation which overspreads the surface of the province. They are 
also curious from the resemblance which they bear to glacier moraines, 
for which they might, in some cases, be easily mistaken. 

Bogs and peaty swamps form another class of modern deposits 
which I may notice here. They are very numerous in Nova Scotia, 
especially in the rocky districts of the Atlantic coast. The largest 
that I have observed are the Savannahs near Clyde River in Shel- 
burne, and the Carriboo bog of Aylesford. With respect to the 
geological features of these deposits, | may notice: First, That they 
consist of vegetable matter which has grown on the spot, and has 
accumulated, because in water-soaked soils the decay of dead vege- 
table substances proceeds more slowly than the acquisition of new 


36 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


matter by growing vegetation from the air and water. Secondly, The 
vegetable matter in bogs, forming a black carbonaceous mass, has 
entered on the first stage of the changes by which it may be converted 
into coal; and it is not unusual to find in the bottom of such bogs 
a substance much resembling ordinary bituminous coal. Thirdly, 
The organic acids produced by the vegetable matter, when long 
saturated in water, remove from the subsoil of the bogs the oxides of 
iron and manganese, as well as lime and the other alkaline earths; 
hence the subsoils of bogs usually consist of bleached whitish sand or 
clay of a very unproductive character. There are a few exceptions 
to this in localities where the soil contains a very large proportion 
of lime. On the other hand, when the underlying rocks contain 
bi-sulphuret of iron, as is the case in some parts of the slate districts, 
the sulphuric acid produced from this mineral gives a still greater 
degree of acidity to the bog, while the iron is sometimes in too great 
quantity to be removed entirely. Fourthly, The iron and manganese, 
removed in the manner above mentioned, are deposited, usually in 
rounded kernels, at the outlets of such bogs, or in the soils through 
which their waters soak, and become partially exposed to the air. 
In this way small quantities of bog iron ore and bog manganese ore 
are formed in the vicinity of many swamps. All these facts respecting 
bogs have their analogues on a large scale in our ancient rock 
formations, and more especially in those of the carboniferous system. 

The bogs when drained, and their surface dressed with sand, or 
sand and lime, to supply the silicious and calcareous matter in which 
they are deficient, are excellent soils, second only to diked marsh 
in their productiveness in hay and oats. Portions of bog have already 
been reclaimed in this way in several of the counties, and there can 
be no doubt that many tracts of this description, more especially in 
the less fertile portions of the province, require only the application 
of skill and industry to render them valuable. 


In describing the modern deposits, I should not omit those of 
blown sand, which occur somewhat extensively within the region 
to which this work relates. Sable Island is the highest part of one 
of those banks of sand, pebbles, aud fragments of shells and coral, 
which form a line extending under the waters of the Atlantic, and 
parallel to the American coast, from Newfoundland to the vicinity 
of Cape Cod; and which are separated from the coast and from each 
other by valleys of mud. Sable Island Bank is one of the largest 
of these submarine sand-beds. Its area is equal to one-third of that 
of Nova Scotia. The depth of water at its margins varies from 35 to 


' 


SAND ISLANDS. 37 


68 fathoms; and from this depth it shoals gradually toward the 


shores of the island, which is situated near its eastern extremity. 
Sable Island itself is about 23 miles in length, and from one mile 
to one and a half in breadth. It is distant about 85 miles from the 
nearest part of Nova Scotia. Its surface consists entirely of light 
gray or whitish sand, rising in places into rounded hills, one of which 
is stated by persons who have visited the island to be 100 feet in 
height. The whole of this sandy surface has evidently been washed 
and blown up by the sea and wind; and I have not been able to 
learn, from any of the accounts of the island, that any more solid 
substratum exists. Pools of fresh water, however, appear in places, 
which would seem to imply that there is an impervious subsoil. 
This may, however, be caused by the floating of rain water on water- 
soaked sand, an appearance which may sometimes be observed on 
ordinary sand beaches, where, in consequence of their resting on the 
surface of the sea-water, these pools or springs sometimes rise and 
fall with the tide. I am not aware, however, that this occurs at 
Sable Island. There is also a large salt-water lake or lagoon, which 
at one time formed a harbour; but its entrance was closed by a storm. 
The surface of the island is covered with coarse grass and cranberry 
and whortleberry plants; and horses, rabbits, and rats have been 
naturalized and exist in a wild state. The Government of Nova 
Scotia, aided by an annual sum from Great Britain, supports an 
establishment on the island for the succour of shipwrecked mariners. 
Captain Darby, late superintendent of the establishment on the 
island, states, in a letter contributed to Blunt’s Coast Pilot, that within 
twenty-eight years the western extremity of the island has decreased 
in length seven miles. He also states that the island has been 
increasing in height, especially at the eastern end, and at the same 
time diminishing in width. He believes that the bank and bar 
extending from the western end have been constantly travelling to the 
eastward. It would indeed appear from the difference in the longitude 
of the island, as given in the old charts and by late surveys, that the 
whole island is moving eastward; a very natural effect of the prevail- 
ing westerly wind, which must continually shift the particles of sand 
from west to east, and may eventually throw the island over the edge 
of the bank into deep water, and cause it to disappear; unless indeed 
the whole bank is moving in the same direction under the influence 
of marine currents. A singular intermixture of animal remains may 
be produced by this movement of a sand island, tenanted by land and 
fresh-water creatures, over the surface of a marine sandbank remote 
from land, and which otherwise would contain only deep sea shells. 


38 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


The following facts, which have a geological as well as a zoological 
interest, are collected from an interesting lecture on Sable Island, by 
Dr Gilpin of Halifax.* The walrus, or seahorse (T’richecus rosmarus), 
at one time inhabited the island, but is now extinct, probably in con- 
sequence of the attacks of man, since as many as three hundred pairs 
of teeth are mentioned as being collected on the island. This would 
seem to have been the most southern range of the walrus, and it is an 
interesting fact that this arctic creature should come as far south as 
lat. 44°, on an island to which the Gulf Stream wafts many southern 
marine forms, such as Spirula Peronii and others mentioned by Mr 
Willis in his list of the shells of Sable Island. The explanation of 
this curious fact is no doubt to be found in the circumstance that the 
Sable Island banks form a meeting-place of the ice-laden Arctic 
Current and the Gulf Stream. The former has brought the walrus 
and the Greenland seal, which still lives on the island, and many 
boreal mollusks; the latter drifts to the shores of Sable Island many 
of the products of more southern latitudes, which may have become 
mixed in the same deposits with their arctic contemporaries. The 
only land quadruped mentioned as native to the island is a “ black 
fox,’’ but of what species is uncertain, as the creature seems to be 
extinct. Horses have been introduced, at what time is uncertain, 
and have produced the present wild ponies of the island. Their size 
is small, and their colours ‘ Isabella” and gray, while they have the 
“large head, thick shaggy neck, low withers, and sloping quarters,” 
usual in wild horses. The rabbit is of recent introduction, and 
appears to thrive, and to revert to the colour of the wild gray variety 
of England. The white owl (Vyctea nivea) is said to have made its 
first appearance in 1827, and to have visited the island periodically 
ever since. 

Sand hills and beaches exist in many parts of Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick; but nowhere to so great an extent as on the northern 
side of Prince Edward Island, where the sand resulting from the 
waste of the soft red sandstones of the island has been moved upward 
by the waves, and blown by the wind until it forms long ranges of 
sand-dunes, extending along the coast and crossing the bays, but 
I believe in no place penetrating far inland; though, since the forest 
has been cleared, the sand is becoming troublesome on some parts of 
the coast farms. Across Cascumpec and Richmond bays, and along 
the intervening coast, a nearly continuous range of sand beaches 
and hills extends for more than twenty miles; and at New London, 
Rustico, Covehead, Tracadie, and St Peter’s Bays, there are similar 

* Halifax, 1858. 


ii 


SAND HILLS AND BEACHES. 39 


__ ranges of sand hills, amounting altogether to about twenty miles 


more (Fig. 9). 

At New London, the only place where I have had an opportunity 
of examining these sand hills, they attain the height of forty-feet, and 
are covered with tufts of coarse beach grass. Their northern sides 
are frequently cut away into escarpments of loose sand; but on the 
whole they do not appear to be rapidly changing their form or position. 
The sand is of a gray or light brownish colour, though derived from 
red sandstone; its superficial coating of red oxide of iron being 
almost entirely removed by friction. 


Fig. 9.—Sand Hills, New London, P. F. I. 


No part of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick is sufficiently elevated 
to retain any snow later than April or May. There is, however, a 
ravine in the North mountain of Granville, opposite Annapolis, in 
which ice is said to endure throughout the summer. I visited it 
in April, and so could not have absolute proof of its perfection as an 
ice-house. It is a deep ravine encumbered by blocks of trap, which 
have fallen from its sides in landslips; and it appears that the ice 
which forms between these blocks in winter is sufficiently protected 
by the sides of the ravine, the dense vegetation and the blocks them- 
selves to be found unchanged even at the end of summer, 


Slight earthquake shocks have been felt at rare intervals in several 
parts of the Acadian provinces. One occurred on the 8th of 
February 1855, and was observed throughout Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick, and as far to the south-west as Boston. Its point 
of greatest intensity appears to have been at the Bend of the Petit- 


25 


40 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


codiac, near the extremity of the New Brunswick coast-line of 
metamorphic hills. At this place there were several shocks, one 
of them sufficiently severe to damage a brick building, whereas in 
the other places only one slight shock was experienced. At Pictou 
and Halifax, the only shock felt occurred a few minutes before 7 a.m.,- 
and it appears to have been simultaneous throughout Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick. 

The earthquake of the 17th October 1860, which was felt through- 
out Canada and the Northern States, was felt also in New Brunswick; 
but I believe not so severely as in Canada. 


4 


MICMAC HEADS. 


FROM PHOTOGRAPHS. 


These are given as memorials of a decaying race, which may soon 
disappear. The woman is believed to be of pure Micmac descent. 
The young man, her son, has probably a slight intermixture of French 
blood by the father’s side. Both have the typical features of the race. 


pe re by cee es 


Wespreeeyy 


9 ie 


41 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE MODERN PERIOD—Continued. 
PRE-HISTORIC MAN—RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 


In a region whose history extends backward scarce three hundred 
years, pre-historic times may seem to have little interest, in so far as 
the human period is concerned. Yet I think that something may be 
learned, at a time when pre-historic human remains are exciting so 
much attention in the old world, by referring to the more recent “ Stone 
Age” of Acadia. Those who speculate as to the antiquity of man, and 
the ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron in Europe, and who, looking back 
on the earlier of these periods through the mists of centuries, attach to 
it a fabulous antiquity, may derive some lessons from a country in 
which the stone age existed three hundred years ago, and has yet 
passed away as completely as though it had never been. The Micmac 
still pitches his rude wigwam of birch bark within sight of the largest 
cities of Acadia; but he has entered into the iron age, and the stone 
weapons of his ancestors are as much objects of curiosity to him as to 
his neighbours of European origin. When first visited by Europeans, 
the Miemacs inhabited the coast line of Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
wick, the Malicetes the interior of the latter. Both tribes were of the 
great Algonquin race, speaking cognate dialects of that widely diffused 
American tongue which extended along the whole northern side of the 
St Lawrence valley to Lake Superior. Both tribes were hunters and 
fishermen, making their canoes and wigwams, as they still do, of the 
bark of the white birch, and ‘using weapons and other implements of 
stone and bone. The bronze age never existed in North America; 
but in Nova Scotia, as in Canada, native copper was used for trinkets, ~ 
though, from its scarcity, only to a very small extent. The stone 
implements, as in Canada and the New England states, were both 
chipped and polished. In the former way were made knives, spear- 
heads, and arrow-heads, of quartz and flinty slate. In the latter way, 
chisels, axes, and gouges were made of greenstone and other crystalline 
rocks. Both varieties were used at the same period for different pur- 


42 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


poses. The implements represented in Fig. 10 are specimens of the 
first class, and will serve to show their resemblance to the pre-historic 
remains of Europe. The large weapon in the middle is the head of a 
spear or javelin made of hard jaspery slate or fine-grained fissile 
quartzite. On either side of it are two knives made of a similar . 
material. All three are believed to have been used in a skirmish 
between the Micmacs and the French, in the early colonization of 
Nova Scotia. The arrow-head is a beautiful and symmetrical little 
weapon of pure milky quartz, found in a ploughed field, and of 
uncertain age. These are good specimens of the Micmac stone imple- - 
ments of the chipped style, and are all of native rocks found in the 
metamorphic districts of the country. Their implements of polished 
stone are principally oval or wedge-shaped axes or adzes, often of 
large size and admirably shaped and smoothed. It would appear 
from the traditions of these people, as well as from a few historical 
notices preserved by their earlier visitors, that they carried on wars 
with the natives of Newfoundland on the north, and of Maine on the 
south, and with the Mohawks or Iroquois of the St Lawrence; 
and that, though divided into small tribes, they could form great 
national leagues for the prosecution of these wars. Their armies 
were organized under generals and subordinate leaders, and their 
camps, when in the field, were regularly planned and fortified with 
palisades interwoven with boughs. The now dwindled remnant of 
the Micmacs, according to Mr Rand, recall the memory of this stone 
age of their forefathers as if it were their golden age. Then they 
were numerous, independent, and powerful. They had fish, game, 
and clothing in abundance. Their dense forests sheltered them from 
the winter cold and summer heat. Poverty, want, and disease were 
comparatively unknown. 

How long had this stone age continued? ‘Tradition and history 
are silent on this point, and, in the nature of the case, monumental 
evidence fails to give dates. Certain it is, that no discoveries have 
yet been made pointing to the residence of man in that later Post- 
Pliocene period in which the Mastodon flourished; and it is probable — 
that the origin of the long-headed or Dolichocephalic race of Eastern 
America, to which the Micmacs and Malicetes belong, is to be sought 
for in an ancient immigration from Northern Africa or Europe. The 
reasons advanced in favour of this view by Retzius,* based on the 
form of the skull, as compared with that in the Guanches of the 
Canaries, and the Copts, Moors, etce., are strengthened by the large 
number of root-words identical with those of the Indo-European 


* Archives des Sciences, Geneva, 1860. 


Pad inckank tckdihdinicus cisescakeitie 2c 


PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 43 


Fig. 10.— Stone Implements, etc.: Figs. a to d one-half natural size. 


44 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


languages in the various Algonquin dialects. This subject, to which 
attention has been called by my friend Mr Rand, has not received 
the amount of study which it merits, in connexion with the wide 
diffusion of these root-words over the native languages of Eastern 
America. Philologists, regarding grammatical construction as alone 
important, and misled by the superficial dissimilarity of the languages 
even of neighbouring tribes, have not taken the trouble to search for 
those deeper resemblances which, even to this day, link the languages 
of Eastern America with those of the opposite side of the Atlantic.* 
It is at least certain that the primitive line of migration of the 
Eastern Americans was northward from the West Indies and Mexico, 
and that on the shores of the Gulf.of St Lawrence they met with 
another tide of migration coming from the northward and represented 
by the Esquimaux. Some of the evidences of this have been given 
in my papers, in the Canadian Naturalist, on the Aboriginal Antiquities 
of Montreal. I may merely mention here the identity of the manners 
and customs of the American Indians along the whole east coast 
up to the limits of the Esquimaux, and the fact that plants native 
to Mexico, as maize, tobacco, and kidney beans, were cultivated 
as far north as Quebec. It would seem, therefore, that in these 
aborigines we have a people whose ancestors migrated from the western 
part of the old world during the stone age of that region, and, isolated 
in America, preserved the habits of that primitive period unchanged 
almost until our own time, presenting us with a perfect picture of a 
condition of humanity which in the old world has become so obseure 
as to constitute a field for the wildest speculations and theories. A 
farther question may be raised, as to the amount of displacements 
of races in the meeting of different lines of migration, and as to the 
possibility of any race of men haying preceded the Micmacs ana 
Malicetes in Acadia. The Malicetes themselves had a tradition that 
they migrated eastward from Canada, pressed by the Iroquois popula- 
tion. This is very likely, though it was probably a modern movement, 
and it may have forced the Micmacs more toward the coast; the latter . 
in this case being perhaps the more primitive people of the two. 
Both tribes have obscure traditions of certain primitive giants, whom 
they know by the name Kookwés (yiyas); but this may be a remnant 
of traditional lore belonging to the primeval seats of their ancestors 
in the old world. Carved stones have also been found in New 
Brunswick, which are unlike anything executed by the more modern 
tribes, and may have been the work of preceding races, Figure 
10¢ represents one of these stones, found at Harris Cove, on the 


* See examples in the Appendix. 


PRE-HISTORIC MAN. 45 


- Kennebeckaris River. It is three feet in length, and is com- 
posed of a hard conglomerate, occurring im situ in the vicinity 
of the place where it was found. It has the aspect of a first rude 
attempt at the execution of a sphinx or cherub, and may have been a 
monumental stone, or the ornament of a gate, or the charm of a 
medicine-man. It was disinterred in digging a cellar; but as to 
its age, or whether it is the work of the Malicetes, nothing is 
known. 

Such was the stone age of three centuries ago in Acadia; and it 
is instructive to bear in mind that in a country in the latitude of 
France, this was not only the stone age, but also the age of the 
caribou or reindeer, and moose and beaver,—animals now verging 
toward extinction, and of no more importance to the present inhabi- 
tants than the park deer are to those of the old world. With the 
exception of a few of the forest-clad hilly districts, Nova Scotia is 
now as unsuitable to the existence of the reindeer and moose as 
France is, and yet three centuries ago these animals were the chief 
food of its inhabitants. No material change of climate has occurred, 
but the iron age has introduced a new race, and the forests have been 
cleared away. 

The monuments of the stone age are few. Piles of shells of oysters 
and other mollusks, in some parts of the coasts, mark the site of 
former summer encampments. Numerous stone implements are found 
on some old battle-grounds or cemeteries, or on the sites of villages ; 
and occasional specimens are turned up by the plough. But this 
is nearly all; and if the written record of the discovery and coloniza- 
tion of the country did not prevent, we might, in so far as the 
monumental history is concerned, believe the close of the stone age 
to have belonged to a remote antiquity. If the Miemacs had been 
replaced by a semi-barbarous race, not keeping written records, and 
destroying the aborigines or incorporating them with themselves, the 
date of the stone age would already be altogether uncertain. 

I have in my collection.a curious specimen illustrative of the 
transition from the stone to the iron period. It was found at Meri- 
gomish Harbour, an old place of residence of one of the eastern Miemac 
tribes. It consists of a mass of hard ferruginous sandstone, which 
was found at some depth in the ground, wrapped carefully in beaver 
skins, the fur of which is still well preserved. The mass, when 
broken, was found to be full of blades of iron knives or daggers, 
mixed with black and white beads and bugles, among which were 
traces of basket-work or matting and a cylindrical iron awl or bodkin. 
The iron instruments had been completely oxidised, and had furnished 


46 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


the cementing material of the mass; and their wooden handles had 
been perfectly petrified or converted into a hard fibrous brown 
limonite, still retaining the structure of the wood. The deposit was 
probably a cache or hiding-place of valuable booty in the early 
French and Indian wars; and serves, among other things, to show - 
the comparatively perishable character of iron implements as compared 
with those of stone, and the short space of time which under certain 
circumstances may give to modern objects the aspect of hoar antiquity. 

One of the questions in connexion with pre-historic times which 
has recently been discussed in Europe, has been the disappearance 
and renewal of forests in connexion with the succession of races 
of men. Though the subject was not noticed in the first edition of 
this work, I had some years previously, in the Edinburgh New 
Philosophical Journal, directed attention to it, and now reproduce 
portions of the article, as furnishing useful data to those who, on 
evidence of this kind, are endeavouring to calculate the antiquity of 
pre-historic man in Europe. 

In their natural state, Nova Scotia and the neighbouring provinces 
were covered with dense woods, extending from the shores to the 
summits of the hills. These woods did not form detached groves, 
but constituted a nearly continuous sheet of foliage, the individual 
trees composing which were so closely placed as to prevent them 
from assuming full and rounded forms, and to oblige them to take 
tall and slender shapes, that each might obtain air and light. The 
only exceptions to this are certain rich and usually light soils, where 
the forest is sometimes more open, and hills too rocky to support 
a covering of trees. When viewed from the summit of a hill, the 
forest presents a continuous undulating surface of a more or less 
dark colour and uneven form, in proportion to the prevalence of the 
deep colours and hard outlines of the evergreen conifere, or of the 
lighter tints and rounded contours of the deciduous trees; and these 
two classes are usually arranged in belts or irregular patches,.con- 
taining mixtures of trees corresponding to the fertility and dryness _ 
of the soil. In general, the deciduous or hardwood trees prevail 
on-intervale ground, fertile uplands, and the flanks and summits of 
slaty and trappean hills; while swamps, the less fertile and lightest up- 
land soils, and granitic hills, are chiefly occupied by coniferous trees. 

The forest trees spring from a bed of black vegetable mould, whose 
surface is rendered uneven by the little hillocks of earth and stones 
thrown up by windfalls; and which, though usually named “ Cradle 
hills,’ are in reality the graves of departed members of the forest, 
whose trunks have mouldered into the mossy soil. These cradle 


fi 
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ERIOD— 


fh oa 
NY, 
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NIAN 


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RESTORED. 


OF TH 


VEGETATION 


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china gnc. ge hk = ch oe : Ah We ee ee ee ar Fie ae ey Mtie nyt. CCS Dall 4 


FOREST FIRES. 47 


hills are most numerous in thin soils; and are chiefly produced by 
the coniferous trees, and especially by the hemlock spruce. There is 
usually little underwood in the original forest; mosses, lycopodia, 
ferns, and a few herbaceous flowering plants, however, flourish 
beneath the shade of the woods. 

The woods perish by the axe and by fire, either purposely applied 
for their destruction or accidental. Forest fires have not been con- 
fined to the period of European occupation. The traditions of the 
Indians tell of extensive ancient conflagrations; and it is believed 
that some of the aboriginal names of places in Nova Scotia, for 
example, Chebucto, Chedabucto, Pictou, originated in these events. 
In later times, however, fires have been more numerous and destruc- 
tive. In clearing land, the trees when cut down are always burned ; 


and, that this may be effected as completely as possible, the driest 


weather is frequently selected, although the fire is then much more likely 
to spread into the surrounding woods. It frequently happens that 
the woods contain large quantities of dry branches and tops of trees, 
left by cutters of timber and firewood, who rarely consider any part 
of the tree except the trunk worthy of their attention. Even without 
this preparation, however, the woods may in dry weather be easily 
inflamed; for although the trunks and foliage of growing trees are 
not very combustible, the mossy vegetable soil, much resembling 
peat, burns easily and rapidly. Upon this mossy soil depends, in 
a great measure, the propagation of fires, the only exception being 
when the burning of groves of the resinous coniferous trees is assisted 
by winds, causing the flame to stream through their tops more 
rapidly than it can pass along the ground. In such cases some 
of the grandest appearances ever shown by forest fires occur. The 
fire, spreading for a time along the ground, suddenly rushes up the 
tall resinous trees with a loud crashing report, and streams far beyond 
their summits, in columns and streamers of lurid flame. It frequently 
happens, however, that in wet or swampy ground, where the fire 
cannot spread around their roots, even the resinous trees refuse to 
burn; and thus swampy tracts are comparatively secure from fire. 
In addition to the causes of the progress of fires above referred to, 
it is probable that at a certain stage of the growth of forests, when 
the trees have attained to great ages, and are beginning to decay, 
they are more readily destroyed by accidental conflagrations. In 
this condition the trees are often much moss-grown, and have much 
dead and dry wood; and it is probable that we should regard fires 
arising from natural or accidental causes as the ordinary and appro- 
priate agents for the removal of such worn-out forests. 


| 
| 


48 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


Where circumstances are favourable to their progress, forest fires 
may extend over great areas. The great fire which occurred in 
1825, in the neighbourhood of the Miramichi River, in New Brunswick, 
devastated a region 100 miles in length and 50 miles in’ breadth. 
One hundred and sixty persons, and more than 800 cattle, besides. 
innumerable wild animals, are said to have perished in this confla- 
gration. In this case, a remarkably dry summer, a light soil easily 
affected by drought, and a forest composed of full-grown pine trees, 
concurred, with other causes, in producing a conflagration of unusual 
extent. , 

When the fire has passed through a portion of forest, if this consist 
principally of hardwood trees, they are usually merely scorched,— 
to such a degree, however, as in most cases to cause their death; 
some trees, such as the birches, probably from the more inflammable 
nature of their outer bark, being more easily killed than others. 
Where the woods consist of softwood or coniferous trees, the fire 
often leaves nothing but bare trunks and branches, or at most a little 
foliage, scorched to a rusty-brown colour. In either case, a vast 
quantity of wood remains unconsumed, and soon becomes sufficiently 
dry to furnish food for a new conflagration; so that the same portion 
of forest is liable to be repeatedly burned, until it becomes a bare and 
desolate “ barren,” with only a few charred and wasted trunks towering 
above the blackened surface. This has been the fate of large districts 
in Nova Scotia and the neighbouring colonies; and as these burned 
tracts could not be immediately occupied for agricultural purposes, 
and are diminished in value by the loss of their timber, they have 
been left to the unaided efforts of nature to restore their original 
verdure. Before proceeding to consider more particularly the mode 
in which this restoration is effected, and the appearances by which it 
is accompanied, I may quote, from a paper by the late Mr Titus 
Smith of Halifax, a few statements on this subject, which, as the 
results of long and careful observation, are entitled to much respect, 
and may form the groundwork for the remarks which are to follow. 

“Tf an acre or two be cut down in the midst of a forest, and then 
neglected, it will soon be occupied by a growth similar-to that which 
was cut down; but when all the timber on tracts of great size is 
killed by fires, except certain parts of swamps, a very different 
growth springs up; at first a great number of herbs and shrubs, 
which did not grow on the land when covered by living wood. The 
turfy coat, filled with the decaying fibres of the roots of the trees 
and plants of the forest, now all killed by the fire, becomes a kind of 
hot-bed, and seeds which had lain dormant for centuries, spring up 


RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 49 


i and flourish in the mellow soil. On the most barren portions, the 
blueberry appears almost everywhere; great fields of red raspberries 
and fire-weed or French willow, spring up along the edges of the 
beech and hemlock land, and abundance of redberried-elder and 
wild red cherry appear soon after; but in a few years, the raspberries 
and most of the herbage disappear, and are followed by a growth of 
firs, white and yellow birch, and poplar. When a succession of fires 
has occurred, small shrubs occupy the barren, the Kalmia, or sheep- 
poison, being the most abundant; and, in the course of ten or twelve 
years, form so much turf, that a thicket of small alder begins to grow, 
under the shelter of which fir, spruce, hacmetac (larch), and white 
birch spring up. When the ground is thoroughly shaded by a 
thicket twenty feet high, the species which originally occupied the 
ground, begins to prevail, and suffocate the wood which sheltered it; - 
and within sixty years, the land will generally be covered with a young 
growth of the same kind that it produced of old.’ Assuming the 
above statements to be a correct summary of the principal modes in 
which forests are reproduced, we may proceed to consider them more 
in detail. 

1st, Where the forest trees are merely cut down and not burned, 
the same description of wood is immediately reproduced. This may 
be easily accounted for. The soil contains abundance of the seeds of 
these trees, there are even numerous young plants ready to take the 
place of those which have been destroyed; and if the trees have been 
cut in winter, their stumps produce young shoots. Even in cases of 
this kind, however, a number of shrubs and herbaceous plants, not for- 
merly growing in the place, spring up; the cause of this may be more 
properly noticed when describing cases of another kind. This simplest 
mode of the destruction of the forest, may assume another aspect. If 
the original wood have been of kinds requiring a fertile soil, such as 
maple or beech, and if this wood be removed, for example, for firewood, 
it may happen that the quantity of inorganic matter thus removed 
from the soil may incapacitate it, at least for a long time, from pro- 
ducing the same description of timber. In this case, some species 
requiring a less fertile soil may occupy the ground. For this reason, 
forests of beech growing on light soils, when removed for firewood, 
are sometimes succeeded by spruce and fir. I have observed instances 
of this kind, both in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. 

2dly, When the trees are burned, without the destruction of the 
whole of the vegetable soil, the woods are reproduced by a more 
complicated process, which may occupy a number of years. In its 
first stage, the burned ground bears a luxuriant crop of herbs and 

D 


a 


50 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


shrubs, which, if it be fertile and not of very great extent, may nearly 
cover its surface in the summer succeeding the fire. This first growth 
may comprise a considerable variety of species, which we may divide 
into three groups. The first of these consists of herbaceous plants, 


which have their roots so deeply buried in the soil as to escape the. 


effects of the fire. Of this kind are the various species of Trillium, 
whose tubers are deeply embedded in the black mould of the woods, 
and whose flowers may sometimes be seen thickly sprinkled over the 
black surface of woodland very recently burned. Some species of 
ferns also, in this way, occasionally survive forest fires. A second 
group is composed of plants whose seeds are readily transported by 
the wind. Pre-eminent among these is the species of Epilobium 
known in Nova Scotia as the fire-weed or French willow (£. angusti- 
folium), whose feathered seeds are admirably adapted for flying to 
great distances, and which often covers large tracts of burned ground 
so completely, that its purple flowers communicate their own colour to 
the whole surface, when viewed from a distance. This plant appears 
to prefer the less fertile soils, and the name of fire-weed has been given 
to it in consequence of its occupying these when their wood has been 
destroyed by fire. Various species of Senecio, Solidago, and Aster, 
and Equiseta, Ferns, and Mosses, are also among the first occupants 
of burned ground; and their presence may be explained in the same 
way with that of the Epilobium, their seeds and spores being easily 
scattered over the surface of the barren by wind. A third group of 
species, found abundantly on burned ground, consists of plants bearing 
edible fruits. The seeds of these are scattered over the barren by 
birds which feed on the fruits, and, finding a rich and congenial soil, 
soon bear abundantly and attract more birds, bringing with them the 
seeds of other species. In this way, it sometimes happens that a patch 
of burned ground, only a few acres in extent, may, in a few years, 
contain specimens of nearly all the fruit-bearing shrubs and herbs 
indigenous in the country. Among the most common plants which 
overspread the burned ground in this manner, are the raspberry, which, 
in good soils, is one of the first to make its appearance; the species 
of Vaccinie, or whortle-berries and blueberries; the tea-berry or 
wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) ; the pigeon-berry (Cornus cana- 
densis); and the wild strawberry. It is not denied that some plants 
may be found in recently burned districts whose presence may not be 
explicable in the above modes; but no person acquainted with the facts 
ean deny that nearly all the plants which appear in any considerable 
quantity within a few years after the occurrence of a fire, may readily 
be included in the groups which have been mentioned. By the 


RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 51 


simple means which have been described, a clothing of vegetation is 
speedily furnished to the burned district; the unsightliness of its 
appearance is thus removed, abundant supplies of food are furnished 
to a great variety of animals, and the fertility of the soil is preserved, 
until a new forest has time to overspread it. 

With the smaller plants which first cover a burned district great 
numbers of seedling trees spring up, and these, though for a few 
years not very conspicuous, eventually overtop and, if numerous, 
suffocate the humbler vegetation. Many of these young trees are 
of the species which composed the original wood, but the majority 
are usually different from the former occupants of the soil, The 
original forest may have consisted of white or red pine; black, 
white, or hemlock spruce; maple, beech, black or yellow birch, 
or of other trees of large dimensions, and capable of attaining to ~ 
a great age. The “second growth” which succeeds these usually 
consists of poplar, white or poplar birch, wild cherry, balsam fir, 
scrub pine, alder, and other trees of small stature, and usually of 
rapid growth, which, in good soils, prepare the way for the larger 
forest trees, and occupy permanently only the less fertile soils. A 
' few examples will show the contrast which thus appears between the 
primeval forest and that which succeeds it after a fire. Near the 
town of Pictou, woods chiefly consisting of beech, maple, and hemlock, 
have been succeeded by white birch and firs. A clearing in woods 
of maple and beech in New Annan, at one time under cultivation, 
was, after thirty years, observed to be thickly covered with poplars 
thirty feet in height, presenting a striking contrast to the surrounding 
woods. In Prince Edward Island, fine hardwood forests have been 
succeeded by fir and spruce, The pine woods of Miramichi, 
destroyed by the great fire above referred to, have been followed 
by a second growth, principally composed of white birch, larch, 
poplar, and wild cherry. When I visited this place, twenty years 
after the great fire, the second growth had attained to nearly half 
the height of the dead trunks of the ancient pines, which were still 
standing in great numbers; and in 1866 I found that the burnt woods 
were replaced by a dense and luxuriant forest principally of white 
birch and larch or hacmetac, and I was informed that some of these 
trees were already sufficiently large to be used in ship-building. 
This is an instructive illustration of the fact, that after a great forest 
fire an extensive region may in less than half a century be re-clothed 
with different species from those by which it was originally covered. 

As already stated, the second growth almost always includes many 
trees similar to those which preceded it, and when the smaller trees 


52 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


have attained their full height, these, and other trees capable of | 
attaining a greater magnitude, overtop them, and finally cause their 
death. The forest has then attained its last stage, that of perfect 
renovation. The cause of the last part of the process evidently is, 
that in an old forest, trees of the largest size and longest life have 
a tendency to prevail, to the exclusion of others. For reasons which 
will be afterwards stated, this last stage is rarely attained by the 
burned forests in countries beginning to be occupied by civilized 
man, and it is evident that many circumstances may occur which will 
prevent this restoration of the primeval forest.. 

In accounting for the presence of the seeds necessary for the 
production of the second growth, we may refer to the same causes 
which supply the seeds of the smaller plants appearing immediately 
after the fire. The seeds of many forest trees, especially the poplar, 
the birch, and the firs and spruces, are furnished with ample means 
for their conveyance through the air. The cottony pappus of the 
poplar seems especially to adapt it for this purpose. The seeds of 
the wild cherry, another species of frequent occurrence in woods 
of the second growth, are dispersed by birds, which are fond of the 
fruit; the same remark applies to some other fruit-bearing species of 
less frequent occurrence. When the seeds that are dispersed in these 
ways fall in the growing woods, they cannot vegetate; but when they 
are deposited on the comparatively bare surface of a barren, they ~ 
readily grow; and if the soil is suited to them, the young plants 
increase in size with great rapidity. 

It is possible, however, that the seeds of the trees of the second 
growth may be already in the soil. It has been already stated, that 
deeply-buried tubers sometimes escape the effects of fire; and, in 
the same manner, seeds embedded in the vegetable mould, or buried 
in cradle hills, may retain their vitality, and, being supplied by the 
ashes which cover the ground with alkaline solutions well-fitted 
to promote their vegetation, may spring up before a supply of seed 
could be furnished from any extraneous source. It is even probable 
that many of the old forests may already have passed through a 
rotation similar to that above detailed, and that the seeds deposited 
by former preparatory growths may retain their vitality, and be called 
into life by the favourable conditions existing after a fire. 

If, as already suggested, forest fires, in the uncultivated state of 
the country, be a provision for removing old and decaying forests, 
then such changes as those above detailed must have an important 
use in the economy of nature, since by their means different portions 
of the country would succeed each other in assuming the state of 


RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 53 


_ “barrens,” producing abundance of herbs and wild fruits suitable for 


the sustenance of animals which could not subsist in the old woods; 
and these gradually becoming wooded, would keep up a succession of 
young and vigorous forests. 

3dly, The process of restoration may be interrupted by succes- 
sive fires. These are most likely to occur soon after the first burning, 
but may happen at any subsequent stage. The resources of nature 
are not, however, easily exhausted. When fires pass through young 
woods, some trees always escape; and so long as any vegetable soil 
remains, young plants continue to spring up, though not so plentifully 
as at first. Repeated fires, however, greatly impoverish the soil, 
since the most valuable part of the ashes is readily removed by rains, 
and the vegetable mould is entirely consumed. In this case, if the 
ground be not of great natural fertility, it becomes incapable of 
supporting a vigorous crop of young trees. It is then permanently 
occupied by shrubs and herbaceous plants; at least these remain 
in exclusive possession of the soil for a long period. In this state 
the burned ground is usually considered a permanent barren,—a name 
which does not, however, well express its character; for though it 
may appear bleak and desolate when viewed from a distance, it is 
a perfect garden of flowering and fruit-bearing plants, and of beautiful 
mosses and lichens. There are few persons born in the American 
colonies who cannot recall the memory of happy youthful days spent in 
gathering flowers and berries in the burnt barrens. Most of the plants 
already referred to as appearing soon after fires continue to grow in 
these more permanent barrens. In addition to these, however, a great 
variety of other plants gradually appear, especially the Kalmia 
angustifolia, or sheep laurel, which often becomes the predominant 
plant over large tracts. Cattle straying into the barrens deposit 
the seeds of cultivated plants, as the grasses and clovers, as well 
as of many exotic weeds, which often grow as luxuriantly as any of 
the native plants. 

Lastly, When the ground is permanently occupied for agricultural 
purposes, the reproduction of tlie forest is of course entirely prevented. 
In this case, the greater number of the smaller plants found in the 
barrens disappear. Some species, as the Solidagos and Asters, 
and the Canada thistle, as well as a few smaller plants, remain in 
the fields, and sometimes become troublesome weeds. The most 
injurious weeds found in the cultivated ground are not, however, 
native plants, but foreign species, which have been introduced with 
the cultivated grains and grasses; the ox-eyed daisy or white weed, 
and the crowsfoot or buttercup, are two of the most abundant of these. 


Pai 


* 
§ 
ie 
b 
% : 
nt 
i.) 
ff 
. 


SE 


54 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


When a district has undergone this last change,—when the sombre 
woods and the shade-loving plants that grow beneath them have 
given place to open fields, clothed with cultivated plants,—the meta- 
morphosis which has taken place extends in its effects to the indige- . 
nous animals; and in this department its effects are nearly as con- 
spicuous and important as in relation to vegetation. Some wild 
animals are incapable of accommodating themselves to the change of 
circumstances ; others at once adapt themselves to new modes of life, 
and increase greatly in numbers. It was before stated that the barrens, 
when clothed with shrubs, young trees, and herbaceous plants, were 
in a condition highly favourable to the support of wild animals; and 
perhaps there are few species which could not subsist more easily ina 
country at least partially in this state. For this reason, the transition 
of a country from the forest state to that of burned barrens is tempo- 
rarily favourable to many species, which disappear before the progress 
of cultivation; and this would be more evident than it is, if European 
colonization did not tend to produce a more destructive warfare against 
such species than could be carried on by the aborigines. The ruffed 
grouse, a truly woodland bird, becomes, when unmolested, more 
numerous on the margins of barrens and clearings than in other parts 
of the woods. The hare multiplies exceedingly in young second 
growths of birch. The wild pigeon has its favourite resort in the 
barrens during a great part of the summer. The moose and cariboo, 
in summer, find better supplies of food in second growth and barrens 
than in the old forests. The large quantities of decaying wood, left 
by fires and wood-cutters, afford more abundant means of subsistence 
to the tribe of woodpeckers. Many of the fly-catchers, warblers, 
thrushes, and sparrows, greatly prefer the barrens to most other 
places. Carnivorous birds and quadrupeds are found in such places in 
numbers proportioned to the supplies of food which they afford. ‘The 
number of instances of this kind might be increased to a great extent 
if necessary ; enough has, however, been stated to illustrate the fact. 

Nearly all the animals above noticed, and many others, disappear 
when the country becomes cultivated. There are, however, other 
species which increase in numbers, and at once adapt themselves to 
the new conditions introduced by man. The robin (Turdus migra- 
torius) resorts to and derives its subsistence from the fields, and 
greatly multiplies, though much persecuted by sportsmen. The 
Junco hyemalis, a summer bird in Nova Scotia, becomes very 
familiar, building in outhouses, and frequenting barns in search of 
food. The song sparrow and Savannah finch swarm in the cultivated 
ground. The yellow bird (Sylvia estiva) becomes very familiar, often 


RESULTS OF FOREST FIRES. 55 


building in gardens. The golden-winged woodpecker resorts to the 
cultivated fields, picking grubs and worms from the ground. The 
_ ¢liff-swallow exchanges the faces of rocks for the eaves of barns and 
houses, and the barn and chimney swallows are everywhere ready to 
~ avail themselves of the accommodation afforded by buildings. The 
_ Acadian or little ow] makes its abode in barns during winter. The bob- 
_ lincoln, the king-bird, the waxwing or cherry-bird, and the humming- 
bird, are among the species which profit by the progress of cultivation. 
The larger quadrupeds disappear, but the fox and ermine still prowl 
about the cultivated grounds, and the field-mouse (Arvicola Pennsyl- 
vanica), which is very abundant in some parts of the woods, is equally 
so in the fields. Many insects are vastly increased in numbers in 
consequence of the clearing of the forests. Of this kind are the 
grasshoppers and locusts, which, in dry seasons, are very destructive 
to grass and grain ; the frog-spittle insects (Cercopis), of which several 
species are found in the fields and gardens, and are very injurious to 
vegetation ; and the Lepidoptera, nearly the whole of which find 
greater abundance of food and more favourable conditions in the 
burned barrens and cultivated fields than in the growing woods. 
It thus appears that, in the course of between two and three centuries, 
large areas of the Acadian provinces have passed through two or more 
of the following conditions :—1. That of primitive forest; 2. That of 
second-growth forest; 3. That of the burned barren; 4. That of 
cultivated fields. Each of these changes is accompanied with modifi- 
eations of the animal population; and in primitive states of society 
each would imply a change in the habits of the people; and, if very 
extensive, might even cause migrations of tribes and important changes 
_ of population. In the old world, most countries have passed through 
these vicissitudes in very early times, and have subsequently reached 
amore stable condition, with more slow and gradual changes; and in 
extensive regions it has usually happened that the destruction and 
removal of forests have been effected piecemeal, so as to extend only 
over limited areas at one time. The case of Denmark would seem to 
have been an exception to this.* At a very early pre-historic time it 
seems to have been covered by forests of Scotch fir. These were 
_ destroyed, probably by a great fire like that of Miramichi, The people 
perished or were driven from the country, and were replaced by another 
race, while the forests grew up again, but were now composed of oak. 
_ Still more recently the oak forests were replaced by beech, The stages 
of unrecorded human history connected in Denmark with,these successive 
forests, are thus summed up by Steenstrup and Morlot :—* Ist, A stone 


* Lyell, ‘‘ Antiquity of Man; Lubbock, in Nat. Hist. Review. 


56 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


period, when the inhabitants were small-sized men, brachykephalous 
or short headed, like the modern Lapps, using stone implements, and 
subsisting by hunting. Then the country, or a considerable part of it, 
was covered by forests of Scotch fir (Pinus sylvestris). 2d, A bronze | 
period, iv. which implements of bronze as well as of stone were used, 
and the skulls of the people were larger and longer than in the previous 
period; while the country seems to have been covered with forests of 
oak (Quercus robur). 3d, An iron period, which lasted to the historic 
times, and in which beech forests replaced those of oak.” All of these 
remains are geologically recent; and, except the changes in the forests, 
and of some indigenous animals in consequence, and probably a slight 
elevation of some parts of Denmark, no material changes in organic 
or inorganic nature have occurred. 

The Danish antiquaries have attempted to calculate the age of the 
oldest of these deposits by considerations based on the growth of peat, 
and the succession of trees; but these calculations are obviously 
unreliable. The first forest of pines would, when it attained maturity, 
naturally be destroyed, as usually happens in America, by forest 
conflagrations. It might perish in this way in asingle summer. The 
second growth which succeeded would, in America, be birch, poplar, 
and similar trees, which would form a new and tall forest im half a 
century ; and in two or three centuries would probably be succeeded 
by a second permanent forest, which in the present case seems to have 
been of oak. This would be of longer continuance, and would, inde- 
pendently of human agency, only be replaced by beech, if, in the 
course of ages, the latter tree proved itself more suitable to the soil, 
climate, and other conditions. Both oak and beech are of slow ex- 
tension, their seeds not being carried by the winds, and only to a 
limited degree by birds. On the other hand, the changes of forests 
cannot have been absolute or universal. There must have been oak 
and beech groves even in the pine woods; and the growing and 
increasing beech woods would be contemporary with the older and 
decaying oak forest, as this last would probably perish, not by fire, but 
by decay, and by the competition of the beeches. The growth of peat 
has also been appealed to in connexion with the succession of forests 
as affording a mark of time; but this is very variable even in the same 
locality. It goes on very rapidly when moisture and other conditions 
are favourable, and especially when it is aided by wind-falls, drift- 
wood, or beaver-dams, impeding drainage and contributing to the ac- 
cumulation of vegetable matter. It is retarded and finally terminated 
by the rise of the surface above the drainage level, by the clearing of 
the country, or by the establishment of natural or artificial drainage. 


PRE-HISTORIC TIME. 57 


_ On the one hand, all the changes observed in Denmark may have taken 
place within a minimum time of two thousand years. On the other 
hand, no one can aflirm that either of the three successive forests may 
not have flourished for that length of time. A chronology measured 
by years, and based on such data, is evidently worthless; but it is 
_ interesting in connexion with our present subject to observe, that the 
remains preserved in the shell-heaps or “ Kjékkenmédding ”’ of the 
stone age in Denmark indicate a wonderful similarity of habits and 
~ eustoms with those of primitive America, except that the people seem 
to have borne a closer resemblance to the Esquimaux than to the 
ordinary American Indian. 

On the whole, nothing can be more striking to any one acquainted 
with the American Indian than the entire similarity of the traces of 
_ pre-historic man in Europe to those which remain of the primitive 
condition of the American aborigines, whether we consider their food, 
their implements and weapons, or their modes of sepulture; and it 
seems evident that if these pre-historic remains are ever to be correctly 
interpreted by European antiquaries, they must avail themselves of 
American light for their guidance. Much of this light has already 
been thrown on this subject by my friend Professor Wilson, in his 
“Prehistoric Man;”’ but one can scarcely open any European book on 
this subject, or glance at any of the numerous articles and papers on 
this fertile theme in scientific journals, without wishing that those 
who discuss pre-historic man in Europe knew a little more of his 
analogue in America. The subject is a tempting one, but I must 
close this notice, already too long for the space I should devote to it, 
by remarking, that the relations in America of the short-headed and 
_ long-headed races of men are by no means dissimilar from those of 

the two similar races in Europe; while it is also evident that some pre- 
historic skulls, supposed to be of vast antiquity, as, for instance, that of 
Engis, bear a very close resemblance to those of the Algonquin and 
Iroquois Indians. 


a eS ee a 


ee =e 


ws 


RS ES ES ot aS aa oo eh TR e 


58 


CHAPTER V. 
THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


UNSTRATIFIED DRIFT—-TRAVELLED BOULDERS—STRIATED ROCK SUR- 
FACES—PEAT UNDER BOULDER CLAY—ORIGIN OF DRIFT—STRATIFIED 
GRAVELS—REMAINS OF MASTODON. 


Tue deposits last described are found in the bed or on the margin of 
the existing waters, and they rest on the ordinary upland soils, which 
are consequently older than they. These soils and subsoils, which are 
often of great depth, and which over a great part of the region under 
consideration completely hide the rocks which lie beneath, belong to 
the formations which we are now to describe. The soils and subsoils of 
any country, so far at least as they consist of mineral matter, are 
derived from the waste of the rocks of which that country is composed. 
Hence we are in no way surprised to find the soil overlying sandstone 
rocks to be sandy, that over shales and slates to consist in great part 
of clay, or that overlying limestone to be calcareous; and we may 
attribute such appearances to the mere waste or decay of the under- 
lying rock, by the action of the air, the water, and the frost. This 
waste may have been proceeding ever since the country emerged from 
beneath the deep, and need not necessarily belong to one geological 
period more than to another. But the case becomes very different 
where we find the soil to consist of or to contain materials for whose 
presence we cannot account by any causes now in operation in the 
locality ; and this we shall find to be the case with the formations of 
that time which immediately preceded our Modern epoch, and which 
wwe name the Post-Pliocene; but which, from the nature of its deposits, 
and the conditions which they imply, has also received such names as 
the drift, the boulder formation, and the glacial period. 

If we examine the materials exposed in ordinary excavations, or-on 
the coasts and river banks, and which extend from the surface down 
to the solid rocks, we find them to consist of clay or sand intermixed 
with large stones, or occasionally of large stones with their interstices 
filled with soil, or possibly in a few localities of rolled gravel, like that 


5 


UNSTRATIFIED DRIFT. 59 


found on the beach or in river beds. If our inquiries proceed a little 


beyond a mere glance at these at first sight not very interesting 


materials, we may discover that the large stones in the drift are of very 
different kinds. Some of them, perhaps the greater number, may be 
of the same kind with the rocks occurring in situ in the vicinity. 
Others are of kinds not found in place except at great distances. It 
is farther observable that the clay or sand containing large stones, is 
not arranged in layers, but that its materials are confusedly intermixed. 
The fine rounded gravel, however, is not only comparatively free 
from large stones, but it is arranged in beds or layers, often with 
bands of sand between. We shall also in some localities find beds of 
fine clay containing marine shells, and sometimes, though rarely, com- 
pressed peaty matter underlying the drift deposits. 

By studying the superposition of these materials, we may readily 
arrive at the following arrangement of them in descending order, or 
from the newer to the older :— 

1. Gravel and sand beds, and ancient gravel ridges and beaches, 
indicating the action of shallow water and strong currents and 
waves. 

2. Stratified clay with shells, showing quiet deposition in deeper 
water. 

3. Unstratified boulder clay, indicating the united action of ice and 
water. 

4, Peaty deposits, belonging to a land surface preceding the deposit 
of the boulder clay. 

As the third of these formations is the most important and generally 
diffused in Acadia, we shall attend to it first, and notice the relation 
of the others to it. 


The Unstratified Drift or boulder clay may be viewed as consisting 
of a base or paste including angular and rounded fragments of rocks. 
The base varies from a stiff clay to loose sand, and its composition and 
colour generally depend upon those of the underlying and neighbour- 
ing rocks. Thus, over sandstone it is arenaceous, over shales argil- 
laceous, and over conglomerates and hard slates pebbly or shingly. 
The greater number of the stones contained in the drift are usually, 
like the paste containing them, derived from the neighbouring rock 
formations. These untravelled fragments are often of large size, and 
are usually angular, except when they are of very soft material, or of 
rocks whose corners readily weather away. It is unnecessary to give 
illustrations of these facts. Any one can observe, that on passing from 
& granitic district to one composed of slate, or from slate to sandstone, 


: 
| 


60 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


the character of the loose stones changes accordingly. It is also a 
matter of familiar observation, that in proportion to the hardness or 
softness of the prevailing rocks, the quantity of these loose stones 
increases or diminishes. In some of the quartzite and granite districts 
of the Atlantic coast, the surface seems to be heaped with boulders 


with only a little soil in their interstices, and every little field, cleared 


with immense labour, is stili half-filled with huge white masses popu- 
larly known as “elephants.’”’ On the other hand, in the districts of 
soft sandstone and shale, ene may travel some distance without seeing 
a boulder of considerable size. é 

Though I have called these fragments untravelled, it by no means 
follows that they are undisturbed. They have been lifted from their 
original beds, heaped upon each other in every variety of position, and 
intermixed with sand and clay, in a manner which shows convincingly 
that the sorting action of running water had nothing to do with the 
matter; and this applies not only to stones of moderate size, but to 
masses of ten feet or more in diameter. It is as if a gigantic harrow 
had been dragged over the surface, tearing up the solid rocks, and 
mingling their fragments in a rude and unsorted mass. 

Beside the untravelled fragments, the drift always contains boulders 
derived from distant localities, to which in many cases we can trace 
them; and I shall mention a few instances of this to show how ex- 
tensive has been this transport of detritus. In the low country of 
Cumberland there are few boulders, but of the few that appear, some 
belong to the hard rocks of the Cobequid Hills to the southward; others 
may have been derived from the somewhat similar hills of New 
Brunswick. On the summits of the Cobequid Hills and their northern 
slopes, we find angular fragments of the sandstones of the plain below, 
not only drifted from their original sites, but elevated several hundreds 
of feet above them. To the southward and eastward of the Cobequids, 
throughout Colchester, Northern Hants, and Pictou, fragments from 
these hills, usually much rounded, are the most abundant travelled 
boulders, showing that there has been great driftage from this elevated 


tract. In like manner, the long ridge of trap rocks extending from: 


Cape Blomidon to Briar Island has sent off great quantities of boulders 
across the sandstone valley which bounds it on the south, and up the 
slopes of the slate and granite hills to the southward of this valley. 
Well characterized fragments of trap from Blomidon may be seen 
near the town of Windsor; and I have seen unmistakable fragments 
of similar rock from Digby Neck, on the Tusket River, thirty miles 
from their original position. On the other hand, numerous boulders 
of granite have been carried to the northward from the hills of 


«ae a omen Le ai a3 a 


STRIATED ROCK SURFACES. 61 


Annapolis, and deposited on the slopes of the opposite trappean ridge ; 
and some of them have been carried round its eastern end, and now lie 


on the shores of Londonderry and Onslow. So also, while immense 
numbers of boulders have been scattered over the south coast from 
the granite and quartz rock ridges immediately inland, many have 
drifted in the opposite direction, and may be found scattered over the 
counties of Sydney, Pictou, and Colchester. These facts show that 
the transport of travelled blocks, though it may here as in other parts 
of America, have been principally from the northward, has by no means 
been exclusively so; boulders having been carried in various directions, 
and more especially from the more elevated and rocky districts to the 
lower grounds in their vicinity. Professor Hind has shown the 
existence of a similar relation between the boulders of New Brunswick 
and the hilly ranges of that country. 

As might have been expected, the removal of these travelled 
masses has occasioned important changes of the surface, or, to use the 
ordinary geological term, there has been very extensive denudation in 
the production of the boulder deposits. A very large proportion of 
the present features of the surface indeed result from this cause; the 
ridges of Cumberland, the deep valley of Cornwallis and Annapolis, 
the great gorges crossing the Cobequid Mountains and the western 
end of the North Mountains in Annapolis and Digby counties, such 
eminences as the Greenhill in Pictou county, and Onslow Mountain in 
Colchester, are due in great part to the removal of soft rocks by 
denuding agencies of this period, while the harder rocks remained in 
projecting ridges. On the other hand, it might be shown that many 
masses of rock which once projected above the surface have been 
greatly diminished or entirely removed. 

One of the most remarkable effects of the transport of surface 
materials is the scratching and polishing of rock surfaces, a phenomenon 
which prevails very extensively over the northern parts of America 
and Europe, and may be frequently observed in Nova Scotia. Indeed 
it is the rule rather than the exception, that when a fresh rock-surface 
is uncovered by the removal of the boulder clay, it is found to be 
smoothed and marked with stric, scratches, and furrows, usually in a 
uniform direction ; the whole being evidently the result of the passage 
of heavy and hard substances over the surface. These scratches or 
furrows are useful as indicating the direction in which the mass of 
superficial detritus has been moved; and I have even used this 
direction with success in tracing useful minerals found in fragments 
among the drift to the sources whence they were derived. I give 
below the directions of the diluvial scratches in a number of localities 
in different parts of the province. 


Py rrr et Fe ae ae 


62 “THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


Point Pleasant, and other places near Halifax, 
exposure south, very distinct strie,  . S. 20° E. to S. 30° E. 
Head of the Basin, exposure south, but in a 


valley, suniree seb larg : E. & W. nearly. 
La Have River, SSS S.E., risa S. 20° W. 
Petite River, exposure 8. : bapa S. 20° E 
Bear River, exposure N., >. ; : S. 30° E. 
Rawdon, exposure N., .. . : 8. 25° E 


The Gore Mountain, caointel N., two sets of 

strie, respectively, . re : 8. 65° E. & S. 20° E. 
Windsor Road, exposure not noted, : §.S.E. ; 
Gay’s River, exposure N.,_.. - : Nearly 8. & N. 
Musquodoboit Harbour, exposure 8., ‘ Nearly 8. & N. 
Near Pictou, exposure E., in a valley, . Nearly E. & W. 
Polson’s Lake, summit of a-ridge, . : Nearly N. & &. 
Near Guysboro’, exposure not noted, ‘ Nearly 8. & N. 
Sydney Mines, Cape Breton, exposure S. S. 30° W.* 


The above instances show a tendency to a southerly and south- 
easterly direction, which accords with the prevailing course in most 
parts of North-eastern America. Local circumstances have, however, 
modified this prevailing direction; and it is interesting to observe 
that, while S.E. is the prevailing direction in Acadia and New 
England, it is exceptional in the St Lawrence valley, where the 
prevailing direction is 8.W.+ Professor Hind has given a table of 
similar striation in New Brunswick, showing that the direction ranges 
from N. 10° W. to N. 30° E., in all except a very few cases. On Blue 
Mountains, 1650 feet above the sea, it is stated to be N. and 8. As 
in Nova Scotia, N. W. and 8. E. seems to be the prevailing course. 

The travelled and untravelled boulders are usually intermixed in 
the drift. In some instances, however, the former appear to be most 
numerous near the surface of the mass, and their horizontal distribution 
is also very irregular. In examining coast sections of the drift, we 
may find for some distance a great abundance of angular blocks, with 


few travelled boulders, and then we may observe a portion of the 


shore or bank in which both varieties are equally intermixed, or in 
which travelled boulders prevail ; and we may often observe particular 
kinds of these last grouped together, as, for instance, a number of 
blocks of granite, greenstone, syenite, ete., all lying together, as 
if they had been removed from their original beds and all deposited 

* The above and other courses in this volume are magnetic, the average variation 


being about 18° W. 
+ Logan, ‘‘ Report on Geology of Canada.” 


z 
y 
* 
e 
. 
he 
7 


ORIGIN OF DRIFT. 63 


together at one operation. On the surface of the country where the 
woods have been removed, this arrangement is sometimes equally 
G evident; thus hundreds of granite boulders may be seen to cumber 
f one limited spot, while in its neighbourhood they are compara- 
tively rare. It is also well known to the farmers in the more rocky 
districts, that many spots which appear to be covered with boulders 
have, when these are removed, a layer of soil comparatively free from 


stones beneath. These appearances may in some instances result 
i from the action of currents of water, which have in spots carried off 
% the sand or clay, leaving the boulders behind; but in many cases this 
-__ is manifestly the original arrangement of the material. 


3 Boulders or travelled stones are often found in places where there 
; is no other drift. For example, on bare granite hills, about 500 feet 
in height, near the St Mary’s River, there are large angular blocks 
of quartzite, derived from the ridges of that material which abound in 
the district, but are separated from the hills on which the fragments 
lie by deep valleys. 
In Canada and the Northern States, as well as in Scotland, marine 
shells are sometimes found in the boulder formation as well as in the 
~ elays overlying it; and it is worthy of remark that these shells are of 
such species as indicate a colder or more arctic climate than that 
which at present prevails in those countries. In Nova Scotia I have 
observed nothing of this kind; and the only evidence of organic life, 
during the boulder period, or immediately before it, that I have noticed 
is a hardened peaty bed which appears under the boulder clay on the 
north-west arm of the River of Inhabitants in Cape Breton. It rests 
upon gray clay similar to that which underlies peat bogs, and is over- 
laid by nearly twenty feet of boulder clay. Pressure has rendered it 
nearly as hard as coal, though it is somewhat tougher and more earthy 
than good coal. It has a glossy appearance when rubbed or scratched 
with a knife, burns with considerable flame, and approaches in its 
characters to the brown coals or more imperfect varieties of bituminous 
coal. It contains many small roots and branches, apparently of 
coniferous trees allied to the spruces. The vegetable matter composing 
this bed must have flourished before the drift was spread over the 
provinee, so that it belongs to some part (probably one of the later 
parts) of the great tertiary group of rocks of which the drift is the 
latest member. 

If we ask what has been the origin of this great mass of shifted and 
drifted material, which overspreads the surface not only of the district 
we are now describing, but the greater part of the land of the northern 
hemisphere, we raise one of the most vexed questions of modern ge- 


64 _ THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


ology. In reasoning, however, on this subject as regards Nova Scotia, 
I have the advantage of appealing to causes now in operation within 
the country, and which are at present admitted by the greater number 
of modern geological authorities to afford the best explanation of the 
phenomena. In the first place, it may at once be admitted that no 
such operations as those which formed the drift are now in progress on 
the surface of the land, so.that the drift is a relic of a past state of 
things, in so far at least as regards the localities in which it now rests. 
In the next place, we find, on examining the drift, that it strongly re- 
sembles, though on a greater scale, the effects now produced by frost 
and floating ice. Frost breaks up the surface of the most solid rocks, 
and throws down cliffs and precipices. Floating ice annually takes 
up and removes immense quantities of loose stones from the shores, 
and deposits them in the bottom of the sea or on distant parts of the 
coasts. Very heavy masses are removed in this way. I have seen in 
the Strait of Canseau large stones, ten feet in diameter, that had been 
taken from below low-water mark and pushed up upon the beach. 
Stones so large that they had to be removed by blasting, have been 
taken from the base of the cliffs at the Joggins and deposited off the 
coal-loading pier, and I have seen resting on the mud-flats at the 
mouth of the Petitcodiac River a boulder at least eight feet in length, 
that had been floated by the ice down the river (Fig. 11). Another 


Fig. 11.— Travelled Stone, Petitcodiac River. 


testimony to the same fact is furnished by the rapidity with which 
huge piles of fallen rock are removed by the floating ice from the base 
of the trap cliffs of the Bay of Fundy. Let us suppose, then, the 
surface of the land, while its projecting rocks were still uncovered by 
surface deposits, exposed for many successive centuries to the action 
of alternate frosts and thaws, the whole of the untravelled drift might 
have been accumulated on its surface. Let it then be submerged 
until its hill-tops should become islands or reefs of rocks in a sea loaded 
in winter and spring with drift ice, floated along by currents, which, 
like the present Arctic current, would set from N.E. to 8.W. with 
various modifications produced by local causes. We have in these 


Oe, SADE LES 


ee 


fF =. 
A an 


baal 


GLACIAL PHENOMENA. 65 


_ causes ample means for accounting for the whole of the appearances, 


including the travelled blocks and the scratched and polished rock- 
surfaces. This, however, is only a general explanation. Had we 
time to follow it into details, many most interesting and compli- 
cated facts and processes would be discovered. I mention merely one 
for an example, as it illustrates the manner in which the land may 
have subsided beneath the boulder-bearing seas. I have stated that 
large blocks of sandstone from the plains of Cumberland have been 
carried to the summits of the Cobequid Mountains. When these 
blocks were carried to their present place, the waters must have 
reached to the summits of the hills; but at that time the plain from 
which these blocks came must have been several hundred feet below 
the sea-level. How then could ice take them from such a depth? 
We may fancy huge icebergs grounding in this deep water, but they 
could not float over the hills or ground against their summits. The 
explanation is that the country was gradually subsiding. While the 
water was shallow, the blocks were drifted against the base of the hills. 
As the land sunk, the ice-fields of successive years gradually pushed 
them higher, until the summits of the hills were submerged so deeply 
that the ice could no longer take up the blocks. Most of the ap- 
parent anomalies of the drift may be explained in such ways, when 
the theory of ice-carriage is once admitted. 

I have retained the above explanation of the boulder clay, which 
appeared in my edition of 1855, because I have as yet seen no reason 


- to change my opinion on the subject, although I have since that time 


had opportunities of studying the Post-pliocene of Canada and other 
parts of America and of Europe, and have read nearly all that has 
been written by the advocates of a terrestrial origin of this deposit, in 
a supposed glacial period when the whole of the northern parts of 
Europe and America are imagined to have been covered with glaciers, 
or rather with a universal glacier like that of Greenland, but on an 
enormously larger scale. The more I have considered this hypothesis, 
the more improbable it has appeared, whether in a mechanical, me- 
teorological, or geological point of view; and a recent visit to Mont 
Blane, and the study of the effects produced by icebergs in the Straits 
of Belleisle, have more fully established in my mind the belief that 
floating ice and the Arctic current have been the grand agents em- 
ployed. As the glacier hypothesis of Agassiz, Ramsay, and others, has 
been incorporated into the best American text-book of geology, that 
of Professor Dana, and has recently been ably advocated in the case of 
New Brunswick, I may here give some of my reasons for dissenting 
from it, as stated in a paper published some time ago in Canada. 

E 


q 
“ ~y 9 \ 


66 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


The facts to be accounted for are the striation and polishing of 
rock surfaces, the deposit of a sheet of unstratified clay and stones, 
the transport of boulders from distant sites lying to the northward, 
and the deposit on the boulder clay of beds of stratified clay and sand, 
containing marine shells. The rival theories in discussion are,—irst, 
that which supposes a gradual subsidence and re-elevation, with the 
action of the sea and its currents, bearing ice at certain seasons of the 
year; and, secondly, that which supposes the American land to have 
been covered with a sheet of glacier several thousands of feet thick. 

The last of these theories, without attempting to undervalue its 
application to such regions as those of the Alps or of Spitzbergen or 
Greenland, has appeared to me inapplicable to the drift deposits of 
eastern America, for the following among other reasons :— 

1. It requires a series of suppositions unlikely in themselves and 
not warranted by facts. ‘The most important of these is the coin- 
cidence of a wide-spread continent and a universal covering of ice 
in a temperate latitude. In the existing state of the world, it is well 
known that the ordinary conditions required by glaciers in temperate 
latitudes are elevated chains and peaks extending above the snow- 
line; and that cases in which, in such latitudes, glaciers extend nearly 
to the sea-level, occur only where the mean temperature is reduced 
by cold ocean-currents approaching to high land, as for instance in 
Tierra del Fuego and the southern extremity of South America. But 
the temperate regions of North America could not be covered with 
a permanent mantle of ice under the existing conditions of solar 
radiation; for, even if the whole were elevated into a table-land, its 
breadth would secure a sufficient summer heat to melt away the ice, 
except from high mountain-peaks. Either, then, there must have been 
immense mountain-chains which have disappeared, or there must have 
been some unexampled astronomical cause of refrigeration, as, for ex- 
ample, the earth passing into a colder portion of space, or the amount 
of solar heat being diminished. But the former supposition has no 
warrant from geology, and astronomy affords no evidence for the latter 
view, which, besides, would imply a diminution of evaporation mili- 
tating as much against the glacier theory as would an excess of heat. 
An attempt has recently been made by Professor Frankland to account 
for such a state of things by the supposition of a higher temperature 
of the sea, along with a colder temperature of the land; but this 
inversion of the usual state of things is unwarranted by the doctrine 
of the secular cooling of the earth; it is contradicted by the fossils of 
the period, which show that the seas were colder than at present; 
and if it existed, it could not produce the effects required, unless a 


fia on wy 


a 


val 


ar 


s 


GLACIAL PHENOMENA. 67 


_preternatural arrest were at the same time laid on the winds, which 
spread the temperature of the sea over the land. ‘The alleged facts 
observed in Norway, and stated to support this view, are evidently 
nothing but the results ordinarily observed in ranges of hills, one side 
of which fronts cold sea-water, and the other land warmed in summer 
by the sun. 

The supposed effects of the varying eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, 
so ably expounded by Mr Croll, are no doubt deserving of consider- 
ation in this connexion; but I agree with Sir Charles Lyell in regarding 
them as insufficient to produce any effect so great as that refrigeration 
supposed by the theory now before us, even if aided by what Sir 

- Charles truly regards as a more important cause of cold,—namely, 

a different distribution of land and water, in such a manner as to give 

a great excess of land in high latitudes. 

2. It seems physically impossible that a sheet of ice, such as that 
supposed, could move over an uneven surface, striating it in directions 
uniform over vast areas, and often different from the present inclina- 
tions of the surface. Glacier ice may move on very slight slopes, but 
it must follow these; and the only result of the immense accumulation 
of ice supposed, would be to prevent motion altogether by the want 
of slope or the counteraction of opposing slopes, or to induce a slight 
and irregular motion toward the margins or outward from the more 
prominent protuberances. 

It is to be observed, also, that, as Hopkins has shown, it is only 
the sliding motion of glaciers that can polish or erode surfaces, and 
that any internal changes resulting from the mere weight of a thick 
mass of ice resting on a level surface, could have little or no influence 
in this way. 

3. The transport of boulders to great distances, and the lodgment 
of them on hill-tops, could not have been occasioned by glaciers. 
These carry downward the blocks that fall on them from wasting 
cliffs. But the universal glacier supposed could have no such cliffs 
from which to collect; and it must have carried boulders for hundreds 
of miles, and left them on points as high as those they were taken 
from. On the Montreal Mountain, at a height of 600 feet above the 
sea, are huge boulders of feldspar from the Laurentide Hills, which 
must have been carried 50 to 100 miles from points of scarcely greater 
elevation, and over a valley in which the striz are in a direction nearly 
at right angles with that of the probable driftage of the boulders. 
Quite as striking examples occur in many parts of this country. It 
is also to be observed that boulders, often of large size, occur scattered 
through the marine stratified clays and sands containing sea-shells ; 


some, OVE Mah lees RE ea 


i . 


4 


68 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


and whatever views may be entertained as to other boulders, it cannot 
be denied that these have been borne by floating ice. Nor is it true, 
as has been often affirmed, that the boulder clay is destitute of marine 
fossils. At Isle Verte, Riviere du Loup, Murray Bay, and St Nicholas 
on the St Lawrence, and also at Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, there * 
are tough stony clays of the nature of true “till,” and in the lower 
part of the drift, which contain numerous marine shells of the usual 
Post-pliocene species. 

4, The Post-pliocene deposits of Canada, in their fossil remains 
and general character, indicate a gradual elevation from a state of 
depression, which on the evidence of fossils must have extended to at 
least 500 feet, and on that of far-travelled boulders to several times 
that amount; while there is nothing but the boulder clay to represent 
the previous subsidence, and nothing whatever to represent the sup- 
posed previous ice-clad state of the land, except the scratches on the 
rock surfaces, which must have been caused by the same agency which 
deposited the boulder clay. 

5. The peat deposits, with fir-roots, found below the boulder clay 
in Cape Breton, the remains of plants and lJand-snails in the marine 
clays of the Ottawa, and the shells of the St Lawrence clays and 
sands, show that the sea at the period in question had nearly the tem- 
perature of the present Arctic currents of our coasts, and that the land 
was not covered with ice, but supported a vegetation similar to that 
of Labrador and the north shore of the St Lawrence at present. This 
evidence refers not to the later period of the Mammoth and Mastodon, 
when the re-elevation was perhaps nearly complete, but to the earlier 
period contemporaneous with or immediately following the supposed 
glacier period. In my former papers on the Post-pliocene of the St 
Lawrence, I have shown that the change of climate involved is not 
greater than that which may have been due to the subsidence of land, 
and to the change of course of the Arctic current, actually proved by 
the deposits themselves. 

These objections might be pursued to much greater length; but 
enough has been said to show that there are, in the case of north-eastern 
America, strong reasons against the existence of any such period of 
extreme glaciation as supposed by many geologists; and that if we 
can otherwise explain the rock striation and polishing, and the forma- 
tion of fiords and lake basins, the strong points with these theorists, 
we can dispense altogether with the portentous changes in physical 
geography involved in their views, and which are not necessary to 
explain any of the other phenomena. 

On these points, the Report of the Geological Survey of Canada 


¢ 
2) 


a | 


STRIATED ROCK SURFACES. 69 


throws new light; though Sir William Logan, with his usual caution, 
has not committed himself to theoretical conclusions; and in one or 
two local cases he seems to favour the glacier theory. It has long 
been known to geologists, that in north-eastern America, two main 
directions of striation of rock surfaces occur, from north-east to south- 
west, and from north-west to south-east; and that locally the directions 
vary from these to north and south and east and west. Various 
attempts have been made, but without much success, to account for 
these directions of striation by the motion of glaciers; and while it is 
quite easy for any one prepossessed with this view to account in this 
way for the striation in a particular valley or part of a valley, yet so 


- many exceptional facts occur as to throw doubt on the explanation, 


except in the case of a few of the smaller and steeper mountain 
gorges. 

In the Report of the Survey of Canada a valuable table of these 
striations is given, from which it appears that they are locally 
distributed in such a way as to throw a decided gleam of light on 
their origin. 

It would seem that the dominant direction in the valley of the St 
Lawrence, along the high lands to the north of it, and across western 
New York, is north-east and south-west; and that there is another 
series of scratches running nearly at right angles to the former, across 
the neck of land between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario, down the 
valley of the Ottawa, and across parts of the Eastern Townships, con- 
necting with the prevalent south and south-east striation which occurs 


in the valleys of the Connecticut and Lake Champlain, and elsewhere 


in New England, as well as in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
What were the determining conditions of these two courses, and were 
they contemporaneous or distinct in time? The first point to be 
settled in answering these questions is the direction of the force which 
caused the striae. Now, I have no hesitation in asserting, from my 
own observations as well as from those of others, that for the south- 
west striation the direction was from the ocean toward the interior, 
against the slope of the St Lawrence valley. The crag-and-tail forms 
of all our isolated hills, and the direction of transport of boulders 
earried from them, show that throughout Canada the movement was 
from north-east to south-west.* This at once disposes of the glacier- 
theory for the prevailing set of striz ; for we cannot suppose a glacier 
moving from the Atlantic up into the interior. On the other hand, it 


_ is eminently favourable to the idea of ocean drift. A subsidence of 


* The few exceptional cases appear to belong mostly to the later period of the 
stratified sands. 


70 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


America, such as would at present convert all the plains of Canada 
and New York and New England into sea, would determine the 
course of the Arctic current over this submerged land from north-east 
to south-west; and as the current would move up a slope, the ice 
which it bore would tend to ground, and to grind the bottom as it 
passed into shallower water; for it must be observed that the character 
of slope which enables a glacier to grind the surface may prevent ice 
borne by a current from doing so, and vice versa. 

Now we know that in the Post-pliocene period eastern America was 
submerged, and consequently the striation at once comes into harmony 
with other geological facts. We have, of course, to suppose that the 
striation took place during submergence, and that the process was slow 
and gradual, beginning near the sea and at the lower levels, and 
carried upwards to the higher grounds in successive centuries, while 
the portions previously striated were covered with deposits swept 
down from the sinking land or dropped from melting ice. It would 
be easy to show that this view corresponds with many of the 
minor facts. 

Farther, the theory thus stated accounts for the excavation of the 
deep and land-locked basins of our great American lakes. Ocean ~ 
currents, if cold, and clinging to the bottom, must cut out pot-holes, 
just as rivers do, though geologists are too apt to limit their function 
to the throwing up of banks. The course of the present Arctic current 
along the American coast has its deep hollows as well as its sand- 
banks. Our American lake-basins are cut out deeply into the softer 
strata. Running water on the land would not have done this, for it 
could have no outlet; nor could this result be effected by breakers. 
Glaciers could not have effected it; for even if the climatal conditions 
for these were admitted, there is no height of land to give them 
momentum. But if we suppose the land submerged so that the Arctic 
current, flowing from the north-east, should pour over the Laurentian 
rocks on the north side of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, it would 
necessarily cut out of the softer Silurian strata just such basins, drifting 
their materials to the south-west. At the same time, the lower strata 
of the current would be powerfully determined through the strait 
between the Adirondac and Laurentide Hills, and, flowing over the 
ridge of hard rock which connects them at the Thousand Islands, 
would cut out the long basin of Lake Ontario, heaping up at the same 
time, in the lee of the Laurentian ridge, the great mass of boulder 
clay which intervenes between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. 
Lake Erie may have been cut by the flow of the upper layers of water 
over the Middle Silurian escarpment; and Lake Michigan, though 


GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS. 71 


less closely connected with the direction of the current, is, like the 
others, due to the action of a continuous eroding force on rocks of 
unequal hardness. 

The predominant south-west striation, and the cutting of the upper 
lakes, demand an outlet to the west for the Arctic current. But both 
during depression and elevation of the land, there must have been a 
time when this outlet was obstructed, and when the lower levels of 
New York, New England, and Canada were still under water. Then 
the valley of the Ottawa, that of the Mohawk, and the low country 
between Lakes Ontario and Huron, and the valleys of Lake Champlain 
and the Connecticut, would be straits or arms of the sea, and the 
current, obstructed in its direct flow, would set principally along these, 
and act on the rocks in north and south and north-west and south-east 
directions. To this portion of the process I would attribute the 
north-west and south-east striation. It is true that this view does not 
account for the south-east strie observed on some high peaks in New 
England; but it must be observed that even at the time of greatest 
depression, the Arctic current would cling to the northern land, or be 
thrown so rapidly to the west that its direct action might not reach 

- such summits. 

Nor would I exclude altogether the action of glaciers in eastern 
America, though I must dissent from any view which would assign 
to them the principal agency in our glacial phenomena. Under a 
condition of the continent in which only its higher peaks were above 
the water, the air would be so moist, and the temperature so low, 
that permanent ice may have clung about mountains in the temperate 
latitudes. The striation itself shows that there must have been 
extensive glaciers, as now, in the extreme Arctic regions. Yet I 
think that most of the alleged instances must be founded on error, 
and that old sea-beaches have been mistaken for moraines. I have 
failed to find even in our higher mountains any distinct sign of 
glacier action, though the action of the ocean-breakers is visible 
almost to their summits; and though I have observed in Canada 
and Nova Scotia many old. sea-beaches, gravel-ridges, and lake- 
margins, I have seen nothing that could fairly be regarded as the 
work of glaciers. The so-called moraines, in so far as my observa- 
tion extends, are more probably shingle beaches and bars, old 
coast-lines loaded with boulders, trains of boulders or “ ozars.” Most 
of them convey to my mind the impression of ice-action along a 
slowly subsiding coast, forming successive deposits of stones in the 
shallow water, and burying them in clay and smaller stones as the 
depth increased. These deposits were again modified during emer- 


iy THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


gence, when the old ridges were sometimes bared by denudation, and 
new ones heaped up.* 

I shall close these remarks, perhaps already too tedious, by a mere 
reference to the alleged prevalence of lake basins and fiords in high 
northern latitudes, as connected with glacial action. In reasoning on 
this, it seems to be overlooked that the prevalence of hard meta- 
morphic rocks over wide areas in the north is one element in the 
matter. Again, cold Arctic currents are the cutters of basins, not 
the warm surface-currents. Further, the fiords on coasts like the 
deep lateral valleys of mountains are evidences of the action of the 
waves and currents rather than of that of ice. I am sure that-this is 
the case with the numerous indentations of the coast of Nova Scotia, 
which are cut into the softer and more shattered bands of rock; and 
show, in raised beaches and gravel ridges like those of the present 
coast, the levels of the sea at the time of their formation. 

In Nova Scctia we have the means of applying another and crucial 
test to this theory of lake basins. The whole surface of the peninsula 
has been striated and polished; and it has been estimated that one- 
third of its area is occupied by lakes, most of them of small dimension. 
Now these lakes are almost entirely confined to those metamorphic 
regions where unequal hardness and imperfect facilities for drainage 
tend to promote their occurrence. It is evident, therefore, that we 
are to seek for the origin of the lake basins in these local causes, and 
not in any universal covering of glacier. Further, as I have above 
shown, the manner in which the great Canadian lakes have been cut 
out of the softer materials, and their relations to the neighbouring 
harder portions of the country, prove that these great basins may be 
due to the action of ocean-currents, a cause to which I would attribute 
also the greater part of the smaller lakes of Nova Scotia. To these 
reasons I may add the following comparative statements of the effects 
of glaciers and icebergs, deduced from examinations of the glaciers of 
Mont Blanc and the icebergs of Belleisle :—+ 


* T have no doubt that Logan, Hind, and Packard, are correct in assigning — 
some of the striation in the Laurentide Hills of Canada and Labrador to glaciers. 
The valley of the Saguenay, which is a deep cut caused by denudation along a line of 
fracture traversing the Laurentian rocks, shows near its mouth distinct ‘‘roches 
moutonnees’’ smoothed on the northern side, and very deep grooves and strie cut 
in hard gneiss with a direction of 8. 10 E. magnetic, which is nearly at right angles 
to the ordinary striation of the St Lawrence valley. I think it quite possible that 
these appearances may have been caused by a local glacier, and if so, there may have 
been glaciers along the whole line of the Laurentide Hills, with their extremities 
reaching to the sea or strait then filling the St Lawrence valley. 

+ Comparisons of the Icebergs of Belleisle and the Glaciers of Mont Blanc, Canadian 
Naturalist, 1867. 


or. eva se we 


GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS. vi) 


1. Glaciers heap up their debris in abrupt ridges. Floating ice 
- sometimes does this, but more usually spreads its load in a more or 
less uniform sheet: 

2. The material of moraines is all local. Icebergs carry their 
deposits often to great distances from their sources. 

3. The stones carried by glaciers are mostly angular, except where 
they have been acted on by torrents. Those moved by floating ice 
are more often rounded, being acted on by the waves and by the 
abrading action of sand drifted by currents. 

4, In the marine glacial deposits mud is mixed with stones and 
boulders. In the case of land glaciers most of this mud is carried off 
by streams and deposited elsewhere. 

5. The deposits of floating ice may contain marine shells. Those 
of glaciers cannot, except where, as in Greenland and Spitzbergen, 
glaciers push their moraines out into the sea. 

4 6. It is of the nature of glaciers to flow in the deepest ravines they 
ean find, and such ravines drain the ice of extensive areas of mountain 
land. Icebergs, on the contrary, act with greatest ease on flat surfaces 
___ or slight elevations in the sea bottom. 

_- 1%, Glaciers must descend slopes and must be backed by large 
supplies of perennial snow. Icebergs act independently, and, being 
water-borne, may work up slopes and on level surfaces. 

* 8. Glaciers striate the sides and bottoms of their ravines very un- 
equally, acting with great force and effect only on those places where 
their weight impinges most heavily. Icebergs, on the contrary, being 
carried by constant currents and over comparatively flat surfaces, 
_ must striate and grind more regularly over large areas, and with less 
reference to local inequalities of surface. 

9. The direction of the striw and grooves produced by glaciers 
depends on the direction of valleys. That of icebergs, on the con- 
trary, depends upon the direction of marine currents, which is not 
determined by the outline of the surface, but is influenced by the 
large and wide depressions of the sea-bottom. 

10. When subsidence of the land is in progress, floating ice may 
earry boulders from lower to higher levels. Glaciers cannot do this 
under any circumstances, though in their progress they may leave 
blocks perched on the tops of peaks and ridges. 


The only portion of Acadia in which stratified clays holding marine 
shells have been found overlying the boulder clay, or in connexion 
with it, is in the southern part of New Brunswick, where deposits of 
this kind occur similar to those found in Canada and in Maine, though 
apparently on a smaller scale. These deposits, as they occur near St 


‘4 


Fossils of the Post-pliocene (from Canadian specimens). 
Fig. 14. 


Fig. 13. 


Fig. 12. Balanus Hameri,(a)opercula. Fig. 13. Mytilus edulis. Fig. 14. Tellina Greenlandica. 
» 15. Saxicava rugosa. y» 16. Tellinacalearea. ,, 17. Mya truncata. 
» 18. Natica clausa. y 19. Buccinum undatum, var. 

20. Cytheridea Mulleri, (c) nat. size. Fig. 21. Polystomella striatopunctata, mag. 


” 


ate ieee i 


“ears 


apie 


4D igs 


MARINE SHELLS IN STRATIFIED CLAYS. 75 


John, consist of gray and reddish clays, holding fossils which indicate 
moderately deep water, and are, as to species, identical with those 
occurring in similar deposits in Canada and in Maine. They would 
indicate a somewhat lower temperature than that of the waters of the 
Bay of Fundy at present, or about that of the northern part of the 
Gulf of St Lawrence. They correspond to the Leda clay of Canada 
and Maine. 

Mr C, F. Hartt has given, in Prof. Bailey’s Report on New Bruns- 
wick, the following list of fossils from these beds. I have affixed an 
asterisk to the species found also in the Leda clay and Saxicava 
sand of Canada. 


Articulata. 
Balanus Hameri,* Asc., Lawlor’s Lake. 
B. crenatus,* i - 

Mollusca. 
Pecten islandicus,* Linn., Lawlor’s Lake, R. R. Depot, Saint John. 
P. tenuistriatus, Migh., Fe 
Mytilus edulis, Zinn.* " 9 = % 


Cardium pinnulatum, Con. " " 
Tellina Greenlandica* (= T. Balthica Linn.), Lawlor’s Lake, ete. 
T. calcarea* (= Macorna sabulosa, Stp.), Duck Cove, ete. 

Leda Jacksoni (= L. pernula*), Lawlor’s Lake. 

L. truneata,* Duck Cove; Lawlor’s Lake; R. R. Depot, Saint John. 


Nucula are (var. of N. tenuis. ),* ” ” ” 
Mya arenaria.* ” ” ” 
M. truncata,* 


Aphrodite (Serripes) Greenlandica, Beck, Duck Cove, ete. 
Cardium islandicum,* Linn. 
Mesodesma, R. R. Depot. 
Saxicava distorta, Say. (= 8. rugosa, Linn.)* 
Lyonsia arenosa, Duck Cove.* 
Lacuna neritoidea,* Gould, Duck Cove. 
Pandora trilineata, : 7 
Natica clausa, Sow,* 
Buccinum undatum,* Linn, Diiek Cove. 
Bryozoa, several species undetermined, Taylor’s Island, Lawlor’s 
Lake, ete. 
Radiata. 
Ophioglypha Sarsii, Zutk., Saint John, Duck Cove.* 
Toxopneustes drobachiensis (Echinus granulatus, Say.),* Red 
Head, Lawlor’s Lake. 
Plants.—Algex, three species, undetermined.—Manawagonis. 


76 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


In some specimens sent to me by Mr Matthew, I find, in addition 
to the forms above enumerated, some microscopic organisms, more 
especially Polystomella striatopunctata (umbilicata of Walker), and 
several species of Cythere ; and among the Bryozoa I recognise Pustu- 
lipora, Tubulipora serpens and Crista eburnea, all in small fragments. 

In the absence of fossils, the drift of Nova Scotia contrasts strongly — 
with the Post-pliocene clays.and sands of the lower St Lawrence and 
the St John. These deposits abound in marine shells, and mark the 
stages of recession of the sea as the American land rose from the 
great depression of the period of the boulder formation, in which 
nearly the whole continent was submerged. The absence of the fossil- 
iferous marine clays in Nova Scotia may indicate a more rapid elevation 
of the land, not giving time for permanent sea-bottoms; or, on the 
other hand, a slow rise accompanied by very great denudation. The 
position of Nova Scotia and the aspect of its boulder clay point rather 
to the latter conclusion. In this case, remnants may exist; and, 
judging from appearances in Canada, Maine, and New Brunswick, I 
should suppose that marine remains are most likely to be found at the 
junction of the boulder clay with the overlying stratified drift, and 
in places sheltered by hills or ledges of rock. From papers on this 
subject, relating more especially to Canada, I may select the following 
statements as important to the geology of these formations in Acadia 
as well :—* 

The arrangement of the Post-pliocene deposits at Logan’s Farm 
near Monireal, and Beauport near Quebec, confirms the subdivision, 
which I have attempted to establish, of these beds into an underlying 
unstratified boulder clay, a deep-water bed of clay or sand (the 
“Leda clay’ of Montreal), and, overlying shallow-water sands and 
gravels (the “ Saxicava sand’’). This arrangement shows a gradual 
upheaval of the land from its state of depression in the boulder clay 
period, corresponding with what has been deduced from similar 
appearances in the Old World. ‘The upheaval of the bed of the 
glacial sea,” says Forbes, “was not sudden but gradual. The phe- 
nomena so well described by Professor Forchammer in his essays on - 
the Danish drift, indicating the conversion of a muddy sea of some 
depth into one choked up with sand-banks, are, though not universal, 
equally evident in the British Isles, especially in Ireland and the Isie 
of Man.’’+ = 

We now have in all, exclusive of doubtful forms, about one hun- 
dred species of marine invertebrates from the Post-pliocene clays of 
the St Lawrence valley. All, except four or five species belonging 


* Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, vols. ii., iii., and iv. 
+ Memoirs of Geological Survey. 


MARINE SHELLS IN STRATIFIED CLAYS. Yi 


to the older or deep-water part of the deposit, are known as living 

shells of the Arctic or boreal regions of the Atlantic. About half of 

the species are fossil in the Post-pliocene of Great Britain. The 

great majority are now living in the Gulf of St Lawrence and on the 
neighbouring coasts; and more especially on the north side of the 
gulf and the coast of Labrador. In so far, then, as marine life is 
concerned, the modern period in this country is connected with that 
of the boulder clay by an unbroken chain of animal existence. These 
deposits in Lower Canada afford no indications of the terrestrial fauna ; 
but the remains of Elephas primigenius in beds of similar age in Upper 
Canada,* show that during the period in question great changes 
occurred among the animals of the land; and we may hope to find 
similar evidences elsewhere, especially in localities where, as on 
the Ottawa, the debris of land-plants and land-shells occur in the 
marine deposits. 

The climate of this period, as indicated by its marine animals, and 
the causes of its difference from that which now obtains in the northern 
hemisphere, have been fertile subjects of discussions and controversies, 
which I have no wish here to reopen. I desire, however, to state, 

~ in a manner level to the comprehension of the ordinary reader, the 
facts of the case in so far as relates to Canada, and equally to the 
maritime provinces, and an important inference to which they appear 
to me to lead, and which, if sustained, will very much simplify our 
views of this question. 

Every one knows that the means and extremes of annual tempera- 
ture differ much on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. The isothermal 
line of 40°, for example, passes from the south side of the Gulf of St 
Lawrence, skirts Iceland, and reaches Europe near Drontheim in 
Norway. ‘This fact, apparent as the result of observations on the 
temperature of the land, is equally evidenced by the inhabitants and 
physical phenomena of the sea. <A large proportion of the shell-fish 
inhabiting the Gulf of St Lawrence and the coast thence to Cape Cod 
occur on both sides of the Atlantic, but not in the same latitudes. 
The marine fauna of Cape Cod is parallel, in its prevalence of boreal 
forms, with that of the south of Norway. In like manner, the descent 

of icebergs from the north, the freezing of bays and estuaries, the 

drifting and pushing of stones and boulders by ice, are witnessed on 

the American coast in a manner not paralleled in corresponding 

latitudes in Europe. It follows from this, that a collection of shells 

from any given latitude on the coasts of Europe or America would 

bear testimony to the existing difference of climate. The geologist 
* Reports of Geol. Survey; Lyell’s Travels. 


4a | 


se. ae 


% 


ee i a ee 
a; oe 


78 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


appeals to the same kind of evidence with reference to the climate of 
the Post-tertiary period, and let us inquire what is its testimony. 

The first and most general answer usually given is, that the Post- 
pliocene climate was colder than the Modern. The proof of this in 
Western Europe is very strong. The marine fossils of this period in 


Britain are more like the existing fauna of Norway or of Labrador | 


than the present fauna of Britain. Great evidences exist of driftage 
of boulders by ice, and traces of glaciers on the higher hills. In 
North America the proofs of a rigorous climate, and especially of the 
transport of boulders and other materials by ice, are equally good, 
and the marine fauna all over Canada and New England is of boreal 
type. In evidence of these facts, I may appeal to the papers and 
other publications of Sir C. Lyell and Professor Ramsay on the for- 
mations of the so-called Glacial period in Europe and America,* and 
to my own previous papers on the Post-tertiary of Canada. 

Admitting, however, that a rigorous climate prevailed in tlie Post- 
pliocene period, it by no means follows that the change has been 
equally great in different localities. On the contrary, while a great 
and marked revolution has occurred in Europe, the evidences of such 
change are very much more slight in America. In short, the causes 
of the coldness of the Post-pliocene seas to some extent still remain 
in America, while they must have disappeared or been modified in 
Europe. 

If we inquire as to these causes as at present existing, we find them 
in the distribution of ocean-currents, and especially in the great warm 
current of the Gulf Stream thrown across from America to Europe, 
and in the Arctic currents bathing the coasts of America. In con- 
nexion with these we have the prevailing westerly winds of the tem- 
perate zone, and the great extent of land and shallow seas in northern 
America. Some of these causes are absolutely constant. Of this 
kind is the distribution of the winds, depending on the earth’s 
temperature and rotation. The courses of the currents are also 
constant, except in so far as modified by coasts and banks; and the 


direction of the drift-scratches and transport of boulders in the Post- | 


pliocene both of Europe and America show that the Arctic currents at 
least have remained unchanged. But the distribution of land and 
water is a variable element, since we know that in the period in 
question nearly all northern Europe, Asia and America, were at one 
time or another under the waters of the sea; and it is consequently to 


* Lyell’s Travels in North America; Ramsay on the Glaciers of Wales, and on the 
Glacial Phenomena of Canada. See also Forbes on the Fauna and Flora of the 
British Islands, in Memoirs of Geological Survey. 


‘iss 


by 
a 
‘ 
‘ 


eT on ed aL, ool 


Lee oe, ee ee 


CHANGES OF CLIMATE. 79 


this cause that we must mainly look for the changes which have 
occurred, 

Such changes of level must, as has been long since shown by Sir 
Charles Lyell, modify and change climate. Every diminution of the 
land in Arctic America must tend to render its climate less severe. 
Every diminution of land in the temperate regions must tend to reduce 

the mean temperature. Every diminution of land anywhere must 
tend to diminish the extremes of annual temperature ; and the condition 
of the southern hemisphere at present shows that the disappearance 
of the great continental masses under the water would lower the mean 
temperature, but render the climate much less extreme. Glaciers 
might then exist in latitudes where now the summer heat would 
suffice to melt them—as Darwin has shown that in South America 
glaciers extend to the sea level in latitude 46° 50’,—and at the same 
time the ice would melt more slowly and be drifted farther to the 
southward. Any change that tended to divert the Arctic currents 
from our coasts would raise the temperature of their waters. Any 
change that would allow the equatorial current to pursue its course 
through to the Pacific, or along the great inland valley of North 
America, would reduce the British seas to a boreal condition. 

The boulder formation and its overlying fossiliferous beds prove, 
as I have in a previous paper endeavoured to explain with regard to 
Canada, and as has been shown by other geologists in the case of 
other parts of America and of Europe, that the land of the northern 
hemisphere underwent in the Post-tertiary period a great and gradual 
depression and then an equally gradual elevation. Every step of this 
process would bring its modifications of climate, and when the de- 
pression had attained its maximum there probably was as little land 
in the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere as in the southern 
now. This would give a low mean temperature and an extension to 
the south of glaciers, more especially if, at the same time, a consider- 
able Arctic continent remained above the waters, as seems to be 
indicated by the effects of extreme marine glacial action on the rocks 
under the boulder clay. These conditions, actually indicated by the 
phenomena themselves, appear quite sufficient to account for the 
coldness of the seas of the period; and the wide diffusion of the Gulf 
Stream caused by the subsidence of American land, or its entire 
diversion into the Pacific basin,* would give that assimilation of the 


* This is often excluded from consideration, owing to the fact that the marine 
fauna of the Gulf of Mexico differs almost entirely from that of the Pacific coast; but 
the question still remains, whether this difference existed in the Later Tertiary period, 
or has been established in the Modern epoch, as a consequence of changed physical 
conditions. 


a 


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80 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


American and European climates so characteristic of the time. The 
climate of western Europe, in short, would, under such a state of 
things, be greatly reduced in mean temperature: the climate of 
America would suffer a smaller reduction of its mean temperature, 
but would be much less extreme than at present; the general effect 
being the establishment of a more equable but lower temperature: 
throughout the northern hemisphere. It is perhaps necessary to add, 
that the existence on the land, during this period of depression, of 
large elephantine mammals in northern latitudes, as, for instance, the 
mammoth and mastodon, does not contradict this conclusion. We 
know that these creatures were clothed in a manner to fit them for a 
cool climate, and an equable rather than a high temperature was 
probably most conducive to their welfare, while the more extreme 
climate consequent on the present elevation and distribution of the 
land may have led to their extinction. 

The establishment of the present distribution of land and water, 
giving to America its extreme climate, leaving its seas cool, and 
throwing on the coasts of Europe the heated water of the tropics, 
would thus affect but slightly the marine life of the American coast, 
but very materially that of Europe, producing the result already 
referred to in the above pages, that the Canadian Post-pliocene 
fauna differs comparatively little from that now existing in the 
Gulf of St Lawrence; though in so far as any difference subsists, it 
is in the direction of an Arctic character. The changes that have 
occurred were perhaps all the less that so soon as the Laurentide Hills 
to the north of the St Lawrence valley emerged from the sea, the 
coasts to the south of these hills would be effectually protected from 
the heavy northern ice-drifts and from the Arctic currents, and would 
have the benefit of the full action of the summer heat,—advantages 
which must have existed to a less extent in western Europe. 

It is farther to be observed, that such subsidence and elevation 
would necessarily afford great facilities for the migration of Arctic 
marine animals, and that the difference between the Modern and 
Post-pliocene faunas must be greatest in those localities to which ~ 
the forms of temperate regions could most readily migrate after the 
change of temperature had occurred. : 

It has been fully shown by many previous writers on this subject, 
that the causes above referred to are sufficient to account for all the 
local and minor phenomena of the stratified and unstratified drifts, 
and for the driftage of boulders and other materials, and the erosion 
that accompanied its deposition. Into these subjects I do not propose 
to enter; my object in these remarks being merely to give the reasons 


STRATIFIED SAND AND GRAVEL. 81 


for my belief stated in previous papers on this subject, that the 


difference of climate between Post-pliocene and Modern America, and 


the less amount of that difference relatively to that which has occurred 
in western Europe, may be explained by a consideration of the changes 
of level which the structure and distribution of the boulder clay and 
the overlying fossiliferous beds prove to have occurred. 


The stratified sand and gravel of Nova Scotia rests upon and is 
newer than the unstratified drift, and is probably also newer than the 
stratified marine clays above referred to. Its age is probably that of 
the Saxicava sand. The former relation may often be seen in 
coast sections or river banks, and occasionally in road-cuttings. I 
observed some years ago an instructive illustration of this fact, in 
a bank on the shore a little to the eastward of Merigomish harbour 
(Fig. 22). At this place the lower part of the bank consists of 
clay and sand with angular stones, principally sandstones. Upon 


Fig. 22.—Stratified Gravel resting on Drift,—Merigomish. 


\ Ur. Sie 
Dn 1 48 CLE Ee 
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—s 
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this rests a bed of fine sand and small rounded gravel with layers of 
coarser pebbles. The gravel is separated from the drift below by a 
layer of the same sort of angular stones that appear in the drift, 
showing that the currents which deposited the upper bed have washed 
away some of the finer portions of the drift before the sand and gravel 
were thrown down. In this section, as well as in most others that I 
have examined, the lower part of the stratified gravel is finer than 
the upper part, and contains more sand. 

In some cases we can trace. the pebbles of the gravels to ancient 
conglomerate rocks which have furnished them by their decay; but 
in other instances the pebbles may have been rounded by the waters 
that deposited them in their present place. In places, however, where 
old pebble rocks do not occur, we sometimes find, instead of gravel, 
beds of fine laminated sand. A very remarkable instance of the con- 
nexion of superficial gravels with ancient pebble rocks cocurs in the 
county of Pictou. In the coal formation of this county there occurs 
a very thick bed of conglomerate, the outcrop of which, owing to its 

F 


= 
7 
. 


§2 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


comparative hardness and great mass, forms a high ridge extending 
from the hill behind New Glasgow across the East and Middle Rivers, 
and along the south side of the West River, and then, crossing the 
West River, re-appears in Roger’s Hill. The valleys of these three 
rivers have been cut through this bed, and the material thus removed 
has been heaped up in hillocks and beds of gravel, along the banks of - 
the streams, on the side toward which the water now flows, which 
happens to be the north and north-east. Accordingly, along the 
course of the Albion Mines Railway and the lower parts of the 
Middle and West Rivers, these gravel beds are everywhere exposed 
in the road-cuttings, and may in some places be seen to rest on the 
boulder clay, showing that the cutting of these valleys was completed 
after the drift was produced. Similar instances of the connexion of 
gravel with conglomerate occur near Antigonish, and on the sides of 
the Cobequid Mountains, where some of the valleys have at their 
southern entrances immense tongues of gravel extending out ‘into the 
plain, as if currents of enormous volume had swept through them from 
north to south. 

The stratified gravels do not, like the older drift, form a continuous 
sheet spreading over the surface, They occur in mounds and long 
ridges, sometimes extending for miles over the country. One of the 
most remarkable of these ridges is the “ Boar’s Back,’ which runs 
along the west side of the Hebert River in Cumberland. It is a 
narrow ridge, perhaps from ten to twenty feet in height, and cut across 
in several places by the channels of small brooks. The ground on 
either side appears low and flat. For eight miles it forms a natural 
road, rough indeed, but practicable, with care, to a carriage, the general 
direction being nearly north and south. What its extent or course 
may be beyond the points where the road enters on and leaves it, I 
do not know; but it appears to extend from the base of the Cobequid 
Mountains to a ridge of sandstone that crosses the lower part of the 
Hebert River. It consists of gravel and sand, whether stratified or 
not I could not ascertain, with a few large boulder-stones. Another 
very singular ridge of this kind is that running along the west side ~ 
of Clyde River in Shelburne county. This ridge is higher than that 
on. Hebert River, but, like it, extends parallel to the river, and forms 
a natural road, improved by art in such a manner as to be a very 
tolerable highway. Along a great part of its course it is separated 
from the river by a low alluvial flat, and on the land side a swamp 
intervenes between it and the higher ground. These may serve as 
illustrations of the “boars’ backs” or ‘horse backs” and gravel 
ridges which occur in many other places, and are sometimes accom- 


ib STINET ie 


_ REMAINS OF MASTODON. 83 


panied, particularly where they are crossed by gullies, by circular 


- and oval mounds, as regular as if thrown up artificially, 


Just as we attribute the formation of the older or boulder drift to 
the action of water and ice, while the land was subsiding beneath a 
frozen sea,.so we may assign as the cause of the superficial gravels 
the action of these same waters while the country was being elevated 
above their level. Many of the mounds of gravel have evidently 
been formed by currents of water rushing through and scooping out 
the present valleys. Some of the more regular ridges are apparently 
of the nature of the gravel beaches which are th’own by the sea 
across the mouths of bays and coves, and may mark the continuance 
of the sea-level unchanged for some time in the progress of elevation. 
Others may have been pressed up by the edges of sheets of ice, in 
the manner of the ridges along the borders of our present lakes. 
That the action of ice in some form had not ceased, we have evidence in 
the large boulders sometimes found on the summits of the gravel ridges. 

In the island of Cape Breton the bones of a large elephantine 
quadruped, evidently a species of Mastodon, have been found in con- 
nexion with the superficial gravel. This gigantic creature probably 
inhabited our country at the close of the Glacial or Drift period, and 
may have been contemporary with some of the present animals, though 
probably extinct before the introduction of the human race. The 
existence of this huge quadruped does not imply a tropical or even 
very warm climate, since in a skeleton found in Warren county, New 
Jersey, fragments of twigs, lying in such a position as to show that 
they had formed part of the food of the creature, were found by 
microscopic examination to have belonged to a species of cypress, 
probably the common white cedar of America; so that the animal 
probably browsed as the moose does at present, and could live in any 
wooded region.* One specimen found in the state of New York 
measured twenty-five feet in length and twelve feet in height. In 
Nova Scotia the animal must have attained to similar dimensions, for 
a thigh-bone, now in the museum of the Mechanics’ Institute in Hali- 
fax, though apparently somewhat worn, measures three feet eleven 
inches in length. This huge bone and some fragments of a tusk, 
were the only remains of this animal that I had seen before the pub- 
lication of the first edition of this work. A molar tooth has since 
been found in Cape Breton by Dr Honeyman, and I am now enabled 
by his kind assistance to figure the thigh-bone and tooth from photo- 
graphs (Figs. 23 and 24). The species appears to be the Mastodon 
giganteus. 

* Lyell, ‘‘Manual of Geology.” 


84 THE POST-PLIOCENE PERIOD. 


Fig. 23.—Femur of Mastodon (reduced). 


In conclusion of this part of the subject, we may view the Drift 
period as the close of the great Tertiary era of geologists. In that 
era there was much dry land in the northern hemisphere, and 
multitudes of large animals now extinct inhabited it, apparently under 
a climate milder than at present. Great changes, however, took place 
in the relative positions of land and water, inducing very important 
changes of climate, which finally became of an almost Arctic char- 
acter over all the present temperate regions. The greater part of 
northern Europe and Asia appear to have subsided beneath the 
waters of the boulder-bearing semi-arctic ocean, until raised again 
by successive stages to be the abode of man and the animals of. 
the modern earth. This final elevation, marked by the superficial 
gravels, appears to have fixed the present contour of the country, 
though the extinction of the mastodon and the phenomena of sub- 
merged forests show that important changes both in inorganic and 
organic nature have occurred subsequently. We have thus, in tracing 
back the geological history of Acadia observed first, certain modern 
formations now in progress, and depending wholly on the present 
condition of the country. We have seen in connexion with these, 


GENERAL REMARKS. 85 


evidences of subsidence of the land over an extensive area in the 
Modern period. A little farther back, we have observed remains 
showing that formerly a large elephantine quadruped now extinct 
inhabited the country, which we find had at a time still more ancient 
emerged from the bosom of the deep, under which it had long 
remained, while icebergs and floes were drifting masses of rock over 
its surface, and scraping and polishing its hills. Lastly, we have 
found that at a still earlier period it must have been dry land, exposed 
to the influence of a cold climate, and having in places peat bogs on 
its surface. This whole history, however, reaches no farther back 
than the close of the Tertiary period; and by referring to the Table 
in Chapter II. it will be observed, that between this period and the 
formation next to be described a great blank occurs, occupied in 
some other countries by some of the most wonderful monuments 
} of the earth’s history. 
4 


Note.—Since writing the above, I have received a very valuable 
memoir on the Glacial Phenomena of Labrador and Maine, by A. S. 
Packard, M.D. The author, though attaching more importance to 
_ the action of glaciers than I am disposed to admit, states many 
____ important facts and conclusions bearing on the subject of this chapter. 
Adopting the term “ Syrtensian” for the marine fauna of Labrador 
; and the northern part of the Gulf of St Lawrence, and “ Acadian” 
for that of the coast from Cape Breton to Cape Cod, he shows the 
_ Post-pliocene fauna of Maine and New Brunswick to be Syrtensian, 
__ and not, as at present, Acadian. He adds to the list of New Brunswick 
} Post-pliocene fossils, —Cardium pinnulatum, Astarte Banksii, Lepralia 

hyalina, Membranipora pilosa, and Cellepora pumicosa. 


J 


86° 


CHAPTER VI. 
THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


GENERAL DISTRIBUTION—-RED SANDSTONES—VARIETIES OF TRAP—NEW 
RED FROM TRURO TO AVON ESTUARY—BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND. 


Berween the Drift and the New Red Sandstone, a deposit probably 
of the same age with the Triassic System of geologists, there is a 
great hiatus in the geology of Nova Scotia. During all those periods 
in which the middle and older Tertiaries, the Cretaceous and the 
Oolitic systems were produced, no rocks appear to have been formed 
within its area, or if they were formed they have been swept away. 
This remark applies not only to Nova Scotia, but to an immense 
region extending through New Brunswick, Canada, and the Northern 
United States; and, in some directions, far beyond the limits of those 
countries. During those long periods, these regions, thus destitute of 
the newer Secondary and Tertiary rocks, may have been in the interior 
of a great continent, or in the fathomless depths of an ocean where no 
sediment was being deposited; but whatever their condition, they 
retain no geological monuments of the lapse of time. In passing, then, 
from the Boulder formation to that which for convenience we may 
call the New Red Sandstone, to distinguish it from rocks of similar 
character but greater age, the reader may be reminded by a glance at 
the Table in Chapter II., that we are passing at one leap over a great 
part of the earth’s geological history. 

The distribution of the New Red Sandstone, as shown on the map, 
indicates that, when it was deposited, the form and contour of the . 
country already made some approach to those which it still retains. 
Just as the marsh mud lines the coasts of the Bay of Fundy, so do 
we find the New Red occupying an inner zone, and appearing to have 
been deposited in a bay a little wider and longer than the present one. 
It is indeed to this bay district that, in Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
wick, the New Red has been chiefly confined, and it may have been 
deposited in circumstances not very dissimilar from those of the present 
marshes, except that the older deposit is accompanied by evidence that 


A STAVES 


we 


Sm. 
—— 


ee ee St 


. eee Te 


GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. 87 


active voleanoes poured out their lavas on the grandest scale in the 


waters and on the shores of the bay while its sandstones were being 
formed. While the New Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia is limited to 
the Bay of Fundy, we have evidence in the wide extent of the same 
formation in Prinee Edward Island, that a similar deposit was in 
progress in the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the gulf, however, unlike 
the bay, we do not find the New Red along the coasts, but in an 
isolated patch separated on all sides from the continent. I may 
remark here, that the New Red Sandstone, though patches of it are 
scattered over several parts of North America, is nowhere very 
extensive. To the southward of Nova Scotia it re-appears in Connec- 
ticut, where it extends over a considerable area in the valley of the 
river; and in New Jersey, where another band commences that 
extends a great distance to the south-east, some isolated patches 
occurring as far south as North Carolina. 

The aqueous rocks of the New Red Sandstone period in Nova Scotia 
and Prince Edward Island are principally coarse and soft red sand- 
stones with a calcareous cement, which causes them to effervesce with 
acids, and contributes to the fertility of the soils formed from them. 
In the lower part of the formation, there are conglomerates made up 
of well-worn pebbles of the harder and older rocks. 

The volcanic rocks of this period are of that character known 
to geologists as Trap, and are quite analogous to the products of 
modern volcanoes; and, like them, consist principally of Augite, a 
dark green or blackish mineral, composed of silica, lime, and mag- 
nesia, with iron as a colouring material. Various kinds of trap are 
distinguished, corresponding to the varieties of modern lavas. Crystal- 
line or basaltic trap is a black or dark green rock, of a fine crystalline 
texture, and having on the large scale a strong tendency to assume a 
rude columnar or basaltic structure. Amygdaloid or almond-cake 
trap is full of round or oval cavities or air bubbles, filled with light 
coloured minerals introduced by water after the formation of the rock. 
This represents the vesicular or porous lava which forms the upper 
surface of lava currents, just as the basaltic trap represents the basalti- 
form lava which appears in their lower and more central parts. The 
only difference is, that in the amygdaloid the cavities are filled up, 
while in the modern lavas they are empty. In some old lavas, 
however, the cavities are already wholly or partially filled. A third 
kind of trap, very abundant in Nova Scotia, is Tufa or Tuff, or voleanic 
sandstone, a rock of earthy or sandy appearance, and of gray, greenish, 
or brown colour. It consists of fine volcanic dust and scoriz, popularly 
known as the ashes and cinders of voleanoes, cemented together into 


re 
, 
a 4 
a) ot i 


88 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE, 


a somewhat tough rock. Modern tufa, quite analogous to that of the 
trap, is very abundant in volcanic countries, and sometimes sufficiently 
hard to be quarried as a stone. 

As the new red sandstone and trap are formations of one period, 
and differ only in origin, it will be convenient to consider them 


together. I shall therefore proceed to describe these two rocks as 


they appear in connexion in different parts of Nova Scotia, New 
Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and then notice their fossil 
remains and useful or interesting minerals. 


1. Truro and South Side of Cobequid Bay. 


In the valley of the Salmon River, four and a half miles eastward of 
the village of Truro, the eastern extremity of the New Red Sandstone 
is seen to rest unconformably on hard reddish brown sandstones and 
shales, belonging to the lower part of the Carboniferous system, and 
dipping N. 80° E. at an angle of 40°. At this place the overlying 
formation is nearly horizontal, and consists of soft and rather coarse 
bright red silicious sandstones. Southward of Truro, at the distance 
of less than a mile, the horizontal soft red sandstone is seen, in the 
banks of a brook, to run against hard brownish grits and shales, 
dipping to the eastward at angles varying from 45° to 50°. Westward 
of this place, the red sandstones extend in a narrow band, about a 
mile in width, to the mouth of the Shubenacadie, ten miles distant. 
This band is bounded on the north by Cobequid Bay, and on the south 
by highly inclined sandstone, shale, and limestone of the Lower 
Carboniferous series. In the coast-section, between Truro and the 
Shubenacadie, the red sandstone presents the same characters as at 
the former place, except that, near the Shubenacadie, some of the beds, 
which, like most of the red sandstones of Truro, have a calcareous 
cement, show a tendency to arrangement in large concretionary balls. 

West of the mouth of the Shubenacadie, the red sandstone ceases 
to form a continuous belt, but occurs in several patches, especially at 


Salter’s Head, Barncote, and Walton. At the latter place, it is seen _ 


to rest on the edges of sandstones and other rocks of the Lower 
Carboniferous system, affording a very fine example of that-unconform- 
able superposition which in geology proves the underlying formation 
to have been elevated and disturbed before the overlying beds were 
deposited upon it. This appearance is represented in Fig. 25, and 
was thus described by the writer in a note supplementary to his paper 
on the New Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia, and communicated to the 
Geological Society in 1852 :— 


4 
e 
e 
: 
: 
a 
‘ 
: 
4 
P 
] 


NEW RED FROM TRURO TO AVON ESTUARY. 89 


Fig 25.—Section on the West Side of the Mouth of Petite River. 


(a) Carboniferous Strata, highly inclined. (b) Triassic Red Sandstone. 


“T had in the past summer an opportunity of examining these beds 
at Walton (Petite) and other places, and was much gratified by finding 
that the New Red might be traced, as a narrow and occasionally inter- 
rupted band, from the mouth of the Shubenacadie nearly to the 
mouth of the Avon; thus connecting as far as possible the distinct 
patches of New Red described in my former paper. At some points 
also I found very distinct coast-sections, showing the unconformable 
superposition of the New Red on the Lower Carboniferous beds. A 
good instance of this occurs at Petite River. 

“Near the mouth of the river, the Lower Carboniferous formation 
appears with the same characters observed at Windsor and on the 
Shubenacadie. It includes a large body of gypsum, extensively 
quarried for exportation, and a bed of limestone with veins of oxide 
of manganese. In the neighbourhood of these beds, the softer rocks 
have been denuded and do not appear. Still nearer the mouth of the 
river, however, there is a distinct section, showing black shales, with 
calcareous bands, dipping at a high angle to the south, and under- 
lying the beds above mentioned. In a short space these beds become 
contorted, and then dip steeply to the north. 

“Succeeding these black shales, in ascending order, the Lower 
Carboniferous rocks are seen in the section. These beds probably 
underlie the gypsum and limestone, which would recur on the north 
side of the anticlinal formed by the black shales if the section extended 
sufficiently far. Before reaching the extremity of the point on the 
east side of the river, however, the edges of the beds sink to the level 
of the sea, and the lower members of the New Red are unconformably 
superimposed upon them. It is a somewhat instructive fact that the 
beds of the underlying series are at this place both redder and softer 
than the overlying New Red Sandstone.” 

I notice this section particularly, because it gives a clear conception 


4g 


90 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


of the manner in which the New Red rests on the older Carboniferous 
beds, wherever it is in contact with them. , 


2. Blomidon to Briar Island. 

Westward of Walton, the estuary of the Avon River and Minas 
Basin make a very wide gap in the New Red Sandstone. On the 
western side. of Minas Basin, however, this formation attains its 
greatest width and grandest proportions ; and as this coast affords the _ 
finest opportunity in the province for studying all the members of the _ 
formation and their mutual relations, I shall describe 
it in detail with the aid of the section, Fig. 26. 

Blomidon is the eastern extremity of a long band 
of trappean rocks, forming an elevated ridge, named 
in the greater part of its length the ‘ North Moun- 
tains.” This ridge is about 123 miles in length, 
including two insular portions at its western extrem- 
ity, and does not exceed five miles in breadth, except 
near Cape Blomidon, where a narrow promontory, 
terminating in Cape Split, extends to the northward. 
The trap of the North Mountains presents to the 
Bay of Fundy a range of high cliffs, and is bounded 
on the inland side by soft red sandstones, which 
form a long valley separating the trappean rocks 
from another and more extensive hilly district oecu- 
pied principally by metamorphic slates and granite, 
The trap has protected the softer sandstones from 
the waves and tides of the bay, and probably also 
from older denuding agents ; and where it terminates, 
the shore at once recedes to the southward, forming 
the western side of Minas Basin, and affording a 
cross section of the North Mountains and the valley 
of Cornwallis. 

At Cape Blomidon, the cliff, which in some parts 
is 400 feet in height, is composed of red sandstone 
surmounted by trap. The sandstone is soft, arranged - 
in beds of various degrees of coarseness, and is 
variegated by greenish bands and blotches. It 
contains veins of selenite and fibrous gypsum, the 
latter usually parallel to the containing beds, but 
sometimes crossing them obliquely. I found no 
fossils in it; it dips to the north-west at an angle of 
16°. Resting on the sandstone, and appearing to 
dip with it to the north-west, is a thick bed of 


Blomidon. 


(d) Trap. 


(c) New Red Sandstone. 


Bass Cr. Pereau R. 


Fig. 26.—Section from Horton to Cape Blomidon. 
(b) Carboniferous System. 


Starr’s Pt, 


Wolfville, 


(a) Metamorphic Slates, 


| f | 
{ 
fi 
1 
SN il i} 
I | MT Hy 
| ih) \ 
| | Hit i 1 
i Mt \ 
i P 
il 
I) i] 


F 


oad a ao Pa +o — ms r- : 
ieee , a 
BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND. 91 


amygdaloidal trap, varying in colour from gray to dull red, but in 
general of grayish tints. It is full of cavities and fissures; and 
these, as well as its vesicles, are filled or coated with quartz, in 
different states, and with various zeolites, to be noticed hereafter, 
especially heulandite, analcime, natrolite, stilbite, and apophylite, often 
in large and beautiful masses of crystals. In its lower part there are 
some portions which are scarcely vesicular, and often appear to contain 
quartz sand like that of the subjacent sandstone. Above the bed of 
amygdaloid is a still thicker stratum of crystalline basaltic trap, 
having a rude columnar structure. 

The columnar trap of Blomidon, in consequence of its hardness and 
vertical joints, presents a perpendicular wall extending along the top 
of the precipice. The amygdaloid beneath, being friable and much 
fissured, falls away in a slope from the base of this wall, and the sand- 
stone in some places forms a continuation of the slope, or is altogether 
concealed by the fallen fragments of trap. In other places the sand- 
stone has been cut into a nearly vertical cliff, above which is a terrace 
of fragments of amygdaloid. 

Northward of Cape Blomidon, the north-westerly dips of the sand- 
stone and trap cause the base of the former to descend to the sea-level, 
the columnar trap, which here appears to be of increased thickness, 
still presenting a lofty cliff. Southward of the cape, on the other 
hand, the amygdaloid and basalt thin out, until the red sandstones 
occupy the whole of the cliff. It thus appears that the trap at 
Blomidon is a conformable bed, resting on the sandstone, exactly as 
in some places on the opposite shore, to be described hereafter. 

The coast section between Blomidon and Horton, as seen near 
Pereau River and Bass Creek, and at Starr’s Point, Long Island, and 
Bout Island, exhibits red sandstones, with north-west dips at angles 
of about 15°, and precisely similar in mineral character to those of 
Blomidon, except that near Bass Creek some of them contain layers 
of small pebbles of quartz, slate, granite, and trap. The whole of 
these sandstones underlie those of Blomidon, and resemble those which 
occupy the long valley of Cornwallis and the Annapolis River, westward 
of this section. In this valley, the red sandstone, in consequence of 
its soft and friable nature, is rarely well exposed ; but in a few places 
in Cornwallis, where I observed it, it has the same dip as on the coast. 
The comparatively high level of the sandstone, where it underlies the 
trap, shows that the present form of this valley is in great part due to 
denudation; and the trap itself must have suffered from this cause, 
since fragments of it and of the quartzose minerals which it contains, 
are frequent in the valley of Cornwallis, and along the base of the slate 
hills to the southward. 


92 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


We may now consider the relations of the red sandstone of Corn- 
wallis to the other formations bounding it on the south. Near Kent- 
ville, seven miles westward of the direct line of section from Blomidon 
to Horton, the red sandstone, with its usual north-west dip, rests 
against clay-slate having a high dip to the N.N.E., and belonging toa 
series of similar rocks apparently equivalents of the Silurian system. 
In tracing the boundary of the slate eastward of this place, along the 
south side of Cornwallis River, its junction with the red sande is 
not again observed; and at Wolfville the slates support hard gray 
sandstones, comaeed of the materials of granite, with some beds of 
brownish sandstone. These rocks were observed in one place to 
dip to the N.E., and in another to the N.N.W. ‘They are separated 
from the red sandstones of Bout and Long Island, and Starr’s Point, 
by a wide expanse of marsh, and by the estuary of the Cornwallis 
River. In Lower Horton, eal between that place and Halfway River, 
gray sandstones, similar to those of Wolfville, are seen to support 
black shales and dark sandstones, with Lepidodendra and other fossil 
plants of carboniferous forms, and dipping to the N.E., N., and N.W. 
These beds continue to the mouth of the Avon estuary, where they 
form the cliffs of Horton Bluff, at the northern end of which they are 
seen dipping to the south. They are then concealed by boulder clay, 
which with marsh forms the shore for nearly a mile. Beyond this, in 
a small point called Oak Island, are seen a few beds of coarse red sand- 
stone with some finer red beds and grayish bands. These rocks dip 
to the N.N.W., and form a continuation, and the eastern extremity, of 
the New Red Sandstone of the Horton Islands and Cornwallis. 

In describing this section, I have merely copied my notes upon it, 
and have purposely refrained from drawing any inferences or giving 
any explanations. To begin with Blomidon—the crystalline trap at 
its summit, which rises abruptly in huge irregular columns, is an 
ancient current of molten rock or lava, which has flowed over and 
cooled upon the surface on which it now rests. It slopes gently 
toward the north-west, as if it had flowed toward the bay, but there is 
no volcanic dike or other evidence of the ejection of lava from beneath . 
on that side, and it is more than probable that the orifice from which 
it was poured forth was to the westward along the range of which 
Blomidon is the eastern extremity, or northward toward Cape Split. 
From the appearance of the mountain-top that rises above the vertical 
cliff, there may have been more than one overflow of the volcanic 
matter. Before this great bed of basaltic trap flowed forth, the surface 
on which it rests had been thickly covered with voleanic ashes and 
scoriz, which, consolidated by pressure and by infiltration of mineral 


a ee eee 


4 BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND. 93 


matters, now form the thick bed of amygdaloid and tufa intervening 
_ between the columnar trap and the red sandstone. This is precisely 
what we find to be the case in modern volcanic eruptions. The first 
violent explosions in such cases usually eject immense quantities of 
dust and fragments of old lavas, which are blown or ejected to great 
distances, or if they fall into the sea, as was most probably the case at 
Blomidon, are scattered in layers over its bottom. Over these ejected 
scorie and ashes the lava currents which issue subsequently are poured. 
We need not be surprised that we do not now perceive any regular 
volcanic mountain or vent at Blomidon, for independently of the action 
the waters may have exerted on it when being formed, we know that 
great denudation has taken place in the Drift period, and under the 
wasting action of the present frosts and tides. 'The minerals mentioned 
as occurring in the trap are all either silica or silicates,—that is, com- 
pounds of silica with the alkalies potash and soda, or the earths, as 
alumina, lime, ete. They are produced by the solvent action of water, 
which, percolating through the trap, dissolves these materials, and re- 
deposits them in fissures and cavities. Below the amygdaloid, we 
have a thick series of beds of red sandstone—mechanical detritus de- 
posited by water, and probably in great part derived from the 
waste of the sandstones of the Carboniferous system. The gypsum 
veins which traverse it were probably deposited by waters which had 
dissolved that mineral, in passing through the great gypsum-beds 
which occur in the older system last mentioned. 

The history of this fine precipice is then shortly as follows. In the 
Triassic era, thick beds of sandstone were deposited off the coasts of 
Horton, just as the red mud and sand of the flats are now deposited. 
Voleanic phenomena on a great scale, however, broke forth from 
beneath the waters, scoriz and dust were thrown out, and spread 
around in thick beds, and currents of lava were poured forth. Subse- 
quently the whole mass was elevated, to be again submerged under 
the boulder-bearing sea, by which, and the present atmospheric and 
aqueous agencies, it was worn and wasted into its present form. Still 
the work of decay goes on; for yearly the frosts loosen immense 
masses from its brow, and dash them to the beach, to be removed by 
the ice and the tides, and scattered over the bottom of the bay. The 
rains and melting snows also cut huge furrows down its front. These 
agencies of destruction as yet, however, only add to the magnificence of 
this noblest of all our sea-cliffs. The dark basaltic wall crowned with 
thick woods, the terrace of amygdaloid, with a luxuriant growth of 
light green shrubs and young trees that rapidly spring up on its rich 
and moist surface, the precipice of bright red sandstone, always clean 


My er a Eee 


a 


94 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


and fresh, and contrasting strongly with the trap above and with the 
trees and bushes that straggle down its sides, and nod over its deep 
ravines,—constitute a combination of formsand colours equally striking if 
seen in the distance from the hills of Horton or the shore of Parrsboro’, 
or more nearly from the sea or the stony beach at its base. Blomidon is 
a scene never to be forgotten by a traveller who has wandered around - 
its shores or clambered on its giddy precipices. 

From the shore of Blomidon, we may follow the trap formation in 
a continuous ridge without a break to Annapolis Gut. On the south 
side, the trap slopes down in rounded and abrupt eminences into the 
red sandstone valley. On its summit it is somewhat level, though 
divided into a number of long rolling ridges, probably the effect of 
denuding agents on the edges of beds of trap of unequal hardness. 
The bay shore presents to the sea a range of cliffs and precipices often 
overhanging or vertical, or rolled down into shapeless heaps of rubbish 
by the frost and the undermining action of the waves. Huge land- 
slips occur every spring from these causes, covering acres of the shore 
with their ruins, and affording a rich harvest for the mineralogist who 
may visit the shore after one of these falls. The amount of debris 
annually thrown down and removed in this way is enormous. The 
cliffs are usually composed of alternate layers of soft and hard trap 
and tufa, they are traversed by innumerable fissures, and the general 
dip is seaward. In addition to these circumstances, the ice annually 
removes large quantities of fragments from the shore, so that a cliff 
does not long continue to be protected by the masses that have fallen 
from it. Hence the whole shore wastes rapidly, with the exception of 
those places where beds of hard basaltic trap run down to the sea 
level, and form inclined planes against which the sea rages in vain. 

A very remarkable deviation from the ordinary regularity of the 
coast line of the trap occurs at Cape Split, which forms a prolongation 
of the Blomidon shore to the north-westward. The dip of the 
Blomidon basalt gradually brings it down to the sea-level, and toward 
Cape Split it either thickens, or portions which have retired from the 
cliff at Blomidon come forward into the shore precipices; for toward — 
the cape a cliff more than 300 feet in height seems to be composed 
of compact and columnar trap, which extends in a promontory and 
series of islands and reefs far out into the bay. The appearances at 
this place render it possible that a trappean dike or dikes, indicatin 
the point or line of ejection of the great basaltic bed of Blomidon, 
may appear in these cliffs toward Cape Split. I have not, however, 
been able to study them so closely as to ascertain decisively whether 
this is the case. There seems no reason to doubt, at least, that the 


Wong 


[> . 


BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND. 95 


line from the summit of Blomidon to Cape Split marks the direction 
of one of the greatest lava streams of the region. 

At the extremity of the long continuous range extending westward 
from Blomidon, in the cliff forming the east side of Annapolis Gut, 
we find the trap, as at the former place, forming a thick bed resting 
on the red sandstone, and dipping to the northward; and there can 
be no doubt, from the appearances observed at several places along 
the coast, that the same arrangement prevails throughout the entire 
ridge. 

Annapolis Gut is a deep channel separating the trap of the pro- 
montory of Granville from the western prolongation of the formation. 
This channel forms the only outlet of Annapolis Basin and the rivers 
emptying into it. It is of great depth, and the tides rush through it 
with terrible rapidity. The trap on its west side is more largely 
developed than on the Granville side. It attains a greater width and 
height, and contains a larger mass of compact and basaltic trap. 
This circumstance, in connexion with the narrowing of the valley by 
a spur of metamorphic rocks on the south, has probably caused the 
currents of the Drift period to excavate the present outlet. Had it 

_not been for these circumstances, the waters of the Annapolis River 
would probably have flowed into St Mary’s Bay; and the Annapolis 
Basin, probably the finest sheet of salt water in the province, and its 
remarkable and picturesque outlet, would not have existed. The 
sandstone near the town of Digby is somewhat hard, and contains 
concretions of transparent cale spar. It passes under the southern 
edge of the trap, but cannot be seen toward the centre of the ridge, 
where the precipitous side of the “Gut” consists of compact and 
basaltic trap extending downward to the water-level. In one place, 
I observed basalt with its pillars nearly horizontal,—an evidence that 
here a dike of molten rock had been ejected from beneath. Toward 
the entrance of the gut on the Digby side, the coast becomes low, 
and amygdaloid is seen in low cliffs and on the slopes of the hills, 
while sheets of compact trap run downward into the sea with scarcely 
any abrupt cliff or bank. 

In Digby Neck, the sandstone is well exposed on the side fronting 
St Mary’s Bay, and compact and amygdaloidal trap rest upon it, and 
dip northward toward the Bay of Fundy. This long promontory, 
though only from two to three miles in width, consists of two ridges, 
one forming the cliffs that front St Mary’s Bay, the other sloping 
toward the Bay of Fundy; while between them is a narrow and 
almost level valley, with several little lakes and ponds arranged in a 
line along its bottom. The rock in this valley appears to be amyg- 


7 


96 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


daloid, and it is probably owing to this circumstance that the valley 
has been scooped out, while the edges of the beds of more compact 
trap remain as ridges. This at least is the explanation which appears 
most probable from the structure of all parts of the ridge that I have 
visited, except the very singular and romantic spot named Sandy 
Cove. At this place a deep cove penetrates about one-fourth across 
the ridge from the south, between precipitous cliffs of trap resting on 
amygdaloid, and apparently with a southerly dip; or, at all events, 
without that decided dip to the north which prevails over the greater 
part of this trappean ridge. Opposite the southern cove, there is on 
the north side of the ridge a shallower cove, and between is.a little 
lake, on either side of which rise lofty beetling cliffs of basaltic trap, 
which appear to be parts of a thick bed dipping to the northward. 
I have marked in my notes the query—Can this be a volcanic crater ? 
and I find that the same thought has occurred to other geologists 
who have visited the spot. It may have been so; but it is perhaps 
more probable that the ridge has here been cracked across by a 
fissure caused by earthquake disturbances; and that the currents 
of the Boulder formation period have passed through and widened the 
chasm. Whatever the causes of its present appearance, Sandy Cove 
is more like something a poet or painter might dream of, than like 
an actual reality in our usually tame province of Nova Scotia. 

Though the trap ridge is very narrow at Digby Neck, it appears 
that this rock occupies a considerable breadth beneath the waters of 
the Bay of Fundy. I have already mentioned that the ‘ Neck” 
consists of two ridges, with a valley between. Now under water 
there are three similar ridges, the outer being nine miles distant from 
the shore. They are thus described by Mr Perley, in his Report on 
the Fisheries of New Brunswick; and his statements were corrobo- 
rated by information which I obtained from gentlemen resident on 
this coast :— 

“From Black Rock down to Briar Island, along the whole south 
shore, there are three fishing banks or ledges, lying parallel to the 
shore, outside each other; their respective distances from the coast. 
have acquired for them the designations of the three-mile ledge—the 
five-mile ledge—and the nine-mile ledge. Between these ledges there 
are sixty fathoms of water, but on the crown of each ledge, thirty 
fathoms only. The three-mile ledge, and the five-mile ledge, extend 
quite down to Briar Island; but the nine-mile ledge can only be 
traced down the bay about fourteen miles below Digby Gut, abreast 
of Trout Cove, where it ends in deep water. Below Dighy Gut, the 
three-mile ledge and five-mile ledge are composed of hard gravel and 


a oe Ph 2? oR eee ie) lee 
wm ; 


BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND. 97 


F . 


red clay; above the gut, the three-mile ledge has a rough, rocky 
bottom, on which anchors are frequently lost. Each of these ledges 
- is about a mile in width, the outer one something more; between 
them the bottom is soft mud.” 
The trap of Digby Neck is remarkable for the large quantity of 
jasper and other coloured varieties of quartz contained in it. Red 
jasper is especially abundant; amethyst, stilbite, and laumonite are 
also frequent. I have collected all these minerals near Sandy Cove, 
as well as micaceous specular iron ore, a mineral which I have not 
observed elsewhere in the trap district, though it abounds in our more 
ancient igneous and altered rocks, and is also a not infrequent product 
of modern voleanic action; the iron being apparently sublimed in a 
state of vapour from the intensely heated mass of molten rock beneath. 
This is probably its origin at Sandy Cove, where it occurs in brilliant 
little crystalline plates embedded in a quartzose matrix, and projecting 
from the sides of cavities in the fissures of the trap. Its occurrence 
here lends some countenance to the conjecture already stated, that a 
focus of igneous activity may have been in or near this place. It is 
not in sufficient quantity to be of importance for mining purposes. 

At the extremity of Digby Neck, we find another deep transverse 
ravine cut through the ridge, and separating Long Island, which 
geologically is a perfect continuation of the Neck. The sides of this 
strait, which is named Petite Passage, as far as I examined them, 
consist principally of amygdaloid, the cavities of which have been 
lined with bright green chlorite before they have been filled with 
crystalline zeolitic matter. 

The water of Petite Passage is beautifully clear, the tides rush 
through it with great force, and its rocky bottom is covered with sea- 
weeds; the finer and more beautiful varieties of which are very 
abundant on this outlying tract of rocky coast. It is probably the 
abundance of these seaweeds on the “ledges” before mentioned, that 
supports the marine creatures that attract to these coasts the cod, 
torsk, pollack, haddock, halibut, and herring that abound in summer, 
and furnish a comfortable subsistence to the numerous fishermen who 
inhabit Long Island and Briar Island. The great Albecore or King 
Mackarel, Thynnus vulgaris? the Sea Wolf, Anarrhicas lupus; and 
the Sturgeon, Accipenser oxyrhinchus, are also caught in these waters 

and in St Mary’s Bay, but are not much valued by the fishermen. 

On reaching the extremity of Long Island, another strait, the 
Grand Passage, appears. On the opposite side of this, we see the 
thriving village of Westport, on Briar Island, the ultima thule of Nova 
Scotia in this direction, and one of the most active and intelligent 

G 


‘ 


. 


98 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


fishing communities in the province. Briar Island is the extreme 
western end of the trappean ridge, which is, however, prolonged 
beyond the land in a submarine ledge. It consists entirely of basaltic 
trap, very regularly divided into columns, which may be seen both 
as a pavement on many parts of the beach, and in lofty precipices 
which rise to their greatest height on the south-west side of the island, 
where they form a perpendicular wall several hundred feet in height, 
and adorned with buttresses, outlying towers, and pinnacles, such as 
basaltic cliffs alone can produce in their full perfection. I was so 
fortunate as to be detained several days at Briar Island by a south- 
west gale, and had the pleasure of seeing the Atlantic swell bursting 
in all its grandeur on these iron-bound shores (Fig. 27). 


Fig. 27.—Basaltic Cliffs, West End of Briar Island. 


The red sandstone is seen to underlie the trap of Digby Neck for 
several miles below the head of 8t Mary’s Bay, but beyond this I 
did not again observe it. Gesner states, however, that a small patch 
of it can be observed at low tide beneath the trap of Briar Island. 
This interesting fact I had no opportunity of verifying, owing to the 
stormy state of the weather during my visit. 


CHAPTER VII. 


THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE— Continued. 


TRURO TO CAPE D’OR—GENERAL REMARKS—MINERALS OF THE NEW 
RED SANDSTONE AND TRAP. 


3. North Side of Cobequid Bay and Minas Basin and Channel. 


RecomMencine at Truro, we may now consider the stripe of New Red 
Sandstone, with occasional masses of trap, which extends with several 
interruptions as far as Cape d’Or. Northward of Truro, the red sand- 
stone meets and overlies unconformably the Carboniferous grits, shales, 
limestone, and gypsum of the North River and Onslow Mountain. Its 


-_ boundary in this direction is about three miles distant from the bay, 


and it occupies the low country; the Carboniferous rocks rising from 
under its edges into hills of considerable elevation. From the North 
River it extends in a band about three miles in width to De Bert River, 
where an apparently insulated patch of Lower Carboniferous rocks 
projects through it. These last appear at the bridge, and consist of 
liméstone, with fossil shells characteristic of the Lower Carboniferous 
period, gypsum, and hard brownish sandstone. They dip at a high 
angle to the north-east, while the New Red Sandstone, which laps 
around them, dips at a small angle to the south-west. This lime- 
stone and gypsum, as well as other rocks of the same age, were long 
believed to belong to the Triassic period, and it was only 
after their true age had been ascertained by careful comparison of a 
number of sections, and the identification of the fossil remains with 
those of the Carboniferous period in other countries, that their true 
geological position was appreciated. ‘This very locality at the De 
Bert River, owing to the similarity of the Lower Carboniferous sand- 
stones to those of the New Red, and to the circumstance that the former 
have been ground down and their debris mixed up with the latter, is 
at first sight one of the most deceptive in the province, and might 


readily lead a geologist unacquainted with other more distinct 


sections into an error on this subject. 
As the section at this place is remarkably obscure, I copy from my 


Ms 
is 
at 
u 
t 


~ S ang > Sw ag Retr ed peti 


= 


100 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


notes the following memoranda of the appearances. On the south 

side of the river, near the bridge, there are gray and brown shales, 

red sandstone, red grit, and conglomerate, with high dips and dis- 

turbed. These are evidently Lower Carboniferous, and quite different 

from the horizontal soft red sandstones which appear lower down on 

the same bank. On the north side, at the end of the bridge, are dark 
red grit and conglomerate, grayish conglomerate, marly and shaly 

beds with gray calcareous concretions, and a vein of calcareous spar. 

They dip N.E. and N.N.E. 38°. The limestone and gypsum seen a 

little below the bridge are associated with these beds, the whole 

being Lower Carboniferous, as indicated by the fossils of the 

limestone. In the road-cutting, soft red sandstone and conglomerate 

overlie these beds, and though they have a steep false bedding, I 

believe they are New Red and unconformable. In the same road- 

cuttings, these upper beds are seen to be made up of the debris of 
the lower, with which they are confusedly intermixed at their confines, 

the underlying marls in some places rising like veins into the sand- 

stone above. At Folly River the New Red is soft and fine grained, 

with greenish stains and layers, and has a very slight northerly dip. 

In the point opposite the village, sandstones, apparently the continu- 

ation of the older formation seen at the bridge, dip to the N.E. at a 
very high angle. 

Within this islet of Lower Carboniferous rock, the New Red Sand- 
stone extends up the Folly River, which runs into the same estuary 
with the De Bert, for about five miles. Its dip increases until it 
amounts to 50°, and the lowest beds rest against the disturbed Car- 
boniferous rocks which occupy the bed of the river between this 
place and the base of the Cobequid Mountains. Near their junction 
with the older rocks, the red sandstones become coarse and pebbly. 

Westward of Folly River, the belt of red sandstone gradualiy 
decreases in width, and begins to contain in its lower part thick beds 
of conglomerate, made up of pebbles derived from the older rocks to 
the northward. Near Portapique River, and somewhat removed from 
the coast, there is an eminence that I have not visited, but I was. 
informed by a gentleman, very familiar with this part of the country, 
that it consists of trap. If so, this is the first appearance of that rock 
in this direction. 

The new road along the bank of Great Village River, between that 
village and the Acadian iron mine, exhibits an interesting section of 
this formation, consisting of red sandstones and red conglomerates 
with imperfectly rounded pebbles, and often with oblique or false 
bedding. They often rise into cliffs of considerable height, and have 


TRURO TO CAPE D’oR, 101 


a moderate dip to the southward. About three miles from the Great 


Village they terminate, resting unconformably on the edges of Car- 


boniferous rocks dipping at high angles to the north. 

Economy Point, as well as a detached reef named the Brick Kilns 
lying off the point, consists of New Red Sandstone, which here has in 
consequence a considerable breadth. It has a slight dip to the south. 
In the banks of Economy River, the red sandstone and conglomerate 
which, near the coast, dip to the southward at a low angle, undulate 
as they approach a hill of hard Lower Carboniferous rocks at no great 
distance from the shore. Behind these they again appear with a 
south-west dip, and are again succeeded by Lower Carboniferous rocks 


_ which continue to the base of the hills. The ridge of older rock 


which here divides the red sandstone, is probably a point or promon- 
tory connected with the mass of the Carboniferous rocks to the 
westward. 

In Gerrish’s Mountain, six miles west of Economy River, the red 
sandstone and conglomerate are overlaid by amygdaloidal trap, and 
having been protected by it from denudation, rise into an eminence 
nearly 400 feet high. At Indian Point, the southern extremity of 
Gerrish’s Mountain, the trap and red sandstone form a bold precipi- 
tous cliff, and are continued along the picturesque rocky chain of the 
Five Islands, in two of which the red sandstone is seen to underlie 
the trap. 

The isolated trap eminences at this place are probably the remains 
of a continuous lava current, and it is interesting that the direction of 
the chain of islets corresponds with that of the great trap ridge on the 
opposite side of the bay. To a traveller who has passed along the 
level shores of Londonderry and Onslow, and toward the close of day 
ascends the steep side of Gerrish’s Mountain, the view which greets 
him at the summit is of the most grand and striking character. The 
rocky chain of the Five Islands, and the pretty inlet and settlement 
on the shore within them, lie at his feet. In front are the waters of 
Minas Basin stretching far to the westward. On the one hand is the 
rugged and picturesque trappean shore extending toward Parrsboro’, 
with the Cobequid Mountains ranged behind it. On the other, 
Blomidon and Cape Split tower in the distance. I may remark here, 
that for grandeur and beauty of coast scenery, this part of Minas 
Basin and the Minas Channel are not surpassed by any part of the 
eastern coast of North America. 

It will be seen, on consulting the map, that at the Five Islands 
three great geological formations approach each other, so that within 
a very limited space the Trap, the New Red, the Carboniferous system, 


Eas 
Bn 


102 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


and the older metamorphic rocks may be studied, and specimens of 
their characteristic minerals obtained. Hence, at various times, this 
locality has had the reputation of producing useful minerals of dif- 
ferent descriptions. The latest instance of this led to the formation 
of a copper mining company in London, which, after a very fair 
promise of success, was broken up, owing to a deficiency of the ore, 
which on trial was found by no means to warrant the reports that had 
been published respecting it. The trap which forms the summit of 
Gerrish’s Mountain is a huge bed resting on red sandstone, on which 
at the high cliff of Indian Point it is seen to rest. The trap at this 
place is traversed by a number of narrow and irregular veins of 
magnetic iron ore, mixed with the gray sulphuret and oxide of copper. 
Specimens of this substance were sent to me, many years since, by 
the late George Duncan, Esq. of Truro, and I was somewhat struck 
by the singular appearance and composition of the mineral, which 
was stated to be found in great quantity. From my knowledge of 
the superficial character of the trap, and the smallness and irregularity 
of the metallic veins found in it, I rather discouraged Mr Duncan 
from speculating on it, though some specimens seemed sufficiently 
rich to be useful as copper ores. It appears, however, that a very 
% favourable report was given by an English mining engineer, and 
operations were commenced in consequence, but were soon abandoned. 
Between Five Islands and Swan Creek, ten miles distant, an excel- 
lent coast section, rising in many places into lofty cliffs, shows the 
| New Red Sandstone and Trap, as well as the underlying Carboniferous 
strata. As this section is an interesting specimen of the complicated 
appearances that may result from the eruption of volcanic rocks 
through stratified deposits, I shall give a detailed description of the 
arrangements observed. 

At the mouth of Harrington River, opposite the Five Islands, the 
Carboniferous rocks approach the shore very closely; and as seen in 
the west side of the river, consist of black shales and dark-coloured 
sandstones with Cordaites and other fossil plants. They dip at high 
angles to the south, and are met by the New Red Sandstone dipping - 
gently to the southward. The sandstones of the newer formation 
here contain little conglomerate, and are variegated by numerous 
greenish bands and blotches. They occupy the shore for some dis- 
tance, and then contain a thick bed of trap conglomerate, consisting of 
large partially rounded fragments of amygdaloidal and compact trap, 
united by a hard brownish argillaceous cement. At a short distance 
westward, another bed of trap conglomerate of the same kind appears 
in the cliff. It is overlaid by a bed of dark clay, filled with angular 


j 


- 


1 
* 
h 
¥ 
aa 
t 
>. 
4 


Se eae ne eS 
“ 


—_—— 


~~ 


TRURO TO CAPE D’orR. 103 


fragments of black shale constituting a kind of breecia. The sand- 
stone underlying this bed of trap contains small nodules of selenite 
and narrow veins of reddish fibrous gypsum. No other volcanic 
rocks occur in the coast section near these 
trap conglomerates. Westward of this place, 
the section is oceupied for about three miles 
by soft red sandstones with greenish bands, 
dipping generally to the south-west: some of 
them are divisible into very thin layers, whilst 
others are compact and form beds several feet in 
thickness. 

Near Moose River, the red sandstones meet 
black shales and hard gray sandstones of the 
Carboniferous system, containing Cordaites, 
Ferns, and Lepidodendra.* 

At this place the junction of the two groups 
of rocks was not, at the time of my visit, well 
exposed in the cliff, and had the appearance of a 
fault; but as seen in the horizontal section on 

_ the beach, the red sandstone with a south-west 
dip seems to overlie unconformably the carboni- 
ferous strata, dipping at a high angle to the 
E.N.E. On the west side of Moose River the 
Carboniferous strata include three large masses 
of trap which have altered the grits and shales 
in contact with them, causing them to assume 
reddish colours. Beyond the last of these 
masses of trap, the shales and grits, there dip- 
ping to the north and north-east, have some 
red sandstone resting on their edges, and are 
succeeded by another great mass of trap, form- 
ing a lofty cliff, and in part at least resting on 
soft red sandstone which it must have over- 
flowed when in a fluid state. At the western 
side of this mass, or rather bed of trap, its upper 
surface is seen to dip to the W.S.W., and is 
conformably overlaid by red sandstones similar 
to those already described. These continue with 
various dips to a cove where there is a break in the section, westward 
of which the coast exhibits the interesting and complicated appearances 
which I have endeavoured to represent in Fig. 28. 


Ve oe 


*eIDDAIg puL oyvIMO[Su0D dery, (p) 


*M'§ 03 sdrp ‘ouojspurg pay Aen (9) 


"ANG ‘dtp ‘urajsAg snorayrmoqiey jo ouojspurg pus sareyg (v) 


“dery, yeproyepsAury (a) 


"yoann ung fo Iso Uoyray ysv0D —"9z “SIZ 


“dviy, Jo syuowSvay WTA ouospueg poy Aon (9) 


‘dvry, euyeysAig (Sf) 


* These fossil plants will be described in treating of the Coal Measures. 


104 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


The lower part of the cliff, on the western side of the cove above 
mentioned, consists of hard, black, and reddish shales and grits, like 
some of those seen near Moose River, with a steep dip to the E.N.E. 
Resting on the edges of these are a few beds of red conglomerate and 
sandstone with greenish bands, dipping to the south-west, and appa- 
rently a remnant of more extensive beds. An enormous mass of © 
trap conglomerate forms a high cliff towering above this little patch 
of sandstone, and is seen a little farther on to contain a wedge- 
shaped bed of red sandstone, and at its western extremity rests on 
red sandstone mixed with fragments of trap.* Here the trap con- 
glomerate seems to be cut off by a fault, and abuts against a. great 
trappean mass, composed, in ascending order, of amygdaloidal trap, 
a wedge of red sandstone extending over part of the surface of the 
amygdaloid, a great bed of crystalline trap, and a bed of trap con- 
glomerate. The western side of this mass rests on an apparently 
denuded surface of soft red sandstones, with 8.S.W. dip. These are 
overlaid by another trappean mass, consisting of beds which appear 
to dip conformably with the underlying sandstones. At its western 
side it abuts against greatly disturbed red sandstones succeeded by 
other red sandstones dipping to the southward, and extending as far 
as Swan Creek. 

On the west side of Swan Creek, the soft red and variegated sand- 
stones are seen to dip to the north at an angle of 30°, and are under- 
laid by a bed of trap conglomerate, which rests against disturbed 
strata of a composition different from any previously occurring in this 
section. They consist of laminated, compact, and brecciated gray 
limestone, a bed of white gypsum, hard reddish purple and gray marls 
and sandstones, some of them with disseminated crystals of specular 
iron ore. I saw no fossils in these beds, but as they are identical in 
mineral character with some parts of the gypsifercus member of the 
Carboniferous group, and have evidently been disturbed and altered 
before the deposition of the overlying trap conglomerate and red 
sandstone, I have no doubt that they belong to the Carboniferous 
system, the sandstones and shales of which, with some trappean rocks, - 
occupy the cliff between this place and Partridge Island, five and a 
half miles distant. The New Red Sandstone in the vicinity of Swan 
Creek appears to form a small synclinal trough, oecupying an inden- 
tation in the Carboniferous rocks, and probably extending only a short 
distance westward of the mouth of the creek. The two islands near 


* This section was examined in 1846. When I revisited the place in 1850, the 
front of this mass of trap conglomerate had fallen, and formed a huge slope of 
fragments. 


TRURO TO CAPE D'OR. 105 


Swan Creek are detached masses of trap, resting on or rising through 


red sandstones, which at low tide are seen to extend between them 


t 


and the shore. The red sandstone and trap, occurring in the section 
between Five Islands and Swan Creek, appears to be a very narrow 
band, extending parallel to the coast; and as the section is nearly 
in the general direction of the strike of the formation, it is probable 
that some of the trappean masses above described are portions of beds 
disconnected by faults and denudation. 

Many beautiful crystallized minerals occur in the trap rocks of the 
sections described. The masses near Moose River contain cavities 
coated with opaque white varieties of quartz, in stalactitic and other 
imperfectly crystalline forms. Opposite the Two Islands, the fissures 
of the trap are lined with fine crystals of analcime and natrolite; and 
the fissures and vacant spaces of the trap conglomerate in the same 
neighbourhood contain a reddish variety of chabasite (Acadiolite) in 
rhombohedrons, often of large size. 

At Clarke’s Head, immediately west of Swan Creek, the Lower 
Carboniferous rocks are well exposed, including beds of limestone and 
gypsum, with some igneous rocks of porphyritic character, and prob- 
ably much older than the Triassic period. On the top of the cliff, 
a bed of compact trap is seen to rest on the edges of the dis- 
turbed lower Carboniferous rocks, over which it has flowed as a 
lava stream. 

The trap conglomerate or breccia, noticed in describing the above 
section, is a rock of very singular character. It consists of large 
fragments, often more than a foot in diameter, of amygdaloid, cemented 
together by a hard brownish substance. The boulder-like fragments 
of trap which make up this rock have probably been blown out of a 
voleanic orifice, and then rolled into beds by the sea, and finally 
cemented by a paste made up of fine volcanic mud or ashes. 

Beyond Clarke’s Head, the coast extending toward Cape Chiegnecto 
is occupied by Carboniferous rocks, for the most part in a very much 
disturbed condition, and it is only here and there that we meet with 
a small patch of New Red, and its overlying trap, the remnants of a 
formation once continuous throughout the whole distance. 

The first of these isolated patches is Partridge Island, a high rock 
of trap resting at its west side on red sandstone. Though called an 
island, it is connected with the shore, which consists of Lower Carbon- 
iferous sandstones and shales in a vertical and contorted condition, by 
a shingle beach. The island itself presents a high cliff to the bay, 
and slopes downward on the land side. In approaching it from the 
east, we see a cliff of columnar trap extending from the shore to the 


106 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


summit of the rock. By scrambling at low tide around the south side, 
we find that this, like the basalt of Blomidon, is a thick irregular bed, 
and that amygdaloid and tufa succeed it in descending order. On the 
western side these last rocks occupy nearly the whole of the cliff, and 
may, when examined from a distance, be seen to consist of several 
beds distinguishable by different shades of colour. In some lights - 
this difference is very perceptible. On this side the basaltic trap still 
appears, but it forms only a thin bed, capping the amygdaloid and 
tufa. Under all these beds, and in the north-west corner of the island, 
the sandstone peeps forth, dipping to the south-east. 

The trap of Partridge Island contains a variety of interesting erys- 
tallized minerals. A honey-yellow variety of stilbite, crystallized in 
fine sheaf-like aggregations of crystals, is especially abundant, forming 
veins running up the face of the cliff. Being one of the most acces- 
sible and easily explored portions of the formation, this place has been 
much ransacked by mineralogists and amateurs ; still large quantities 
of fine specimens may generally be seen going to waste on its beach. 
Amethyst, agate, chabazite, heulandite, apophyllite, and cale spar, may 
also be studied in some of their most beautiful forms at Partridge 
Island. The whole of these minerals have been introduced by the 
action of water, trickling through the numerous fissures of the porous 
amygdaloid and tufa, rocks which perhaps, more than any others, are 
fitted to yield to water thus permeating them the materials of crys- 
tallized silicious compounds. 

Westward of Partridge Island, vertical and contorted Carboniferous 
rocks occupy the shore as far as Cape Sharp, three miles distant. 
This promontory, which, like Partridge Island, presents a precipitous 
front to the bay, and slopes toward the land side, consists of trap 
resting on red sandstone. Here, however, trap conglomerate takes the 
place of the finer tufaceous matter seen at Partridge Island. It wiil 
be observed that though the red sandstone is not at these places seen 
very distinctly to rest on the Carboniferous rocks, the former underlies 
the trap at a gentle angle, and dips southwards, or from the latter, 
while these are contorted and disturbed in the most extreme manner, . 
serving at least to confirm the evidence, noticed at other places, of the 
later date of the New Red. These contorted Carboniferous sandstones 
and shales must have formed a coast line, at the time when the red 
sand was washing in the sea, and the trap and scoriae being belched 
forth from submarine vents. : 

Beyond Cape Sharp, with the exception of the isolated mass of 
Spencer’s Island, which I have not visited, we see nothing of the trap 
or red sandstone till we reach Cape d’Or, the last and noblest mass on 


TRURO TO CAPE pD’OR. 107 


this coast. At Cape d’Or, as at the Five Islands, a great mass of trap 
rests on slightly inclined red sandstone, and this again on disturbed 
Carboniferous rocks, while, behind and from beneath these last, still 
older slates rise into mountain ridges. Cape d’Or thus forms a great 
salient mass standing out into the bay, and separated from the old 
slate hills behind by a valley occupied by the red sandstone and 
; Carboniferous shales. Cape d’Or differs from most of the trappean 
masses which have been described in the arrangement of its component 
parts. The upper part of the cliff consists of amygdaloid and tufa, 
often of a brownish colour, while beneath is a more compact trap, 
showing a tendency to a columnar structure. The whole forms a 
toppling cliff, more shattered and unstable in its aspect than usual. 
Cape d’Or derives its name from the native copper which is found 
in masses, varying from several pounds in weight down to the most 
minute grains, in the veins and fissures which traverse the trap. It 
is sometimes wedged into these fissures, along with a hard brown © 
jasper, or occupies the centre of narrow veins of quartz and cale spar. 
At first sight, these masses and grains of pure copper appear to have = 
been molten into the fissures in which we find them. On more careful 
consideration of all the circumstances, and those of the associated 
minerals, it seems more probable that the metal has been deposited 
from an aqueous solution of some salt of copper, in a manner similar 
to that of the electrotype process. Why this should have occurred 
in trap rocks more especially does not appear very obvious; and, © 
indeed, when we take a piece of native copper from Lake Superior or 
Cape d’Or, with the various calcareous and silicious minerals which 
accompany it, nothing can be more difficult than to account on chemical 
principles for these assemblages of substances, either by aqueous or 
igneous causes. Nature’s chemistry is often thus inscrutable in its 
details, for the behaviour of substances, when brought into contact 
with each other in the bowels of the earth, is often very different from 
that which they display in the laboratory; and, besides, nature’s 
processes are not limited by time, and long continued chemical actions 
often produce effects which would hardly be inferred from experiments 
which are limited for their performance to hours or days. I have, in 
a paper on the cupriferous trap rocks of Maimanse in Lake Superior,* 
shown that the native copper of that locality must also be accounted 
for by aqueous causes. 
The copper of Cape d’Or is not likely to become of mining im- 
portance, as it does not appear in large quantity in any one portion © 
of the mass, and this latter is itself not of very great extent. The 


' 


* Canadian Naturalist, vol. ii. 


% 


108 TUE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


valuable discoveries, however, which have been made on the shores 
of Lake Superior have in late years caused increased importance 
to be attached to the appearance of copper in trap rocks, and perhaps 
this and other cupriferous localities in the trap of Nova Scotia may 
deserve a more careful examination than they have yet received.* 


The only remaining portion of the New Red Sandstone and Trap — 


formation is the little insulated spot of Isle Haut, lying off Cape 
Chiegnecto. I have not landed on this island; but, viewed from the 
sea, it appears to present nearly on all sides lofty cliffs of trap. 


4, South Coast of New Brunswick. 


The following notices of the detached patches of Trias which occur 
on the south coast of New Brunswick, are taken from a contribution 
of Mr Matthew to Professor Bailey’s Report on Southern New 
Brunswick. 

Formerly, large areas of the Lower Carboniferous red sandstones 
of New Brunswick were regarded as Triassic, but on more careful 
examination it appears that this formation is limited to three small 
patches on the coast of the Bay of Fundy. It is probable, however, 
that these are but remnants of a more extensive area removed by 
denudation, or still beneath the waters of the bay, and perhaps 
continuous with the red sandstone district of the counties of King’s 
and Annapolis in Nova Scotia. ° 

The most important of these Triassic patches is that near Quaco Head, 
where the beds consist of soft red sandstones with layers of quartzose 
pebbles, and an overlying coarse conglomerate of a gray colour. They 
rest unconformably on limestone and conglomerate of Lower Carbon- 
iferous age. A few fragments of fossil wood were found in them by 
Mr Matthew, and, though not well preserved, their structure is evi- 
dently that of coniferous or pine trees, and the cell walls show but one 
row of dises,—a character which belongs to the pines of the genera 
Peuce and Pinites, found in Mesozoic rocks, and not to the older pine 
trees of the Coal formation. This fossil wood I regard as a valuable 


confirmation of the opinion that these red sandstones are really Triassic, - 


as such wood is not found in any older formation. At Quaco the beds 
dip N.N.E., at angles varying from 25° to 45°, and their thickness is 
estimated by Mr Matthew at 800 feet. They show much oblique 
lamination, and are probably not far from the original margin of the 
New Red Sandstone area in this direction. The oxide of manganese 


* Since the first edition of this work was published, explorations have been under- 
taken at Cape d’Or, and also on the opposite side of the bay, but as yet without 
profitable results. ; 


ee tet dd! al 


SOUTH COAST OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 109 


occurs in irregular beds and pockets in the conglomerate at Quaco, 
and has probably been derived from veins of the mineral which occur 
in the Lower Carboniferous rocks. 

Westward of Quaco the Trias occurs near Gardener's Creek, in a 
patch about one mile and a half long and half a mile wide. The 
character of the deposit is similar to that at Quaco, but the upper or 
conglomerate member is wanting. 

Eastward of Quaco, but more than thirty miles distant, another small 
area of Triassic sandstone has been recognised at Salisbury Cove. The 
beds dip E.N.E., at an angle of 10°, and are of a paler red than at 
Quaco. 

These remnants of New Red Sandstone on the New Brunswick side 
of the Bay of Fundy concur, with the similar deposits in Nova Scotia, 
in showing that the depression occupied by that bay had already 
assumed nearly its present form; and this, together with the fact that 
the Carboniferous rocks had been disturbed and hardened before the 
deposition of these later beds, affords, as Mr Matthew has well 
remarked, strong evidence that the New Red Sandstones of the Bay of 
Fundy are Triassic rather than Permian. 


5. General Remarks on the Trias of Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick. 


It will be observed that, in the notes referring to the coast sections of 
the New Red Sandstone, I have given especial attention to its relations 
to the older rocks, especially those of the Carboniferous system. I 
have done so, because much doubt formerly existed as to the precise 
limits of this formation. The earlier writers on the geology of Nova 
Seotia and New Brunswick associated it with the red sandstones and 
gypsums of the Carboniferous period, and described the whole as “‘ New 
Red;” and it was not until the first visit of Sir Charles Lyell that the 
great beds of gypsum and limestone of Windsor, the Shubenacadie, 
and other places, with their associated sandstones and marls, were 
recognised as Lower Carboniferous. Even after Sir Charles had pub- 
lished his results, these were. dissented from both by Logan and 
Gesner, though both these geologists subsequently convinced them- 
selves, and admitted that they had been in error; and the latter even 
went so far as to believe that the red sandstones of Blomidon and 
Cornwallis were also Carboniferous. It then became a question whether 
there were really any rocks of the Triassic period in the province, and 
to determine this point, the writer undertook, in 1846, a careful ex- 
amination of the red sandstone and trap on both sides of the bay, the 
results of which were published in the Proceedings of the Geological 


i 


110 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


Society of London.* In this paper, the relations of the New Red to 
the older formations in this province were for the first time accurately 
defined, by ascertaining its structure, and its actual superposition on 
Carboniferous strata, in the cliffs on the north side of Cobequid Bay 
and Minas Basin, and applying the facts thus obtained to the larger 
area of New Red on the south side of the bay, i in the manner indicated © 
by the following quotation :— 

“Tt appears from the facts above stated, that the red sandstones of 
Cornwallis and Horton, though not seen in contact with the Carbon- 
iferous rocks, extend parallel to their disturbed strata with uniform 
north-west dips, and passing beyond them with the same dip, rest 
unconformably on the older slaty series. This arrangement, I think, 
satisfactorily proves that these red sandstones and the overlying trap 
are really newer than the Carboniferous shales of Horton, and uncon- 
formable to them.” ' 

“Rastward of the estuary of the Avon, the country as far as the 
Shubenacadie River is occupied by a deposit of reddish, gray, and 
purple sandstones and marls, with large beds of gypsum and limestones 
abounding in marine shells. This gypsiferous series is much fractured 
and disturbed, and is in many places associated with dark shales con- 
taining fossil plants, like those of Horton Bluff, and thin seams of coal. 
This association of the gypsiferous series with dark fossiliferous shales 
occurs at Halfway River, where coarse brown and gray sandstones, 
with imperfect casts of fossil trunks of trees, and a thick bed of anhy- 
drite and common gypsum, rest conformably on the continuation of 
the dark beds of Horton Bluff. The carboniferous date of this gyp- 
siferous series has been fully established by Mr (now Sir Charles) 
Lyell; and though it contains red sandstones with veins of gypsum 
like those of Blomidon, these never extend to so great a thickness as 
that of the Cornwallis sandstones, without alternating with fossiliferous 
shales or limestones, or with beds of gypsum. For this reason, in 
connexion with the undisturbed condition of the Cornwallis sand- 
stones, their apparent unconformability to the Carboniferous shales of 
Horton, and their identity in mineral character and association with. 
trappean rocks, with the red sandstones of Swan Creek and Five 
Islands, I have no hesitation in separating them from the gypsiferous 
series and including them in the New Red Sandstone formation.” 

From the same paper, I quote the following general statements as 
to the age and mode of formation of the New Red Sandstone and Trap, 
as affording in the most condensed form the conclusions at which I 
had then arrived :— 

* Journal of Geological Society, iv. p. 50. 


GENERAL REMARKS. 111 


: “T am not aware that any rocks equivalent in age to the red 
- sandstones which have been described occur in any other part of Nova 
Scotia. Red sandstones, not unlike those of Cornwallis and Truro, 
occur in some parts of the newer Coal formation, as seen on the shores 
of the Gulf of St Lawrence; but they alternate with beds of shale and 
gray sandstone, containing fossil plants of carboniferous species. 
Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St Lawrence, is chiefly com- 
posed of soft red sandstones, little disturbed, and similar in mineral 
character to the New Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia; but they contain 
in their lower part silicified wood and other vegetable fossils, which are 
not unlike some of those found in the newer Coal formation. It is, 
however, probable that the greater part of these red sandstones of 
Prince Edward Island are post-carboniferous. It is also probable that 
the New Red Sandstone of Connecticut, and some other parts of the 
United States, which is believed to be a Triassic deposit, may be of the 
same age with the formation above described. At present, however, 
from the want of fossils in the New Red Sandstone of Nova Scotia, 
it must be regarded as a post-carboniferous deposit of uncertain age. 
“The red sandstones now described appear to have been de- 
_ posited in an arm of the sea, somewhat resembling in its general form 
the southern part of the present Bay of Fundy, but rather longer and 
wider. This ancient bay was bounded by disturbed Carboniferous and 
Silurian strata; and the detritus which it received was probably chiefly 
derived from the softer strata of the Carboniferous system. The are- 
naceous nature of the New Red Sandstone, as compared with the char- 
acter of these older deposits, indicates that the ancient bay must have 
been traversed by currents, probably tidal like those of the modern 
bay, which washed away the argillaceous matter so as to prevent the 
accumulation of muddy sediment. When we consider the large 
amount of land in the vicinity of the waters in which the New Red Sand- 
stone was deposited, the deficiency of organic remains in its beds is 
somewhat surprising, though this is perhaps to be attributed rather to 
the materials of the deposit and the mode of its accumulation, than to 
any deficiency of vegetable or animal life at the period in question. 
“The voleanic action which manifested itself in the bed and on the 
margin of the bay of the New Red Sandstone is one of the most remark- 
able features of the period. It has brought to the surface great 
quantities of melted rock, without disturbing or altering the soft are- 
naceous beds through which it has been poured, and whose surface it 
has overflowed. The masses thus accumulated on the surface have 
greatly modified the features of the districts in which they occur; 
especially the great ridge extending westward from Cape Blomidon. 


4 


112 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


It is worthy of note, that this ridge, probably marking the site of | 
a line of vents of the New Red Sandstone period, and occurring in a 
depression between two ancient hilly districts, so nearly coincides in 
direction with these older lines of disturbance. The trap rocks asso- 
ciated with the New Red Sandstone do not precisely coincide in mineral 
character with any that I have observed in other parts of Nova Scotia, © 
though it is possible that some of the igneous rocks which have pene- 
trated and disturbed the Carboniferous rocks of various parts of this 
province may belong to the New Red Sandstone period, or are of a 
date not long anterior to it.” ’ 

The red sandstone formation affords fine: loamy friable. soils, 
especially adapted to the culture of fruit and of the potato. The red 
sandstone valleys of Annapolis and King’s are celebrated for their 
apple orchards, which furnish large quantities of excellent fruit for 
exportation to the other parts of the colonies, and even to the United 
States and Great Britain. The same districts are well adapted to the 
growth of Indian corn, large quantities of which are annually pro- 
duced; and in those years in which the potato has failed over nearly 
the whole of America, it has remained uninjured in the red sandy 
loams of Cornwallis, the farmers of which have in consequence realized 
large sums by supplying the markets of the New England states. 
The calcareous matter which serves as a cement to the sandstone, 
and the alkalis derived from the fragments of trap which have been 
scattered through the soil in the Drift period, add much to the fertility 
of these districts. 

The agricultural capabilities of the trap are very different from 
those of the red sandstone. The soil, formed of decomposed trap, is 
very rich in the mineral ingredients most necessary to cultivated 
plants. It produces in its natural state a most luxuriant growth of 
timber, and yields excellent crops when recently reclaimed from the 
forest; but, perhaps from its porous and permeable texture, it is said 
not long to retain its fertility. I fear, however, that very bad 
methods of farming have generally been applied to it. The situation 
and exposure of the trap are singularly different from those of its con- . 
temporary the red sandstone. The latter usually appears in low and 
sheltered valleys. The trap, on the other hand, forms steep acclivi- 
ties and high table-lands, exposed to the full force of the storms and 
changes of an extreme and variable climate; while its ranges of 
rugged cliffs, with their cascades, their terrible landslips, and the wild 
beating of the winds and waves upon their bare fronts, present nature 
in an aspect altogether different from that which she wears in the 
quiet valleys of the red sandstone. These differences are, even in this 


MINERALS OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE AND TRAP. 113 


0 game: 


new country, not without their influence on the mental and moral tone 
of the inhabitants of these dissimilar districts, 


‘ 5. Minerals of the New Red Sandstone and Trap. 


The red sandstone of this formation does not contain any valuable 
_ repositories of useful minerals. It frequently includes small veins of 
foliated and fibrous gypsum. In some parts of King’s County it con- 
tains thin bands of impure limestone, and in one locality, near 
Cornwallis Bridge, I have observed in it a bed of impure manganese 
ore, a mineral which also occurs at Quaco. These deposits are, 
however, of too small dimensions to be of any practical value. The 
sandstone itself is usually too soft and perishable to form a useful 
building-stone. Blocks and slabs of it are, however, quarried for 
fire-places and chimneys, and are said to be well adapted to this use. 
The trap contains some small veins of metallic minerals, not as yet 
known to be of mining importance; but it abounds in the finely 
erystallized minerals usually contained in the ancient volcanic rocks, 
and the long range of coast-line which it occupies, and the very 
rapid waste which it is undergoing, place these within reach of the 
collector in almost unexampled abundance. As these minerals are of 
much interest to mineralogists, and the trap formation of Nova Scotia 
has become somewhat celebrated for the abundance and fineness of 
the specimens which it affords, I give below a catalogue of the mineral 
species that I have collected, with references to the localities from 
which I have specimens in my cabinet, and which I believe to be the 
most productive of fine specimens. Many other localities, however, 
are mentioned by Messrs Jackson and Alger and Dr Gesner, who 
have devoted especial attention to these beautiful productions. I 
may remark, however, that interesting specimens may be found in 
almost all parts of the trap coasts, by inquiring for the spots in which 
Jand-slips have most recently occurred. 


ty MO eee” 


Magnetie Iron Ore—in octahedrons and massive; Partridge Island, 

North Mountains of King’s. : 
Specular Iron Ore—in tabular erystals; Sandy Cove. 

Native Copper—in irregular masses; Cape d’Or, Briar Island, and 
Peter’s Point. 

Gray Sulphuret of Copper, Green Carbonate of Copper, Oxide of 

j Copper, associated with Magnetic Iron, at Indian Point, also 
Cape d’Or; not in fine specimens. 

Quartz—occurs in a great variety of beautiful forms, among which 

H 


114 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


are Amethyst and Transparent Quartz in six-sided pyramids, 
Agate, Chalcedony, Carnelian, and Jasper. The best localities 
for these minerals are Blomidon, Scott’s Bay, Digby Neck, 
and Partridge Island. A fine variety of Moss Agate occurs 
at the Two Islands, and a sort of Quartz Sinter in imperfect 
crystals and beautiful coralloidal forms in the neighbouring _ 
promontory of M‘Kay’s Head. Large quantities of fine Agates 
and Jaspers, applicable to ornamental purposes, may be found 
at Cape Blomidon and Digby Neck; and the Amethyst of the 
same localities is sometimes in sufliciently large a to 
admit of being cut for ring-stones, seals, ete. 

Opal—occurs at a few localities, in the plain variety of semi-opal ; 
and very frequently, in the form of white chalky Cacholong, 
forms the basis of fine crystallizations of amethyst, having 
lined the cavities of the trap before the latter was deposited. 

Heulandite—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina and Lime, in fine rhombic 
prisms, colourless and light flesh colour, at Blomidon, Black 
Rock, Partridge Island, etc. Minute yellow crystals are found 
at Two Islands. 

Stilbite—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina, Lime and Soda, or Potash, 
in radiated and sheaf-like aggregations of crystals of honey- | 
yellow and brown colours, at Partridge Island, Sandy Cove, 
Blomidon, Black Rock, ete. Fine groups of white crystals 
are found at Black Rock in King’s County and its vicinity. 

Mesotype.—The variety or species Natrolite, the Hydrous Silicate of 
Alumina and Soda, is found in small prismatic crystals and 
in radiated masses of crystals, at Blomidon, Two Islands, 
M‘Kay’s Head, Scott’s Bay, ete. The variety Scolecite, or 
Hydrous Silicate of Alumina and Lime, is found at the same 
localities, also in radiating and prismatic forms. The variety 
Mesolite, or lime and soda Mesotype, is also found at various 
localities. 

Laumonite—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina and Lime, in whitish and 
light red prismatic crystals, at Peter’s Point, Black Rock, 
Sandy Cove, ete. This mineral, very beautiful when freshly 
taken from the rock, loses water and becomes opaque and 
brittle when exposed to air and light. I have found that this 
change takes place very rapidly when the specimens are 
exposed to sunlight, and is much retarded by keeping them 
in darkness. Immersion in gum-water is also a preventive. 

Chabazite—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina, Lime, Soda, and Potash. 
The flesh red, brownish red, purplish red, and yellowish red 


ia 
one 


MINERALS OF THE NEW RED SANDSTONE AND TRAP. 115 


varieties, which have been named Acadiolite, are found abun- 
dantly at Two Islands in trap conglomerate. Their red 
colour is due to the peroxide of iron which abounds in the 
cement of the conglomerate and the neighbouring red sandstone. 


_ Grayish and white varieties are found at the same place, also 


at Cape d’Or and Digby Neck. The usual form is the primary 
rhombohedron; the six-sided pyramid occurs rarely at Cape 
Blomidon. According to Marsh, the variety Gmelinite is 
found at Blomidon. 


Analeime—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina, Soda, and Lime. Trapezo- 


hedrons of white and dull reddish colours occur at Blomidon, 
Two Islands, M‘Kay’s Head, ete. 


Thomsonite—Hy drous Silicate of Alumina, Lime, and Soda or Potash. 


I have a small specimen in radiating crystals from the North 
Mountains of King’s County. 


Prehnite—Hydrous Silicate of Alumina, Lime, and Iron. Recorded 


by Gesner as found at Black Rock. I have not seen it. 


Apophyllitt—Hydrous Silicate of Lime and Potash is found at a 


number of places, but in none very plentifully. Green and 
white crystals, aggregated in plates or in square prisms, occur 
at Blomidon, Peter’s Point, Two Islands, and Cape d’Or. 
The finest specimens that I have seen are from the latter place, 
and present rosette-shaped groups of crystals. They were 
collected by the late Professor Chipman of Acadia College, 
and are now, I believe, in the museum of that institution. 


Calcareous Spar—Carbonate of Lime is found in fine rhombohedral 


erystals of white and yellowish colours, and also in the 
imperfect scalenohedrons known as Dogtooth spar, at Partridge 
Island, Black Rock, Two Islands, ete. 


To the above list I may add Faroelite, a mineral allied to Scolecite, 
discovered by Prof. How at Port George, and mentioned by Marsh 
as occurring at Cape d’Or and Blomidon.* Prof. How has also 
noticed Gyrolite as occurring in Apophyllite near Cape Blomidon,+ 
and has described Centrallasite, Cerinite, Cyanolite, and Mordenite, 
from the Trap of Nova Scotia.} 


* Silliman’s Journal, N.§., xxvi. p. 31, and vol. xxxv. p. 215. 
+ Ibid., vol. xxxii. 
¢ Ed. Phil. Journal, x. 84, Qu. Journ. Chem. Soc., 1864. 


116 


CHAPTER VIII. 
THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE— Continued. 


PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND—AGE OF ITS SANDSTONES—FOSSIL PLANTS— 
REPTILIAN REMAINS—USEFUL MINERALS AND SOIL. 


Prince Epwarp Istanp, which stretches for 125 miles along the 
northern coast of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, has everywhere 
a low and undulating surface, and consists almost entirely of soft red 
sandstone and arenaceous shale, much resembling the New Red of 
Nova Scotia, and like it having the component particles of the rock 
united by a calcareous cement. In some places the calcareous matter 
has been in sufficient abundance to form bands of impure limestone, 


usually thin and arenaceous. Over the greater part of the island — 


these beds dip at small angles to the northward, with, however, large 
undulations to the south, which probably cause the same beds to be 
repeated in the sections on the opposite sides of the island. This is 
the general character of the island in all parts of it that I have 
explored, with the exception of a few limited spots on the south side, 
which present brown and gray sandstones and shales, not unlike some 
of the upper parts of the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, and containing 
a few fossil plants. These are apparently the lowest and oldest beds 
observed, and they may possibly belong to a series underlying 
unconformably the ordinary red sandstone of the island. The deter- 
mination of their true geological age is important, as affording data 
for ascertaining that of the red sandstone. I shall therefore give a 
somewhat detailed account of these beds as they appear at Orwell or 
Gallows Point on the south coast, about ten miles east of Charlotte- 
town. 

In approaching this place, the red sandstone forms long undulations 
sloping gently toward the shore, and the coast displays a series of 
low points, terminated by red sandstones, which, though not hard, 
have better resisted the wearing action of the waves than the softer 
strata which have occupied the intermediate creeks. Passing through 
Cherry Valley, the country has the same appearance until we enter 


ele 


TRIAS OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 117 


the by-road to Orwell or Gallows Point, when the soil loses its bright 
red colour, and assumes a grayish tint, and more argillaceous com- 
position, indicating to the geological traveller a change in the com- 
position of the rocks beneath. On reaching the extremity of the 
Cape, a good section of a considerable variety of rocks may be seen. 
Their dip is to the E. 8. E. by compass (variation about 19 deg. W.), 
at an angle of only 6 degrees; consequently in proceeding along the 
shore to the westward, lower and older rocks appear cropping out 
from beneath those which overlie them. Commencing with those 
which are higher in order, red and brown sandstones, of soft and rather 
coarse texture, occupy a considerable portion of the shore, projecting 
in low reefs into the sea, and rising to the height of a few yards in a 
water-worn cliff. Beneath these appear harder gray sandstones, 
containing gray and brown impure limestone, in beds a few inches in 
thickness. One of these beds contains a number of fragments of 
fossil plants, in a very imperfect state of preservation. Beneath these 
strata is a bed of sandstone, containing small nodules of red ochre, 
and in one place the impression of a large fossil tree, whose wood 
has disappeared, leaving a mould which has been filled with ochreous 
-clay. Proceeding in the same direction, we find beds of considerable 
thickness consisting of gray and brown clay, apparently without coal 
or fossils. Beneath these are several beds of brownish sandstone of 
various qualities, one stratum appearing to be sufliciently hard for 
building purposes. Embedded in one of these layers appear some 
large fossil trees, one of them nearly three feet in diameter; they are 
prostrate and much flattened by pressure, and the place once occupied 
by their wood is now filled with a hard dark-coloured silicious stone, 
which, when polished in thin slices, and examined by the microscope, 
displays the structure of the original wood. These trees appear to 
have been partially decomposed before they were submitted to the 
petrifying process, and the rents caused by decay are now filled with 
red-coloured crystals of sulphate of barytes. In some of the 
specimens the fissures are coated with silicious crystals, and portions 
of some of the trunks consist of a soft carbonaceous ironstone retaining 
the woody structure. These fossil trees carry back our thoughts to 
a period when Prince Edward Island was a tract of submarine sand, 
“in which drift trees were embedded and preserved, and which has 
since been indurated and partially elevated above the level of the sea. 
In another of these sandstone beds are the remains of a large tree 
compressed to the thickness of an inch, and converted into friable 
shining coal, coloured in some places with green carbonate of copper. 
These beds must belong either to the very newest portions of the 


ee ee ee 


118 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


Coal Formation, which in some particulars they closely resemble, or 
to the lower part of the New Red Sandstone; and in either case the 
sandstones of the greater part of Prince Edward Island will be New 
Red. Unfortunately I could not observe whether the latter are 
superimposed conformably or unconformably on the lower beds, and 
the fossils are hardly sufficiently well characterized to indicate to— 
which epoch they belong. With the view of obtaining from them 
all the information they are capable of affording, I have examined 
the fossil wood of this locality, and some specimens found lying 
loose on the surface at Des Sables and other places in the island, 

with the following results :— 

Thin slices of the specimens from Orwell Point show enti the 
microscope in the transverse direction a dense tissue of quadrangular 
cells, arranged in rows, with numerous but narrow medullary rays. 
Longitudinal slices in the direction of the medullary rays show 
elongated parallel cells, with traces of hexagonal discs on the walls 
of the cells, there being two or more rows of discs in each cell, though 
these structures are not very distinct. These characters are those 
of coniferous wood (that of the pine tribe), and of that particular 
type of coniferous trees which appears in the northern hemisphere 
only in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks. The specimens from 
other parts of Prince Edward Island show similar structures, some 
of them even more distinctly. 

In so far as I can make it out, the structure is that of the genus 
Dadoxylon, and approaches to that of D. materiarium, the most 
common fossil pine of the Upper Coal Formation in Nova Scotia. The 
evidence of this fossil wood thus tends to indicate an older geological 
period than that of the New Red Sandstone,—assuming the latter to be 
of Triassic age,—and would give some countenance to the belief that 
these beds of the south coast of Prince Edward Island at Des Sables 
and Gallows Point, if not Permian, may represent the upper beds of 
the Newer Coal Formation, to which, as they appear in Eastern Nova 
Scotia, these rocks bear considerable resemblance. The beds of the 
Newer Coal Formation in Eastern Nova Scotia are usually only slightly. 
inclined, and are arranged in flat synclinals and anticlinals. It is 
quite possible that one of the latter crossing the strait may appear rising _ 
from under the New Red Sandstone. This view, if established, would 
be of importance in answering the question whether coal is likely to 
be found in Prince Edward Island, a question to which we may 
return in the sequel. Whatever the age of these beds, they are 
probably the oldest known in the island, and the red sandstones 
resting on them may be assumed to be Triassic. 


REPTILIAN REMAINS. 119 


A very interesting fossil, which greatly aids in fixing this geological 
age for the red sandstones of Prince Edward Island, has recently 
been discovered. It is a portion of the jaw of a large carnivorous 
reptile, apparently closely allied to the Zhecodontosaurus of the 
English New Red Sandstone. This creature must have rivalled in 
dimensions the modern alligators, but must have belonged to a differ- 
ent group of reptiles, represented in the present woild only by lizards 
of moderate or small dimensions. It was, in short, one of that giant 
reptile aristocracy which constituted the dominant animal type in the 
Middle or Secondary period of geological time, which in consequence 
has long been known as the peculiar “age of reptiles.” 

The specimen was found by Mr D. M‘Leod of New London, on 
the north side of the island, in the bottom of a well, at the depth 
of twenty-one feet nine inches, and imbedded in the ordinary soft red 
sandstone of that part of the island. The discoverer was desirous 
of disposing of the specimen; and the writer being convinced that 
it would prove of great interest to naturalists, if examined and 
described by a competent anatomist, offered to negotiate its sale. 
By the advice of Sir Charles Lyell, then in America, it was offered 
-_ to the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; for which it was 
finally purchased for the sum of thirty dollars., It was described and 
figured in the Proceedings of the Society by Dr Leidy, from whose 
elaborate paper I extract the following description, which, with the 
aid of Fig. 29, will serve to give some idea of its character :— 


Fig. 29.— Outline of Jaw of Bathygnathus borealis,—reduced. 


(a) Cross section of second Tooth, nat. size. (>) Fifth Tooth, nat. size. 


“The specimen consists of the right dental bone, considerably 
broken, attached by its inner surface to a mass of matrix of a red 
granular sandstone, with large, soft angular red chalk-like stones 


120 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


imbedded in it.* The fossil has seven large teeth protruding beyond 
the alveolar margin of the jaw; and it is hard, brittle, and cream- 
coloured, and stands out in beautiful relief from its dark-red matrix. 
The jaw indicates a lacertian reptile, and, in comparison with that of 
other known extinct and recent genera, is remarkable for its great 
depth in relation to its length. 

“The depth of the dental bone is five inches, whilst its length 
in the perfect condition appears not to have exceeded seven and a 
quarter inches; for in the specimen the middle part of the posterior 
border is so thin and seale-like, that I am disposed to think it here 
came in contact with the supra-angular and other neighbouring bones. 

“The teeth, in their relation to the dental bone, are placed on the 
inner side, and rest against the alveolar border, which rises in a 
parapet external to them. Whether this parapet is supported by 
abutments between the teeth, as in Megalosaurus, I cannot clearly as- 
certain, from the inner side of the jaw being so closely adherent to the 
matrix. The dental bone, if it be considered complete in its length 
in the specimen, is capable of containing a series of twelve teeth. 

“As the teeth were worn away or broken off, they were replaced 
by others produced at their inner side, as is indicated in the specimen 
by a young tooth, which is situated internal to, and is concealed by, 
the largest mature tooth. The enamelled crowns of the fully pro- 
truded teeth are exserted at their base for several lines above the 
alveolar border of the jaw. They are compressed, conoidal, and 
recurved; but compared with those of Megalosaurus they are not so 
broad, compressed, nor recurved, and they are more convex externally, 
and are less so internally. They resemble much in form those of the 
recent Monitor ornatus, but are less convex internally. The anterior 
and posterior acute margins of the crowns are minutely crenulated ; 
and the crenulations commence just below the tip, and descend as far 
as the enamelled base.” 

Dr Leidy then proceeds to describe the teeth minutely, remarking 
that the first in the series is narrow, and not crenulated, and that it 
is separated from the second by a space sufficiently large to have held 
another tooth. ‘The second tooth seen in the figure is the largest 
and longest of the series; and its enamelled crown, when perfect, was 
about an inch and three quarters long by seven lines in breadth at the 
base. Its fang can be seen in the wide fissure of the jaw, descending 
two inches from the alveolar border; and, being broken, it is observed 
to be hollow as far as the enamelled crown.” The third tooth has 
not fully protruded, and the fourth, fifth, and sixth, have nearly the 


* These are probably concretions.—J. W. D. 


REPTILIAN REMAINS. 121 


same size and form, and are highly perfect piercing and cutting 
instruments, with sharp and finely crenulated edges. The space be- 
tween the fourth and fifth tooth is sufficient to contain one additional 
tooth, and that between the sixth and seventh is sufficient for two, 
and has in it a young tooth just appearing above the jaw. There is 
an impression of an eighth tooth on the matrix. The whole jaw may 
thus, when perfectly filled, have accommodated twelve teeth on each 
side of the mouth; in predaceous reptiles, however, the teeth are 
often broken and are renewed, so that in adult animals they are never 
uniform or complete. 

From the extraordinary depth of the dental bone relatively to its 
length, and from its northern locality, Dr Leidy has named the 
animal to which it belonged Bathygnathus borealis. He adds: “ This 
interesting fossil is the second authentic discovery of saurian bones 
in the New Red Sandstone of North America; the first being those 
found near Hossac’s Creek, in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, by Dr 
Joel Y. Shelley, and described by my friend Mr Isaac Lea, under the 
name of Clepsysaurus Pennsylvanicus.” 

The remains of this ancient reptile must have been drifted by the 
sea, and embedded in the sand now forming the red sandstone of 
New London. Probably its bones, after the decay of the body, were 
scattered over the bottom, to be buried under the next layers of sand 
spread over it. What information can we derive from the fragment 
which has been handed down to our time, respecting the structure 
and habits of the creature, and the age of the rock in which it was 
embedded? ‘The teeth prove decisively that the animal to which 
they belonged was fitted for capturing and devouring other animals. 
It is difficult to imagine an instrument better fitted for cutting and 
tearing asunder than a jaw furnished with these sharp and serrated 
teeth. The size of the teeth, and the shortness and depth of the jaw, 
indicate an amount of power sufficient for the destruction of large 
animals, perhaps fishes, smaller reptiles, or even clumsy and gigantic 
wading birds, all of which are known to have existed as far back 
as the New Red period. Among living carnivorous reptiles, those 
which, like the crocodile, are clumsy and less agile in their movements, 
have elongated snouts to enable them the more easily to secure their 
prey; those which, like the serpents, can move with extreme rapidity, 
have comparatively short jaws. We may therefore infer that this 
creature was furnished with means of very rapid movement, either 
on land or water. It could spring or dart on its prey. If we had 
the remains of its extremities, we could determine what its means of 
movement were, and whether the sea or the land was its sphere of 


122 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


activity. Without these nothing very certain can be determined on 
these subjects. The apparent thinness and density of the bone, 
however, and its width of surface, convey the impression that it was 
intended to combine great strength with great lightness, and therefore 
that it belonged to a creature of terrestrial habits. Probably con- . 
siderations of this kind, though he does not state his reasons, induced 
Dr Leidy to hazard the conjecture, ‘“ Was this animal probably not 
one of the bipeds which made the so-called bird-tracks of the New 
Red Sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut?” This conjecture of 
an eminent anatomist, itself shows how singular and anomalous among 
reptiles is this fossil fragment. © 

Had this fossil been specifically identical with any reptile whose 
remains have been found in other countries the age of whose rocks. 
has been determined, it might have given conclusive evidence as to 
the true geological age of the red sandstones of New London. It is, 
however, a new species of a new genus, quite distinct therefore from 
any species found elsewhere. Still it gives some important testimony. 
It belongs to a group of large and highly organized carnivorous 
reptiles now extinct, and which occupied in the Secondary period of 
geology a place afterwards taken by the carnivorous mammalia. No 
reptiles of equal grandeur and perfection have existed since the 
beginning of the Tertiary period ; and so far as we know, none were 
created before the very close of the Paleozoic period. Between these 
eras, therefore, we may place our fossil; but this gives a very wide - 
range. There is, however, a difference of faces or general appearance 
between the reptiles of different parts of this long reptilian dynasty, 
which enables us to distinguish between them, just as an antiquary 
might distinguish a coat of armour of the time of John of Gaunt from 
one of the time of Henry the Seventh. Now, as already hinted, the 
reptile in question appears to have most nearly resembled the Theco- 
dontosaurus and Paleosaurus, reptiles of the Triassic system of 
England, than any other known animals; hence it confirms the view 
generally adopted on other grounds, that this is the age of the Prince 
Edward Island New Red, and its corresponding formation in Nova 
Scotia. At the time when the first edition of this work was published, 
it was held by British geologists that the dolomitic conglomerates of 
Bristol, in which the remains of the two saurians above named are 
found, belonged to the Permian period; and I stated accordingly 
that the affinities of Bathygnathus seemed to be with reptiles of that 
period. More lately, however, the officers of the Geological Survey 
of Great Britain have satisfied themselves that the beds in question 
belong to the Trias. 


USEFUL MINERALS OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 123 


_ The red sandstone of Prince Edward Island is not known to contain 
any useful minerals except limestone, which occurs in thin beds in 
several places. Indications, apparently of no economic value, of ores 
_ of copper and manganese occur in a few places. The red sandstone 
everywhere supports a fine, friable, loose, loamy soil, which renders 
Prince Edward Island one of the finest agricultural districts in the 
lower provinces—a distinction which well compensates the want of 
valuable minerals. I have not observed, in any of my excursions in 
the island, any traces of igneous action; but Dr Gesner, in the report 
_ of a survey undertaken for the provincial Government, mentions the 
occurrence of a limited mass or dike of trap on Hog Island, an isolated 
spot which I have not visited, in Richmond Bay; and which I have 
accordingly coloured in the map with the tint appropriate to that 
rock. This fact, though not of any importance in establishing the 
age of the formation, affords an additional analogy between it and 
the New Red of Nova Scotia. 

The question of the possible occurrence of coal in Prince Edward 
Island has always been of much interest to its inhabitants, and I © 
believe that a grant of money has been made by the Legislature to 

promote boring in search of mineral fuel. In answer to this question, 

it may be stated, in the first place, that since the rocks of Prince 

Edward Island, or the greater part of them, are certainly newer than 

the Coal Formation, there is a reasonable probability that the coal- 

measures exist under the island. On the other hand, the New Red 

Sandstone being of considerable thickness, and the upper unproduc- 

tive coal formation of Nova Scotia being also of great thickness, it is 

probable that such coal-beds as may exist under Prince Edward 

Island are at a very great depth. Again, it is very obvious that, if 

boring operations are to be undertaken, the chances of success would 

be very different in different parts of the island. Toward the north 
side the whole thickness of the red sandstone would have to be bored 
_ through, probably to the extent of several hundreds of feet, before 
reaching even the Upper Coal Formation. On the other hand, at those 

_ places on the south side where fossil plants occur, it is even possible, 

as above stated, that the upper beds of the Newer Coal Formation 
actually crop out from beneath the red sandstone. In this case the 
__ chances would be much better; but since the Upper Coal Formation 
of Pictou, without productive coals, is estimated at about 3000 feet 
in thickness, the valuable coals would still be out of reach, unless this 
‘upper member should prove thinner than on the mainland, of which 
_ we have as yet no evidence. 
The question would be complicated by supposing the possible 


124 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 


unconformability of the New Red Sandstone and Coal Formation; but 
as the dips of the latter are very low on the Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick shore, it is probable that the two formations are con- 
formable, or very nearly so. 

On the whole, though I would searcely venture to advise the . 
expenditure of any large sum in boring for coal in Prince Edward 
Island, I would say that, should it be determined to incur such 
expenditure, the most promising places at present known to me are 
in the vicinity of Orwell Point and of Des Sables. Boring in these 
places would at least afford the satisfaction of knowing what underlies 
the red sandstone, and whether any chance exists of the discovery of 
coal under it. It is proper to state, however, that I have not explored 
the south shore of the island very extensively, and that there seems 
no good reason why equally favourable localities might not exist at 
Bedeque or at Wood Islands, or at other localities west and east of 
these places. Careful preliminary exploration of every place supposed 
to be promising should be made by some competent person familiar 
with the structure of the Upper Coal Formation in Nova Scotia or New 
Brunswick, before incurring any expense in boring. 

In a MS. section of the north coast of New Brunswick by the late 
Professor Robb, he indicates at the extremity of Cape Tormentin a 
small patch of red micaceous sandstone overlaid by red marly rock, 
and dipping to the east at an angle of 15°. This I regard as very pro- 
bably an outlier of the red sandstone of Prince Edward Island; and, - 
if so, it affords the only known point of contact of this formation with 
the Carboniferous rocks of the mainland. I have only seen Cape 
Tormentin from the-sea, and therefore cannot speak distinctly of the 
nature of the junction; but the red rocks probably rest unconformably 
on the end of an anticlinal undulation of the coal formation. Were 
I about to make a geological survey of Prince Edward Island, I 
would make these rocks of Cape Tormentin one of my first studies, 
and would consider myself fortunate if I could establish their claim 
to be considered, in a geological point of view, a portion of Prince 
Edward Island. 


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CHAPTER IX. 


. THE PERMIAN BLANK. 
cy 
_ One whole period of the earth’s Paleozoic history appears to be 
represented by no monuments in Acadia. ‘The base of the Trias. 
everywhere rests unconformably on the upturned beds of the Carbeni- 
- ferous, and the Permian system, represented in England by the great 
- magnesian limestone and its associated beds, and in Germany by the 
-Zechstein and the sandstones and shales above and below it, is absent 
_ from our series of formations. The same gap occurs, in so far as 
known, throughout Eastern North America. It is only west of the 
_ Mississippi, in Kansas, and on the eastern slope of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, that the Permian beds have been recognised. There they 
consist of limestones, sandstones, marls, and conglomerates, with 
beds of gypsum resting conformably on the Carboniferous beds, and 
Beeeating them from the Trias. Their fossils are closely allied to 
those of the Upper Coal Formation, and very different from those of 
_ the Trias,—the latter constituting the beginning of the great Mesozoic 
division of geological time, the former the close of the Palwozoic. 

_ The lapse of time represented by these Permian beds, and which, 
though probably shorter than the Carboniferous period, must have 

been of long duration, is indicated in Acadia only by the disturbances 
which the Carboniferous beds have suffered before the deposition of 

_ those of the Trias, unless we can regard any portion of the great 

q series of beds which I have named the Upper Coal Formation as 
_ equivalent in time to the Permian, 

It may be well shortly to inquire if we can bridge over this vacant 
“Space by any considerations based on the well-known systems of 
_ formations which constitute its boundaries. We have here first the 
_ well-established fact, that the long and quiet period of the Coal Forma- 
tion was succeeded in Eastern America by an epoch of physical 
_ disturbance, in which the Carboniferous rocks were greatly tilted and 

Distorted, and in many places subjected to more or less alteration. 
_ The time occupied by these processes we cannot precisely measure ; 


6 


c? 


ae 
. 


126 THE PERMIAN. 


but there is every reason to believe that it was of long duration. 
Again, in connection with this, the relations of the Trias to the 
Carboniferous show that the latter must have experienced much 
denudation by aqueous agency prior to the deposition of the former. 


Lastly, the study of the distribution of the Trias over the shores of . 


the Bay of Fundy shows, as already stated, that, previous to the 
Triassic period, that Bay had already assumed in some measure of its 
present form, and, consequently, that the Carboniferous beds had 
already in part been elevated into land. All these facts give us 
evidence of lapse of time—of time occupied in this locality not by 
aqueous deposition, but by physical movements, probably of elevation, 
and by denuding action. That this time corresponded to that of 
the Permian elsewhere, no one who believes in the contemporaneous- 
ness of the Carboniferous of America with that of Europe can doubt. 
The possibility, however, still remains that Permian beds may have 
been deposited in some parts of the area, and may have been removed 
by denudation, or may be covered by the Trias or by the sea. This 
is, however, only a mere possibility, so long as no traces of these 
beds can be discovered. 

Again, it is possible that the conditions of the Upper Coal Formation 
may have continued longer in America than in Europe, and, con- 
sequently, that this part of the Carboniferous may synchronize with 
the Permian of Europe and with that of Western America. This 
raises the question of ‘‘ Homotaxis,” as it has been called, or similarity 
of arrangement as distinguished from actual contemporaneity. An 
able paleontologist has said that, ‘for anything that geology or 
palzontology can show to the contrary, a Devonian flora and fauna 
in the British Islands may have been contemporaneous with Silurian 
life in North America, and with a Carboniferous fauna and flora 
in Africa. Geographical provinces and zones may have been as 
distinctly marked in the Paleozoic epoch as at present.’ I must 
maintain, however, that no such uncertainty exists as to the Carbon- 
iferous period. In America, its flora was homogeneous from New- 
foundland to Alabama, and from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky 
Mountains, evidencing a uniformity of climate unparalleled in modern 
times. Its succession of zones of vegetation, from that of the lower 
coal-measures upward, is preserved over all this area; and when we 
find it existing in all its detail in Europe, and with a majority of the 
species the same, it would be most rash to suppose that the times of 
this succession were not identical. Farther, it seems impossible 
to doubt that this uniformity was caused by prevalent climatal 
conditions which could not have been local; as, for instance, by a 


cay 
ma) 


ae 
re 
= 
+ 

\. 
.- 
= 
‘Y 


HOW REPRESENTED IN ACADIA. 


different distribution of land and water, as supposed by Sir Charles 
Lyell, and by a larger proportion of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, 
as suggested by Tyndall and Hunt. For these reasons, and others 
to which I shall refer in a succeeding chapter, there is no room left 
for homotaxis, as distinguished from contemporaneity, in the case of 
the Carboniferous; and if so, there can be little in that of the Trias. 
The Permian was thus a real period in Eastern America, but a period 
without extant monuments, except those which relate to merely 
mechanical movements of the sediments previously formed,—a period ~ 
of breaking down, not of building up. % 
_ $till the Permian in Eastern America must have been a time of 
life and activity. If, as seems most probable, this country was, 
-at the close of the Carboniferous period, raised up to a height some- 
what similar to that of the continent in the present day, this Permian 
land must have been inhabited by plants and animals. We can 
imagine it clothed with a flora similar to that of the European 
Permian, and inhabited by the Protorosaurs and other animal forms of 
the period, and we can imagine those changes going on by which 
the Paleozoic flora and fauna were replaced by those of the Mesozoic 
period. In the singular little deposit of Miocene plants at Brandon 

in Vermont, we have evidence that this was the case in those Tertiary 

periods of which, as already stated, we have no formations in Acadia ; 
and perhaps there may yet be found some patch of Permian rock, 
_ formed in some lake or estuary, which may reveal to us the history 
_ of this as yet unrecorded passage in the geological history of our 
country. 


SS ee 


128 


CHAPTER X. 
THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


GENERAL REMARKS—SYNOPTICAL TABLE—GEOGRAPHICAL ARRANGE- 
MENT—CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND—SOUTH JOGGINS 
SECTION. ' : 


I nave had frequent occasion to state that the lower beds of the 
Triassic sandstones rest on the edges of the upturned strata of the 
great geological series now to be described. In entering, therefore, 
on the Carboniferous system, we go at least one whole period back in 
the history of the earth, to a time when the rocks that formed the 
shore of the red sandstone sea were themselves being deposited in the 
form of sediment, in waters which washed the sides of the Cobequid 
Hills and the other old metamorphic ranges. 

The Carboniferous system is of inestimable importance in an eco- — 
nomical point of view, from the number and value of its useful min- 
erals. It is also of exceeding interest to the geologist, in consequence 
of the many remarkable monuments which it contains of the changes 
of the earth’s surface, and of the character of its inhabitants, during a 
long and important period. None of the geological formations sur- 
passes it in either of these respects; and in Nova Scotia and the 
neighbouring colonies there is none which approaches to an equality 
with it. It is also a very thick group of beds, and these are very — 
varied in their character. For these reasons, I shall commence my 
description with a synoptical view of its various members, as they 
have now been ascertained in Nova Scotia. An examination of this 
condensed summary will enable the reader much more clearly to 
comprehend the statements hereafter to be made. 


Physical Characters and Subdivisions of the Carboniferous. 


The total vertical thickness of the immense mass of sediment consti- 
tuting the Carboniferous system in Nova Scotia may be estimated from 
the fact that Sir W. E. Logan has ascertained, by actual measurement at 
the Joggins, a thickness of 14,570 feet; and this does not include the 


SUBORDINATE GROUPS OR FORMATIONS. 129 


lowest member of the series, which, if developed and exposed in that 
locality, would raise the aggregate to at least 16,000 feet. It is 
certain, however, that the thickness is very variable, and that in some 
districts particular members of the series are wanting, or are only 
-slenderly developed. Still the section at the Joggins is by no means 
an exceptional one, since I have been obliged to assign to the Car- 
_ boniferous deposits of Pictou, on the evidence of the sections exposed 
in that district, a thickness of about 16,000 feet; and Mr R. Brown 
_of Sydney has estimated the Coal formation of Cape Breton, exclusive 
of the Lower Carboniferous, at 10,000 feet in thickness. 

When fully developed, the whole Carboniferous series may be 
arranged in the following subordinate groups or formations, the limits 
of which are, however, in most cases not clearly defined :— 

(1.) The Upper Coal Formation, containing coal formation plants, 
but not productive coals. 

(2.) The Middle Coal Formation, or coal formation proper, con- 
taining the productive coal-beds. 

(3.) The Millstone-grit Series, represented in Nova Scotia by red 
and gray sandstone, shale, and conglomerate, with a few 
fossil plants and thin coal seams, not productive. 

(4.) The Carboniferous Limestone, with the associated sandstones, 
marls, gypsum, ete., and holding marine fossils, recognised 
by all paleontologists who have examined them as carbon- 
iferous. 

(5.) The Lower Coal Measures, holding some, but not all, of the 
fossils of the Middle Coal formation, and thin coals, not * 
productive; but differing both in flora and fauna from the 
Upper Devonian, which they overlie unconformably. 

In regard to their mineral character, thickness, organic remains, 
and geographical distribution, these several formations may be de- 
scribed as follows :—* eel 

(a.) The Upper Coal Formation—Consists of sandstones, shales, 
and conglomerates, with a few thin beds of limestone and coal. Cala- 
_ mites Suckovii, Annularia galioides, Cordaites simplex, Alethopteris 
_ nervosa, Pecopteris arborescens, Dadoxylon materiarium, Lepidophloios 
_ parvus, and Sigillaria scutellata, are among its characteristic vegetable 
fossils. Its thickness is 3000 feet or more; and its shales and sand- 
_ * Tf the reader should, in glancing at these descriptions, or at the succeeding 
sectional list, meet with technical terms not familiar to him, he will find their 
_ explanation farther on, in the chapters and notes relating to Carboniferous fossils. 
_ Descriptions of genera and species may be referred to by looking up their names in the 


index, where the numbers of the pages in which they are described or figured will 
be indicated. 


1 


130 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


stones are frequently reddened by the peroxide of iron, though usually 
not of so bright a red as the New Red Sandstone, and always alternating, 
at short intervals, with gray beds. It occupies a considerable breadth 


in the county of Cumberland north of the Cobequid Mountains, in 


Northern Colchester, and in Pictou. It is well exposed on the Joggins - 
coast, and on the coast of Northumberland Strait west of Pictou 
Harbour. ee 

(b.) The Middle Coal Formation, or coal measures proper.—This 
series includes the productive beds of coal, and is destitute of properly 
marine limestones. Beds tinged with peroxide of iron are less com- 
mon in this formation than in any ef the others. Dark-coloured 
shales and gray sandstones prevail, and there are no conglomerates. 
Sigillarie and Stigmarie of many species are the most conspicuous 


- and abundant fossils; but ferns, Cordaztes, and Calamites are also 


extremely abundant, and all the genera of Carboniferous plants are repre- 
sented. Many beds, especially those in the vicinity of layers of coal, 
contain minute Entomostraca, shells of the genus Anthracomya (Naia- 
dites), Spirorbis carbonarius, and remains of ganoid and placoid fishes. 

The thickness of this formation may be estimated at 4000 feet. 
It is largely developed in Cumberland, Pictou, and the eastern and 
western sides of the island of Cape Breton, and it occupies a great 
breadth in New Brunswick. 

(c.) The ‘ Millstone-grit”” Formation.—This name, though not in 
all cases lithologically appropriate, has been borrowed from English — 
geology to designate the group of sandstones, shales, and conglome- 


‘rates, destitute of coal, or nearly so, and with few fossil plants, which 


underlies the coal measures. _ In its upper and middle part it includes 
thick beds of coarse gray sandstone holding prostrate trunks of coni- 
ferous trees (Dadoxylon Acadianum). In its lower part, red and 
comparatively soft beds prevail. This formation is exposed in the 
same localities mentioned above for the Middle Coal formation, and 
especially in the south Joggins section, where it attains to the enor- 
mous thickness of between 5000 and 6000 feet. 

(d.) The Lower Carboniferous Marine Formation.—The essential 
features of this formation are thick beds of marine limestone, charae- 
terized principally by numerous brachiopods, especially Productus 
Cora, P. semireticulatus, Athyris subtilita, and Terebratula sufflata,* 
with other marine invertebrates. Associated with these limestones 
are beds of gypsum, and they are enclosed in thick deposits of sand- 
stone, clay, and marl, of prevailing red colours. 


* See Davidson “On Lower Carboniferous Brachiopoda from Nova Scotia,” Quart. 
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xix. p. 158. 


4 


, SUBORDINATE GROUPS OR FORMATIONS, 131 


_ The thickness of this formation seems to be very variable, and in 
some districts it is represented almost entirely by conglomerates, 
while in others it abounds in limestone and gypsum. It is very 
largely developed in Hants and Colchester counties, and rises from , 
beneath the Millstone-grit in Cumberland, Pictou, and Cape Breton. 
Smaller areas occur in several other parts of the province of Nova 
Scotia, and it is extensively developed in New Brunswick. It affords 
all the gypsum exported from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. 
(e.) The Lower Carboniferous Coal Measures, or Lower Coal Meas- . 
_ ures.—In some localities these resemble in mineral character the true 
coal measures. In others they present a great thickness of peculiar 
bituminous and calcareous shales. They usually contain in their 
_ lower part thick beds of conglomerate and coarse sandstone, which in 
some places prevail to the exclusion of the finer beds. The charac- 
teristic plants of these beds are Lepidodendron corrugatum and 
Cyclopteris Acadica, with Dadoxylon antiquius, and Alethopteris 
heterophylla.* They also contain locally great quantities of remains 
of fishes, and many Entomostracans, among which are Leaia Leidyi 
and an Lstheria, also Leperditia subrecta, Portlock, Beyrichia col- 
~ Uiculus, Eichw., and a Cythere,+ probably new. 

This formation is not everywhere distinguishable at the base of the - 
Carboniferous, and is variable in its characters. It is seen in southern 
Cape Breton, in the county of Sydney, and in Hants; but its most 

_ remarkable and interesting exposures are at Horton Bluff and at Hills- 
___ borough, and other places in southern New Brunswick. In the last- 
: mentioned locality, it affords the remarkable bituminous mineral 
_ known as Albertite. 

_-‘The last two groups are probably equivalent to the “ Sub-carbon- 
_ iferous” of Western geologists; but independently of the objection to 
the use of a term which would seem to imply a formation under, and 
distinct from, the Carboniferous, and of undetermined age, I find in 

- Nova Scotia no reason, either paleontological or stratigraphical, for 
any greater distinetion than that implied in the term Lower Carbon- 
__ ¥ferous, by which these groups will collectively be designated in this 

volume. The Lower Coal measures are, it is true, more distinct in 
____ their flora from the Middle Coal measures than the latter from the 

_ Upper Coal formation; but still many species are common to the 

_ two former, and the difference is small as compared with that between 

__ the Lower Carboniferous and the Upper Devonian. The Devonian 


a 


q 
‘ 


= * Dawson, “On the Lower Coal Measures,” etc., Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xy. 
p- 62. 


+ Prof. Jones of Sandhurst has kindly determined these species. 


132 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


rocks are also in this region unconformable to the Carboniferous, 
having been disturbed and altered prior to the deposition of the latter ; 
while no want of conformity, except of the local character hereafter 
to be noticed, occurs in the Carboniferous. Geinitz has shown 
(Isis, 1866) that my lower, middle, and upper coal formations . 
are equivalent to three of the zones into which he divides the coal 
formations of Saxony. 


Conditions. of Deposition of the Beds. 


It is evident that very various geographical conditions are implied 
in the deposit of this vast thickness of sediment. The Acadia of the 
Carboniferous period must not only have differed much from that which 
now is, but it must have presented very different appearances in the 
different portions of the Carboniferous time itself. 

The conditions of deposit thus implied in the mineral character and 
fossils of the several formations above described, would appear to be 
of three leading kinds:—(1.) The deposition of coarse sediment in 
shallow water, with local changes leading to the alternation of clay, 
sand, and gravel. This predominates at the beginning of the period, 
recurs after the deposition of the marine limestones in the formation 
of the “ Millstone-grit,” and again prevails in the upper coal forma- 
tion. (2.) The growth of corals and shell-fish in deep clear water, 
along with the precipitation of crystalline limestone and gypsum. 
These conditions occurred during the formation of the Lower Carbon- ~ 
iferous limestone and its associated gypsum. (3.) The deposition of 
fine sediment, and the accumulation of vegetable matter in beds of coal 
and carbonaceous and bituminous shale, and of mixed vegetable and 
animal matters in the beds of bituminous limestone and caleareo- 
bituminous shale. These conditions were those of the middle coal 
formation. 

Within the limits of Nova Scotia, these conditions of deposition 
applied, not to a wide and uninterrupted space, but to an area limited 
and traversed by bands of Silurian and Devonian rocks, already 
partially metamorphosed and elevated above the sea, and along the 
margins of which igneous action still continued, as evidenced by the 
beds of trap intercalated in the Lower Carboniferous ;* while about 
the close of the Devonian period still more important injections and 
intrusions of igneous matter had occurred, as shown by the granitic 
dykes and masses which traverse the Devonian beds, but have not 
penetrated the Carboniferous.+ There is evidence, however, in the 


* Dawson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. i. p. 329. 
+ Dawson, Canadian Naturalist, 1860, p. 142. 


"T 


CONDITIONS OF DEPOSITION OF THE BEDS. 133 


Carboniferous rocks of the Magdalen Islands and of Newfoundland, 


and in the fringes of such rocks on parts of the coast of Nova Scotia * 
and New England, that the area in question was only a part of a far 


more extensive region of Carboniferous deposition, the greater part 


of which is still under the waters of the Atlantic and of the Gulf of 
St Lawrence. 
There is ample proof that most of the coarser matter of the Car- 


 boniferous rocks was derived from the neighbouring metamorphic 


ridges; but much of the finer material was probably drifted from more 
distant sources. There seems no good reason to doubt that in the 
Carboniferous period, and especially in those portions of it in which 
the areas now under consideration were in the condition of shallow 
seas or swampy flats, the greater part of the Laurentian and Sil- 
urian districts of North America existed as land; while the great 
number of coal formation plants common to Europe and America may 
indicate the existence of intermediate lands now submerged. From 
such lands, undergoing waste during the long Carboniferous period, 
the materials of the shales and finer sandstones may have been derived. 

Taking this view of the source of the sediment, we should infer 
that the time of the formation of the marine limestones was that of 
greatest depression of the land, when the local ridges of older rock 
were mere reefs and islets, and when sediment from more distant 
lands was deposited only at intervals. We should also infer that the 
time of the formation of the coal-beds was that of greatest elevation, 
when the former sea-bottoms had beeome land-surfaces or flats, 
exposed only to occasional inundation, and when rivers were bearing 
downward from large continental regions great quantities of fine silt. 
Farther, the conditions of the millstone-grit and of the newer coal 
formation must have been of an intermediate character, requiring wide 
sea areas receiving great quantities of sediment; and on this account, 
as well as because of their shallowness, unfavourable to marine life, 
while the areas of vegetable growth were also of limited extent. 

It would also follow that when the lower coal measures and 
conglomerates were formed, the land was slowly subsiding; that in 
the time of the marine limestones it attained to its greatest depression, 
and long remained nearly stationary; that in the Millstone-grit period 
there was re-elevation, and that in the period of the middle coal 
formation and Newer Coal formation there was again subsidence, slow 
and interrupted at first, but subsequently of greater amount. From 
the absence of Permian deposits, it may be inferred that elevation 
again took place at the close of the Carboniferous period, to such an 


* Jukes’s “* Newfoundland :” infra, chap. xiii. 


134 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


extent as to preclude further deposition in the area in question; while __ 
the red sandstone and trap of Mesozoic age indicate the recurrence ab 
that time of conditions somewhat similar to those of the beginning o 
the Carboniferous period. 

The general phenomena of deposition above indicated, apply to all 
the Carboniferous areas of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and, so 
far as known, to those of the Magdalen Islands and of Newfoundland. 
But, as I shall point out in the sequel, numerous local diversities 
occur, in consequence of the interference of the older elevated ridges 
with the regularity of deposition. In some places the entire Lower 
Carboniferous series seems to be represented’ by conglomerates and 
coarse sandstones. In others, the Lower Coal measures, or the marine 
limestones, or both, are extensively developed. These local differ- 
ences are, on a small scale, of the same character with those which 
occur on a large scale in the northern and southern Appalachian 
districts and western districts of the United States, and in the 
different coal areas of Great Britain and Ireland, as compared with 
each other and with the Carboniferous districts of America. On the 
whole, however, it is apparent that certain grand features of similarity 
ean be traced in the distribution of the Carboniferous rocks throughout 
the northern hemisphere. 

It is further to be observed, that in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 
as well as in Eastern Canada, disturbances oceurred at the close of 
the Devonian period which have caused the Carboniferous rocks to lie 
unconformably on those of the former; and that in like manner the 
Carboniferous period was followed by similar disturbances, which 
have thrown the Carboniferous beds into synclinal and anticlinal bends, 
often very abrupt, before the deposition of the Triassic Red Sand- 
stones. These disturbances were of a different character from the 
oscillations of level which occurred within the Carboniferous period. 
They were accompanied by volcanic action, and were most intense 
along certain lines, and especially near the junction of the Carbon- 
iferous with the older formations. 

I have noticed an apparent case of unconformability between 
members of the Carboniferous system near Antigonish.* In the 

» eounty of Pictou, the arrangement of the beds suggests a possible 
unconformability of the Upper Coal formation and the Coal measures.+ 
In New Brunswick, Prof. Bailey { has observed indications of local 

© unconformability of the Coal formation with the Lower Carboniferous. 


* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. i. p. 32. 
tT Ibid., vol. x. p. 42. 
¢ ‘Report on Geology of Southern New Brunswick,” p. 118. 


weir ee Pe 


CONDITIONS OF DEPOSITION OF THE BEDS. 135 


But the strict conformability of all the members of the Carboniferous 


_ series in the great majority of cases, shows that these instances of 
- unconformability are exceptional. In the section at the Joggins 


more especially, the whole series presents a regular dip, diminishing 


gradually from the margin to the middle line of the trough, where the 


beds become horizontal. 

The most gradual and uniform oscillations of level must, however, 
be accompanied with irregularities of deposition and local denudation ; 
and phenomena of this kind are abundantly manifest in the Carbon- 
iferous strata of Nova Scotia. I have described a bed in the Pictou 
Coal-field which seems to be an ancient shingle-beach, extending 
across a bay of indentation in the coast-line of the Carboniferous 
period.* At the Joggins, many instances occur of the sudden running 
out and cutting off of beds,+ and Mr Brown has figured a number of 
instances of this kind in the Coal formation of Sydney.{ They are 
of such a character as to indicate the cutting action of tidal or fluviatile 
currents on the muddy or sandy bottom of shallow water. In some 
instances the layers of sand and drift-plants filling such cuts suggest 
the idea of tidal channels in an estuary filled with matter carried down 
by river-inundations. Even the beds of coal are by no means uniform 
when traced for considerable distances. The beds which have been 
mined at Pictou and the Joggins show material differences in quality 
and associations; and small beds may be observed to change in a 
remarkable manner, in their thickness and in the materials associated 
with them, in tracing them a few hundreds of feet from the top of the 


cliff to low-water mark on the beach. I have no doubt that, could. 


we trace them over sufficiently large areas, they would all be found 
to give place to sandstones, or to run out into bituminous shales and 
limestones, according to the undulations of the surfaces on which 
they were deposited, just as the peaty matter in modern swamps thins 
out toward banks of sand, or passes into the muck or mud of inun- 
dated flats or ponds. 


Geological Cycles. 


The foregoing considerations bring, in a very distinct manner, before 
us two different, and at first sight irreconcileable, general views which 
we may take of any given geological period. rst, we must regard 


‘every such period as presenting during its whole continuance the ~ 


diversified conditions of land and water with their appropriate inhabi- 
tants; and secondly, we must consider each such period as forming a 


* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. x. p. 45. 
+ Ibid., vol. x. p. 12. $ Ibid., vol. vi. p. 125 et seg. 


. eo ee” | eo 


136 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


geological cycle, in which such conditions to a certain extent were 
successive. As we give prominence to one or the other of these views, 
our conclusions as to the character of geological chronology must vary 
in their character; and in order to arrive at a true picture of any given 
time, it is necessary to have both before us in their due proportion. 

We know that the marine animals of the Lower Carboniferous seas 
continued to exist in the time of the Coal formation, and that some of 
them survived until the Permian period, proving to us the existence 
of deep seas even in that age which we regard as specially character- 
ized by swampy flats supporting land-plants. In like manner we 
know that some of the species of land-plants found iy the lowest coal 
measures continued to exist in the time of the upper coal formation, 
proving that there was some land suitable for them throughout the 
epoch of the deep-sea limestones. Regarded from this point of view, 
any exceptional beds with land-plants in the marine parts of the 
formation, or beds with sea-shells in the parts where land conditions 
predominate, acquire a special interest; and so likewise do regions in 
which, as in some parts of the Appalachian Coal-field, the marine 
limestones are absent, and those in which, as in some parts of the 
Western States, marine conditions seem to have continued throughout 
the whole period. In Nova Scotia, so far as my present knowledge 
extends, the marine limestones of the Lower Carboniferous cut off the 
flora of the Lower Coal measures, apparently by a long interval of 
time, from that of the Middle Coal formation; and in like manner the 
fossils of the marine limestones cease at the time of the Millstone-grit, 
_and only in one instance, that of a small bed of limestone near 
Wallace Harbour, partially reappear in the Upper Coal formation.* 
I have, however, ascertained that the marine limestones may be 
divided into an upper and a lower member, and that there is some 
reason to suppose that in some parts of Nova Scotia where the true 
coal measures are not developed, the upper member may, in part at 
least, represent them. On the other hand, I have not as yet been 
able to bridge over the gulf which separates the flora of the Lower 
Carboniferous coal measures from that of the Middle Coal formation, 
an interval which may include much of the “ Lower Coal Measures ”” 
of Rogers in the Pennsylvania Coal-field. 

Turning to that broader view which takes the prevalent conditions 
of each portion of the period as characteristic, notwithstanding the 

* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. ii. p. 133. ; 

+ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xv. pp. 63 et seg. My friend Mr C. F. Hartt, who 
has more recently studied the marine limestones, has obtained facts which seem to 


indicate the possibility of a more minute subdivision than any hitherto attempted of 
these beds. Vide chapter on L. C. Limestones, infra. 


GEOLOGICAL CYCLES. 137 


local existence of dissimilar conditions, we not only find, as already 
stated, that the sequence in Nova Scotia coincides generally with that 
in other parts of America and in Europe, but that, viewed in this 
aspect, the Carboniferous period constitutes one of fas great physical 
| cycles, which make up the Palzozoic age in Eastern America, and 
each of which was characterized by a great subsidence and partial 
re-elevation, succeeded by a second and very gradual subsidence. 
Viewed in this way, the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate and 
Lower Coal measures correspond analogically with the Oriskany sand- 
stone, the Oneida and Medina sandstones, and the Potsdam and 
Calciferous sandstones. The Carboniferous limestone corresponds with 
the Corniferous limestone, the Niagara limestone, and the Trenton 
- group of limestones. The coal measures Correspond with the Hamil- 
ton group, the Salina group, and the Utica shale. The Upper Coal 
_ formation corresponds with the Chemung, the Lower Helderberg, and 
_ the Hudson-River groups. The Permian is not represented in Eastern 
America; but, as developed in Europe, it clearly constitutes a similar 
eycle. These parallelisms, which deserve more attention from geolo- 
gists than they have yet received, may be tabulated thus :— 


Tabular View of Cycles in the Paleozoic Age in Eastern America. 


(The several formations are arranged in descending order.) 


Carbo- 


Devonian. niferous. 


Character of Group. Lower | Upper 


Silurian. Silurian. 


Sia hing wp cith seat Hudson-River. Lower Helder-\Chemung gr. |Upper coal 


SUIEEUNsanisbscahpcoasntescssavesns STORE berg £roup: formation. 


Elevation, followed by slow 
subsidence, land-surfaces, +|Utica shale. (Salina group. |Hamilton gr. |Coal measures. 
MO acess fovcaserscccvccesssccccesece 

Marine conditions; forma- Trenton, Black Niagara and |Corniferous {Lower Carbo- 


: R.and Chazy, Clinton limestone. niferous 
tion of limestones, etc....... limestones. z limestones. limestone. ' 
Subsidence; disturbances ;)|Potsdam and Oneida and |Oriskany Lower Coal 
deposition of coarse sedi- Calciferous Medina sandstone. measures and 
ment...... Padebs mask sandstones, sandstones. , | conglomerate. 


‘In the Permian of Europe, the Stinkstein, the Rauchwacke, the 
_ Zechstein, and the Rothliegendes might form a fifth parallel column. 
4 Of course ach parallelism might be naan expressed, by reckoning 

a smaller or larger number of groups. Independently of these differ- 
ent modes of statement, however, I believe that the basis of such 
comparisons exists in nature, and that it will prove possible to sub- 


* Dr Sterry Hunt has directed attention to them in a paper “On Bitumens,” 

Silliman’s Journal [2], xxxyv. p. 166, and in the ‘‘ Geology of Canada,” 1863, p. 627 ; 

_ and Dana refers to them in his ‘ Manual of Geology.” Eaton and Hall had previously 
noticed these parallelisms. 


138 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


divide geological time into determinate natural cycles, the parts of 
which are analogous to those of similar cycles. A further question 
to be solved is, whether such cycles corresponded in all parts of the 
world, or whether, as is more likely, the earth might be divided into — 
areas in which in each cycle elevation and subsidence were contem- - 
poraneous. So far as the present subject is concerned, I merely desire 
to show that the Carboniferous rocks of Nova Scotia represent a 
complete cycle of the earth’s history, and correspond in time with the 
Carboniferous of Europe, and in value with the apne great divisions 
of the Paleozoic age. ; 


Summary of facts relating to the mode of accumulation of Coal. 


With regard to this important subject, I would rather invite 
attention to the details to be presented in subsequent pages, than 
© %ake any preliminary general statements. It is, however, necessary 
to notice here the several views which have prevailed as to the probable 
accumulation of coal by driftage or growth in situ, in water or on land. 
I have already, in previous publications,* stated very fully the 
conclusions at which I have arrived on some portions of this subject, 
and I would now sum up the more important general truths as 
follows :—(1.) The occurrence of Stigmaria under nearly every bed of 
coal, proves beyond question that the material was accumulated by 
growth in situ; while the character of the sediments intervening 
between the beds of coal proves with equal certainty the abundant 
transport of mud and sand by water. In other words, conditions 
similar to those of the swampy deltas of great rivers are implied. (2.) 
The true coal consists principally of the flattened bark of Sigillarioid 
and other trees, intermixed with leaves of ferns and Cordaites, and 
other herbaceous debris, and with fragments of decayed wood consti- 
tuting “ mineral charcoal,” all these materials having manifestly atike 
grown and accumulated where we find them. (3.) The microscopical 
structure and chemical composition of the beds of cannel-coal and 
earthy bitumen, and of the more highly bituminous and carbonaceous 
shales, show them to have been of the nature of the fine vegetable 
mud which accumulates in the ponds and shallow lakes of modern 
swamps. When such fine vegetable sediment is mixed, as is often 
the case, with clay, it becomes similar to the bituminous limestone 
and calcareo-bituminous shales of the coal measures. (4.) A few of 
the underclays which support beds of coal are of the nature of the 
vegetable mud above referred to; but the greater part are argillo- 


wre 


we 
—_— 


Me ROA LE 


Peers 


* “On the Structures of Coal,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xv., also vol. xxii.,. 
p- 95, ete. ‘‘ Air-breathers of the Coal Period,” Montreal, 1863, p. 18. 


MODE OF ACCUMULATION OF COAL. 139 


venaceous in composition, with little vegetable matter, and bleached 
by the drainage from them of water containing the products of 
vegetable decay. They are, in short, loamy or clay soils, and must , 
have been sufficiently above water to admit of drainage. The absence 
of sulphurets, and the occurrence of carbonate of iron in connexion 
with them, prove that, when they existed as soils, rain-water, and not 
_ Sea-water, percolated them. (5.) The coal and the fossil forests 
present many evidences of subaérial conditions. Most of the erect and 
_ prostrate trees had become hollow shells of bark before they were © 
finally imbedded, and their wood had broken into eubical pieces of 
_ mineral charcoal. Land-snails and galley-worms (Xylobius) crept into 
them, and they became dens or traps for reptiles. Large quantities 
of mineral charcoal occur on the surfaces of all the larger beds of coal. © 
None of these appearances could have been produced by subaqueous 
action. (6.) Though the roots of Sigillaria bear some resemblance 
to the rhizomes of certain aquatic plants, yet structurally they are 
absolutely identical with the roots of Cycads, which the stems also 
resemble. Further, the Sigillarie grew on the same soils which 
i supported Conifers, Lepidodendra, Cordaites, and ferns—plants which 
could not have grown in water. Again, with the exception, perhaps, 
; of some Pinnularie and Asterophyllites, there is a remarkable absence 
from the coal measures of any form of properly aquatic vegetation. 
\ (7.) The occurrence of marine or brackish-water animals in the roofs 
of coal-beds, or even in the coal itself, affords no evidence of sub- 
aqueous Rieutiulation: since the same thing occurs in the case of 
modern submarine forests. For these and other reasons, some of 
_ which are more fully stated in the papers already referred to, while I 
_ admit that the areas of coal accumulation were frequently submerged, 
_ I must maintain that the true coal is a subaérial accumulation by  , 
vegetable growth on soils wet and swampy, it is true, but not 
_ submerged. I would add the further consideration, already urged 
‘ aoe that, in the case of the fossil forests associated with the coal, . 
_ the conditions of submergence and silting-up which have preserved ihe 
trees as fossils, must have been precisely those which were fatal to their 
existence as lacie plants—a fact sufficiently evident to us in the case 
of modern submarine forests, but often overlooked by the framers of 
theories of the accumulation of coal. / 

It seems strange that the occasional inequalities of the floors of the 
coal-beds, the sand or gravel ridges which traverse them, the channels 
cut through the coal, the occurrence of patches of sand, and the 
insertion of wedges of such material splitting the beds, have been 
regarded by some able geologists as evidences of the aquatic origin 


“Sir W. E. Logan, furnish the key to the whole question of the origin 


_Lyell, with the “cypress-swamps” of the Mississippi, perfectly — 


140 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


of coal. In truth, these appearances are of constant occurrence in 
modern swamps and marshes, more especially near their margins, or 
where they are exposed to the effects of ocean-storms or river-inun- 
dations. The lamination of the coal has also been adduced as a proof 
of aqueous deposition; but the microscope shows, as I have elsewhere - 
pointed out, that this is entirely different from ordinary aqueous lami- 
nation, and depends on the superposition of successive generations of 
more or less decayed trunks of trees and beds of leaves. The lami- 
nation in the truly aqueous cannels = carbonagtous shales is of a 
very different character. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark, that in the above summary I 
have had reference principally to the appearances presented by the 
coal formation of Nova Scotia; though I believe that in a general way 
the conclusions stated will hold good in other countries, as has indeed 
been shown by the admirable researches on this subject of Brongniart, 
Goeppert, Newberry, Binney, Rogers, Lesquereux, and others, whose 
publications on this subject I have read with interest, and have tested 
in their application to the phenomena presented to me in the coal- 
fields of Nova Scotia. I may add, that, in my opinion, the phenomena 
of the Stigmaria underclays, to which attention was first directed by 


of coal, and that the comparisons of coal-deposits, by Sir Charles 


explain all the more important appearances in the coal formation 
of Nova Scotia. 

In the above pages I have endeavoured to state some general 
results of the study of the Carboniferous rocks which may be useful as 
introductory to their more detailed investigation. I now proceed to 
consider the local distribution of these rocks in Acadia, and their 
subdivision into areas more or less distinct. 

The reader must understand that the actual superposition and 
arrangement of all this great thickness of beds, are ascertained by the 
examination of coast and river sections, in which portions of the series 
are seen tilted up, so that they can, by proceeding in the direction 
toward or from which they incline, be seen to rest on each other. 
There is one coast section in Nova Scotia so perfect that nearly the 
whole series is exposed in it. On the other hand, there are large 
areas in which the lower portion alone exists, and perhaps never was 
covered by the upper portions; and there are other areas in which the 
upper members have covered up the lower, so that they appear only 
in a few comparatively limited spots. 

The area occupied by Carboniferous rocks in Nova Scotia and New 


GEOGRAPHICAL ARRANGEMENT. 141 


Brunswick is very extensive; and it is divided by ridges of the 

- older metamorphic rocks into portions which may for convenience 
be considered separately. These are— 

1. The New Brunswick Carboniferous district, the largest in point 

of area in the Acadian provinces. 

2. The Cumberland Carboniferous district, bounded on the south by 
the Cobequid Hills, and continuous on the north-west with the great 
Carboniferous area of New Brunswick. 

3. The Carboniferous district of Minas Basin and Cobequid Bay, 
and its outliers, including the long band of Carboniferous rocks extend- 

_ ing along the south side of the Cobequids, and that reaching along the 

valley of the Musquodoboit River. 

4, The Carboniferous district of Pictou, bounded on the south and 
east by metamorphic hills, and connected on the west with the Cum- 
___ berland district and that last mentioned. 

g 5. The Carboniferous district of Antigonish county, bounded by two 
spurs of the metamorphic hills. 

: 6. The narrow band of Carboniferous rocks extending from the 

Strait of Canseau westward through the county of Guysboro’. 


__ 7. The Carboniferous district of Richmond county and southern 
Inverness. 


8. The Carboniferous district of Inverness and Victoria counties. 
9. The Carboniferous district of Cape Breton county. 


New Views promulgated by Professor Lesley. Comparison with the 
Carboniferous of Europe. 


It may be proper here to refer to points raised by J. P. Lesley, Esq. 
of Philadelphia, in a Report on the Glace Bay Coal-field,* which 
_ appear at variance with the view above given of the constitution of 
the Carboniferous system in Nova Scotia. As Mr Lesley deservedly 
ranks high as an authority in the Coal formation, and as his views 
on this subject, though originating, in my opinion, in misconception 
and imperfect opportunities for observation, were widely circulated 
in the United States, and were introduced into an official Report in 
Nova Scotia, it would be wrong to pass them by without notice. 
Professor Lesley says :—“ Sir William Logan, Sir Charles Lyell, 
Professor Dawson, and other geologists, who have described the Coal © 
measures of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, agree in assigning to 
them an almost incredible thickness.’ He then proceeds to compare, 
on lithological grounds, the shales of Division 5 of Logan’s section 
at the Joggins, with the Lower Carboniferous or Vespertine (No. XI.) 
* Proceedings of American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1862. 


£42 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


of Pennsylvania; and consequently would place the Millstone-grit 
and the Lower Carboniferous limestones and Lower Coal measures 
on the parallel of the Devonian rocks. Such a sweeping change, 
merely on the ground of similarity of mineral character, and in oppo- 
sition to the evidence of fossils, and to the fact of the true Upper - 
Devonian occurring in its proper place in New Brunswick, would, 
unless advocated by a geologist of the standing of Professor Lesley, 
scarcely deserve notice. In the circumstances, hgwever, I considered 
it my duty to send to the Society in whose proceedings Professor 
Lesley’s paper appeared, and of which I have the honour to bea 
Fellow, the following statement of objections to Professor Lesley’s 
views, which I give in full, with Professor Lesley’s rejomder and my 
further explanations, because the points involved are of much import- 


ance and incidentally bring out several very interesting considerations 


in regard to the Coal formation. Their importance in a practical 
point of view may be judged from the fact to be noticed in the sequel, 
that Professor Lesley’s conclusions induced him to diminish by one 


- half the thickness of the Coal formation of Cape Breton, as ascer- 


tained by Mr Brown, and thus to ignore altogether the extension to the 
eastward of the Sydney coal-beds in rear of those of Glace Bay. I 
have to thank Professor Lesley for the courtesy with which, as 
Secretary to the Philosophical Society, he attended to my communi- 
cations, and the fairness with which he met my objections; and 
although I know that he must be (I hope I may say, have been) in ~ 
error in this point, it is scarcely necessary to say that there is no one 
for whose geological acumen I entertain more respect. 


Note on Mr Lesley’s Paper on the Coal Measures of Cape Breton. 


The new facts and general considerations on the Nova Scotia coal- 
field contained in this paper are of the highest interest to all who 
have worked at the geology of Nova Scotia. I think it my duty, 
however, to take exception to some of the statements, which, I think, 
a larger collection of facts would have induced Mr. Lesley himself 
to modify. My objections may be stated under the following heads :— 

(1.) It is scarcely safe to institute minute comparisons between the 
enormously developed coal measures of Nova Scotia and the thinner 
contemporary deposits of the West, any more than it would be to 
compare the great marine limestones of the period at the West with 
the slender representatives of that part of the group to the eastward. 

(2.) There is the best evidence that the coal measures of Nova 


_ Scotia never mantled over the Devonian and Silurian hills of the 


Province, but were, on the contrary, deposited in more or less separate 
areas at their sides. 


iy mae! pt Pe ae: 


COMPARISON WITIL PENNSYLVANIA, ETC. 143 


‘ . (3.) Any one who has carefully compared the coal measures of the 
_ Joggins with those of Wallace and Pictou, must be convinced of the 
hopelessness of comparing individual beds, even at this comparatively 


small distance. A fortiori detailed comparisons with Pennsylvania 


and more distant localities must fail. 


(4.) I do not think that any previous observer has supposed that 


the coal measures of Eastern Cape Breton represent the whole of the 
coal formation of Nova Scotia. The “ Upper Coal measures” of my 


papers on Nova Scotia are certainly wanting, and probably the 
Sydney Coal-field exhibits no beds higher than No. 4 of Logan’s 


__ Joggins section. 


a 


ae 


rm, oe 


(5.) The whole of the coal-beds in the Joggins section belong to 
the Upper and Middle coal measures. It is quite incorrect to iden- 


tify No. 6 of Logan’s section with the Lower Coal measures. These 


do not occur at the Joggins, but are found in Nova Scotia, as in 
Virginia and Southern Pennsylvania, at the base of the system, under 
the marine limestones. The Albert beds are the equivalents of these 
lower measures, and not of the Pictou coal. In my paper cn the 
Lower Carboniferous coal measures (Journal of Geological Society of 
London, 1858), will be found a summary of the structure of the 
Lower Coal measures, as shown at Horton Bluff, and elsewhere. The 
term ‘true coal measures,” quoted by Mr. Lesley, does not mean in 
my description the Middle Coal measures, but merely that part of 
them holding the workable coal-seams. 

(6.) Whatever may be the value of M. Lesquereux’s applications 
of the fossil flora to the identification of coal-seams in the West, I am 
prepared to state, as the result of an extensive series of observations, 


still for the most part unpublished, that in Nova Scotia the flora is 


identical throughout the whole enormous thickness of the Middle coal 
measures, and that the differences observable between different seams 
are attributable rather to difference of station and conditions of 
preservation than to lapse of time. It is indeed true, as I have 
elsewhere explained, that the assemblages of species in the Lower, 
Middle, and Upper Coal measures may be distinguished ; but within 
these groups the differences are purely local, and afford no means for 
the identification of beds in distant places. 

(7.) I do not desire to offer any opinion on the questions raised by 
some American geologists as to the extension of the term Carboniferous 
to the Chemung group; but I know as certain facts, that the flora of 
the Lower Coal measures, under the marine limestones and gypsums 
of Nova Scotia, is wholly Carboniferous, and that the flora, on which 
alone I consider myself competent to decide, of the Chemung of New 


144 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


York, as now understood by Professor Hall and others, and also of 
the groups in Pennsylvania, named by Rogers Vergent and Ponent 
(? IX. and X. of Mr Lesley), is as decidedly Devonian, and quite 
distinct from that of the Carboniferous period.* 

For Mr Lesley’s ability as a stratigraphical geologist I have the - 
highest respect; and with reference to the present subject, would 
merely desire to point out that he may not have possessed a sufficient 
number of facts to warrant some of his generalizations, on which in 
the meantime I would, for the reasons above stated, desire geologists 
to suspend their judgment. 

The following is the rejoinder of Professor Lesley, omitting some 
general discussions not important to the subject in hand :— 

“Professor Dawson’s first objection is a begging of the very ques- 
tion, Whether the coal measures of Nova Scotia are ‘ enormously 
developed?’ That, in one little spot of the earth’s surface like Nova 
Scotia, and that, too, midway between the great coal areas of America 
and those of Europe, wherein the thickness of coal measures proper 
ranges from 2000 to 5000 feet, if they even attain the latter size, there 
should be an anomalous deposit of 25,000 feet, is incredible. What 
the great Bohemian paleontologist, by unerring instinct, said to us 
after our thirty years’ war over the Taconic system, there must be a 
mistake somewhere, I must repeat to those who so ‘enormously develop’ 
the Nova Scotia coal measures. And my intention in the paper on 
Nova Scotia coal was only to suggest one formula on which the error 
might be discussed. I distinctly repudiated the safety of instituting 
‘minute comparisons.’ My comparison of the Cape Breton coals and 
the column at Pittsburg was carefully made in the most general 
manner, and the resemblance called a coincidence. But the value of 
the comparison remains; for it affords a new argument in favour of 
the family likeness of those parts of the general coal measures of dif- 
ferent countries, which have a right to the specific title of ‘ productive 
coals.’ The argument also remains good, that if 2000 feet of coal 
measures in Missouri can be recognised in 2000 feet of coal measures 
in Kentucky, Virginia, and Eastern Pennsylvania, the very same 
system of beds, bed for bed, being demonstrated first by stratigraphy, 
and then by paleontology (and such is the fact), why not in Nova 
Scotia ? 

“T have no doubt that some of the coal measures of the British 
Provinces may have been ‘deposited in more or less separated areas 
at the sides of the Devonian and Silurian hills,’ as Professor Dawson 


* See Paper on Devonian Flora of Eastern America, Jour. Lond. Geol. Soc. 
November, 1862. : 


COMPARISON WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA, ETC. 145 


says (2). But I confess to a complete scepticism of the great extent 
which has been assigned to this unconformability of the coal measures 
upon the lower rocks; first, because most of the Island of Cape 
Breton, and much of the surface of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 
are confessedly unstudied and almost unknown; secondly, because 
the incredible thickness assigned to the coal measures throws doubt — 
upon the positions assigned to the unconformable horizons; thirdly, 
because the coal-beds themselves stand almost vertical in many places 
round the shores; fourthly, because the mountains of Nova Scotia, 
with apparently conformable Carboniferous limestones, have appar- 
ently an Appalachian structure and aspect, have suffered vast denu- 
dation, exhibit cliff outcrops and section ravines, and may just as well 
have carried coal upon their original backs as we can prove that our 
Tussey, Black Log, Nescopec, Mahoning, Buffalo, Tuscarora, Brush, 
and other Silurian and Devonian mountains did. There is an immense 
unconformable chasm in the column west of the Hudson River, and 
the Catskill Mountains over it have no coal upon their backs; but 
the coal comes in regularly enough on them at the Lehigh (a less 
distance than from Sydney to St Peters, or from Pictou to Windsor), 
and the unconformability in the Upper Silurian and Devonian has 
already disappeared. 

* Professor Dawson’s fourth objection would be good, if I had really 
‘supposed the coal measures of eastern Cape Breton to represent the 
whole of the coal measures of Nova Scotia.’ But I only suggested 
that they may prove to be the equivalents of the system of productive 
coal measures ; that is all. Between the Monongahela and the Ohio, 
our column of productive coals is capped by another of barren shales 
and soft sandstones of unknown height, by one estimate 3000 feet 
thick; and part of this column may represent the so-called Permian 
Measures, which, in Kansas, cap conformably the coal measures. 
Having no knowledge of the fossils, I have no desire to oppose the 
conclusions of Professor Dawson, as to the part of the column of the 
Joggins in which the Glace Bay coals apply, but hope that his accu- 
rate handling of them will secure some certainty about it. It was 
the grouping of the beds, and not the fossils, which I wished to 
bring into prominent notice; because the doctrine of isolated basins, 
when unfounded or overapplied, is as injurious to lithological truth 
as the careless identification of surface aspect may at any moment 
prove to paleontology. I willingly leave to accomplished palxon- 
tologists like Professor Dawson, the discussion of the grand general- 
ization embodied in his sixth objection; but I may be permitted to 
believe that it has had its birth in the doctrine of isolated basins, and 

. K 


146 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


that the two must stand or fall together. It also seems to me to 
involve radical inconsistencies; for if I comprehend it, it asserts (1.) 
That the flora of the whole coal measures (25,000 feet?) is identical ; 
that is, the vertical distribution of each and all the plants is complete 


from the bottom to the top. (2.) That nevertheless there are differences . 


observable between different coal-beds. (3.) That these are attributable 
rather to difference of station and conditions of preservation than to 
lapse of time ; that is, if we could take the beds, each one in its whole 
extent and its fossils in their original condition, there would be no 
differences observable between different seams after all. (4.) That 


groups or assemblages of species in the Lower, Middle, and Upper | 


Coal measures may nevertheless be distinguished; that is, while each 
and every species may be found occasionally in all parts of the column 
from bottom to top, yet this happens in such a manner as to group 
some of them more abundantly, or in certain peculiar proportions in 
the Lower, others in the Middle, and others in the Upper portions of 
it. (5.) That, after all, however, these groups are not persistent, but 
differ at different localities, and are as worthless as the specific forms 
themselves for the identification of a single bed in more than one 
place.—Is it possible that all this has been made out, or can be made 
out, except in a country of horizontal coal measures, well opened for 
study, where the stratification can be established beforehand, and the 
range of the fossils be undoubted ?”’ 


With reference to this rejoinder, as Professor Lesley seemed to © 


have misapprehended some of the points briefly stated in my first 
letter, I thought it necessary to make the following additional expla- 
nations :— 

“© 1, Dr Dawson is not aware that he has, at any time, maintained 
that the “coal measures proper’ of Nova Scotia are 25,000 feet in 
thickness. In speaking of their enormous thickness, he referred to the 
actual measurements of Sir W. E. Logan at the Joggins, which give 
for the whole of the Carboniferous rocks seen in that section, a vertical 
thickness of 15,570 feet, and for the coal measures proper, or Middle 
Coal formation, a thickness of rather less than 10,000 feet. The 
objections based by Mr Lesley on this supposed thickness of 25,000 
feet, are therefore quite inapplicable to the views of Dr Dawson. 

“2, Dr Dawson does not admit the interpretation of his views as 
to the unity of the coal flora given by Mr Lesley. The ‘inconsistencies’ 
alleged by the latter depend in part on the imaginary thickness of 
25,000 feet attributed to the Middle Coal measures. The identity of 
the flora throughout the Middle Coal formation, and the distinctions 
between this and the assemblages of plants in the Lower and Upper 


COMPARISON WITH THE PENNSYLVANIA, ETC. 147 


Coal formation, admit of being readily ascertained, where good ex- 

_ posures exist, as in Nova Scotia; and it is to be borne in mind that 
_ my investigations on this subject have extended over more than 

twenty years, though many of the details ascertained have not yet 

been published.* 

8. It should be understood that the Carboniferous system in Nova 

Scotia consists of the following members :— 

— — -(1.) Lhe Upper Coal Formation. 

_——-(2.) The Middle Coal Formation. 

__—-«* (3.) ‘The Millstone-grit Series, represented in Nova Scotia by red 

and gray sandstone, shale, and conglomerate, with a few fossil plants 

‘ and thin coal seams, not productive. 

_«*(4,) Lhe Carboniferous Limestone, with the associated sandstones, 

_ maris, gypsum, ete., and holding marine fossils, recognised by all 

___ palzontologists who have examined them as Carboniferous. 


“(5.) The Lower Coal Measures, holding some but not all of the 
fossils of the Middle Coal formation, and thin coals, not productive ; 
but differing both in flora and fauna from the Upper Devonian, which, 

in New Brunswick, they overlie unconformably. 

“The principal, though not the only point in which Mr Lesley 
differs from Logan, Lyell, Brown, and Dawson, is his entire omission 
of No. 5 of the above series, and placing No. 3 in its room, as the 
representative of the Lower Coal measures of Virginia and Penn- 
sylvania. I have, I think, already made this sufficiently plain in the 
fifth of my objections, already published ; but may add here that fossils 
as well as stratigraphical position establish the real equivalency of 
No. 5, and not No. 3, to the Lower Coal formation, as described by 
Lesquereux in America, and by Goeppert in Europe; and that it seems 
strange that Mr Lesley, while suggesting minor and more dubious 
parallelisms, declines to admit this identification, established by long 
and careful investigations of several competent observers, and con- 
firmed by the evidence of fossils.” 

It will be seen from the above discussion, that the Carboniferous 
series in Nova Scotia, though limited in area, is of great thickness; 
and that within the limits of Acadia the strictly marine as well as the 
coal-bearing portions of this great group of rocks are represented with 
a completeness not to be found in any one coal area of the United 
States, where the marine limestones are enormously developed in the 
west at the expense of the coal measures, and the latter at the 
expense of the marine members in the east. 

In the United States, however, the Lower Coal measure flora has 


* Since published—Journal of Geol. Society, May 1866. 


a 


148 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


been recognised by Lesquereux, who has also marked out a number 
of interesting parallelisms in the beds of the Middle Coal formation. 
In Illinois and Iowa, the Lower Carboniferous marine limestones 
present several important subdivisions, and still farther west there 
appear to be Upper Carboniferous marine beds graduating ave . 
into Permian. 

In England the Mountain Limestone, the Millstone-grit, and the 
Coal Formation, have been the members usually recognised, but” 
recently attention has been attracted to the Lower Coal measures, 
which are also developed there; and in 1865, I saw in the Museum 
of the Geological Survey a small collection of undetermined plants 
from these beds, perfectly corresponding to those of the Lower Coal 
formation of Nova Scotia. The term Lower Coal measures is, how- 
ever, in England and Scotland, usually applied to beds corresponding 
to the lower part of the Middle Coal formation of the above classifi- 
eation. With regard to the Upper Coal formation, its equivalent is 
recognised in the English and Scottish coal-fields as the overlying 
barren coal measures, either destitute of coal or with thin and un-_ 
workable seams, and which in the Lancashire Coal-field amount to 
nearly 2000 feet in thickness. In Lancashire these beds are very 
similar to the corresponding series in Nova Scotia. In the Scottish 
coal-fields they contain marine limestones,—a circumstance which 
occurs in one instance in Nova Scotia. Much remains to be done in 
Great Britain for the proper working out of the distinction in the — 
flora of the members of the Carboniferous system, the study of fossil 
plants of the coal having been much neglected by geologists. 

In Germany, where the subject of the coal flora has received 
greater attention, the subdivisions have been more fully worked out; 
and I have much pleasure in quoting the following remarks by 
Professor Geinitz of Dresden, from a review of my paper on the “ Con- 
ditions of Accumulation of Coal,” in the “ Isis,” 1866 :— 

“In comparing the distribution of this flora with that in the various 
zones of the Carboniferous of Europe, it is first of all a surprising 
fact, that there also the zone of the Lower Coal formation must be de- 
signated, as in Europe, the Lycopodiaceous zone, since Lepidodendron 
corrugatum is the most remarkable and predominant plant in it. But 
this species approaches so closely the Lycopodites polyphyllus, Rom. 
sp. (Geinitz, Flora of the Hainichen, Ebersdorf Basin), that both of 
them might be considered as identical, whilst Lep. tetragonum St. 
(Gein., ete.), and Knorria imbricata St. (Gein., etc.), which we must 
still continue to regard as an independent plant, are likewise quite 
characteristie of the oldest Coal formation or culm of Europe. The 


COMPARISON WITH THE CARBONIFEROUS OF EUROPE, 149 


Cyclopteris Acadica, Daws., of the Lower Coal measures of North 
America, also is very nearly allied to the Cyclopteris tenuifolia, 
_ Gépp., in the German culm. 

“ The predominance of the Sigillaria and Stigmaria in the Middle 

Coal formation, proves the identity of this zone with our European 
zone of Sigillaria; and the analogy with the flora of the principal 
beds of coal of England and Ireland is particulary striking, especially 
through the great extension of the Alethopteris lonchitica, which is 
never wanting there. 
“ When, finally, Dawson sets forth in a prominent manner, that in 
_ the uppermost division of Sir W. Logan’s section of the South 
Joggins, which corresponds with the upper part of the Upper Coal 
_ formation, trunks of conifers and Calamites, Cal. Suckovit, etc., and C. 
_ approximatus, by the side of Aspidiaria, ete., are the faisile most 
frequently to be met with, we are enabled to place this zone nearly 
on a level with the zone of Calamites, or the third band of vegetation 
in Germany. 

“Thus the succession in the flora of the Coal formation, as we 
have ascertained it for Europe, appears to have been established for 
America also by Dr Dawson’s profound investigations, and they will 
5 probably soon be followed by the discovery of the oni of the 
___ two upper zones,—the ‘ Annularia’ and ‘ Fern’ zones.’ 

4 It will be observed that Professor Geinitz anticipates the separation 
__ of two additional zones in the Upper Coal formation. Of these I 
_ have as yet no distinct evidence, and the paucity of fossils in these 

Upper rocks may render it difficult to make such distinctions. Un- 

doubtedly, however, Annularia galioides, Cordaites simplex, and 

several ferns, as Pecopteris arborescens and Alethopteris nervosa, are 
characteristic of some of the newest beds known to me in the coal- 
field of Pictou. 


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150 


CHAPTER XI. 
THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND — SECTION AT THE 
SOUTH JOGGINS. 


Tuouan the great triangular area of Carboniferous rocks in eastern 
New Brunswick is the largest in Acadia, it does not present such 
admirable facilities for the study of these rocks as those afforded by 
the coast sections in Western Cumberland; we shall therefore first 
study these with some minuteness, as typical of the whole Acadian 
Carboniferous districts, and afterwards notice the larger New Bruns- 
wick area. 

The rocks of the Cumberland Carboniferous area have a general 
trough-shaped arrangement, which in the western part of the county 
at least appears to be very regular. (See General Section.) On the 
south side, all along the base of the Cobequids, we find conglomerates 
and other Lower Carboniferous rocks dipping to the north, and forming 
the southern edge of the trough. Resting on these are the beds of 
the Coal formation, still dipping to the northward. Toward the centre 
of the county, we find the rocks of the Upper Coal formation slightly 
inclined and finally dipping to the south, to form part of the northern 
side of the trough. Proceeding onward, we find the repetition of the 
Older Coal formation and Lower Carboniferous series with southerly dips. 
The latter extends into New Brunswick, where it turns over and dips 
to the northward, underlying the great Carboniferous plain of that pro- 
vince. In crossing the county of Cumberland, this regular arrange- 
ment of the beds is evidenced by the long parallel ridges that cross 
the country from east to west, and which are produced by the out- 
cropping edges of beds of firm sandstone, which have resisted wasting 
agencies better than the softer beds that occur between them. ‘There 
is, however, reason to believe, as we shall find in the sequel, that in 
the central and eastern part of the Cumberland trough there are 
subordinate undulations which prevent the coal-beds from running 
continuously across the country, and that in some places the Coal forma- 


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CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND. 151 


tion seems to abut against the older rocks of the Cobequid Mountains, 

without the intervention of the Lower Carboniferous. On the western 
coast of the county, the cliffs fronting Chiegnecto Bay and Cumber- 
land Basin, and which have been cut and are kept clean and fresh by 
the same agencies which we have already noticed in treating of the 
Trap and New Red Sandstone coasts, furnish the best and most com- 
plete section of the Carboniferous rocks in Nova Scotia, and one of the 
finest in the world; and on this account I shall commence with its 
description, as affording the best guide to the understanding of the 
more obscure and complicated parts of the formation. 

This remarkable section, now well known to geologists as the South 
Joggins section, extends across almost the whole north side of the 
Cumberland trough, and exhibits its beds in a continuous series, dip- 
ping 8. 25° W. at an angle of 19°; so that in proceeding along the 
coast from north to south, for a distance of about ten miles, we con- 
stantly find newer and newer beds; and these may be seen both ina 
bold cliff and in a clean shore, which at low tide extends to a distance 
of 200 yards from its base. We thus see a series of beds amounting 
to more than 14,000 feet in vertical thickness, and extending from the 
marine limestones of the Lower Carboniferous series to the top of the 
Coal formation. In the cliff and on the beach, more than seventy seams ~ 
of coal may be seen, with their roof-shales and underclays, and erect 
plants appear at as many distinct levels; while the action of the waves 
and of the tide, which rises to the height of forty feet, prevents the 
collection of debris at the foot of the cliff, and continually exposes new 
and fresh surfaces of rock. 

In describing this section, I shall take as guides Sir W. E. Logan’s 
elaborate section of the whole coast, including 14,570 feet 11 inches 
of vertical thickness, and a re-examination of 2800 feet of the most 
interesting part of the section made by Sir Charles Lyell and the 
writer in 1852 and 1853, and published in the Proceedings of the 
Geological Society of London for the latter year, with additional facts 
ascertained by myself in subsequent visits, and many of which have _ 
been published in my more recent papers. I shall proceed in the © 
ascending order, or from the older to the newer beds, and shall inter- 
pret each new appearance as it occurs. In this way I hope to give to 
the attentive reader a more accurate idea of the structure and mode of 
formation of a coal-field than he could obtain in any other way, except 
by an examination of the actual coast section described. 

The oldest beds of the Lower Carboniferous series do not appear in 
the coast section, but may be studied at Napan River and other places 
near Amherst. They consist of sandstones and marly clays, including 


! LM} 
4 

id 
; 


152 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


thick beds of limestone and gypsum. The mode of formation of this 
last rock I shall not now notice, as better opportunities will occur 
hereafter. Respecting the limestones, I may remark that they are 
marine deposits, formed in an open sea tenanted by various kinds of 
shell-fish, ete., the remains of which still exist in the limestone. They - 
are principally bivalves of a family (the Brachiopoda) once very abun- 
dant, but in the modern world represented by very few species; and 
the most abundant shell of this kind in these limestones is the Pro- 
ductus Cora, a finely striated species, having one valve very convex 
externally, and the other very concave. It is found in rocks of the 
same age in Great Britain. There is also a nautilus, nearly resembling 
in form the nautilus of recent tropical seas, but smaller in size; and 
there are numerous fragments of Crinoids, a tribe of creatures allied to 
modern star-fishes, but furnished with a stem by which they were 
attached to the bottom, while their radiating arms extended on all sides 
in quest of prey. These limestones must have been formed in a sea 
whose waves lashed the slopes of the Cobequid Mountains and ground 
up the pebbles of old rocks which now form conglomerates on their 
flanks, while beds of shells were accumulating in its more quiet depths. 
Its northern boundary may have been the Silurian and metamorphic 
rocks of Lower Canada and Labrador. 

The limestones above described dip to the southward ; and if we 
proceed across the country in the direction of their strike, we find them 
again with the same fossils on the Hebert River near Minudie; andin ~ 
the opposite or eastern direction, at several places nearly in a line 
between the Napan and Pugwash Harbour on the shore of Northumber- 
land Strait, where the limestone with its characteristic marine fossils is 
largely developed. Leaving in the meantime the rocks that lie to the 
northward of and under this limestone, we may take that part of it 
which appears near Minudie as the base of the Joggins section. Fol- 
lowing its direction across from Hebert River to the Joggins coast, we 
find there that it is overlaid conformably by a great series of sandstones 
and shales, which we shall now proceed to describe, just as we should 
see them if walking along the coast; and if this process should seem at 
all tedious to the reader, I beg him to remember that this finely 
exposed series of beds furnishes the key which will enable us to under- 
stand the whole structure of the Coal formation of Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick ; and further, that this key to facts so important both 
in geology and in reference to the economical value of the coal-fields, 
is now for the first time brought in a complete form before the general 
reader. 

Commencing at Seaman’s Brook in Mill Cove, and taking Logan’s 


a CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND. 153 


carefully detailed section as our guide, we see in the low cliffand in the _ 


shore-reefs beds of reddish and gray sandstone, alternating with red- 


dish shales or beds of hardened and laminated clay. In a few places 
we find among these beds layers of gypsum and of a coarse sandy 
limestone. In several of the gray beds there are fragments of trunks 
_ and branches of trees, converted into coal, and resembling, what they 


certainly once were, drift trees embedded in sand-banks. Associ- 
ated with these remains, we find in four of the beds small quantities 


_ of the gray sulphuret and green carbonate of copper, minerals intro- 


duced into these beds by waters holding sulphate of copper in solution, 
which the carbonaceous matter of the fossil wood has deoxidized, and 
thereby caused its deposition. Such appearances are not infrequent in 
beds containing fossil plants, but they have not hitherto been found to 
afford sufficient quantities of copper to be of any practical value. I 
may also remark here, in connexion with the occurrence of fossil plants 
in gray rather than in red beds, that in the coal formation, as in the 
modern marshes and peat-bogs already described, the presence of 
vegetable matter has often destroyed the red colour of beds tinged with 
peroxide of iron, and hence the fossils are in some sense the cause of 
the gray colour of the beds in which they are found. Beds of the 
kinds just described occupy the shore to a distance equal to 2308 
feet, as ascertained by the careful measurements of each bed made by Sir 
W.E. Logan. I may remind the reader, that as these beds dip to the 
south-west, we are constantly proceeding from older to newer beds. 
In the succeeding 3240 feet of beds we find a similar series, with 
some additional features indicating our approach to the great masses 
of fossil vegetables entombed in the true coal measures which overlie 
them. There are here nine seams of coal, all very thin, their total 
thickness being only ten inches; and under each seam we observe a 


_ bed of clay or crumbling argillaceous sandstone, with remains of roots 


belonging to plants to be noticed hereafter, and which had much to 
do with the accumulation of the coal. We find also in this thick 
series of sandstones and shales several bands of hard black limestone, 
yielding a bituminous and almost animal smell when rubbed or struck, 
and containing abundance of little diamond-shaped plates with smooth 
and polished surfaces, which, if we are acquainted with the animals of 


_ the Coal period, we recognise as the scales of a singular tribe of fish, 


the Ganoids, of which numerous species abounded in the Carboniferous 

period, but which are now represented in America only by the bony 

pikes of the Canadian lakes, and a few other fresh-water fishes. There 

is also in this part of the section a far greater prevalence of gray sand- 

Stones than in the part previously noticed, and in these gray sandstones 
L 


154 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


are immense quantities of fossil plants, most of them trunks of trees _ 
confusedly intermingled and flattened more or less by pressure; others _ 
long cylindrical reed-like stems (Calamites), or immense creeping roots 
dotted all over with pits from which their rootlets sprang (Stégmarie). 
In most of these fossils the bark is converted into hard shining coal, _ 
but the wood has decayed away, and the hollow cavity left within the 
bark, has been filled with sand now hardened into stone like that 
without. This is a distinct process from petrifaction properly so 
called, in which the minute cells of the wood become so filled with 
mineral matter that the minutest parts of the structure are preserved. 
Some of the gray sandstones of this part of the section are of great 
thickness, and in them are the most important quarries of the Joggins 
grindstones, which are exported to all parts of the United States. — 
‘These grindstones have been formed from beds of sand deposited in 
such a manner that the grains are of nearly uniform fineness, and they 
have been cemented together with just sufficient firmness to give 
cohesion to the stone, and yet to permit its particles to be gradually 
rubbed off by the contact of steel. A piece of grindstone may 
appear to be a very simple matter, but it is very rarely that rocks are 
so constituted as perfectly to fulfil these conditions, and hence the 
great demand for the Joggins stone. 
This part of the section suggests many interesting inquiries respect- — 
ing the mode of formation of some of its beds, but I postpone these 
till we arrive at those portions which show coal measures, properly so 
called, on a somewhat larger scale. 
Proceeding along the coast, we find that the strata last described — 
are overlaid by a series amounting to 2082 feet in vertical thickness, 
and differing from the last group of beds in containing fewer gray © 
sandstones, no coal-seams or bituminous limestones, and comparatively 
few fossil plants, and these but imperfectly preserved. This series, 
then, consists in great part of reddish shales and reddish and gray 
sandstones. These, and indeed the greater part of the rocks com- — 
posing the part of the section we have examined, must originally have 
consisted of beds of reddish sand and mud, spread over the bed of that 


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: ancient Carboniferous sea once tenanted by the shells of the Napan 
i limestone, much in the same manner that layers of mud are now 
oe deposited in the Bay of Fundy. 
Se A 


We have now, after passing over beds amounting altogether to the 


enormous thickness of 7636 feet, reached the commencement of the 
: true coal measures, or that part of the section which was examined in 
i detail by Sir Charles Lyell and the writer in 1852 and 1853. Owing 
ay to the comparative softness of the rocks of the last group described, 


a ia 
«, 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF CUMBERLAND, 155 


‘they have in many places been worn down nearly to the level of the 
beach, so that they cannot be very distinctly observed. Fortunately, 


rise into a high cliff; and every one can be measured, and its mineral 
— character and fossil contents observed, by any person who is content 
_ to labour diligently, and who is not too apprehensive that he may be 
buried under the falling cliffs, which, especially in the spring and in 
stormy weather, often send down very threatening showers of stones, 
and sometimes terrible landslips. This portion of the section, then, I 
shall give in detail, as one of the best specimens in the world of that 
wonderful series of fossiliferous beds constituting the great coal 
measures of the Carboniferous period; but before doing so we may 
complete this general view of the coast section. 
a Proceeding along the coast from the Joggins Mines, we find, toward 
Ragged Reef, coal measures still exposed, but with fewer and thinner 
beds of coal. At Ragged Reef there are again very important and 
valuable beds of grindstone. Beyond this all the way to Shoulie 
- River, the coast shows sandstones and shales belonging to the Upper 
Coal Formation. In this we no longer find beds of coal ; red sandstones 
and shales become more abundant, and the gray sandstones become 
coarse and pebbly, holding rounded fragments of quartz and syenite 
similar to that of the Cobequid Mountains. Fossils are not abundant ; 
but Calamites, Stigmaria, Lepidodendra, and large petrified trunks 
of the pine trees of the coal formation, still appear. The general 
aspect of these beds is, to a great extent, similar to that of the Mill- 
stone-grit series, and this upper mass of barren coal measures may 
perhaps be defined to be the weight laid upon the coals to press them 
into the required consistency. The whole coal formation and its | 
accompaniments may thus be compared to a huge botanical drying 
press. The millstone-grit is the lower board; the true coal measures 
represent the plants laid out between leaves of clay and sand instead 
of paper, and the Upper Coal Formation is the upper board and weight. 
Toward Shoulie River the dip of the beds diminishes to 5°, and 
beyond this little stream, which seems to be in the middle of the 
synelinal, the dips change to N.E. (North 10° E. was observed on the 
bank of the river), and the beds are repeated with these north-easterly 
- dips, until at Apple River they finally rest against those old rocks of 
Cape Chiegnecto, which form the limit of the Cumberland trough in 
this direction. I have not visited Apple River; but from Mr Donald 
Fraser, an explorer who visited this place under my direction, I learn 
that at Mill Brook, south-east of Apple River, there is a bed of coal 
one inch in thickness, and dipping to the north at a small angle. It 


f 


156 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


is associated with coarse sandstones and conglomerate, and probably 
belongs to the Lower Coal Measures or Millstone-grit series, the marine 
limestones being apparently absent. At least this is the interpretation 
I should be inclined to put upon the appearances, in connexion with 
the fact that along the north side of the Cobequids the marine Lower _ 
Carboniferous is either absent or overlapped by the higher members _ 
of the series in all the localities which I have explored. 

In the first edition of this work, I gave in detail the thickness of 
2819 feet explored by Sir Charles Lyell and myself in 1852, omitting 
the rest. I think it better in the present edition to give a condensed 
view of the whole, dwelling more particularly on the constitution and 
accompaniments of the beds of coal, and adopting the numbers and 
divisions both of the general section of Sir W. E. Logan and of that 
contained in my paper on the South Joggins already referred to, and 
in a more recent paper on the “ Conditions of Accumulation of Coal.” 
In excuse for occupying so much space with such details, I may plead 
that this list presents perhaps the most minute anatomy of a coal- 
field ever given to the public; and that the reader who takes the 
trouble to examine it with care, will thereby obtain a very accurate 
conception of the arrangement and accompaniments of beds of coal, 
and also of their probable mode of accumulation. The fossil plants 
and animals referred to are described in the chapters devoted to 
fossils. 

It will be observed that in this sectional view the order is descending, - 
or the reverse of that followed in the above general sketch. 


i 
i Sectional View of the Carboniferous Rocks exposed in the Coast of 
4 the South Joggins, Cumberland (order descending). 


The “ Divisions” and the numbers attached to the several beds of 
coal or “ Coal groups” are those of Sir W. E. Logan’s section of 1845. 
The numbers of “ Subdivisions ” in Roman numerals are those of the 
author’s section of 1852. 


“>> - —_ 
ont oe ot ees 


TS eee 
ee ee SS 


es i 
i 


Division 1. 


K 


OP eee 


This extends along the coast from Shoulie River to the vicinity of 
Ragged Reef, being nearly horizontal at the former place and gradually 
assuming a decided south-west dip towards the latter. It is 1617 
feet in vertical thickness, and constitutes the upper part of the “ Upper 
Coal Formation.” It occupies the centre of the great synclinal of the 
western part of the Cumberland coal area, and represents the newest 
beds of the Carboniferous system. 

The rocks are thick-bedded white and gray sandstones, passing in 


SS 


2 eee a ee 
Se es aa 


a 
SS 
—_— 
7 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 157 


some places into conglomerates with quartz pebbles, and interstratified 
with reddish and chocolate shales. The sandstones predominate. 
Fossils are not numerous in these beds. Those found are Dadoxy- 
lon materiarium, of which there are many drifted trunks in the sand- 
stones, in a blackened and calcified condition, Calamites Suckovii, C. 
-Cistit, Calamodendron approximatum, Lepidodendron undulatum, 
Lepidophloios parvus, and Stigmaria ficoides. As in the Upper Coal 
Formation of Pictou, trunks of Conifers and Calamites are the most 
abundant fossils. 
Division 2. 

This occurs at Ragged Reef and its vicinity. Its thickness is 650 

feet. It constitutes the lower part of the Upper Coal Formation. 

_ The rocks are white and gray sandstones with occasional reddish 

beds, and red and gray shales. The sandstones and shales are nearly 
in equal proportions. Underclays, or soils supporting erect plants, 
probably Sigillaria, occur at two levels. 

Fossils are not numerous. Those collected were Sigillaria scutellata 
and Stigmaria ficoides, Calamites' Suckovii, Sphenopteris hymenophyl- 
' loides, Alethopteris lonchitica, Cyclopteris heterophylla(?), Beinertia 
__ Geepperti, and portions of the strobiles of two species of Lepidophloios, 
namely, Lepidophyllum lanceolatum and L. trinerve. 

Division 3. 
This extends in descending order from the vicinity of Ragged Reef 
to M‘Cairn’s Brook. Its thickness is 2134 feet. It includes the 
upper part of the “ Middle Coal Formation,” and is perhaps equivalent, 
in part at least, to the Upper Coal Measures of Great Britain, and to 
_ the Upper Coal Formation of American authors. 

It includes 1009 feet of sandstone, almost all of which is gray, and 
912 feet of gray and reddish shale and clay. It contains 22 beds of 
—eoal, all of small thickness, and most of them of coarse quality. 
Below, I give each bed of coal in detail, with its roof and floor and 
its fossils; and the intervening mechanical beds in brackets. The 
thickness of the roofs and flogrs is included in that stated for the 

intervening beds. ’ 


ft. in. 
(Carbonaceous shale, gray understone, with Stigmaria 
and gray shale) . : ; : : « 20 
Gray argillaceous shale. 
Coal-group 1....... Coal, linch . ne ie 
Gray argillaceous underclay, Stig gmaria. 


The roof holds abundance of Alethopteris lonchitica. The 
coal is coarse and earthy, with much epidermal and bast 


ae. Le re 


- 


158 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
c 


tissue,* vascular bundles of ferns, and impressions of Sigillaria 
and Cordaites. It is a compressed vegetable soil or dirt-bed, 
resting on an argillaceous subsoil with rootlets of Stigmaria. 


(Gray and reddish sandstones and gray and red shales 
with ironstone nodules) : 2 - 2381 6 
( Reddish argillaceous shale. da 
Coal, 1 inch 
J Carbonaceous shale, 4 ‘inches ; 4 ‘ +. ae 
| Coal,1inch 
| Reddish underclay, Stigmaria. 


The coal is coarse, earthy, and shaly. It contains Cordaites, 
fern stipes, and bast tissue. 


Coal-group 2........ 


(Reddish shale and gray sandstone, the latter seen 
in the cliff to thin out and es Ber to reddish 
shale) inet: 53 9 
Gray sandstone. 
Coal-group 3....... Coal, 1inch . Pad Es Jha. | 
Gray and reddish sandy understone, Stigmaria. 
The coal is coarse and shaly. No fossils were observed, 


except stumps and rootlets of Stigmaria in the underclay. 


The coal is coarse and earthy. No fossils were observed, 
except Stigmaria rootlets in the underclay. This and the last 
coal are to be regarded merely as fossil vegetable soils or dirt- 


beds. 


(Gray sandstone and gray and reddish shale. One 
underclay, and erect Calamites in the lowest bed) 239 6 
Gray argillaceous shale. 
Coal-group 5...... Coal, 2 inches f ote ORG 
Gray argillo-arenaceous underclay, " Stigmaria. 


The coal is filled with leaves of Cordaites borassifolia, divid- 
ing it into thin papery layers. The underclay has many large 
branching roots of Stigmaria. 


(Gray shale and sandstone) 19/60 
Gray arenaceous shale. 

Coal-group 6....... Coal, 3 inches 0 3 
Gray argillo-arenaceous underelay, ‘Stigmaria. 


This coal is composed of flattened bark of Sigillaria, of which 
there are many layers in the thickness of the bed. The species 
are not distinguishable. 


* For explanation as to the nature of these and other structures in the coal, see 
chapter on “‘ Plants of the Coal Formation.” 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 


(Gray sandstone and shale. One underclay with 
Stigmaria) . P , . . 
' Gray argillaceous shale. : 
2 Coal, 1 villa Ft ag 
Gray argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria, 1 ft. 6 in. 
 Coal-group 7....... Coal, 2 inches. ize 

s Gray argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria, 4 inches. 
Coal, 1 inch 
Gray argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This is an alternation of thin coarse coals or fossil vegetable 
‘soils with Stigmaria subsoils. The roof-shale contains erect 
Calamites, which seem to have been the last vegetation which 
grew on the surface of the upper coal. 


(Gray and reddish sandstones and shales) 
Red and gray shale. 


Coal-group 8....... Coal, 1 inch 
Gray hard underlay, Stigmaria, 


This coal contains flattened trunks of Sigillaria scutellata, 
or an allied species, and of other Sigillariw, also abundance of 
vascular bundles of ferns and portions of epidermal tissues of 
different plants. 


| (Gray sandstone and red and gray shales. Stigmaria 
in the upper bed, and prostrate Sigillaria and 
Cordaites in some of the sandstones and shales) . 

Gray argillaceous shale, ironstone nodules. 

Coal, 3 inches : 

Argillo-arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


The roof of this coal holds prostrate Sigillarie of three species 
and Cordaites borassifolia. The coal is hard and shining, with 
impressions of flattened Sigillaria, also of Cordaites, Asterophyl- 
lites, Carpolites, and vascular ee: ferns. 


j Gray argillaceous iaanvelite nodules of ironstone 
Coal-group 10...... | and Si ligmaria, 2 feet. , 
‘ Coal, stony and compact, 2 inches . 

Gray argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The roof-shale has obscure impressions of plants, apparently 
petioles of ferns. The upper coal is thinly laminated and full 
of leaves of Cordaites and ferns, among which is Alethopteris 
2 lonchitica. The lower coal is compact, resembling cannel, and 
has many vascular bundles of ferns. It seems to be composed 
of herbaceous matter macerated in water and mixed with mud. 
(Gray sandstone and shale with nodules of ironstone) 
Gray argillaceous shale. 


Coal-group 11......< Coal, shaly, 3 inches. See ee 
Arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


ft. in. 
12 6 


73 0 


490 
0 3 


o 


23 0 
0 3 


160 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


An erect ribbed Sigillaria appears in the roof-shale. The 
coal contains many flattened Sigillariw, also Trigonocarpa, 
Cordaites, and. vascular bundles of ferns. 

(Arenaceous understone with ironstone nodules = 
Stigmaria, and carbonaceous shale) 2 
Carbonaceous shale. 


Coal-group 12......< Coal, 2 inches : : 
Argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 


This coal is hard and laminated, with many vascular bundles 
of ferns upon its surfaces. 
(Gray sandstone and gray argillaceous shale) . 


Gray argillaceous shale. 
Coal-group 13..... Coal, 7 inches 


Gray argillaceous underelay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 


The roof contains erect stumps, not distinctly marked. 
The coal has indications of bark of Sigillaria, and is hard and 
shining, with a coarse earthy layer in the middle. 

(Gray shale) : 

one shale, as above. 

Coal, 4 inches. 

Gray argillo-arenaceous underclay, ironstone, and 

Stigmaria, 1 foot 6 inches. 

Coal, 2 inches 
L Gray argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 

The upper coal has impressions of bark of trees and Cor- 

daites, especially in its upper part. 


Coal-group 14...... 


(Gray and reddish shale and gray mies: with 
Stigmarian soils at two levels) . ° 
Gray shale. 
Carbonaceous shale, 2 inches. 
Coal-group 15......{ Argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stigmaria, 1 ft. 
| Coal, 1 inch 
| Argillaceous underlay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 
The upper shaly bed is a coal interlaminated with shale, 
which enables the nature of the coaly matter to be ascertained. 
It contains flattened Sigillarie of several species, Calamites, 
Cordaites, Cyperites, leaves of Stgillaria, and Lepidophylila. 
The clay parting is the roof of the lower coal, and contains 
Cyperites and Cordaites. It has been converted into an 
underclay by the growth of Stgillaria upon it in the formation 
of the upper bed of coaly shale. The lower coal is compact, 
but showed an impression of a Calamite. 
(Gray sandstone and gray and reddish ae: iron- 
stone nodules) 
f Gray argillaceous shale. 
Coal-group 16...... Coal and carbonaceous shale, 2 inches 


Reddish argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stig- 
maria, 


52 0 


16 0 
0 2 


: 


A Aan MID 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 161 


_ The roof supports an erect tree, a Sigillaria, 8 feet high and 
1 foot in diameter. It is also rich in Cyperites,* Cordaites, and 

Calamites. The coal contains Calamites and also discigerous 
tissue of Conifers or Sigillaria. 


(Gray sandstones and reddish and gray shales, with 
several Stigmarian underclays, and coaly films or 
thin vegetable soils. One of the underclays sup- 
ports large stumps of Sigillaria, with Cyperites, 
Cordaites, and Lepidodendron i in the bed around 
their bases) . ; 38 6 
Red and gray argillaceous shale. 
Coal, 1 inch. 
Gray argillo-arenaceous gs aa Stigmaria, 4 ft. 
Coal-group 17......4 Coal, 4 inches. 
Carbonaceous shale, 4 inches. 
Coal, 1inch . : : - 410 
Gray arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria, 


The upper layer of coal consists in part of leaves of Cor- 
daites. The middle layer has much Cordaites and Cyperites. 


i a0, 


(Underclay and gray shale). , : : » ae 
Gray shale, as above. 
Coal-group 18......< Coal,3 inches. . a Te Ae 
. Gray arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 
¢ (Gray sandstone, and red and gray shale. Sti gmarian 
: 4 soils at two levels) . ime, 96 0 
7 Reddish shale. 
— Coal-group 19......< Coal, linch . ; witw ire bay 
‘ Red argillaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 
The roof contains an erect Sigillaria. The coal and that 


of the previous bed were not well seen. 
. 


= (Gray sandstone and red and gray shales, with many 
i drift-trunks and erect Sigillarie at four levels) . 222 0 
é Gray shale. 
: Coal, 1linch . ‘ . egg 
Red and gray underclay, " Stigmaria. 


This coal contains much Cordaites. 


(Gray and red shales and gray sandstone. One Stig- 
marian soil, and resting on it carbonaceous shale 
with Cy erites) - oe aay : <7 

Gray shale. 

Coal, 2 inches. 
Underelay, Stigmaria, 2 inches. 
Coal-group 20at...4 Coal, 1 inch. 

Underelay, 1 inch, Stigmaria. 

‘Coal, 3 inches : ae! 

Argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 


These coals contain mineral charcoal, showing scalariform 
and epidermal tissues. The coals are impure, and were probably 
concealed at the time of Sir W. E. Logan’s visit. 


* By this term I continue, for convenience, to designate the leaves of Sigillarie. 
+ I designate in this way coal-groups not noticed in Logan’s section. 


co 


162 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


(Sandstone ard red and eray anon? with one neStiguiny ft. ing 
rian soil) . . - 9 3 
Red shale. 
Coal-group 21......< Coal and carbonaceous shale, 2 inches . . - Oe 
Gray argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 
In the bed above the roof-shale are erect Calamites. The 
coal is an uneven or irregular bed, and consists of flattened 
Sigillarie, Cyperites, Cordaites, and ferns. 


(Gray and reddish sandstones and shales, with drift- 
trunks of Dadoxylon materiarium, ae and 


Calamites) . 334 0 
Gray and red shale, nodules of ironstone. 
Coal-group 22...... Coal and carbonaceous shale, 2 inches . : « JON 
Gray argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This coal consists of flattened bark of Sigdllaria with Cor- 
daites and vascular bundles of ferns. It contains also remains 
of fishes. Among these was found a tooth of Ctenoptychius. 
The underclay includes stumps of Stigmaria, as well as rootlets. 


(Gray sandstone and shale, with one Stigmarian soil. 
supporting erect stumps of Stgillaria) . : - 68 0 


Total thickness of Division 3, according to Logan’s measurements 2159 8 


Division 4. 
This division of the section extends from M‘Cairn’s Cove to the end 

of the high cliff beyond “Coal-mine Point.’’ It corresponds to the © 
lower part of the Middle Coal Formation, and probably to the Lower 
Coal Formation of some American authors. Its thickness, according 
to the measurements of Sir William E. Logan, is 2539 feet. It is 
remarkable for the prevalence of gray sandstones and gray and dark- 
coloured shales. It constitutes the part of the section re-examined 
by Sir C. Lyell and myself in 1852; and in the memoir which I 
subsequently published, it is divided into 27 groups or Subdivisions. 
For facility of reference, these groups are indicated by the Roman 
numerals in the following pages, beginning with the highest group, 
XXVII. 


XXVII. 
Bituminous limestone and caleareo-bituminons shale, ft. in. 
Gaalor 1 | 4 feet. 
a? fla) eae ts 1 Coal, 1 foot . si 


| Gray argillo-ar enaceous underelay, "Stigmaria. 


The roof has Naiadites carbonarius and LV. elongatus, Spirorbis 
carbonarius, scales of Rhizodus, and obscure vegetable frag- 
ments. The coal contains flattened Sigillarie, Cordaites, 
Alethopteris lonchitica, Cyperites, Calamites Nova-scotica, and 
many vascular bundles of ferns. 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 


(Gray sandstone and shale, with six underclays and 
erect Sigillaria at two levels; also a thin shale 
with Naiadites, Cythere, Calamites, and Cordaites. 
One of the sandstones has scales and teeth of a 
large fish (? are, and pent wet, with 
Spirorbis) : 

Gray argillaceous shale. 

Coal, 1 inch. 

Clay, 3 inches. 

,.. Coal, 1 inch. 

Coal-group 2 ....... Clay, 1 inch. 


Coal, 1 inch. 
Shale, 4 inches. 
; Coal, 3 inches ; 
q Gray argillo-arenaceous underclay, ‘Stigmaria. 
The roof has numerous vegetable fragments and flattened 
_ Sigillarie and Calamites. One of the coals contains mineral 
charcoal, showing bast tissue, scalariform tissue, and fragments 
of epidermis. The lower coal has bark of Sigillaria, Stigmaria, 
and Cyperites, also numerous Trigonocarpa and vascular bundles 
of ferns. The clay partings and the underclay have obscure 
rootlets, probably of Stigmaria. 


a (Arenaceous underclay and shale with remains of 
Stigmaria ; 


; 1 Gi argillaceous shale. 

Coal-group 3 ....... Coal, 3 inches , 

| Hard argillo-arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria, 

The roof has stumps of Stgillarie erect, and with roots of 
_ Stigmaria descending among them from the bed above. The 
coal, which is coarse and earthy, has vascular bundles of ferns, 
¥ sealariform vessels, bast tissue, and scales and spines of fishes 
_ (Paleoniscus, etc.), with coprolitic matter. The underclay 
_ shows abundant Stigmarian rootlets. 


(Underclay and gray arenaceous shale) 
{ Gray argillaceous shale. 

Coal, 9 inches. 

Carbonaceous shale, 6 inches. 

Coal, 1 inch. 

Carbonaceous shale, 4 inches. 

Coal-group 4....... , Coal, 1 inch. ~. 

Carbonaceous shale, 8 inches. 

Coal, 2 inches. 

Gray shale, 1 foot 7 inches. 

Coal, 8 inches " 

Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The roof contains obscure flattened plants. The coal is hard 
or shaly, with vascular bundles of ferns and bast tissue. The 
carbonaceous shales yield Cordaites borassifolia, Alethopteris 
lonchitica, Calamites, Sigillaria, and Cyperites. The gray shale 


ft. in. 


164 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


parting has erect stumps, apparently of Sigillaria. The upper 
shales and coals are very pyritous, and decompose when exposed 
to the weather—an indication that sea-water had access to these 
beds while the vegetable matter was still recent. 


“XXVI. 


{(Gray argillaceous sandstone and red and gray shale, 
with two Stigmarian soils. Footprints, probably 
of Dendrerpeton, and rain-marks occur in these 
beds; and it was in one of them that Mr Marsh 
discovered the vertebre of Eosaurus Acadianus) 


XXV. 


( Bituminous limestone, 2 feet. 

Coal, 4 inch. 

Argillo-arenaceous clay, Stigmaria, 6 inches. 

Coaly shale, $ inch. 

{ Gray argillo-arenaceous shale, ironstone nodules, 
Stigmaria, 1 foot 6 inches. 

Coaly shale, 1 inch. 

Gray shale, ironstone nodules, Stigmaria, 2 ft. 6 in. 

Coal, 6 inches. c . 

| Argillo- -arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


Coal-group 5.. .... 


The bituminous limestone of the roof contains Naiadites 
carbonarius and NV. elongatus, fish-scales, and cyprids. The 
upper layer of coal contains impressions of Sigillaria and Lepi- 
dodendron, on some of which are shells of Spzrorbis. It has 
epidermal tissues, vascular bundles of ferns, and reticulated 
vessels. The coaly shales are of the nature of coarse coals, but 
with numerous thin layers of shaly matter. The lower coal 
contains petioles of ferns and Cordaites matted together, and 
numerous Cardiocarpa. The two thick clay partings and the 
underclay are Stigmarian soils. 


XXIV. 


(Gray sandstone and chocolate and gray ee with 
two Stigmarian soils) 


XXIII. 


Carbonaceous shale, passing downward into bitu- 
| minous limestone, 1 foot 10 inches. 

Coal, 4 inches . 

Ar gillo- arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


Coal-group 6........ 


The roof contains Naiadites carbonarius, Cythere, Spirorbis, 
fish-scales, and coprolites. The coal is hard and laminated, 
and has on its surfaces leaves of Cordaites and vascular bundles 
of ferns. It is remarkable for containing scattered remains of 
a number of species of fishes belonging to the genera Ctenop- 


re 


ft. in. 


+ LATS 


: 
7 
7 
: 
| 
| 


> . 
oy 
9 cilia Pail 9 nat 8 


Joh va tis es een ae 
. “a : an ay ee 


be 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 165 


4 


tychius, Diplodus, Paleoniscus, and Rhizodus. The underclay 
has rootlets of Stigmaria, and the bed below this has large 
roots of the same. 


ft. in. 
’ (Gray sandstone and shale, the latter with nodules of 
ironstone. Erect trees at one level) . i 30 0 
Gray shale. 
Coal, 10 inches. 
Carbonaceous shale and coal, 7 inches. 
- Coal-group 7.......4 Coal, 2 feet 1 inch. 
Carbonaceous shale, 1 foot 6 inches.* 
Coal, 1 foot 6 inches ; Pd ae 


Gray argillo-arenaceous underlay, Stig gmaria. 


This is the bed worked at the Joggins as the ‘‘ Main Seam ;” 
and I believe that it improves somewhat in mining it inward 
from the shore. The roof has afforded Sigillaria catenoides 
and other species, Alethopteris lonchitica, Cordaites borassifolia, 
Lepidodendron elegans, Trigonocarpa, Naiadites, Spirorbis, 
Cythere, fragments of insects. (?) The mineral charcoal con- 
tains bast tissue, scalariform, epidermal, and cellular tissues. 
In the compact part of the coal there is dense cellular and 
E epidermal tissue. The roof is especially rich in Cordaites, 

- sometimes with Spirorbis adherent. 


(Gray sandstone and shale, with many ironstone 
nodules in the shale, and erect Sigillaria and un- 
derclays at five levels. One of the latter has large 
stumps of Stigmaria and a thin coaly layer 
resting on it) : . s . 0g) OF 

1 Gray shale with nodules of ironstone. 

’ Coal, 2 inches. 
Gray shale, 4 inches. 
es 3 inches. ere 
arbonaceous shale, 1 foot 3 inches. 
Coal-group 8 seen eee Coal, 1 inch. 

Argillaceous shale, ironstone nodules, 4 feet. 
Coal, 1 foot . Tes 
Dark argillo- arenaceous " underelay, ironstone no- 

| dules, and Stigmaria. 


The roofs of the first and second beds in this group are 
among the richest in fossils in the Joggins section. They 
have afforded Pecopteris lonchitica, Cyclopteris, Cyperites, 
Cordaites borassifolia, Cardiocarpum fluitans, Sigillaria elegans, 
Lepidophloios Acadianus, Lepidodendron undulatum, Pinnu- 
laria, Trigonocarpa, ete.; also Diplostylus Dawsoni,+ Euryp- 
terus, Cythere, Naiadites, and Spirorbis attached to plants. The 


* Thins in mining to the N.E. The details of this seam have been corrected in 
this edition from a late report by Mr Rutherford. 
+ Salter, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xix. p. 77. 


166 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


lower coal, called locally the “Queen’s Vein,” has in its min- 
eral charcoal bast-cells, uniporous, rariporous, and multiporous 
wood-cells, scalcariform vessels, epidermal tissue, and vascular 
bundles of ferns, also stipes of ferns and bark of Sigillaria. 
The mineral charcoal occurs principally in a thick layer near 
the bottom of the bed. Its roof has trunks of Lepidophloios, 
Lepidodendron, and Sigillaria, fossilized by carbonate of iron. 
The upper part of the lowest underclay is dark and carbon- 
aceous, with Stigmarian rootlets. 


XXII. 


(Gray sandstones, gray and chocolate shales with 
ironstone nodules; three underclays and erect 
Calamites and Sigillaria in three beds) . 


XXI. 

Gray shale and ironstone nodules. 

1 Gi and coaly shale, 1 foot 3 inches 

Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 

The roof contains erect Sigillarie, Stigmaria, Calamites, 
and Cordaites. The coaly shale has fern-stipes and Cordaites. 
The coal itself is coarse and shaly, and has a layer of mineral 
charcoal containing bast and epidermal tissue. There are also 
in the coal remains of Calamites and Cordaites, and fragments, 
possibly, of insects. 


(Gray and reddish shales with nodules of clay-iron- 
stone, and gray and reddish sandstone. One un- 
derclay supporting a coaly film, and erect trees 
at two levels) ‘ 4 - - E 

Chocolate shale. 

Coal and coaly shale, 2 inches. 
Coal-group 10......4 Coaly shale, 6 inches. 

Coal, 4 inches . : A i : F 

Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The upper coal contains flattened Scgillarie and Stigmaria. 
The lower bed is hard and unequal, with curved laminz and 
obscure traces of petioles of ferns. The mineral charcoal has 
bast and scalariform tissues. 

XX. 
(Red and gray shales and gray sandstones. . Erect 
Calamites in one bed. Four underclays) 


xix, 
Chocolate shale. 
Coal-group 11......< Coal and coaly shale, 8 inches 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 
The roof has Cordaites, Calamites, and rootlets. The coal 
contains much mineral charcoal with the structure of dense 


‘ar SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 


‘aporous bast tissue; it also contains Cyperites and many 
vascular bundles of ferns, with flattened trunks of Sigillaria. 
(Gray sandstones and argillaceous shale. Erect trees 
at two levels) . 4 : ’ . i 
¢ Gray shale. 
Tee Coal and coaly shale, 1 foot 3 
Argillaceous underclay, ironstone, and Stigmaria. 

The roof contains erect Stgillaria and Calamites, also Cor- 

daites with Spirorbis attached, and Lepidodendron. The coal 

has in one layer much Cordaites, in others it includes an 

_ immense number of specimens of Sporangites papillata ; it has 

also bast tissue, epidermal tissue, and discigerous tissue. 

(Shale and sandstone, penetrated by Stigmarian root- 
lets, and containing in one of the shales Lepido- 
dendron, Sigillaria, and Carpolithes) 

Gray shale. 


— Coal-group 13... Coal andecoaly shale .. ‘ 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


: The roof has much Cordaites. The shaly portions of the 
eoal contain Sigillaria elegans, Alethopteris lonchitica, Cor- 
daites borassifolia, Lepidodendron, Diplotegium, Trigonocarpum, 
_ Stigmaria, and Sporangites glabra, also vascular bundles of 


- ferns and bast tissue. 
t XVIII. 
(Gray and red shales and gray sandstone ; one of the 


* latter with erect Calamites and Sigillarie. One 
underclay) . - : : - ; : : 
e XVII. 
ty Gray shale. 
— Coal-group 13a....< Coal, 8 inches 3 
* Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 
= a. The roof has Cordaites and many decayed stipes. The 
coal has Cordaites and vegetable fragments. 
a. XVI. he 
a (A very thick sandstone with shales, Erect Cala- 
* mites, footprints of reptiles, and rain-marks) 
A RY. 
wv { Gray shales with ironstone. 
f 1 Coal, 3 inches. 
7 Coaly shale, 2 inches. 
-* Coal, 3 inches. 
‘ Underlay, Stigmaria, 6 feet. 
—- Coal-group 14...... Coaly shale, 4 inches. 


Underelay, Stigmaria, 1 foot. 

Coaly shale, 8 inches. 

Coal, 2 inches 

Argillo-arenaceous ‘underclay, Stigmaria, and iron- 
stone, 


13 0 


69 


57 


8 10 


168 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


On the roof of the upper coal was a fine ribbed Sigillaria with 
Stigmarian roots. In the roof and shaly partings are Sigillaria 
Brownit, 8. Schlotheimiana, and other species, Stigmaria, Lepido- 
dendron, Calamites, Cordaites, Sporangites glabra, Alethopteris 
lonchitica, Sphenopteris latifolia, Pinnularia, and Cyperites ; 
also Cythere, Naiadites, and fragments of reptilian (?) bones. 
The coal is pyritous, and exhibits impressions of the bark of 
Sigillaria ; it contains also bast tissue, scalariform tissue of Sigil- 
laria and multiporous tissue of Sigillaria and Calamodendron. 

(Sandstone and shale, erect Calamites and Sigillaria 
with Stigmaria. The erect trees contain reptilian 
remains of the genera Dendrerpeton, Hylonomus, 
and Hylerpeton; also Pupa vetusta, ca ace a 
illarie, and remains of insects) 

; Coaly shale. 
Coal-group 15...... Coal, 6 inches . 
Arenaceous underclay,. Stigmaria. 

The erect frees above mentioned are rooted in the roof of 
this coal. It contains Cyperites, Lepidophylla, Trigonocarpa of 
two species, Sphenophyllum, Alethopteris lonchitica, Cordaites, 
and Asterophyllites. There are shells of Spirorbis on some of 
the plants. The coal contains layers of bark of Sigillaria and 
leaves of Cordaites, and much bast tissue, with scalariform, 
uniporous, and reticulated tissues, probably of Sigillaria. 


(Sandstones and shales; erect Calamites and Stig- 
maria) : : = : 
Gray shale. 
Coal-group 15a....< Coal, 4 inches 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The roof contains Calamites, Sigillaria, Alethopteris lonchitica, - 


Pinnularia, Lepidodendron, Cyperites, Sporangites, and Spiror- 
bis. One Sigillaria extends 30 feet without branching. The 
roof supports an erect tree. The coal is filled with flattened 
stems of Sigillaria lying in different directions, also flattened 
Lepidodendra; and in its mineral charcoal it has beautiful 
porous and scalariform tissues. 


XIV. 

(Gray sandstone and gray and red shales. Moray 
prostrate trunks of Sigillaria and Lepidodendron, 
one underclay, and erect trees at one level) 

Shale with the aspect of underclay. 
Coal and coaly shale 6 inches . 
Roal-eroup 16-...-- ) Argillo- aronaetis underclay, ironstone, and Stig- 
| maria. 


This bed was not well exposed, and afforded no fossils. 


ft. ins 


21 0 
0 4 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS, 

a 

9 (Gray sandstone and shale with one underclay) 
Gray shale. 

Coal-group 17......< Coal and coaly shale 3 inches ’ 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


_ The roof has vegetable fragments and Cordaites. The coal 
is hard and coarse, and contains flattened broad-ribbed Sigil- 
aria, Cordaites, and vascular bundles of ferns. 


(Shale and sandstone, erect trees at one level) . 


Gray shale. 
rhe Coal 8 inches f 
Argillo-arenaceons underclay,. e 


The roof has an erect Sigillaria. The coal is shaly and lami- 
nated. It contains much Cordaites, also Lepidodendron, Ca- 
__ lamites, and Alethopteris lonchitica. In one layer there are 
_ Naiadites, Spirorbis, and scales of fishes. 

j (Gray sandstone and shale in several beds, Stig- 


maria 
Argillaceous shale. 


i 3 . Coaly shale, 4 feet. 
* Coal-group 109...... Bituminous limestone, 2 feet 6 inches. 
, Coal, 1inch . ; 


The roof has Naiadites, scales and font of fies Cythere, 
and Spirorbis. The coal is hard and coarse, with vascular 
_ bundles of ferns and prostrate Sigillaric. 


2 


XIII. 


(Shale and sandstone) 
. Coaly shale, 1 toot. 
— Coal-group 20......< Bituminous limestone, 1 foot 6 inches. 
4 Coal and clay partings, 2 feet 4 inches . ‘ 
The roof has Naiadites, Spirorbis attached to plants, and 
_ small rhombic fish-seales. The coal alternates with limestone 
at the top, and contains remains of Stgillaria, Sporangites, 
and vascular bundles of ferns. 
(Sandstone, and gray and black shale with wee 
layers) 
Gray shale and caleareo-bituminous shale, 
Coal-group 21...... Coal, 10 inches, . $ 
Seoliigrania underlay, Stigmaria. 

The roof has obscure vegetable fragments and Naiadites. 
The coal contains vascular bundles of ferns, bast tissue, 
- uniporous cells, and scalariform and reticulated vessels. 

(Gray sandstone and shale. Two underclays) : 
Gray shale. 


Coal-group 22......< Coal and coaly shale, 2 inches 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This bed was not well exposed. 


31 


29 


21 


0 


0 10 


170 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


(Sandstone and shale, with one erect tree and two 
underclays) : . Th eee “ 
Coaly and gray shale, 
Coal and coaly shale, 4 inches. 
Coal-group 23...... Bituminous limestone, 4 inches. 
Coal and coaly shale, 7 inches a ~ . 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The roof has an erect tree, also Cordaites and Spirorbis. 
The shale and bituminous limestone contain Sigillaria and 
Lepidophloios, also many large furrowed trunks, probably old 
Sigillarie or Lepidodendra. 


KT, 
(Sandstone, shale, and calcareo-bituminous shale, 
with three underclays) “ - S : - 


Calcareo-bituminous shale. 
Coal-group 24......< Coal and coaly shale, 1 inch . : 
: Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This bed was not exposed. 


(Underelay and shale) 
Gray shale. 

Coal-group 25.... Daal and coaly shale, 8 inches s : 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The roof has Alethopteris lonchitica, Cordaites, and petioles 
of ferns. The coal shows bast tissue and remains of Srgillaria 
and Calamites. 

(Gray sandstone and shale, with erect Sigillarie at 
four or five levels, and two dik nig under- 
clays) . . : - 

Gray shale. 

Coal-group 26.. Coaly shale, 4 inches 

Argillo-arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 

This bed was not exposed. 


(Shale and sandstone, with Stzgmaria) 
Gray shale. 

Coal-group 27....... Coal, 3 inches : 
‘Argillo- -arenaceous underelay, "Stigmaria. 


This bed was not well exposed. 


(Gray sandstone and shale, with bituminous shale 
and limestone, and erect Calamites) . : : 


XI. 


f Calcareo-bituminous shale. 
! Coal and coaly shale, 7 feet. 
E Underclay, Stigmaria, 4 feet. 
Coal-group 28.... Coaly shale, 1 foot. 
Coal, 6 inches 2 = “ - 
Arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This group is a series of thin coaly layers and underelays. 
The roof has Naiadites carbonarius and N. elongatus, also 
Cythere and scales of fishes. The coal contains bast tissue 


171 
different kinds of sealariform and epidermal tissues. In 
the lower bed is a coaly stump and an irregular layer of 
mineral charcoal, arising apparently from the decay of similar 
mps. ; 
t. in. 


(Gray and carbonaceous shale and gray sandstone) 29 0 
Underclay, Stigmaria. 
Coal, and coaly shale, 5 feet. 
Underclay, 6 feet. 
Coal, coa y shale, and ironstone, 6 feet. 
Coal, 4 feet . : P ‘ 4 aed: 0 
| Argillaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


This is a group of unusually thick beds, indicating long 
quiescence. The roof includes lamin of coal, some of them 
composed of the bark of Sigillaria catenoides, also an erect 
Sigillaria rooted in the coal below. The coal and coaly shale 
exhibit remains of Sigillaria, Cordaites, Lepidophyllum, and 
_ Cyperites ; and one layer has many hard pyritized fragments of 
wood. The mineral charcoal has vascular bundles of ferns, 
coarse scalariform tissue, and porous tissue. The underclay 
rests on a bed with Naiadites. 


Coal-group 29..... 


; (Underclay, Stigmaria, and gray and ee 
7 shales) : - : 2180 


Shale and coaly layers. 
— Coal-group 29a....< Coal, 4 feet . 52). ath, ie ee 
P Ar gillaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


The roof has obscure fragments of plants and stumps in the 

_ state of mineral charcoal. The coal shows impressions of flat- 

 tened trunks, probably Sigillarie. This coal contains a great 

variety of tissues, especially bast and scalariform of different 

kinds, and epidermal. My measurements in this part of the 

section differ somewhat from those of Sir W. E. Logan, who, 

I suppose, had not a good opportunity of examining the two 

last coals. The coal 29a is now mined by an adit om the 
shore, called the “‘ New Mine.” 


(Sandstone and shale. One sandstone has many 
large erect Sigillarie, some of them with rough 
and furrowed-bark) . é 4 2 biggea 0 
Argillaceous shale and ironstone. 
Coal, 4 inches. 
ues a a =e feet. 
‘oal and coaly shale, 2 inches. 
Coal-group 30 teens Coal, 3 re eal 
Coaly shale, 2 inches. 
Coal, linch . 7 Bie h 
Soft argillaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


The roof has bark of Sigillaria preserved in ironstone. The 
coal is pyritous, and consists of layers of mineral charcoal 


12 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


alternating with bright coal; it has obscure impressions of 
plants and bast tissue in the mineral charcoal. 


2 
(Gray shale and sandstone. One underclay, and 
erect Calamites and Sigillaria at two levels) 
Gray sandstone. 
Coal and coaly shale, 1 foot. 
| Underclay, Stigmaria, 1 foot. 
Coaly shale, 6 inches. 
Coal, 2 inches 
{Ar -gillaceous underlay, Stigmari id. 

The roof contains Sigillarie, and the coal has flattened 
impressions of the same. This coal is remarkable as having a 
roof of sandstone. Its underclay is also peculiar. It is about 

9 feet in thickness, and contains St¢gmaria and nodules of iron- 

stone throughout. It rests on a bituminous limestone contain- 
ing Natadites and scales of fishes, and also large roots of Steg- 
maria evidently in situ. This bed gives more colour to the 
idea of Stigmaria having grown under water than any other 
bed at the Joggins. I believe, however, that it merely implies 
the drying-up of a pond or creek into a swamp, subsequently 
inundated at intervals with muddy water. 


Coal-group 31......+ 
| 


(Underclay and bituminous limestone, succeeded by 
sandstone and shale) . é - : 
Gray shale. 
Coal-group 32......4 Coal, and coaly shale, 2 feet 4 inches 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


This is a series of thin coaly bands alternating with shales. 
The roof contains trunks of Stgillaria, Cordaites, Alethopteris, 
and Cyperites. The coal has numerous flattened trunks of 
Sigillaria. 


Gray and reddish sandstone and shale. Five under- 
clays, one with a film of coal and erect Sigillarie 


at two levels) . 5 : C 5 - 
Coaly shale. 
Coal-group 33... Coal, 1inch . : - : E 
Argillaceous underlay, Stigmari id. 


The roof has flattened trunks and vegetable fragments. The 
coal is a mere soil, with remains of Stgillaria and Cordaites, and 
vascular bundles of ferns. 

(Red and gray sandstone and shale) 
Gray shale. 


Coal-group 338a....< Coal and coaly and gray shale (underclay). 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


These layers, though not of sufficient importance to be 
measured as coal-bands, are most interesting as furnishing 


aes 


27 


149 


45 


0 


J 
; | 
4 
>| 
i 
j 


+} = 
= spa Sed : 
| ‘ a : r 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 173 


examples of what may be termed rudimentary coal-beds. Each 
layer is plainly composed of prostrate trunks of Sigl/aria resting 
on Stigmarian underclay, and mixed with Cordaites, Alethop- 
teris lonchitica, and vascular bundles of ferns. In one layer is a 
stump in the state of mineral charcoal. In another there are 
coprolites, scales of fishes, Spérorbis, and fragments of Crusta- 
eeans. In a reddish shale above these beds there is a patch of 
gray sandstone interlaced with Stigmarian roots, as if the sand 
had been prevented from drifting away by a tree or stump. 
(Reddish and gray sandstones and shales, with three 
or more underclays, having their coaly layers 
holding Sigillaria. Erect Si, gillarie at two levels) 246 0 


( Underelay, with ironstone and Stigmaria. 
Coal, and coaly shale, 2 inches. 


— Coal-group 34...... Underclay, with ironstone and Stigmaria, 4 feet. 
Y Coal, and coaly shale, 2 inches : " " si” 
4 Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


Only obscure vegetable fragments were observed. 
(Gray and reddish sandstone and oe with a 


maria) Vlad 
Underclay with Stigmaria. 
~_ Coal-group 35...... Coaly shale, 3 inches . : se, oe 
a Red and greenish underclay, a few rootlets, 


The coaly shale contains many leaves of Cordattes borass?folia. 


(Red, gray, and dark shale, sandstone, and bitu- 
minous limestone. Three underclays and erect 


trees at one level)* f : é : 67 9 
IX. 
bi Bituminous limestone. 
Coaly shale and Coal, 3 inches. 
Coal-group 36...... Reddish shale and ironstone, 2 feet 6 inches. 
Coal, 3 inches 3 : 7 oO 


| Argillaceous underelay, Stigmari ia. 

_ The roof has Stigmaria in situ, and has been a soil or 
underclay. It also contains Cythere, fish-scales, coprolites, 
and Spirorbis. In the upper coaly shale are prostrate car- 
bonized trunks. 


(Reddish and gray shale, sandstone, and bituminous 
limestone). ° : F « 2g 
( Bituminous limestone and shale. 
“ Coal, 4 inches. 
Underclay, 1 foot 6 inches. 
Coal, 6 inches. 
Coal-group 37...... Underlay, 1 foot. 
Bituminous limestone, 3 inches. 
Shale, 3 inches. 
Coal,1inch . 3 : , F Sepa! 
Underelay with Stigmaria. 


* The lower 22 feet are included in Subdivision IX. of my former Section. 


174 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


The roof has Stigmaria, also fish-scales, Natadites, and 
Cythere. The shales are pyritized. The coal shows only 
obscure fragments of plants; but Sigillarie in the state of 
ironstone occur in some of the clays. 


VIII. 


(Red and gray sandstone and shale. Two under- 
clays. Many shells of Pupa vetusta and Conulus 
priscus occur in one of these, — 42 feet below 
the last coal) : - : - 


VII. 


( Caleareo-bituminous shale. 
Coal, 1 inch. 
| Bituminous limestone, 6 inches. 
| Coal, 2 inches. 
| Underclay passing into chocolate shale, Stigmaria. 


Coal-group 38...... 


The bituminous limestone and shale contain Cythere, Naia- 
dites elongatus and N. carbonarius, coprolites, Spzrorbis, and 
Stigmaria. The lower coal has Sigillaria elegans, S. scutel- 
lata(?), 8. Brownti, Alethopteris lonchitica, Cordaites borasst- 
folia, and vascular bundles of ferns. 


Vi. 


(Red and gray shales and sandstones, and one gray 
limestone with Cythere. One underclay. Many 
drift trunks, among aie are ee and 


Lepidophloios) : - . 


Vv. 


Red and gray shale, with ironstone. 

Coal, 3 inch 

Gray underclay, with ‘Stigmaria, resting on bitu- 
minous limestone, with Stigmaria and ‘Cythere. 


This thin coal consists of a layer of flattened trunks, pro- 
bably of Stgillaria, with a quantity of mineral charcoal. 


Coal-group 39......4 


IV. 


(Red and gray shales. One bed with erect ; Colceette 
another with erect Sigillaria) 


Ili. 


( Gray shale and ironstone. 
Bituminous limestone and shale, with dese films, 
7 inches. 
Underelay, 1 foot. 
Coal, 1 inch. 
Coaly shale, 3 inches. 
Underclay, 1 foot. 
Bituminous limestone, 6 inches. 
Coal and coaly shale, 2 inches 
Argillaceous underelay, ironstone, and Stigmaria.. 


Coal-group 40...... 


SECTION OF THE SOUTH JOGGINS. 


_ The bituminous limestone and shale have Naiadites, Cythere, 
Spirorbis, scales of fishes, and coprolites, and a large spine of 
Terdicanthus, also roots of Stigmaria. The upper underclay 
holds carbonized erect trunks. The lower coal has vascular 
bundles of ferns and Cordaites. The roof supports erect 


» of 


(Underclay, with ironstone nodules) 
1 car as above. 


wo oar 


Calcareo-bituminous shale and films of Coal . 
Argillaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 

The bituminous limestone has Naiadites carbonarius, Cythere, 
coprolites, and Spirorbis. The roof has prastrate Sigillarie 
converted into coaly layers. The underclay has distinct 

_ stumps of Stigmaria. 


(Shales with Stigmaria and ironstone, sandstones, 
q bituminous limestone, and carbonaceous shale at 
Z' bottom) . . . . . . or bay 32 
. Bituminous limestone. 
é Coal, 3 inches. 
Shale, 1 foot. 


_ Coal-group 42......4 Coal, 1 foot. 
a Underelay, Stigmaria, 1 foot. 
a Coal, 2 inches. ; ; Sree AL. 


Dark argillaceous underclay, Stiy qmaria. 

The roof contains Naiadites, Cythere, and coprolites. The 
coal is coarse, pyritous, and shaly, and has bark of Sigillaria, 
Calamites, and vascular bundles of ferns. It seems to be the 
edge of a bed, as it thins rapidly in the direction of the bank, 
or to the east. 


II. 
(Reddish shale and sandstone with one underclay) 35 0 
. Reddish epee’ with Stigmaria. 
Cval-group 43......< Coaly shale, 1 inc UI, Tee 
Reddish underclay, Stigmaria. 


This bed diminishes to a mere film towards the bank, 


Ty 


(Reddish, gray, and dark shales and sandstone, Stig- 
maria in somé beds, and erect Sigillaria, Lepido- 
dendra, (?) and Calamites at one level) - SO gi, 
Gray shale with ironstone. 
Bituminous limestoneand shale with ironstone, 10 ft. 1 in. 
Coal, $ inch 
Bituminous limestone, Stigmaria, $ inch. 
Coal, 5 inches. 
Bituminous omen Stigmaria, 2 inches. 
Coal, 1 inch 
Bituminous limestone, Stigmaria, 2 inches. 
Coal, $ inch . ie 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, traces of rootlets. 


Coal-group 44...... 


176 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


The bituminous limestone has scales of fishes, Spirorbis, and 
Cythere. The coal has Cordaites and vascular bundles of ferns. 


(Red and gray sandstone and shale. One underclay, ft- in. 
and erect Calamites at one level) . : - - 98, 6 
: Reddish shale. 
Carbonaceous shale, 10 inches. 
Coaly matter, $ inch. 
Hard underclay, Stigmaria, 2 feet. 
Coaly matter,4 inch. - 
Underclay, Stigmaria, 7 feet. 
Coal, 3 inches : - : . ~/ Os 
| Arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


In the roof of the lower coal is an erect tree. The coal has 
vascular bundles of ferns, remains of fern-leaves, and bast 
tissue. The underclay has many coaly films, apparently 
flattened bark of trees. 


Reddish and gray sandstone and shale . . > 


Coal-group 45... 


Total thickness of Division 4, according to Logan’s measurements 2539 1 
Division 5. 

This consists of reddish shales and red and gray sandstones. It 

contains no coal, and is poor in fossils, only a few drifted trunks 

appearing in the section. It corresponds to the upper part of the 


Millstone-grit series. Its thickness, according to the measurements 
of Sir W. E. Logan, is 2082 feet. 


Division 6. 

This may be regarded as the middle of the Millstone-grit series. 
It constitutes a sort of false coal formation, separated from the Middle 
Coal Formation by the barren beds of Division 5. It contains nine 
small or rudimentary coal-beds, which, however, are not well seen in 
the section, and have afforded few facts of interest. It has many 
thick and coarse sandstones and much red shale, with comparatively 
few dark-coloured beds. Its total thickness is stated by Sir W. E. 
Logan at 3240 feet. 

Though this group contains little coal, it is to be observed that it has 
many underclays, indicating soils which supported forests of Sigdlaria, 
and that erect Sigillarie occur very near the base of the division. 
The absence of important beds of coal is therefore due to the local 
physical conditions, and not to the want of the necessary vegetation. 


(Sandstones and shales with many drifted trunks of ft. in. 
Dadoxylon) . ; ; : : : . 539-9 
( Blackish gray shale. 
Caleareous shale, 1 foot. 
Coal-group 1.......4 Black shale, 3 feet. 
Coaly shale, 2inches . ‘ » eee 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


SECTION OF THE SOUTII JOGGINS. VR 


a (Red and gray sandstone and shale and concretionary ft. in. 


4 limestone, trunks of Dadowxylon and other trees. 
One underelay) . : : : : ° ee | a 
a Gray shale. 
Coal-group 2....... Coaly shale, linch. . «© «| 
Reddish and gray underclay, Stigmaria. 


(Series of underclays with Stigmaria. The beds are 
reddish or gray, and arenaceous) . , P 
( Reddish shale. 
Coaly shale, 1 inch. 
Greenish shale, 6 inches. 
Coaly shale, 1 inch. 
Coal-group 3.......4 Greenish shale, 2 feet 6 inches. 
Coaly shale, 3 inches. 
Greenish shale, 1 inch. 
Coal and coaly shale, 3 inches - : 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


The coal contains bast tissue and reticulated, porous, and 
sealariform tissues of Sigillaria and Calamodendron. 


0 1 


aed 


(Series of underclays as before) A : : 5 SS 

Underclay, Stigmaria. 

ae Coal and coaly shale, 3 inches ri 

Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 
(Series of underclays as before) “ : 2 Pea: el 
Gray shale. 

Coal-group 5. ...... Coaly matter, inch. ‘ 
Greenish underclay, Stigmaria. 


(Underelay and sandstone, the latter with an erect 
Sigillaria) : 


aa? 
oe a a 
ay 


rer - 
z 
og 
= 
i=} 
= 
a=) 
aS 
——a 


"> 23 
oe 


F ites MeL OS 10 0 
Sandstone (erect Sigillaria as above). 

_ Coal-group 6....... Coaly shale, 3 inches . smut 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 


(Fifteen feet of underclay, under which a thick sand- 
& stone with great quantities of drifted trunks of Da- 
; doxylon and Sigillaria. Below this alternations 
of gray and red sandstone and shale) . = . 210 10 
Gray sandstone. 
Bituminous limestone, 3 inches. 
Gray shale, 3 feet. 
Gray limestone, 2 inches. 
Coal-group 7....... 4 Coaly shale, 6 inches. 
Bituminous limestone, 3 inches. 
Coaly shale, 1 foot. 


Coal, 1 inch . fs “ , ; : Bb 3 
Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria. 
The lower bituminous limestone contains Natadites ovalis, 
Cythere, and scales of Lepidoid fishes. The lower coal has 
much Cyperites and bark of Sigillaria, also bast tissue in 
‘mineral charcoal. 
; (Thick beds of gray sandstone and gray shale, with 
drifted trunks of Dadoxylon, Sigillaria, and Ca- 
lamites and leaves of Cordaites) . : : - 532 O 
Gray shale. 
Coal-group 8.......< Coal, inch . : j ; . : 0 4 
Argillo-arenaceous underelay, Stigmaria. 


, 
oes 


foe Ae NE Te ene 


178 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


This coal is laminated, the laminez being bark of Sigillaria. 
The underclay is very rich in Stigmaria. 
(Gray sandstone with gray and red shale. Many ft. in. 
drifted trunks of Sigillaria and Calamites, and an 


erect Sigillaria in the lowest bed of sandstone) 1224 0 
ara Gray shale. : 


Coaly matter and caeamieres shale . Peete ie 
Pes Ereap 2: - | Argillo-arenaceous underclay, Stigmaria, and i iron- 
{ stone. 
(Gray and red sandstone and shale and calcareous 
bands, some of them bituminous. Near the middle 
a thick band of laminated black shale with Naia- 
dites levis, Cyperites, and Len Drifted 
Calamites in the sandstones) - - 496 4 
Total thickness, according to Logan . ; : - : : 3240 9 
Division 7. 


This division consists principally of red and chocolate shales with 
red and gray sandstone, arenaceous conglomerates, and thin beds of 
concretionary limestone. It may be regarded as the base of the 
Millstone-grit formation. Its thickness is stated by Sir W. E. Logan 
at 650 feet. 

No fossils, other than carbonized fragments of plants, have been 
found in this division. 

Division 8. 

This division consists of reddish shales with greenish and red sand- - 
stone, gray shale, gray compact limestone, and gypsum. It may be 
regarded as the upper part of the Lower Carboniferous formation ; 
and almost immediately under its lowest beds there are marine lime- 
stones with Productus cora and other characteristic Lower Carbon- 
iferous fossils. 

Only fragments of plants, often replaced by sulphuret of copper, 
have been found in this division. Its thickness is stated by Logan 
at 1658 feet. 

The number of coals reckoned may vary according to the manner 
in which the several layers are grouped; but as arranged in the 
above sectional list, it amounts to eighty-one in all. Of these, 23 are 
found in Division 3 of Logan’s section, being the upper member of 
the Middle Coal Formation; 49 are found in Division 4 of Logan’s 
section, being the lower member of the Middle Coal Formation; 9 
occur in Division 6 of Logan’s section, or in the equivalent of the 
Millstone-grit. 


j 
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| 

i} 


ll 


i 


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i 


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\ 


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BTR 


l 
A. 


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— 
Ay 
om 
<= 
ae 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


CUMBERLAND COAL-FIELD, continued—EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS 
SECTION—ANIMAL REMAINS OF THE COAL MEASURES. 


Explanatory Remarks on the Joggins Section. 


In the section in the preceding chapter the reader will observe the 
words “ Underclay, Stigmaria,” frequently recurring ; and over nearly 
every underclay is a seam of coal. An underclay is technically 
the bed of clay which underlies a coal-seam; but it has now become 
a general term for a fossil soil, or a bed which once formed a terrestrial 
surface, and supported trees and other plants; because we generally 
find these coal underclays, like the subsoils of many modern peat-bogs, 
to contain roots and trunks of trees which aided in the accumulation 
of the vegetable matter of the coal. The underclays in question are 
accordingly penetrated by innumerable long rootlets, now in a coaly 
state, but retaining enough of their form to enable us to recognise 
them as belonging to a peculiar root, the Stigmaria, of very fre- 
quent occurrence in the coal measures, and at one time supposed to 
have been a swamp plant of anomalous form, but now known to have 
belonged to an equally singular tree, the Szgillaria, found in the 


same deposits (Fig. 30). The Stigmaria has derived its name from _ 


the regularly arranged pits or spots left by its rootlets, which proceeded 
from it on all sides. The Ségillaria has been named from the rows of 
leaf-scars which extend up its trunk, which in some species is curiously 
ribbed or fluted. One of the.most remarkable peculiarities of the 
stigmaria-rooted trees was the very regular arrangement of their roots, 
which are four at their departure from the trunk, and divide at equal 
distances successively into eight, sixteen, and thirty-two branches, 
each giving off, on all sides, an immense number of rootlets, stretching 
into the beds around, in a manner which shows that these must have 
been soft sand and mud at the time when these roots and rootlets 
spread through them. 

It is evident that when we find a bed of clay now hardened into 


0 


180 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


natural position, we can infer, 1st, that such beds must once have been — 


Fig. 30.—Stem, Leaf-scars, and Stigmaria Roots of Sigillaria—South Joggins. 


| | i | : 


(0) 
Ny | 


| 


(a) Sigillaria Brownii.—Stem reduced. 

(b) Portion, natural size, near the top. 

(ec) Do. do., near the base. . 

(d) Portion of Stigmaria root, natural size, with scars of rootlets. 


in a very soft condition; 2dly, that the roots found in them were not 


drifted, but grew in their present positions; in short, that these |e 


ancient roots are in similar circumstances with those of the recent 
trees that underlie the Amherst marshes. In corroboration of this, 


we shall find, in farther examination of this section, that while some 


i 
; = 
d 


: 
. | 


‘ 4 —_ an bi * ’ a 
Nl a lca —_ 


a 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 181 


of these fossil soils support coals, others support erect trunks of trees 
connected with their roots and still in their natural position. 
Believing the underclays to have been soils, we find similar reasons 
to conclude that the coal-seams were originally vegetable matter, 
which accumulated in the manner of peat; and on examining the coal 
minutely, we often find distinct evidences that it is composed in part 
of woody fragments, sometimes retaining their structure in sufficient 
perfection to enable the kind of wood to which they belonged to be 
ascertained. These appearances are most distinctly seen in the 
coarser and more impure coals, and in the bands of clay and ironstone 
? which occur within the coal-seams. In the more pure coals, the 
,: vegetable matter has sometimes been reduced by chemical change and 
pressure into an almost homogeneous mass. It will be observed that 
in the section I have indicated the kinds of vegetable matter which 
may be observed in the several coals; and I shall have occasion to 
return to this subject in the sequel. 

The lowest coal-bed in Group 44, Subdivision I, Division 4, of the 
above section, has an underclay or soil four feet in depth, and sup- 
porting a layer of vegetable mould which has been compressed into 
half an inch of coal. Above the coal rests a very different description 
of rock, one of those hard dark-coloured limestones already referred 
to. It is filled with innumerable little shells of minute crustaceous 
animals of the genus Cythere, the modern representatives of which 
reside in countless numbers in ponds and river estuaries and in the 
sea, and are most voracious devourers of dead animal substances. 
Our coal-bog therefore became, from some cause, probably subsidence, 
a pond or lagoon, in which Cythere and other aquatic animals must 
have existed for some time before their remains could accumulate in 
sufficient quantity to form these two inches of hard bituminous lime- 
stone. The Cythere-inhabited waters, however, were dried up, and on 
the rich marly soil grew another forest, whose rootlets may be seen 
finely preserved in the limestone; and the result was a thicker seam 
of coal than the first, succeeded by other limestones and coals, and then 
by a considerable thickness of shales and bituminous limestones, in 
which we find not only the Cythere, but the scales of small fishes, 
bivalve shells (Naiadites)* allied to the common mussel, and a small 
whorled shell (Spirorbis carbonarius) resembling those now found 
adhering to the seaweeds of the shore (the common Spirorbis 
spirillum) Fig. 31. The bituminous limestones containing these 
remains, alternate with shales indicating that irruptions of mud 
partially filled up, at different times, the waters in which calcareous 


* Anthracomya and Anthracoptera of Salter. 


182 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


beds were being gradually accumulated by the growth and death of 
animals. In the highest of these beds of mud, which probably restored _ 


Pig. 31.— Fossils from Bituminous Limestone—Joggins. 


Cypris, Spirorbis, 
(a) natural size. (a) natural size. 


Naiadites.* Ganoid Scales, 


the whole area to the state of a swamp, trees took root and were 
buried by an irruption of sand, in which they, as well as an under- 
growth of Calamites, still stand in an erect position. 

T have dwelt at some length on this subdivision, not that there is 
anything very remarkable in its structure, but that its appearances 
will help to explain others that succeed. It is evident that when read 
in the light of modern geology, they tell a very intelligible tale, and 
show us that the circumstances in which these coal-rocks were formed 
were similar to those which we have found to exist on a small scale in 

© the modern marshes of the Bay of Fundy; and also to those more 
extensive changes which occur in the deltas of great rivers, such as 
the Mississippi and the Ganges, in which low alluvial flats have often 
been alternately covered with water and with a dense swamp-vege- 
tation. Let the reader also observe, that in this group of the Joggins 
beds, we have at least five successive soil-surfaces, four of them sufli- 
ciently permanent to permit the accumulation on them of peaty vegetable 
soils; and about four feet nine inches of calcareous beds, mostly made 
up of animal remains. The lapse of time required for the accumulation 
of this group alone must thus have been vastly greater than that 
necessary for the production of the modern marsh formation with its 
one fossil soil. It will also be observed that these beds carry our 
thoughts back to a period when the district was covered by a strange 
and now extinct vegetation, and when its physical condition resembled 
« that of the Great Dismal Swamp, the Everglades of Florida, or the 
Delta of the Mississippi. 

One appearance only in this subdivision requires farther explanation 
before we proceed to the next. One of the sandstones in the upper 
part exhibits trees standing out from the cliff, as pillars of hard sand- 


* For other figures and desriptions of these fossils, see notice at the end of this chapter. 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 183 


stone spreading out at the base, and among these are numerous 
 Calamites, also represented by sandstone casts, and, like the trees, 
standing at right angles to the beds, which are now inclined at an 


were preserved in their present state and position can easily be under- 
stood. Imagine a forest of trees and a tall brake of reed-like plants 
growing together on a swampy flat. The flat is inundated and over- 
spread with sand to the depth of several feet. The plants are thus 
killed and their dead tops project for some time above the sand. At 
length they decay and are broken off, and eventually the wood decays, 
3 leaving only a hollow cylinder of bark. Sand is next washed into 
the perpendicular pipes produced by the decay of the trunks and 
stems, forming casts of them. The whole is now buried up by sue- 
ceeding deposits and becomes hardened into stone, and so remains — 
until tilted up, elevated above the water level, and exposed by the 
action of the tides and waves. 

One stump observed in the particular bed now under consideration 
is named in the section a Lepidodendron, with a note of interrogation 
to show that its surface was not so well preserved as to make it certain 

that it belonged to that genus. The Lepidodendra were tall and 
graceful trees, but allied botanically to the humble club-mosses 
(Lycopodia) of our modern woods. Their trunks were marked with 
diamond-shaped leaf-scars, and their branches and twigs were thickly 
clothed with long lance-shaped or linear leaves, and bore cones at 
their extremities. These trees did not send up straight trunks with 
numerous small branches, like the pines, but branched out by the 
continuous division of the trunk and limbs into pairs of branches, in 
the manner in which standard pear-trees are often trained by con- 
stantly cutting out the main ascending twig and allowing two lateral 
branches to grow in its place. The Lepidodendra must have been 
among the most beautiful trees of the coal period, and their roots 
would appear to have been constructed on the same regular type with 
those of the Sigillaria. Mr Brown of Sydney has described some 
trees believed to be Lepidodendra, and having such roots, in the coal- 
field of Cape Breton. Mr Carruthers, of the British Museum, has 
recently made a similar statement in regard to Lepidodendra in the 
British coal-fields. I have not, however, met with any instance of 
this in Nova Scotia. 
Subdivision II. is a barren series of sandstones and shales, repre- 
senting beds of sand and mud conveyed by water over the last terres- 
trial surface of the first group. For aught that the section shows to 


184 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the contrary, except in the occurrence of one underclay overlaid by 
coaly shale, these thirty-five feet of sand and mud may have been 


rapidly deposited. It is quite possible that the formation of the one 


inch of coal in the bottom of the group may have occupied a longer 
time than the deposition of the whole of the other beds. The reader 
will note here that the absolute thickness of any bed or mass of beds 


is no measure of the time occupied in their formation. A layer of q 


sand may be spread over a wide surface by a single storm or inundation, 
but it requires time to accumulate even a very inconsiderable amount 
of organic matter by the slow growth of animals or plants. 

The next Subdivision, No. III., including Coal-groups 40, 41, and 
42, is very similar to No. I. It shows that the locality was again for 
a very long period alternately a swamp and a lagoon. I say for a 
very long time, for much of this group consists of bituminous lime- 
stone, Naiadites shales or ‘“ mussel beds,” and coal, all beds requiring 
a very long lapse of time for their growth. There is every reason, 
for example, to believe that the three-feet bed of bituminous lime- 
stone, nearly in the middle of the group, consists mainly of the 
remains of Cythere, fish, and other aquatic creatures, accumulated 
by the slow growth of successive generations; and if we have any 
idea of the growth of modern beds of this kind, we will be disposed 
to measure the growth of this limestone by centuries. 

Subdivision IV. is comparatively barren of organic remains, and 
consists of coarse mechanical detritus; and it will be observed that 
throughout the section groups of beds of this kind alternate with 
others composed of fine silt and organic matter. There were, in other 
words, long-continued swamp and lagoon periods, alternating with 
periods in which the waters of the sea or turbid streams were bearing 
in sand and mud. We have here, however, two surfaces which had 
sufficient permanence, as land or swamp soils, to support trees and 
Calamites. 

In Subdivision V. we have a recurrence, on a small scale, of the 
conditions of Subdivision III. 

Subdivision VI. is another great series of sandstones and chocolate- 
coloured shales. It has, however, one erect tree, probably a Sigillaria, 
rooted in an underclay with St7gmaria rootlets; and in the lowest 
sandstone there is a great mass of prostrate trunks of trees, imperfectly 
preserved, probably the wreck of some land-flood, or the drift-wood 
from a forest-clad coast. ; 

In Subdivision VII. the beds present an order similar to that in 
the first group, and which we shall find frequently repeated in the 
section. First, we have an underclay, a soil on which grew a small 


rs 
“i 


q 
2 | 


es 


Hert: 
~ a 
7 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 185 
bed of vegetable matter represented by two inches of coal. This 
terrestrial surface was overflowed by water for a very long time 
inhabited by Naiadites and Cythere. ‘This, it will be observed, implies 
_ subsidence of a terrestrial surface and its long submergence ; and I 
may remark, once for all, that the appearances of the whole section 
_ imply continuous Hubatenes. only occasionally interrupted by elevatory 
movements. The bituminous limestone which marks this submer- 
gence is again succeeded by coal, again submerged under water 
inhabited by mollusks, Cythere, ete. The succeeding group marks the 
filling of the quict waters tenanted by Naiadites with thick deposits 
of clay and sand, and in one little bed, about three inches in thickness, 
: filled with the shells of the little land-snails known as Pupa vetusta 
and Conulus priscus, it shows evidence of neighbouring woods or 
- swamps, from which some gentle stream must have drifted these little 
shells over the muddy bottom. 

Subdivision IX. is a fine series of underclays and coals, alternating 
with mussel-beds. It contains seven distinct soil-surfaces, the highest* 
supporting an erect tree, which appears as a ribbed sandstone cast, 
five feet six inches high, nine inches in diameter at the top, and fifteen 
at the base, where the roots began to separate. This tree, being 
harder than the enclosing beds, at the time of one of my visits stood 
out boldly at the base of the cliff, nearly three-fourths of its diameter 
and the bases of three of its four main roots being exposed. Five of 
the underclays support coals, and in three instances bituminous lime- 
stones have been converted into soils, none of which, however, support 
coals. The last of these bituminous limestones is a very remarkable 
bed. First, we have an underclay; this was submerged, and Spirorbis 
attached its little shell to the decaying trunks, which finally fell 
prostrate, and formed a carbonaceous bottom, over which multitudes 
of little crustaceans (Cythere) swam and crept, and on which fourteen 
inches of calcareous and carbonaceous matter were gradually collected. 

Then this bed of organic matter was elevated into a soil, and large 
trees, with Stigmaria roots, grew on its surface. These were buried 
under thick beds of clay and sand, and it is in the latter that the erect 
tree already mentioned occurs; its roots, however, are about nine feet 
above the surface of the limestone, and belong to a later and higher 
terrestrial surface, which cannot be distinguished from the clay of 
similar character above and below. 

The Xth Subdivision contains a vast thickness of sandstone and 
shales, the latter chiefly of chocolate colours. It shows comparatively 
meagre indications of the swamp-deposits previously in progress. 

* Included in the lower part of Subdivision X. of the section. 
as 


heel 1 eee a Ce 


186 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


During the greater part of the time occupied in the formation of these 


beds, the locality must have been a sandy or muddy sea-bottom, 
receiving much mechanical detritus, or an expanse of flats of reddish 
mud and brown or gray sand, covered by the tides. There are, how- 
ever, some evidences of terrestrial conditions. In the lowest beds is . 
a large erect stump, filled with laminated clay after the complete decay 
of its wood. In the clay filling it were abundance of fern leaves, 
Cordaites, Lepidophylla, a few plants with attached Spirorbis, and a 
shell of Naiadites. This tree was rooted in a thick underclay full of 
rootlets of Stigmaria. Higher up there are several thin coaly bands, 
with underclays; many of the shales abound in leaves of Ferns and 
Cordaites, probably drifted, and the highest sandstone showed a large 
erect tree. 

Subdivision XI. commences with a soil resting immediately on the 
truncated top of the tree last mentioned. On this soil was formed a 
deep swamp, now represented by three feet of coal and bituminous 
shale in alternate bands. Large quantities of clay and sand buried 
this swamp, but not in such a manner as to preclude the growth of 
trees, many of.which were entombed in the erect position. In these 
sandstones and shales, no less than six erect trees were observed at 
different levels, the lowest being rooted in the shale forming the coal- 
roof; fifteen feet of the trunk of one of these trees still remain; two 


others were respectively five and six feet high. Erect Calamites were _ 


also observed. The soil which was formed on the surface of these 
beds supports one of the thickest coal-beds in the section, marking a 
long and undisturbed accumulation of vegetable matter; and after the 
deposition of 18 feet of underclay and shales, there is another equally 
thick though coarser bed. We have here, as in some previous groups, 
three distinct conditions of the surface:—first, terrestrial surfaces 
more or less permanent; secondly, undisturbed marine or brackish 
water conditions; thirdly, intervening between these the deposition, 
probably with considerable rapidity, of sandy and muddy sediment. 
We may also observe that, admitting the Stigmaria to be roots of 
trees, there are five distinct forest soils without any remains of the — 
trees, except their roots; and we shall find throughout the section 
that the forest soils are much more frequently preserved than the 
forests themselves. 

In the large series of beds included in Subdivisions XII. and XIIL., 
there are no less than thirteen distinct forest surfaces marked by 
underclays or erect trees, and at least five periods of submergence 
indicated by mussel-beds, and three of them, at least, of very long 
duration. It will be observed that, in several instances, the order of 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 187 


“succession is underclay—coal—-bituminous limestone. This arrange- 
ment, so common in other parts of the section, seems to show a 
connexion other than accidental between the long periods of terres- 
trial repose required for the growth of coal, and those of quiet 
. submergence necessary for the growth of mussel-beds, Probably the 
2 peaty areas of coal accumulation were gradually subsiding, and when 
_ this process finally caused their submergence, the submerged coal- 
i bi swamp was the most fitting habitat for Maiadites and its associates ; 
and these sunken swamp areas may have been so protected by thick 
margins of jungle as to resist for a long time the influx of turbid 
waters. 
In the lower part of No. XIIL, and immediately above Coal-group 
21, I observed a very curious association of erect plants. An erect 
tree, converted into coal, springs from the surface of the shale, and 
passes through fourteen feet of sandstone and shale. Apparently from 
the same level there rises an erect ribbed tree, probably a Sigillaria, 
in the state of a stony cast, which, however, extends only to the top 
of the sandstone. In the sandstone, and rooted about a foot above 
the base of the erect trees, are a number of erect Calamites. In this 
ease the forest soil has been covered by about a foot of argillaceous 
sand, on which a brake of Calamites sprung up. Further accumu- 
lations of sand buried them, and covered the trunks of the trees to the 
depth of eight feet. By this time the Sigillaria was quite decayed, 
and its bark became a hollow cylinder, reaching only to the surface of 
the sand, and ultimately filled with it. The other tree still stood 
above the surface until six feet of mud were deposited, when, its top 
being broken off, it also completely disappeared beneath the sbtrnnculat: 
ing sediment ; baal being softened and crushed by the lateral pressure 
of the Piecindiue mass, it was finally converted into an irregular 
coaly pillar, retaining no distinct traces either of the external form or 
internal.structure of the original plant. The structure of similar trees, 
to be noticed further on, renders it likely that this coaly tree is the 
remains of one of the Araucarian Pines, which, it appears, flourished 
in the coal-swamps in company-with the Ssltearacs The surface of 
the clay which buried this remarkable tree became itself an underclay 
or soil; and on the sandstone resting upon it were found casts of two 
erect trees, one of them five feet in height, and a Sigillaria with 
distinctly marked leaf-scars. The tops of these trees have been 
entirely removed, and their hollow stems filled with sand, before the 
deposition of a bed of mud resting upon them, and which is now the 
underclay of a bed of coal. This coal was next submerged under the 
conditions required for bituminous limestone and mussel-beds. The 


“7 


188 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


quiet waters were then filled up with clay and sand, the latter 
ripple-marked, and with drifted vegetable fragments. Another soil 
was formed above these beds, and on it we find an inch of coal, with 

flattened Sigillarice, which probably once grew on the underclay. 

This terrestrial surface was succeeded, as usual, by waters swarming . 
with Natadites and fish, and on these were spread out beds of sand 

and mud, with ripple-marks, drift trees, and evidences of partial 

denudation by currents. A terrestrial surface was again restored, and 

four inches of coal were accumulated; but the waters again prevailed, 

and in the coal itself we find Nazadites, Cythere, and plants covered 

with Spirorbis, indicating that these creatures took possession while 

the vegetable matter was still recent, and probably much of it in an 

erect position. A terrestrial surface was, however, soon restored ; for 

‘in the shale which covers the coal there is a fine ribbed stump, two 
feet in diameter, and displaying on its roots the markings of the true 

Stigmaria ficoides, as well as the rootlets zm sétu in the shale. This is 

the first instance we have here yet met with of the distinct connexion 

of an erect ribbed stem with its Stigmaria roots. The causes of the 

difficulty of observing the roots and stem in connexion will be stated 

in the sequel. 

The next Subdivision is in great part the result of somewhat rapid 
mechanical deposition. It contains thick beds of sandstone, deposited 
by currents which have undermined wooded banks, or passed through — 
recently submerged forests, for they contain numbers of trunks of ~ 
different trees, retaining their bark and surface markings. Its coals 
are few and insignificant. There are, however, erect trees and Cala- 
mites at three levels; and one of the trees springs from a shade loaded 
with Cordattes which may have grown around its base. 

Here we may pause for a little, to note the appearance of some of 
the new vegetable remains to which we have been introduced. We 
4 have found a Stgillaria with distinct markings, namely, its sides marked 
I with bold ribs, having the effect of the flutings of a Grecian column, 
and these ribs dotted with vertical rows of leaf-scars. We have also 
seen a distinct instance of a Stgillarta attached to its Stigmaria roots 
ine still spreading through the soil. (See Fig. 30, page 180.) Let us 
id now endeavour to form an idea of the trees of this singular genus. 
oS Imagine a tall branchless or sparsely branching trunk, perhaps two 
a feet in diameter, and thirty feet in height. (One has been traced to 
fl the length of forty feet in the roof of the Joggins main coal-seam.) 
: The trunk is covered with a thick bark, very smooth, and ribbed 
: regularly, and is clothed to the summit with a dense mass of leaves, 
probably of lengthened and grass-like forms. Such trees must have 


2 
4 
a 
2 
J 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 189 


f formed dense groves in the swamps of the Coal period. They have 
nothing closely analogous to them among living plants. There were 
a number of species of Sigillaria, differine somewhat in their ribs and 
leaf-scars, and probably also in their leaves. Lepidophloios or Uloden- 
dron, a plant whose remains oceur with the Sigillaria, was allied to 
the Lepidodendron, but wanted its slender graceful branches, while it 
had rows of stiff cones planted on the sides of its trunk: and its 
general aspect, when clothed with its long leaves, somewhat broader 
than those of Lepidodendron, must have much resembled that of the 
Sigillaria. Lepidophylla were the leaves of Ulodendron or Lepido- 
dendron. ; 

We have also met with the Cordaites, long striated leaves resembling 
those of gigantic plants of Iris or Indian corn, and sometimes five or 
six inches in breadth, and half as many feet in length. They grew 
on thick stems under and around the sigillarian woods though some- 
times probably covering great tracts without any admixture of other 
plants. We have also observed an erect coniferous tree, and erect 
Calamites, but shall reserve our notice of these for better instances 
farther on. Lastly, fronds of Ferns appear in some of the beds; and I 
may state here that they are much less abundant relatively to the 
other plants at the Joggins than elsewhere in the Coal-fields of Nova 
Scotia and Cape Breton. 

Subdivision XY. is one of the most interesting in the section, in 
consequence of the discovery in it, in 1852, by Sir Charles Lyell and 
the writer, of the bones of a reptile, Dendrerpeton Acadianum (Fig. 
32), those of another small reptile, and the shell of a land snail (Pupa 


Pig. 32.—Jaw of Dendrerpeton Acadianum. 


(a) Cross section of Tooth (magnified). 


velusta) (Fig. 33).* These remains are of great interest, as they were 
the first reptilian animals found fossil in the Carboniferous rocks of 
America, and the only land snail whose remains had ever been found 
in rocks of that age; in fact, the first evidence obtained of the 


* The figures given here represent two of the original specimens found in 1852. 
Better specimens are figured further on. 


190 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


existence of animals of that tribe at so early a period. These inter- 
esting remains were all found in the interior of an erect tree, mingled 


Fig. 33.—Fossil Land Shell—Joggins Coal Measures. 


Magnified three diameters. 


with the sand, decaying wood, and fragments of plants which had 
‘fallen into it after it became hollow. The bed of argillaceous sand- 
stone, nine feet in thickness, which enclosed this tree, contains a 
number of erect plants (Fig. 34). Three erect trees in the form of 
sandstone casts and erect Calamites were observed in it, with many 
Stigmaria roots. There was also a tree not in the form of a cast, 
but of a mass of coaly fragments surrounded by a broken and partly 
crushed cylinder of bark; the whole being evidently the remains of 
a trunk which has been reduced to little more than a pile of decayed 


Fig. 34.—Section of middle part of Subdivison XV. in which the Dendrerpeton, Land >. 
Shells, etc., have been found. 


i 
fi 1. Underclay, with rootlets of Stigmaria, resting on gray shale, with two thin coaly seams. 
oe 2. Gray sandstone, with erect trees, Calamites, and other stems: 9 feet. 
i i 8. Coal, with erect tree on its surface: 6 inches. 
uae 4, Underclay, with Stigmaria rootlets. 
2 (a) Calamites. (c) Stigmaria roots. 
ree (6) Stem of plant undetermined. (a) Erect trunk, 9 feet high. - 


pieces of wood before the sand was deposited; consequently it must 
have been either an older or more perishable plant than those which 
stand as pillars of sandstone. The wood of this tree shows, in the 
cross section, a cellular tissue, precisely similar to that of the Coniferze ; 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION, 191 


_ the longitudinal section shows only elongated cells, but is very badly 
preserved. A tree of this description is not likely to have been more 
_ perishable than the Sigillarie, which, in the same situation, remained 
until nine feet of sandy mud had accumulated. I suspect, therefore, 
that this stump may be the remains of a Coniferous forest, which pre- 
ceded the Sigillarie in this locality, and of which only decaying 
stumps remained at the time when the latter were buried by sediment. 
This is the more likely, as the appearances indicate that this tree was 
in a complete state of decay at the very commencement of the sandy 
deposit. It is, however, possible that this older forest, represented by 
coaly stumps, may have consisted of Sigillaroid trees, 

The history of this group will thus be as follows :—(1.) The Stig- 
maria underclay shows the existence of a Sigillaria forest, on the soil 
of which was collected sufficient vegetable matter to form six inches 
of coal, which probably represents a peaty bog several feet in thickness, 
(2.) On this peaty soil grew the trees represented by the stump of 
mineral charcoal mentioned above. This tree, being about one foot 
in diameter, may have required about fifty years for its growth to that 
size. It was then killed, perhaps by the inundation of the bog. (3.) 
During the decay of the tree last mentioned, Srgillarie grew around 
it to the diameter of two feet, when they were overwhelmed by 
sediment, which buried their roots to the depth of about eighteen 
inches. At this level Calamites and other Sigillarie began to grow, 
the former attaining a diameter of four inches, the latter a diameter 
of about one foot. (4.) These plants were in their turn embedded in 
somewhat coarser sediment, but so gradually that trees with stigmarian 
roots grew at two higher levels before the accumulation of mud and 
sand attained the depth of nine feet, at which depth the original large 
Sigillarie that had grown immediately over the coal were broken 
off, and their hollow trunks filled with sand. Before being filled with 
sand, these trees, while hollow, must for some time have projected 
from a swamp or terrestrial surface, such as that which’ immediately 
succeeds them in ascending order; and it is no doubt to this cireum- 
stance that we owe the occurrence, in some of them, of reptilian 
remains and land shells, as well as many vegetable fragments, such 
as Calamites, Cordaites, and a Lepidostrobus, with many of the fossil 
fruits called Trigonocarpa, evidently introduced before the sedimen- 
tary matter, and forming just such a mass as might be supposed likely 
to fall into an open hole in a forest or swamp. (5.) The remaining 
beds of this group evidence the continuation of swamp conditions for 
a long time after the trees last noticed were completely buried. They 
include, in a thickness of twenty-eight feet, three underelays supporting 


192 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


coaly beds, and one with erect stumps; one of them with stigmarian 
roots and ribbed. One of the coaly beds, which alternates with 
lamine of shale, is filled with flattened trunks of Sigillaria and 
Lepidodendron, which probably grew on the surfaces on which they __ 
now lie, and indicate how small a thickness of coaly matter may. 
mark the time required for the growth and decay of many successive 
forests. 

On the whole, we can scarcely err in affirming that the habitat of 
the Dendrerpeton Acadianum and its associates was a peaty and 
muddy swamp, occasionally or periodically inundated, and in which 
growing trees and Calamite brakes were being gradually buried in 
sediment, while others were taking root at higher levels, just as now 
happens in the alluvial flats of large rivers. In subsequent visits to 
this interesting locality, I found the remains of four other species of 
reptiles or batrachians, an ancient representative of the gally-worms 
(Xylobius Sigillarie), and remains of an insect. These will be de- 


scribed further on. In Figs. 35 and 36 I give a representation of 
one of the trees, and a section showing the arrangement of the 
materials filling the base. 

Subdivision XVI. consists of one thick bed of gray sandstone with 
prostrate carbonized trunks. The sandstone is highly silicious, and 
of the kind used for grindstones. It is the result of the complete 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 193 


submergence of the swamps of the last group, and their invasion by 
_ sand-bearing currents. 

_ The next Subdivision commences with the growth of Calamites on 
the surface of the great sand-bed last noticed, after which there was 
the formation of an underelay and coal, the latter being afterwards 
inundated, and the plants at its surface overgrown with Spirorbis. 


is a bed with shrinkage cracks, and containing a stool of Stigmaria, 
e of the roots of which was traced 94 feet. Its rootlets were 
ached, so that it can scarcely have been a drift stump; and if now 

in situ, it must have grown on a mud-bank alternately inundated and 
_ dry, like the present salt-marshes of the Bay of Fundy. 


Fig. 36.—Section of Base of Erect Sigillaria. 


(a) Mineral charcoal. (b) Dark-coloured sandstone, with plants, bones, ete. 
(c) Gray sandstones with Calamites and Cordaites. 

Subdivision X VIII. isa series of sandstones and shales, less perfectly 
exposed than most other parts of the section. Chocolate colours 
prevail among the shales, and there are few fossils. One of the beds, 
_ however, has its surface covered with casts of shrinkage cracks, such 
as are now formed on mud left dry by the neap tides; and there are 

also erect Calamites in one bed and a Stigmarian underclay. 

The next group is of much greater interest, showing seven soil- 
surfaces, with a variety of sedimentary deposits. Two of the coals 
in this group contain on their surfaces of deposition well-preserved 
remains of the plants (Sigillaria, Cordaites, etc.) which must have grown 
on their underclays. A thick mass of sandstone and shale in the 
centre of the group is also very curious, as it evidently represents the 
side of a trench or gully cut by water in a series of mud-beds, and 
then filled up with a confused mass of drift trees and sand. Above 
this mass is an underclay, on which grew a forest, whose only 
remains are a few inches of coaly matter (Gr. 11), made up in part 

_ of flattened trunks converted into coal. This forest must have been 
entirely destroyed by violence or decay, before the next bed, which 
is a shale seven feet thick, was deposited. On the surface of this shale 
grew a great brake of Calamites, which were buried under sand, in 
such a manner that their forms and position were perfectly preserved : 
they stand in groups in the cliff just as they grew, some of them being 
five inches in diameter, and eight feet high; and at that height they 


194 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


have been broken off without any decrease of their diameter. In one 
place twelve stems were counted in eight feet measured along the face - 
of the cliff. From the base of the cliff to low-water mark, they could — 
everywhere be seen abundantly along the continuation of the ledge of © 
sandstone. This bed and others of similar character at the Joggins, 
have given us much information respecting the nature and mode of — 
growth of these plants, which I may pause here to notice in detail. — 
The Calamites were tall cylindrical stems, with a hard outer bark, — 
and were either hollow or filled with cellular matter. The stems 
were regularly marked with longitudinal strie or furrows and cross — 
joints, sometimes showing the marks of the attachment of the leaves, 
which were verticillate, or in whorls around the stem, and long and 
needle-like (Figs. 37 and 38). The general habit of growth thus — 


Fig. 38.—Leaves of Calamites (C. Cistit) 


Fig. 37.— Erect Calamites (C. Voltzii), 
with Roots. 


One-sixth natural size, 


resembled the Equzsetum or Mare’s-tail of modern marshes, and pro- 
bably these plants are also allied to the Calamites in structure. Cala- 


‘ere’ 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 195 


mites grew on wet mud and sand-flats, and also in swamps; and they 

ppear to have been especially adapted to take root in and clothe and 

mat together soft sludgy material recently deposited or in process of 
deposition. When the seed or spore of a Calamite had taken root 
(and it is not unlikely that, like the very remarkable spores of the 
iseta, their seeds had wings which expanded to waft them through 
the air when dry, and closed instantly when they touched the damp 
soil), it probably produced a little low whorl of leaves surrounding 
one small joint, from which another and another, widening in size, 
arose, producing a cylindrical stem, tapering to a point at the base. 


mud had been accumulating around the plant, shot out long roots 
instead of leaves, while secondary stems grew out of the sides at the 
surface of the soil, and in time there was a stool of Calamites, with 
tufts of long roots stretching downwards, like an immense brush, into 
the mud (Fig. 37. See also Fig. 39). When Calamites thus grew 


Fig. 39.—Lrect Calamites (C. Suckovii), showing the Mode of Growth of New Stems, 
and Forms of the Ribs. 


Natural size. . Half natural size. 
% (a) Old stem. (0) Second stem, budding from first. (c) Third stem, budding from second. 


on inundated flats, they would, by causing the water to stagnate, 
promote the elevation of the surface by new deposits, so that their 
stems gradually became buried; but this only favoured their growth, 
for they continually pushed out new stems, while the old buried ones 
shot out bunches of roots instead of regular whorls of leaves. These 
peculiarities have caused much dispute among botanists, some of whom 
have even fancied that the whole stem served as a root. All the 


196 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
apparent anomalies were, however, wise contrivances to fit the plant % 
for its office in nature. 

One peculiarity in these beds well illustrates the fact already — 


mentioned, that the thickness of beds is no certain criterion of the 


time occupied in their formation. The bed of sandstone, eight feet in ‘ 
thickness, enveloping the Calamites, must have been deposited in a 
few years at most. The underlying coal is all that marks the growth, 
submergence, and decay of a forest. 

Subdivision X XIII. isa great and continuous series of swamp and 
estuary deposits, including the most important bed of coal in the 
section, and a large number of well-marked terrestrial surfaces. It 
commences with a black bituminous underclay, a soil probably of long 


continuance, and filled with rootlets. This supports a foot of coal — 


- known to the miners as the “ Queen’s Vein” (Coal-group 8), above 


which we find three other coals with underclays, and one of them 


with a shale roof full of prostrate plants. Then we have an underclay 
capped by shale with fossil leaves, but no coal. Above this we have 
an interruption of the previous conditions, by the deposition of sand, 
on the surfaces of which drift-plants were scattered, and became 
tenanted by the little worms whose shells we have referred to Spzrorbis. 
On these sandstones Stigmaria again took root, and one bed is filled, 
from the cliff to low-water mark, with well-preserved stools of these 
singular roots, each with four main divisions, branching dichotomously. 
A single inch of impure coal was the result of this dense growth of — 
trees. Above this accumulated a thick boggy underclay, on which 
a varied and beautiful forest has grown, which was overturned or 
uprooted, and now lies prostrate in a thin band of ironstone and shale. 
In the ironstone of this band are four species of Stgzllarza, and great 
multitudes of Cordaites and other leaves. All these fossils had 
Spirorbis attached. They no doubt mark the site of a submerged and 
fallen forest, which but for the abundant deposition of fine mud and © 
carbonate of iron, which followed its submergence after an interval 
sufficiently long for the growth of Spzrorbis, would have appeared as — 
a thin coaly layer. Above this, after an interval occupied by shales 
and sandstone with one thin coal, we find a thin coaly layer almost 
entirely composed of Cordaites. No roots appear in the underlying 
shale, and we may therefore doubt whether these leaves grew zn situ, 
or were scattered over the bottom of water. On this coal is a thick 
clay supporting, some years ago, two erect stumps. From the clay in 
which they were rooted they passed upward, through a sandstone two 
feet in thickness, into a shale with ironstone bands above. The 
smaller stump was fluted, but without leaf-scars. Its roots were — 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 197 


eealed under the beach. It was filled with sandstone to the height 


of seven inches above the level of the sandstone without, indicating 
_ that this bed must have suffered from denudation, after having contri- 
buted materials toward the filling of the stump. It is probable that 


the sand within the bark was originally lower than that without. If 


80, the sandstone may have lost much more than seven inches; and of 
this, but for the presence of this stump, there would have been no 
evidence. The neighbouring tree, though rooted at the same level, 


was brought by the dip of the beds to a sufficient height to allow its 
roots to be seen. It was originally of the same height with the other, 
but the upper part had been removed. In this stump we see that 
while the sandstone within has extended higher than that without, it 
has also descended lower, though not quite to the bottom, this being 
filled with clay. We thus find that after the tree became hollow, and 
while its top continued to stand at least three feet above the surface, 
it was partly filled with a deposit from muddy water. The mud 
within was, however, much lower than that without when the sand 
began to be deposited, and filled the greater part of the stump. The 
roots of this tree had Stigmaria markings, and the rootlets could be 
seen penetrating the shale beneath. Portions of the surface of the 
trunk showed the markings of a broad-ribbed Sigillaria, with oval 
leaf-scars on the ligneous surface. The roots descend somewhat 
rapidly into the clay, and perhaps even reach the coaly layer below. 
The overlying shales bend downward into the upper part of these 
stumps, indicating that the material within was more compressible 
than that without. Perhaps this is due to the compression of woody 
matter remaining in the bottom of the cavity left by the decay of the 
trunk. The circumstances in which these stumps were preserved 
strikingly illustrate the strength and durability of the bark of Sig7laria. 
Above this bed there are about thirty feet of shales, with ironstone 
bands and sandstones, including a few thin layers of coal, and appa- 
rently several underclays; but the coal railway and pier prevent them 
from being well seen. On these rests the main coal or “ King’s Vein” 
(Coal-group 7). The main coal and a layer of clay six inches thick 
overlying it, have supported a forest of Stgillarie, some of which 
remain as erect stumps, others are prostrate. Very fine specimens 
have been extracted from this bed in working the coal. Their surfaces 
are often covered with Spirorbis. This forest was buried under eight 
feet of sand and clay; and from the surface of the latter sprang an 
erect tree, which was observed to extend upward to the height of 
fifteen feet, and was then abruptly broken off. The rocks enclosing it 
are sandstone and arenaccous shale. (Fig. 40.) This tree, like one 


se 
a> 


, 


Essa er 


2 ras 7; 


198 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


previously mentioned, was a pillar of coaly matter, without distinct — 
external markings, and compressed by lateral pressure. Its preserva- — 
tion in this manner shows that it was composed of durable wood, but 


Fig. 40.—Beds overlying Joggins Main Coal, with erect Tree and Calamites. 


. Shale and sandstone. Plants with Spirorbis attached; Rain-marks (?) 
Sandstone and shale, § feet. Erect Calamites. An‘ ereet, coniferdus @):drea) ansla 

. Gray sandstone, 7 feet. 

. Gray shale, 4 feet. 

. Gray sandstone, 4 feet. 

. Gray shale, 6 inches. Prostrate and erect trees, with rootlets; leaves; Naiadites; and 

Spirorbis on the plants. 
Main coal-seam, 5 feet coal in two seams. 
. Underclay, with rootlets. 


feet of the sandstones and shale. 


D Ol GO Do 


oN 


by no means proves that it differed from those trees which are found 
in the state of stony casts. An erect tree, the wood of which had 
time to decay before it was buried by detritus, would appear as a cast 
in sand or clay. The same tree, if broken off and buried before the 
decay of its wood, might appear as a pillar of coal. This tree is, 
however, proved, by portions of its wood which retain their structure, 
to have been coniferous. 

After deposits of sand had extended to the height of at least ten 
feet above the root of this tree, and while its top projected above the 
surface, Calamites grew around, attaining a diameter of 1? inch, and a 
height of at least five feet. They are very numerous, and though 
perhaps a different species from those in the great calamite bed before 
mentioned, grew in the same manner. They were buried by five feet 
of sand and arenaceous mud, after which their tops and that of the 


“i, 


ee ee 


t 


. " 
SN a alle, Ale ta eo a 


on the shale, passes up through 15 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 199 


rect tree were removed or decayed, and the sands next succeeding 
eontain only drift vegetable fragments, having Spirorbis attached to 
them. Above these is an inch of coal, loaded with Cordaites, and it 
is to be observed that this is the second instance of thin coals of this 
kind without Stigmaria underclays. Immediately above this is a 
sandy soil with Stigmaria and rootlets, but without coal or erect trees. 
_ Shales and sandstones succeed ; and above these we have a very thick 
underclay full of rootlets. This soil, after the growth upon it of coaly 
matter, and a forest or successive forests of Sigillaria, was submerged 
in such circumstances that scarcely any mechanical detritus was 
deposited upon it. The trees remained erect in the bottom of clear 
waters, inhabited by fishes and Cythere, until Spirorbis attached itself to 
their trunks. They at length fell and sank to the bottom; and, with 
the vegetable soil, form a bed of impure coal four inches in thickness, 
and abounding in scales of fishes and trunks covered with Spirorbis. 
Long after the forest disappeared, these aquatic conditions continued, 
and ten inches of caleareo-bituminous shale with Naiadites, fish-scales, 
and Cythere were deposited, as usual passing upward into barren gray 
shale. ‘This is a fine instance of an order of succession which we had 
frequent occasion to notice in the earlier part of the section. 
In the next Subdivision the waters retain their dominion, though 
probably diminishing in depth, in consequence of the deposition of 
detrital matter. The sandstones of this group are very uniform and 
evenly bedded, as compared with those in the last, and present no 
indications of vicinity to shores or water-courses, except in the presence 
of drift-wood, and of singular scratches and furrows on the surfaces of 
the shales, fine casts of which have been taken by the overlying sand. 
Scratches and marks of this kind are very frequent in the Coal Forma- 
tion. They occur on a grand scale in the Pictou freestone quarries, 
and are also very abundant near Tatamagouche. Many of them might 
very easily be included in the convenient tribe of Fucoides, that is, 
remains of sea-weeds, but their want of uniformity in everything 
except direction, their want of organic matter, and occurrence in beds 
containing drift-wood, make it most probable that they were scratches 
produced by the roots and branches of trees borne over the surface by 
currents of water, and similar to those which may be seen on the 
inundated mud-flats of wooded countries. Such marks are usually 
straight, like diluvial strix, but when stumps or tree-tops ground and 
are borne off, the most fantastic markings are produced, partly by the 
eddying of the current around the obstacles opposed to it. 
In Subdivision X XV. we have a dense series of fossil soils, with thin 
coaly layers. It terminates upwards in bituminous limestone, with its 


. 


200 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


usual fossils and resting on coal. This is a case precisely similar to 
that which terminates our 23d group, except that in this last case the ? 
conditions favourable to the formation of bituminous limestone probably _ 
continued longer. 
The next is another barren group of chocolate and gray shales, with, — 
gray sandstone occasionally rippled, and with fragments of drift-wood. = 
This is the filling up of the shell-fish-inhabited waters, in the manner a. 
already so frequently noticed. In one of its beds I observed rain- 
marks, and a series of footprints, probably of a small reptile; andit was 
here that Mr Marsh found the vertebra of the largest reptile yet 
discovered at the Joggins, Hosaurus Acadianus. | 
Subdivision XX VIL. is another succession of underclays and small _ 
coaly layers. It is remarkable for the very pyritous character of many — 
-of its beds, an indication of the action of sea-water. The most 
remarkable part of this group is that represented in Fig. 41. It 


Fig. 41.—Section from the lower part of Subdivision XX VII. 


1. Shale. 2. Shaly coal, 1 foot. 8. Underclay with rootlets, 1 foot 2 inches. 

4. Gray sandstone passing downwards into shale, 3 feet. Erect tree with Stigmaria roots (e) 
on the coal. S 

5. Coal, 1 inch. 6. Underclay with roots, 10 inches. 

7. Gray sandstone, 1 foot 5 inches. Stigmaria rootlets continued from the bed above; erect 
Calamites. 8. Gray shale, with pyrites. Flattened plants. 


ss SR 


includes a bed of erect Calamites and an erect tree with distinct Stig- 
maria roots. The underclays are here so crowded on the erect plants, 
that the rootlets of one underclay pass downward among the erect 
Calamites, and the rootlets of another pass beside and within the cast 
of the erect tree, the surface markings of which they have helped to 


EXPLANATION OF JOGGINS SECTION. 201 


obliterate by passing downward immediately within the bark. The 
ealamites are rooted in shale, and the erect tree in an ordinary under- 
“q ~ clay, supporting a thin layer of coal which rises a little immediately 
under the stump, being there either protected from pressure or increased 
by the addition of woody matter derived from the trunk. This stump, 
it will be observed, expands rapidly towards its base. This group 
terminates upward in a mussel-bed resting on coal. 
_ The whole series of events in the preceding historical sketch has 
depended on the following conditions :—Gradual and long-continued 
subsidence, with occasional elevatory movements, going on in an exten- 
sive alluvial tract teeming with vegetable life and receiving large 
“ ~ supplies of fine detrital matter. On the one hand, subsidence tended 
to restore the original dominion of the waters. On the other hand, 
elevation, silting up, and vegetable and animal growth built up succes- 
sive surfaces of dry land. For a very long period these opposing 
forces were alternately victorious, without effecting any very decided 
or permanent conquest; and it is very probable that the locality of 
our section was, during this period, near the margin of the alluvial 
tract in question, where the various changes of the conflict were more 
sensibly felt and more easily recorded than nearer the open sea or 
farther inland. 
The portion of the section above described in detail includes a 
thickness of 2819 feet of the central part of the Coal formation, 
constituting Division 4 of Logan’s section. 
It is impossible to contemplate this vast series of deposits without 
being forcibly impressed with the great lapse of time and variety of 
change which it indicates; and a glance at the table of formations in 
the introduction to this work, will show how small a portion of the 
whole geological history of the earth is represented by the coal 
measures. It is to be borne in mind also that this section represents 
the structure of the whole plain of Cumberland, and in a less precise 
manner that of the whole Carboniferous areas of Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick, with great tracts composed of similar rocks, but not 
elevated above the bed of the present seas. I do not wish it to be 
understood, however, that all the changes represented by the Joggins 
beds extended continuously over large areas. On the contrary, I 
believe that had we visited Cumberland during the Coal period, we 
might, by changing our position a few miles, have passed from a sandy 
shore to a peaty swamp, or to the margin of an estuary or lagoon; but 
I believe that in each locality these changes succeeded each other in 
a similar manner, and that the great alternations between terrestrial 
growth and marine deposition extended over very wide areas. Had 
‘0 


¢ 
= 
——- 


202- THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


we visited Cumberland during the time represented by one of the 
groups of coals, bituminous limestones, and erect forests, we should — 
have beheld vast swampy plains covered with dense forests, calamite 
brakes, and peaty bogs, intersected by sluggish streams and shallow 
lagoons. Had we visited it perhaps some centuries later, at the time 
when one of the barren groups of sandstone was being deposited, the 


eye would have ranged over a wide and shallow sea, filled with sand- _ 


banks, and with occasional low islets and spits, covered with Sigillariz 3 
and fringed with wide borders of Calamites, struggling for existence — 
among the shifting sands. Changes of this kind alternated again and — 


again, while the whole area was constantly subsiding at a rate so slow, 


that mechanical deposition and animal and vegetable growth were able _ 
to a great extent to counteract and sometimes altogether to neutralize _ 


its influence. At length, however, in the Upper Coal formation, 
aqueous conditions regained a decided preponderance. This, then, be 


it borne in mind, was the process employed by the great Architect 
of the universe in building up the Coal-fields of Nova Scotia and of 
the world; and we are indebted to the clean and sharp section effected _ 
by the tides of Chiegnecto Bay for that fine exposure of its stony 
monuments which enable us to understand and explain in such detail — 
its nature. 


Remains of Aquatic Animals in the Coal Measures. 


I propose in the sequel to devote an entire chapter to the land — 
animals of the Coal formation. In the present note, I desire to state — 
some interesting facts in regard to the remains of aquatic animals — 
which abound in the shales and bituminous limestones, associated — 
with plants, and without any intermixture of brachiopods, corals, or — 
other absolutely marine productions. Though I do not consider these 
creatures as fresh-water animals, yet they must be regarded as the — 


tenants of brackish, and perhaps sometimes fresh, ponds, lagoons, and 


creeks of the Coal formation swamps, and which must have been, for 
the most part, shallow, land-locked, and filled with putrid vegetable 
matter, though no doubt often at the sea level, and communicating 
with it by channels more or less wide. 

I. Bivalve Shells—All the Lamellibranchiate shells, which are so 
numerous in some of the shales and bituminous limestones of the 
Joggins that some of the beds may be regarded as composed of them, 
belong to one generic or family group. They are the so-called 
Modiolas, Unios, or Anodons of authors. I proposed for them, some 
years ago, the generic name of NVavadites, and described six species 
from the Coal measures of Nova Scotia, stating my belief that they 


AQUATIC ANIMALS OF THE COAL. 203 


are allied to Unionide, and that their nearest analogue may be the 
genus Bysso-anodonta of D’Orbigny, found in the River Parana.” 
Mr Salter, however, to whom I sent specimens, regards these shells as 
belonging to his new genera Anthracomya and Anthracoptera, the 
former being supposed to be allied to Myadew.+ More recently 
Giimbel and Geinitz have described similar shells from Thuringia as 
belonging to the genera Unio and Anodon, and regard my Naiadites 
— carbonarius (Anthracoptera carbonaria of Salter) as a Dreissena.{ 
€ In the present uncertainty as to their genuine relations, I shall retain 
“the name Naiadites for the whole of the species, giving, however, 
~ Salter’s generic names in brackets. The genus Anthracosia of King, 
~ which is evidently distinct from Naiadites, has been recognised in 
~ Nova Scotia only in the Lower Coal formation of Baddeck, C. B. A 
specimen found at that place by Mr Barnes will be sonia in the 
sequel. As these shells swarmed in the waters of the Coal formation 
estuaries or lagoons, facts tending to the elucidation of their habits 
and affinities are important with reference to the coal; I would there- 
fore make the following remarks in relation to them :— 

(1.) Under the microscope, the shells of the thicker species, as 
Naiadites carbonarius, present an internal lamellar and subnacreous 
layer, a thin layer of vertical prismatic shell, and an epidermis—these 
structures being entirely similar to those of Uniontde. In the thinner 
species, as in NV. lavis, only the prismatic coat appears, and in this the 
prisms are in some instances placed obliquely. These thin shells, 
however, show evidence of an epidermis. (2.) The ligament was 
external, there seem to have been no teeth, the shell was closed 
posteriorly ; but there are indications of a byssal sinus. Mr Salter 
describes the epidermis as wrinkled posteriorly; but this, with the 
exception of the rings of growth, appears to me to result from pressure. 
The shells are equivalve, and have the external aspect of Unionide 
or Mytilide. (3.) I know of no instance in Nova Scotia of the oceur- 
rence of these shells in the strictly marine limestones, nor have any 
properly marine forms of Mollusca been found with Nacadites in the 
coal measures. (4.) The mode of their occurrence precludes the idea 
that they were burrowers, but favours the belief that they were 
attached by a byssus to sunken or floating timber. On the whole, I 
think that the balance of probability is in favour of the conclusion 

that they were brackish-water or fresh-water shells, allied to Mytilide 
or to embryonic Unionide. 


* Supplement to Acadian Geology, 1860. 
+ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. xix. p. 79. 
t Neues Jahrbach, 1864. Geological Magazine, May 1865. 


> eee 
Sy nS a oe en 


Sar, 


204 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


(1.) Naiadites (Anthracoptera) carbonaria (Dawson)—Fig. AD 


acute, in the anterior fourth of hinge-line; anterior margin abruptly 
rounded ; ventral margin nearly straight, with a slight sinus; posterior — 
margin broad and regularly rounded; shell thin, with distinct growth 
lines. When recent, the shell was probably somewhat tumid, but is 
usually flattened, and often much distorted by pressure, so that it is 
very difficult to obtain a specimen sufficiently perfect to be described 
or figured, Length of adult, an inch or more. This is the most 
abundant species in the Coal measures of the Joggins, beds of some _ 
thickness being often almost entirely made up of the valves. Fig. 31, 
p. 182 supra, represents an imperfect and distorted specimen. See — 
also Fig. 22 in my paper on the South Joggins in the Journal of 
the Geological Society, vol. x. p. 39. This shell may possibly be the 
Modiola Wyomingensis of Lea (Journ. Ac. Nat. Science, 2d serleayy a 
vol. ii.); but if so, his specimen is imperfect. a 

(2.) Naiadites (Anthracomya) elongata (Dn.)—Fig. 43.—Smaller __ 
than the preceding, and more elongated laterally; the beaks obtuse — 
and more anterior; the hinge-line nearly straight and less than half £ 
the length; Seton gin slightly compressed; length, half an inch — 3 
to an inch; common at the Joggins and Sydney, in the Middle 
Coal measures. See Fig. 23 in paper above cited. 

(3.) Naiadites (Anthracoptera) laevis (Dn.)—Fig. 44.*—Broad £ 
ovate, extremely thin; beak about one-third of distance from anterior — 
end. This species is smaller, more rounded, thinner, and with the — 


* Mr Salter thinks that this is identical with a species found in the Upper Coat ve 
measures of Manchester. 


j 
‘ 
“- 


AQUATIC ANIMALS OF THE COAL. ~ 205 


eaks more central, than No. 1. It occurs in a bed of shale at the 
_ base of the Middle Coal series at the Joggins. 

_ (4.) Naiadites arenacea (Dn.)—Fig. 45.—Elliptical ; twice as long 
as wide; beaks prominent, one-fourth from anterior end, which is 
compressed and rounded. In the Upper Coal formation at Pictou. 
(5.) Naiadites ovalis (Dn.)—Similar in general form to No. 4, but 
‘much broader in proportion. See paper above cited, Fig. 24. It 
_ occurs in bituminous limestone, with cyprids, in the lower part of the 
_ Joggins Coal measures. 

(6.) Naiadites angulata (Dn.)—Fig. 46.—Similar in general form 
and proportions to No. 4, but with more prominent beaks, a straight 
hinge-line, and an undefined ridge running backward from the umbo, 
and causing the posterior extremity to present an angular outline. 
Lower Coal formation at Parrsborough. 

(7.) WV. obtusa (Dn.)—As large as NV. carbonaria, but remarkable 
for the broad and truncated form of its anterior end, giving it an 
approach to a quadrangular form. It is thin, and much marked by 
growth lines. Lower Coal measures, M‘Lellan’s Brook, Pictou. 

Il. Spirorbis carbonarius.—Fig. 47.—This little shell, which I de- 
scribed as a Sprrorbis as long ago as 1845,* is apparently not specifi- 
eally distinct from Microconchus carbonarius of the British Coal-fields. 


Fig. 47. —Spirorbis carbonarius ; nat. size attached to Cordaites, and magnified. 


Its microscopic structure is identical with that of modern Spirorbes, 
and shows that it is a true worm-shell. It is found throughout the 
Coal formation, attached to plants and to shells of Naiadites, and must 
have been an inhabitant of enclosed lagoons and estuaries. Its oceur- 
rence on Sigillarie has been used as an argument in favour of the 
Opinion that these trees grew in sea-water; but, unfortunately for 
that conclusion, the Spirorbis is often found’on the inside of the 
bark, showing that this had become dead and hollow. Beside this, 
the same kind of evidence would prove that Lepidodendra, Cordaites, 


* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. i. p. 326. 


206 ~ THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. a 


and ferns were marine plants. Spirorbes multiply fast and grow very 
rapidly; and these little shells no doubt took immediate possession — 
of submerged vegetation, just as their modern allies cover fronds of — 
Laminaria and Fucus. . 

As I have not met with a description of this little shell, I may state. 
that it is dextral, with two and a half to three turns. It is attached 
throughout its length, and, when not compressed, presents a some-— 
what deep umbilicus. It is closely marked with beaded or unequal 
transverse ridges. It has, when young, a close resemblance to Sp. 
caperatus, M‘Coy, from the Carboniferous limestone of Ireland; but 
this species has only two turns, and is sinistral. 

This shell has been described by Goeppert as a fungus, under the 
name of Gyromyces ammonis. 

III. Crustacea.—It appears, in the table above, that as many as 
fourteen beds of coal exhibit in their roofs shells of minute Entomos- 
traca of the genera Cythere and Bairdia (Fig. 48),* and these occur 


Fig. 48.—Crusts of Entomostraca ; nat. size and magnified. 


(a) Bairdia; (b) Cytherella inflata; (c) Cythere. 


in such quantities that considerable beds of shale and bituminous — 
limestone are filled with their valves. Professor Jones regards the 
species as marine or brackish-water; and the same remark will, I 
presume, apply to the crustacean Diplostylus Dawsont, and a fragment 
of Eurypterus described by Mr Salter from Coal-group No. 8 of Division 
4 of the Section, as well as to a second and larger species from Port 
Hood. Of the small Entomostracans there are several species, which — 
Professor Jones has now in his hands for determination. No Estherians — 
have yet been found in the Coal formation of Nova Scotia; but Ihave 
specimens of Leata Leidyi from the Lower Carboniferous of Plaister 
Cove, and an undetermined Estheria from the same horizon at Horton 
Bluff. These will be described further on. 


* One at least of these is identical with a British Carboniferous species. 


AQUATIC ANIMALS OF THE COAL, 207 


The following are Mr Salter’s descriptions of these interesting 
~ erustaceans, taken from his paper, Journal of Geol. Society, vol. 
xix. :— 

“ DipLosTyLus, gen. nov. 

“Carapace unknown. Body segments arched, and with minute 
pleura. Tail segment large, triangular, spinose, with two pairs of 
simple ovate appendages. 

“Dretostytus Dawsont, spec. nov. (Fig. 49). 

“The portion preserved consists only of five rings and the broad 

telson; and these together are three-fourths of an inch long, and less 


st Fig. 49.—Diplostylus Dawsoni. 3 


(a) Tail, nat. size ; () terminal joint enlarged. 


than half an inch broad at the widest part. The telson is somewhat 
narrower than the body-rings, broad above, and pointed behind, 
where it is notched into three spines, the centre one very short, the 
two on each side of it broad, and on their outer sides covering the 
attachment of two small obovate palettes. These palettes are a little 
oblique, narrower than their length, rounded at their posterior margin, 
and striated distinctly. Outside these, and much higher up on the 
sides, are a pair of broader notches, which give origin to a pair of 
small palettes, ovate and not broader at their ends, and striated 
obliquely ; and above the insertion of these are a pair of broad, flat 
spines on the surface of the tail-joint. 

“The body segments are transverse, the axis not much distinguished 
from the short, pointed, recurved pleura, with a narrow articular 
furrow, and strongly punctate on the exposed portions. The puncta- 
tions (in the hinder segments only) are overhung by short plications : 
such punctations are observable in many Isopod Crustaceans. 

“ Locality —Coal measures of the Joggins, Nova Scotia, in a plant- 
bed in the middle of the series. 

“ Having looked in vain for a similar pygidium among the large- 
tailed Isopods, and consulted Mr Spence Bate with a like result, he 


| 
‘ 
j 
{ 


| 


208 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


referred me to a group of parasitic Amphipods (the Hyperina), q 


among which there are a few forms* with tail segments coalesced 
and bearing appendages. These show a sufficient resemblance to 
warrant our referring Diplostylus provisionally to the Amphipod order. 


I am very much obliged to Mr Bate for this analogy (which would . — 
certainly have escaped me in Milne-Edwards’s work). Mr Bate’s late © 


papers on the Amphipods (Ann. Nat. Hist., 1861) admirably illustrate 
this peculiar group. 
“ Euryprerus, a large species allied to EH. Scouleri, Hibbert (Fig. 50). 


“ A mere fragment of a large body-ring, which nevertheless indi- 

cates a species nearly as large as the great Scotch Eurypterus (LE. 
Scouleri, Hibbert). 
_ “The large ‘teardrop-tubercles’ along the hinder margin sufi- 
ciently show the nature of the ornament. These, in all probability, 
were replaced by spines on the carapace, as in the British Coal 
measure species. 

“The carbonaceous film which remains in part on the surface, 
cracked (by shrinking) into minute areole, represents evidently a 
corneous substance, from which the animal matter has been dissolved 
away. The suggestion of Professor Huxley, that the large Euryp- 
teride had a thick crust like that of Limulus, with but little 
calcareous matter, is most probably true. 

“ Locality—Coal measures, Port Hood, Cape Breton. 


Fig. 50.—Fragment of Eurypterus. Fig. 51.—Tail of Eurypterus (2). 


“Euryprerus (?), tail of. (Fig. 51). 

“This small specimen, found with the Déplostylus in the Joggins 
plant-bed, has evidently nothing to do with that genus. It is im- 
perfect, but can hardly be supposed to be other than the caudal joint 
(broken) of a Eurypterus or allied form. It is, as usual in that genus, 
contracted at its origin, but swells out afterwards, in the manner of 

* Anchylomera, Typhis, Brachyscelus, ete. 


ar Ry 


a 
‘. 
,. 
- 
7 
¥,. 
Ss 
¢ 


Ere 


AQUATIC ANIMALS OF THE COAL. 209 


the tail-joint of Slmonia (Pterygotus) acuminata. There are no 
surface markings or marginal serrations.” 

Locality.—Coal measures, Joggins, N.S. 

IV. Fishes——Remains of fishes occur in connexion with eighteen 
_ of the coal-beds at the Joggins, usually in the roof-shales, though 
detached scales, teeth, spines, or coprolites, are of occasional though 
. rare occurence in the coal itself, especially where the latter passes into 
~_ goarse coal or carbonaceous shale. One thin bed, No. 6 of Division 4 
_ of the Section, is full of remains of small fishes. It is hard and 
laminated, and roofed with a calcareous bed full of remains of aquatic 
animals. It has a true stigmarian underclay. I suppose it to have 
been a swamp or forest submerged and occupied by fishes while its 
vegetation was still standing. It contains remains of fishes of the 
genera Ctenoptychius, Diplodus, Rhizodus, and Paleoniscus. It also 
contains Cythere, Naiadites, and Spirorbis. In the other beds which 
contain fish-remains, most of these consist of small Lepidoganoids, but 
there are occasional teeth and scales of large species of Rhizodus, and 
also teeth of Selachian fishes of considerable size. 

Among these I have in my collection a tooth of a Ctenoptychius 
(Fig. 52), differing from any species of which I have seen a description. 


Fig. 52.— Tooth of Ctenoptychius cristatus, N.S. ; nat. size and magnified. 


It is two lines in length, with fourteen sharp denticles, much compressed, 
and with a narrow base. Another very fine tooth found in these beds 
appears to belong to M‘Coy’s genus Conchodus (Fig. 53). It has seven 


Fig. 53. Tooth of Conchodus plicatus, N.S. Fig. 54.— Tooth of Psammodus. 


strong angular ridges, with a slightly granulated and obliquely wrinkled 


210 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM, 


surface, and is an inch and a half in length, and about seven lines wide _ 
in the middle. The anterior edge is slightly and regularly rounded, __ 
and the posterior edge forms an obtuse angle rounded at the apex. — a 
Other teeth are referable to the genus Psammodus (Fig. 54). There 
are also spines of the genus Gyracanthus (Fig. 55), though not of the. 


Fig. 55.—Spine—Gyracanthus duplicatus, N.S. 


| 


magnificent proportions of a specimen found by Mr Barnes in Cape 
Breton, and measuring 22 inches in length (Fig. 55a). Not being 


Fig. 55a.—Spine— Gyracanthus magnificus, N.S., reduced. 


able to identify these fossils with any described species, I have 
assigned. to them provisional names until further specimens shall 
i render them better known. 
‘ Many scales and other remains of fishes occur in the roof of the 
main coal at Pictou, and also in the bed included in that coal-seam 
which afforded the reptile Baphetes planiceps, and which is evidently 
Re in the manner of its formation of the same general character with the 
ia Modiola and Cypris shales of the Joggins. Most of these belong to 
a the genus Rhizodus, and to a species not distinguishable from R. 


NI 
asl | 
. Lats —— ‘ . Nl un 
~~ a - p>, _ — & 
en ee a ee OTe ne See a - 


Fig. 56.—Rhizodus lancifer (?). 


iad ia ati aa tain 


ADR? gf EM 5 


(a) Tooth; (8) scale. 


lancifer, Newberry (Fig. 56), of the Coal-field of Ohio. There is 


| i i “ Za 
é A HA /]f VEE : 
f + uly} {ari \\ 
ab 5 Mi ih Ws TT SY 
” | oF 
: H = 
‘ f : 
r 
4 
7 
t 


AQUATIC ANIMALS OF THE COAL. 211 


so a fine species of Diplodus, which appears to be new, and which I 
have named D. acinaces. Its lateral denticles are compressed and 
. - sharp-edged, but scarcely crenulated, and both bent in the same 
direction. Middle cone obsolete ; tidee large and broad. One denticle 
_ is usually much larger than the ean The greatest diameter of the 
larger denticle is to its length as one to three. A tooth of ordinary 
_ gize measures six lines from the lower side of the base to the point of 
the longest denticle, and the base is four lines broad (Fig. 58). I 
_ regard as probably belonging to this fish certain cylindrical spines 
found i in the same bed, They are about half an inch in diameter, with 
nearly central canal two lines in diameter, and are marked externally 
with parallel longitudinal striz. 
Among fossils from Pictou forwarded to me by Mr Poole, there is 
a new Diplodus (D. penetrans), Fig. 57. This is smaller than D. 
acinaces of the Main Coal. Its height is about 
two and a half lines, and the breadth nearly the Fig.57. Fig. 58. 
same. The lateral points are half as broad as 
long, and flattened; rhombic in cross section at 
the base; serrated, especially at the outer and 
lower margins. They diverge at an angle of 
35° to 40°, and the central denticle is small and 
conical. The base is broad and strongly lobed. 
These teeth occur in the roof of beds of coal near to and above the 
New Glasgow conglomerate, and in the roof of the Main Coal.* 
In the same collection is a small tooth of Ctenoptychius with eight 
denticles ;—the specimen is an imperfect impression. There are also 
remains of several ganoid fishes. One of these is a conical curved 
tooth, half an inch long, smooth on the convex side, and marked on 
the concave side with five spiral ridges. It probably belongs to the 
genus Rhizodus. With it are scales, possibly of the same fish, which 
have the punctures and striz of the genus Osteoplax of M‘Coy. There 
are also two remarkable flattened sabre-shaped spines, one inch and a 
half in length, and resembling in general form the Devonian Machera- 
canthus. Several rounded scales have the characters of those of 
Rhizodus, and there are numerous scales and other remains referable 
to Palwoniscus and allied genera. These last in the Albion measures, 
as at the Joggins, abound in the bituminous shales and thin coals. 
Notwithstanding the abundance of these remains of fishes, their 
dislocated condition opposes great obstacles to their satisfactory study. 
They all occur in the same beds, usually rich in vegetable matter, 
which contain the shells of Natadites and the Cythere and Spirorbis. 


* These species were described in ‘‘ Supplementary Chapter,” 1860. 


Teeth of Diplodus. 


D1? THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Consequently they must have been capable of subsisting in the brack- 
ish and impure water of the coal creeks and lagoons. The smaller 
ganoid species would find in these abundance of worms, small crus-_ 
tacez, and larve of insects on which to feed; and if, like the modern - 
ganoids of our North American rivers, they were provided with a. 
lung-like air-bladder, they could subsist in stagnant water deprived of 
its free oxygen by decomposing vegetable matter, conditions under 
which the ordinary ctenoid and cycloid fishes, had they existed in the 
Coal formation period, would have perished. The larger ganoids and 
the shark-like Diplodonts no doubt preyed upon the smaller fishes, as 
the abundant scales seen in their coprolites prove. The flat-toothed, 
shark-like Psammodus and Conchodus may have ground up the 
shells of Naiadites, which probably hung in countless multitudes on — 
‘the floating and sunken timber of these coal lagoons and creeks. 
Lastly, when these fish died, the millions of little Cytheres and _ 
Bairdias, by removing every particle of flesh and ligament, would — 
scatter the scales and bones over the bottom of the waters, to be 
embedded in the black ooze. 


“a 


a 4 


ine, / 
i Neale Soe 


oo ey 


CHAPTER XIII. 
THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


INLAND EXTENSION OF THE COAL MEASURES OF THE JOGGINS—SHORES 
OF NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT—USEFUL MINERALS OF CUMBERLAND, 


Tue beds that appear at the Joggins can be traced eastward for 
many miles, and reappear with a very similar arrangement in the banks 
of the inland streams on their line of strike, as, for instance, on the 
Hebert River and Macean River; on the latter of which some of the ~ 
Joggins beds appear ten miles from the coast. They no doubt extend, 
with some modifications in the details, quite to the coast of North- 
umberland Strait. On this coast, however, the rocks are not so well 
exposed as on the shores of Chiegnecto Bay, and they have been dis- 
tutbed by lines of fracture, extending from the great line of elevation 
of the Cobequid Mountains. 

In the intervening country the covering of soil prevents the geo- 
logical traveller from observing much, except the ridges produced 
by the outcropping edges of the harder sandstones. The only portion 
of this inland region in which important coal measures have been 
observed is at Springhill, about twenty miles eastward of the Joggins 
coast, where it would seem that the great synclinal seen on the coast 
section runs out to the surface, presenting a narrow trough-shaped 
arrangement, accompanied by some disturbance of the beds. 

At Pugwash, we find large beds of limestone and gypsum, the for- 
mer with Lower Carboniferous shells; among which are the Productus 
semireticulatus, and a similar but more finely striated species, the 
P. cora. There are also joints of Encrinites, a little Aviculopecten 
or scallop, and a smooth shell, Terebratula sacculus, belonging to the 
same tribe with the Product, but more closely allied in form to the 
few species of that tribe which inhabit the existing seas. This lime- 
stone is of good quality, and has been extensively quarried. It dips 
to the S.W. On the shore in the vicinity a series of sandstones and 
brownish shales appear, also with S.W. dips. Associated with them 
are some beds of gray and black shale, with leaves of ferns and 
Cordaites. The limestone is again seen at Canfield’s Creek, and there 


214 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


it is associated with gypsum. The dip is 8.S.W. These Pugwash ; 


beds are evidently Lower Carboniferous, and if the same regularity that __ 


we have observed at the Joggins prevailed, would be associated with 


a series of Coal formation rocks regularly succeeding them. A portion — 


of such a series does appear in ascending Pugwash River, but in pro-. — 


ceeding to the eastward we find that the centre of the trough is broken — 


up by a dislocation or anticlinal line, extending to Cape Malagash, 


which causes the coal measure rocks to be ridged up in sucha manner 


that two narrow troughs with an intervening anticlinal appear to occur 
between Pugwash and the Cobequid Hills. On the east side of Pug- — 
wash Harbour we find gray sandstones, apparently of the Upper Coal 
formation, in very thick beds, dipping to the north, and containing 
prostrate trunks of carbonized trees and Calamites. The shore runs — 
‘nearly in the direction of the beds, and the gray sandstones in conse- 
quence form a sort of sea-wall sloping toward the strait, and extending 
from Pugwash to Oak Island. Under these sandstones are beds of 
gray shale, with fossil ferns and a small seam of coal; and these are _ 
again underlaid by dark red, brown, and mottled sandstones and shales. _ 
On the shore of Wallace Harbour there are gray sandstones and gray _ 
and brown shales, with high dips to the north-east; they are far 
beneath the beds seen on the Gulf Shore, and probably belong to the 
Middle Coal measures, possibly to their lower part. They contain at 
one place a thin seam of sulphurous coal, and chalybeate and sulphur- 
ous springs rise from them. The whole of these beds, as well as others 
seen farther inland, bear a striking resemblance, as far as can be 
observed, to those of the Joggins section. 

Sandstones and shales of the Coal formation prevail along the coast 
between Wallace and Cape Malagash, and there present some appear- 
ances worthy of notice, more especially the association of limestone, 
marine shells, and gypsum, with beds containing trunks of fossil 
coniferous trees, and the occurrence of coal measure beds in a vertical 
position, or disturbed as far as possible from their original horizontality. 
At M‘Kenzie’s Mill, not far from the eastern extremity of Wallace 
Harbour, the following curious succession occurs, in descending 
order :— 
Feet. 
Gray limestone with Productus cora, P. semireticulatus, and 

Aviculopecten simplex, the cavities of the shells filled with _ 


crystalline gypsum. : ; ; : oT 
White small-grained cevetedlens een ‘ . i . de 
Reddish shale and sandstone with layers of arenaceous cal concre- 

tionary limestone , : ; : : ; < ose 


SHORES OF NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT. 215 


" Feet. 
ray sandstone and shales with some reddish beds. One of the 
gray sandstones is filled with trunks and branches of fossil 
trees, fossilized by carbonate of lime, and showing under 
the microscope a very perfect structure of the Araucarian 
EE iis hy we about 150 


__ Here we have, ona small scale, some of the principal features of the 
Lower Carboniferous series, associated with vegetable remains similar 
to those found usually at a much higher level in the Carboniferous 
system. The beds at this place dip 8.S.W. 20°; but a little farther 
to the north there are sandstones and conglomerates, also of the 
_ Carboniferous series, dipping to the N.E. 

Proceeding along the coast to the north-east, we find the gray 
sandstones containing fossil trees and thrown quite on edge. As the 
strike of the beds corresponds nearly with that of the shore, large 
surfaces sometimes stand up along the face of the cliff like walls, and 
on these are distinct ripple-marks and worm-tracks, produced when 
the sandstones were beds of incoherent sand, but now, in consequence 
of the hardening and disturbance of the sandstone, forming sculptures 
on a vertical wall. A little further on, the same beds are seen dipping 
to the north at an angle of 45°, and containing abundance of fossil 
wood and some Calamites. A portion of the shore is then occupied 
by a salt marsh, and beyond this we have a considerable series of coal 
measure beds at the extremity of Cape Malagash, dipping south at an 
angle of 40°. Cape Malagash, as before stated, thus appears to be in 
the line of a subordinate anticlinal, ridging up the Coal formation rocks, 
but not, like the more important anticlinal to the northward, bringing 
up the Lower Carboniferous series. That the reader may have an 
opportunity of comparing these beds with those of the Joggins, at the 
other extremity of the same coal-field, and sixty miles distant, I shall 


give a section of them in descending order. 
Feet. 


Brownish red sandstones and shales alternating with gray sand- 

stones, one of them containing pebbles of white quartz, about 600 
Dark gray limestone. . ‘ , : : ; oe ll 
Gray and reddish sandstones . , : : : ‘ . 50 
Dark gray limestone . . : ; : ‘ ; cog 
Gray sandstones. : ‘ : ‘ ‘ ' x . 50 
Reddish sandstones and shales : : ; . not well seen. 
Gray arenaceous shale, Fern leaves, and Cordaites . , e*6 
Underelay with Stigmaria, and an erect stump with Stigmaria 

roots, penetrating bed above ; é : ‘ ‘ #143 


ey 


216 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Dark gray limestone. . nn 
Alternations of gray and sui Sadeaone ae ie In the 
lower part a bed of coal six inches thick, with Stigmaria under- 
Clays ssciwel. ook) lo eS cite javlleg Sisk 2p bape 
Gray sandstone . | : . 203 
Alternations of reddish edie avd gates cad ae sandstone, 
with thin layers of clay ironstone and a layer of coaly 
shale . : : : 4 : 5 z : about 300 


This is evidently very like some of the more barren parts of the 
Joggins shore, especially near the lower part of the coal measures. 
I may remark, however, that if the section at Malagash was exposed 
in a cliff like that of the Joggins, I have no doubt that more beds 
with erect plants would appear. The erect tree mentioned in the 
section was described and figured by me in the Proceedings of the 
Geological Society in January 1846. Mr Binney had described a 
similar specimen found in Lancashire in June 1845; and before the 
close of 1846, Mr R. Brown of Sydney had described still finer 
instances of the same kind from the Sydney Coal-field. These were — 
the three first instances in which the Stigmaria was ascertained to be 
the root of the Sigillarize of the Coal period; and even these were not 
altogether sufficient to dispel the doubts of some geologists. As the 
Malagash tree is thus an historical monument in the progress of — 
geology, I give a sketch of it in Fig. 59. 


Fig. 59.— Erect Sigillaria at Cape Malagash. 


(a 6) Stigmaria roots. (c) Bark marked with furrows. am . 
(@) Woody surface with indistinct ribs. (e) Internal axis. 3 ) = 


On the south side of Malagash Cape and head of Tatamagouche 
Bay, the Coal formation rocks dip to the southward, but are not well 
exposed; and at Tatamagouche Harbour we find them dipping to the 


‘ke p*O 1S , 


SHORES OF NORTHUMBERLAND STRAIT. DAT 


, which they continue to do as far as the base of the Cobequid 
at New Annan. Cape Malagash thus forms an anticlinal ridge, 
_ which extends far to the westward into the interior of Cumberland; 
and if we consider the limestone at M‘Kenzie’s as the equivalent of 
the Pugwash and Napan limestones, then the trough between it and 
the New Annan Hills corresponds to the Joggins trough, though 
wer, and the northerly dipping beds of the Gulf shore correspond 
to those north of the Joggins in New Brunswick. It is, however, 
‘more probable that the great Cumberland trough is here, as already 
hinted, split into two by the intervention of the Malagash anticlinal. 
Unless the more important parts are concealed by the imperfection of 
_ the sections, the whole Carboniferous series appears here to be less 
_ fully developed than on the western coast of the county. 

The beds seen with northerly dip at Tatamagouche, and thence to 
New Annan, have the aspect of those of the Upper Coal formation. 
They constitute a belt extending along the coast and connecting the 
Cumberland coal area with that of Pictou. Though beyond the limits 
of the county of Cumberland, they may be noticed here. 

At the mouth of the French River are gray sandstones and shales, 
containing a few Endogenites, Calamites, and pieces of lignite, impreg- 
nated with copper ores. Beneath these appears a series of brownish 
red sandstones and shales, with a few gray beds, occupying, in a 
regular descending series, about six miles of the river section. They 
contain, in a few places, nodules of copper glance (gray sulphuret of 
copper); they are often rippled, and contain branching fucoidal marks. 
On one of the rippled slabs I found marks consisting of four footprints 
of an animal. They were three inches and a half apart, and each 
exhibited three straight marks as if of claws. These were described 
in 1843; and in the following year I discovered at the same place 
another series of footsteps of different form. Neither of these were 
sufficiently well marked to give any definite information respecting 
the nature of the animal that produced them; but I am now convinced 
that they must have been the traces of reptilian animals. In my paper 
sent to the Geological Society in 1844, I find the following remarks :— 
“When examining the red sandstones near Tatamagouche last 
summer, I found in one of the beds a few footmarks of an unknown 
animal, specimens of which were sent to this society. They were 
mere scratches made by the points of the toes or claws, and therefore 
could give few indications of the form of the feet which produced 
them. Their arrangement, however, appeared to indicate that the 
animal was a biped, and their form is quite analogous to that of the 
marks left by our common sandpiper, when running over a firm sandy 
P 


218 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


shore. On a subsequent examination of the same place, I found a 
series of footmarks of another animal, and obtained a slab with casts 
of eight impressions, which I send with this paper. In this specimen 


it. Many of the beds in the neighbourhood of that containing these 
footmarks are rippled, rain-marked, or covered with worm-tracks; 
and as such indications of a littoral origin are not infrequent in other 
parts of the Newer Coal formation, it may be anticipated that many 
interesting relics of terrestrial animals will in future be discovered. 
At present, however, as no quarrying operations are carried on in the 
- red beds, it is difficult to obtain access to the surfaces on which tracks 
might be expected to occur. The only vegetable remains found in 
the red sandstones of Tatamagouche are some of those irregular — 
branching stains which have been considered as fucoidal marks; but 
in a bed of gray sandstone above the strata containing tracks, I found 
Calamites, Endogenites, Stigmaria ficoides, and fragments of carbonized 
wood. Ina fragment from a dark calcareous bed near this place, I 
found a portion of a fossil plant covered with shells of a species of 
Spirorbis, and a few small scales of ganoid fishes.” . 

It will be observed that rain-marks are mentioned as found with 
these footsteps, and I have now in my collection specimens from this _ 
place, I believe the first ever observed in the Carboniferous system; _ 
though much finer specimens were found shortly afterwards by Mr 
Brown at Sydney, and described by him and by Sir C. Lyell. 

In the French River section, the northerly dips of the Coal measure 7 ‘ 
increase in approaching the hills, the lowest beds dipping at an angle _ 
of 30°. Not far from the base of the hills, there is a small bed of coal, 
with some gray shales and sandstones aiff a thin bed of limestone. 


Useful Minerals of the Cumberland Coal-field. 


Coal.—The principal deposit of this mineral now worked in Cum- — 
berland is the Joggins main seam, consisting of two beds, three feet 
six inches and one foot six inches thick, with a clay parting between 
varying from one foot to a few inches. It is a free-burning bitumin- 
ous coal of fair quality. It is extracted by two shafts worked by — 
horse-gins, and the coal is carried to the loading pier by a railway 
incline. The mine is drained by a level run out to the shore, and 
consequently is not worked below the level of high tide. The — 


MINERALS OF CUMBERLAND COAL-FIELD. 219 


General Mining Association are the lessees of this mine. The 
quantity of coal shipped in 1851 was only 2400 chaldrons. In 1864 
it had risen to 6053 tons, and in 1866 to 8478. It was exported 
principally to St John, New Brunswick. 
_ Taking into account the comparative thickness of the seams, and 
the facilities for extraction and shipment, there can be no doubt that 
‘the bed at present worked is the best in the section; which, as we 
have already seen, is remarkable for the great number and small 
thickness of its coal-seams. It seems certain, however, that some 
of the others, especially the principal beds in Groups XI. and 
_ of the section, might be mined with profit. Since the pub- 
ication of the former edition of this work one of these, No. 29a of 
the section, has been opened. The great disadvantage on the Joggins 
Mahe: is the want of safe anchorage for shipping, which can be 
protected only by expensive piers and breakwaters. Since the 
expiry of the exclusive privileges of the General Mining Association, 
attempts have been made to obviate this disadvantage by opening 
mines on the banks of the Hebert and Maccan Rivers. Six com- 
panies have opened works in this part of the district, under the 
names of the “ Victoria,” ‘ Maccan,” “ Chiegnecto,” ‘ Lawrence,” 
“St George,” and “ New York and Acadia” Mines. The beds which 
they work appear to be of similar character with those of the Joggins, 
of which they are the direct continuation. It is questionable, 


best beds of coal, nor does it seem certainly known with which of 
the seams at the Joggins those opened correspond. At the Victoria 

ine, according to Mr Rutherford, there are three seams. The 
upper seam is sixteen feet above the middle, and this fifty-three feet 
above the lowest. The upper seam is one foot ten inches thick, the 
middle three feet, and the lower has three feet of coal divided by 
two partings of fire-clay. These beds are probably on the horizon 
of Coal-groups 29 and 30 of the coast section. According to the same 
authority, the Lawrence Mine, which adjoins the Victoria on the east 
side of Hebert River, has opened, two seams of coal, each two feet 
six inches thick, and separated by a vertical thickness of twenty feet. 
Tn the Maccan Mine, eastward of the Lawrence, two seams have been 
opened, only one of which, two feet four inches thick, is at present 
worked. The Chiegnecto, St George, and New York and Acadia 
Mines are all on the same seam, which presents different characters 
from those in the above-mentioned mines. Its section in the 
Chiegnecto Colliery is thus given by Mr Rutherford :— 


however, whether the shafts of these new mines have yet opened the © 


220 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Coal (coarse) 
Shale 
Coal 
Slaty band 
Coal 

» (coarse) 
Shale 
Coal 
Slaty band 
Coal 


WwOrRrOHONONe 
Ou 


12.9 
This bed contains no less than ten feet eight inches of coal, and is — 
consequently the thickest yet observed in this section. It may be com- 
pared with Coal-group 29 of the coast section. In the adjoining area, 
the St George, the amount of coal appears to diminish to seven feet 
eight inches, while the clay partings increase. This fact shows how 
hopeless it is to attempt to identify coal-seams, even a few miles 
distant, by their minute structure. It seems, however, not unlikely 
that all the beds above referred to, as worked on the Hebert and — 
Maccan Rivers, belong to the lower series of workable seams at the 
Joggins coast, and that the exact equivalent of the main seam has 
not yet been discovered. Still I would not venture to be at all positive: 
as to this; but merely throw it out as a suggestion to explorers, who 
might perhaps discover the outcrop of the main seam to the south- 
ward of the mines now worked. 
The quantity of coal extracted in 1866 from the new mines above © 
mentioned was 9374 tons, making, with that from the Joggins mines, — 
17,852 tons. ‘S 
About twenty miles south-east of the Joggins shore, at a place — 
called Springhill, Coal measures appear with a dip to the north, 
indicating, with their position not many miles from the base of the — 
Cobequid Hills, that they belong to the southern side of the Cumber- 
land trough. I have had no opportunity of examining the coal-seams 
of this place, but one of them is variously stated at eight and twelve 
feet in thickness, and the coal is of good quality. The Springhill — 
bed is at too great distance from navigable water to permit it to be 
mined at present for exportation. It forms part of the reserve stores 
of coal, waiting for their full development till railways extend across _ 
the country, or till domestic manufactures demand supplies of mineral -f 
fuel within the province. The present inland demand might, however, _ 


MINERALS OF THE CUMBERLAND COAL-FIELD. 221 


permit it to be mined on a small scale; and could a railway be con- 
structed, it might be profitably einiployed in smelting the rich iron 
eres of the Londonderry mines. Should railway communication be 
established between Cumberland and Halifax on the one side, and 
New Brunswick on the other, this coal area would at once become 

_ important. 

The following assays show the qualities of samples of Joggins and 

_ Springhill coal examined by me; but it must be observed that the 

specimen from Springhill was from the outcrop of the seam, and ~ 

| therefore probably injured by weathering. 


+ Assay of Joggins Coal from the Main Seam. 


__ The specimen is bright coal of uniform texture, with straight joints 
- containing films of iron pyrites and calcareous matter. 


Moisture 3 ; : 25 
Volatile Bey at atid . v oes 
Fixed carbon ; q : Soo SL. 
Reddish-gray ashes ; : : 5:2 

100-0 


Assay of Springhill Coal. 
The specimen is a compact coal, less bright than that of the Joggins, 
and without films of pyrites, though it contains some sulphur intimately 
mixed with it. 


: > Moisture P ; ; ; ;  ole8 
Volatile cacaFawiete eee : ; : ‘ . 28-4 

Fixed carbon Hi 2 : , , ; Oth 

Reddish ashes : j ; ‘ : : . 13:2 

100:0 


From the character given of the Springhill coal by persons who 
have used it, I should infer either that its quality has been overrated, © 
or that my specimen is inferior to the average quality. 

The above assays show that the J oggins coal much resembles that,, 
of Sydney, C.B., while the Springhill coal is more like that of Pictou. 

See assays of iHiese coals farther on. 

The structure of the Cumberland coal-field warrants the expectation 
that the Springhill seam may be traced toward the coast of Chiegnecto © 
Bay, perhaps to the vicinity of Apple River, where a very small bed of 
coal has been discovered, and also in the opposite direction. Attempts 


222 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


which have been made by a mining engineer in the service of the — 
General Mining Association to effect the former of these results, have, — 
however, been unsuccessful; and it would appear that the beds in the 
vicinity of Springhill are in a much more disturbed condition than 
those on the Joggins shore. a 
In like manner, it is a perfectly fair inference that the seams which __ 
appear in the coast section of the Joggins, must extend along the 
© northern side of the trough, far into the interior of the country; 
though whether they improve or deteriorate in their eastern extension 

is not at present known. It appears certain, however, that the coal 
measures are less fully developed on the coast of Northumberland — 

© Strait than on the western coast, and the seams which have hitherto — 
been found in them are very small. 4 

It may, therefore, be inferred, that in the event of the interior of — 

the Cumberland district being opened up by railway communication, 

the localities offering the greatest prospects of valuable discoveries 
are,—Ist, The line of country extending E.S.E. from the Joggins 
toward the branch of the River Philip called Black River; and, 2d, A 

line extending east and west, and passing through Springhill. 

Clay Ironstone occurs in the Joggins section and elsewhere, in 

balls in the shales, and in irregular bands. None of these deposits 

are at present of any economical importance; though, could smelting _ 

+ works be established in connexion with the Londonderry ores, a — 
considerable additional supply of clay ironstone could be procured” 
from the Coal measures, and might be of much value. : 
Grindstone is one of the most important productions of the Cumber- , _ 

land coal-field. I have already referred to the mechanical qualities 

on which this rock depends for its value. The principal localities of 

the quarries are Seaman’s Cove and Ragged Reef; the beds at the 
former being below the productive Coal measures, those at the latter a 
above them. In smaller quantities, grindstones are obtained from a 
number of other beds and reefs along the coast, and also from the 
continuation of these beds on the estuary of the Hebert River, and 
from the geological equivalents of the beds at Seaman’s Cove, where 

they reappear in New Brunswick. Forty-six thousand four hundred 

~ and ninety-six grindstones were made in Nova Scotia in 1861, the 
greater part in Cumberland. Grindstones are also quarried in the 
sandstones on the eastern coast of Cumberland ; and at Wallace there are 
valuable beds of freestone which have been quarried for exportation. 
Limestone and Gypsum abound in the line of country extending” 

from Minudie to Pugwash and Wallace. The former especially oceurs 

in very thick beds at Napan River and at Pugwash; and these are 


S) 


aan a Ca 


*| 5 ig a ee 


_ 


MINERALS OF THE CUMBERLAND COAL-FIELD. 223 


‘also the principal localities of gypsum, which does not, however, 
appear to be so abundant in the Lower Carboniferous rocks of this 
county as in those of Hants and Colchester. 
mm A singular variety of limestone occurs in a number of places on 
5 the Joggins shore. It is the black bituminous limestone, so often 
referred to in the section. This substance, though not in sufficiently 
§ thick beds to compete with the larger Lower Carboniferous limestones 
for ordinary purposes, is the most valuable limestone in the county 
for application as a manure, in consequence of the quantity of phos- 
% phate of lime contained in it, in the form of scales and bones of fish. 
In consequence of its containing this valuable ingredient, it is worth 
to the farmer more than three times the price of ordinary limestone, 
and I have no doubt that it will be extensively worked for agricultural 
purposes, when the use of mineral manures becomes more general 
among the farmers of Cumberland. It is possible that even at present 
the lime from the richest of these beds would be sufficiently appreciated 
on trial to allow them to be profitably worked. 

The soils resting on the Carboniferous rocks of Cumberland are very 
various in their quality, and run in lines across the county in corre- 
_ spondence with the strikes of the groups of beds from which the 

materials of the surface soils have been derived. Rich loamy and 

calcareous soils generally accompany the limestones, gypsums, and 
marly clays and sandstones of the Lower Carboniferous system. The 
soils of the coal measures vary from light and sometimes stony sands 
to stiff clays. The Upper Coal formation produces soils approaching 
somewhat to those of the Lower Carboniferous series. Hence along 
WP ithe north side of the Cobequid Hills we have a broad band of good 
- soil, and a similar one extending across the northern part of the county, 
while between these are alternate belts of poor and rich soils; almost 
the whole, however, being sufficiently deep and friable to be cultivable. 
The great fertility of the marsh-lands of the western coasts and 
rivers, and the almost exclusive attention of the population on many 
parts of the eastern shore to lumbering and shipbuilding, have caused 
the value of the upland soils of Cumberland to be much underrated ; 
but they are now constantly rising in the estimation of the people of 
the county, and will do so more and more as improved methods of 
cultivation become more generally diffused and appreciated. 


224 


CHAPTER XIV. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF NEW BRUNSWICK—GENERAL OBSERVA- 
TIONS—STRUCTURE OF THE COAL-FIELD—LOWER CARBONIFEROUS 
ROCKS—FOSSILS—-USEFUL MINERALS. 


Tue coal measures of the Joggins, dipping to the south-west, extend 
in the direction of their strike across Chiegnecto Bay to Cape Meran- 
guin and the North Joggins, where the gray and red sandstones of 
the Millstone-grit and lower portion of the Coal measures are well seen 
on the coast, dipping S. 10° W. at an angle of 45°. On tracing these 
beds a little to the northward, they become vertical and dip to the 
- north, forming an anticlinal. This anticlinal appears to extend to the 
north-westward up the bay, for at Fort Cumberland the first rocks 
that we see on entering New Brunswick are coarse gray sandstones 
dipping to the northward. This dip continues as far as the east side 
of the Petiteodiac River, where the highest beds are seen at the ferry 
below Dorchester. They are gray sandstones, with Calamites, Stern- 
bergia, and trunks of coniferous trees ; and beneath them, extending 
along the coast to the southward, is a great series consisting principally 
of reddish beds. I have no doubt that the whole of these beds belong 
to the older part of the Coal formation. Nothing newer is seen in 
this neighbourhood; for at Dorchester and Fort Folly Point, and at 
Hopewell, on the opposite side of the ferry, the same gray sandstones 
reappear with southerly dips, and with fossils of the same species. 
The dip varies from §.8.E. to §8.E. If we follow this series in 
descending order to the northward, up the Memramcook River, we 
soon come to conglomerate, limestone, and thin-bedded bituminous 
and calcareous shales, all belonging to the Lower Carboniferous series. 
On the west side of the Petitcodiac, we find a similar descending series 
toward the great metamorphic band ending in Shepody Mountain, 
and which consists of rocks older than the Carboniferous system. 
The order of succession seen here is as follows, though there may be 
important omissions in the list, as the sections are not continuous :— 


CARBONIFEROUS AREA OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 225 


me ny sandstone, often coarse and pebbly, with shales and conglo- 
_ merate, Hopewell Ferry, ete. These beds perhaps correspond to 
the great sandstone ledges of Seaman’s Quarries, Joggins. They 
_ may be traced through Albert County to the south-west for a 
considerable distance. 

». Reddish sandstones and shales. 

3. Limestone and gypsum. 

4. Red sandstone and conglomerate. 

5. Gray and dark-coloured conglomerate. 

. Caleareo-bituminous shales of the Albert Mine, Hillsborough. 
_ These beds appear here to lie at the very base of the lower 
_ Carboniferous series. (See Section, Fig. 60.) 


‘Fig. 60.—General Arrangement of the Strata between South Joggins and Albert Mine. 


4 g 3 3 3 
loinate s 5 : 
é 3 = g. 3 g 
:& (as) Bb . 
5 $3 sag & aa: 
B es 2 BAS 5 15 
a3 XS) 2 BS EhSS Oy A 
Ee Sh S Shou Hi 7 
3 EE 2 Se Sar ae 
S Hoe) = =Oale ° = 
5 AB oO OAoOKA eB < 
-——~ —~ -—~ N. W 
i ! ! 
; i id 
ZZ ! 


The Lower Carboniferous and Millstone-grit series of southern New 
Brunswick thus appear to consist of the same elements as in the part 
of Nova Scotia just described, with the exception of the occurrence 
of a representative of the Lower Carboniferous Coal measures in the 
b ituminous shales of Hillsborough. In the vicinity of the Albert 
Mine these seem to be the lowest member of the series; but Professor © 
Bailey describes a lower conglomerate as underlying shales, similar to 
those of Hillsborough, farther west at the Pollet River. In 1852, I 
ermined the geological age of the Albert deposits on stratigraphical 
grounds, and since that time Mr C. F. Hartt has added the confirmatory 
evidence of fossils, having found specimens of Cyclopteris Acadica and 
Lepidodendron corrugatum, the characteristic plants of this portion 
of the Carboniferous series, as seen in the cliffs at Horton Bluff in 
Nova Scotia, to be described in the sequel. 

_ At the Albert Mine, the geologist stands at the extremity of a long 
range of metamorphic (Devonian) rocks, stretching along the south 
coast of New Brunswick, and terminating in Shepody Mountain. The 
Lower Carboniferous rocks bend around the end of this ridge, and are 
thrown off from its north-east and north-west sides. On the former 
they extend in a belt of no great breadth to Salisbury Cove, beyond 


iz 


226 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


“ a 
which they appear only in detached patches, the most western of 
which, on the coast eastward of St John, are those of Quaco and — 
hee s Creek. On the northern side these beds occupy a broad — 
belt of country, extending along the valleys of the Petitcodiac anil 
Kennebeckasis Rivers, and in part limited on the north-west by another — 
metamorphic ridge, selene from the great area of such rocks lying ~ 
on the St John River to the eminence known as Butternut Ridge. — 
The belt thus limited, and which extends for nearly eighty miles, with 
a breadth of from sixteen to twenty miles, appears to consist wholly — 
of beds of the three lowest divisions of the Carboniferous period. The — 
Lower Carboniferous Coal measures and their associated conglomerates 
skirt the northern side of the Shepody range, and are succeeded by 
the marine limestones and gypsums. These appear to be brought up— 
by an undulation in the middle of the valley at Sussex Vale, and they 
reappear on the north side of the Kennebeckasis, skirting the exterior — 
of the metamorphic belt of the Kingston series to Butternut Ridge 
already mentioned. 

Doubling around the metamorphic promontory near Butternut Ridge, 
the Lower Carboniferous outcrop extends in a narrow and somewhat 
curved band to the west, till it reaches Oromocto Lake and the Maga- 
guadavic River, near the line of the St Andrew’s Railway. It then 
bends sharply to the north-east, and, in so far as known, runs directly, 
though with many minor curves and detached outliers, to the Bay de 
Chaleur, skirting the margin of the broad Silurian area of northern 
New Brunswick. One of the most important outliers is that on the 
Tobique River.* In so far as this series has been examined, it has 
been described by Professor Bailey and his associates} as composed 
of red conglomerates, red sandstones, and red shales, with beds of 
limestone and gypsum, and in places penetrated and overlaid by 
trappean rocks, by which some of the beds appear to have been con- 
siderably altered. These eruptions of volcanic rock I suppose to be 
of much older date than those of the Trias, and to be similar to those — 
which occur in the Lower Carboniferous of Nova Scotia, and which 
will be described in the sequel. 

From the above description, it appears that the line of outerop of 
the Lower Carboniferous is bent upon itself, forming an angle of about — 
45°, each limb of which extends for about 150 miles to the waters 
of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The great triangular area thus limited, — 
except where connected with the Cumberland area in Nova Scotia by _ 
an isthmus a few miles in breadth, includes an area of nearly 6000 


* Vind’s Report, p. 62. 
+ Report on Geology of Southern New Brunswick, 1865. 


STRUCTURE OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 227 


bi e miles, and is occupied by rocks of the Coal formation. Under 
these rocks the Lower Carboniferous beds no doubt extend; and in 
some localities they are in part exposed at the surface by the slight 
indulations which affect the widely distributed and nearly horizontal 
beds of this extensive Coal formation area, | 
In the first edition of “ Acadian Geology,” I did not attempt any 
general description of the New Brunswick Carboniferous area; but 
since that time the researches of Professor Bailey and of Messrs 
Matthew and Hartt, and those of Professor Hind,* with the facts 
reviously published by Sir W. E. Logan, and those in the MS. 
notes of the late Dr Robb, kindly placed in my, hands by his brother, 
Mr C. Robb of Montreal, have given much additional information. 
T have also had opportunities of examining the fossil plants collected 
by Sir W. E. Logan and Mr Hartt, and of visiting some additional 
‘portions of this area. To enter into the details of the new matter thus 
— eollected would far exceed my present space. I shall, under the fol- 
lowing heads, merely endeavour to present some of the more important 
facts and conclusions :— 


1. Structure of the Coal-field of New Brunswick. 


_ The coal area of New Brunswick is remarkable, as compared with 
_ Nova Scotia, for the flat and undisturbed condition of its beds, and 
for the comparative prevalence of sandstones. Indeed, in so far as 
the appearances present themselves to a cursory observer, the whole 
of the Coal formation area of New Brunswick may be characterized 
as a flat expanse of somewhat coarse gray sandstone. Other beds, 
_however, are not wanting, as conglomerate, red sandstone, and shales 
of various qualities; but, from the flatness of the beds and general 
‘small elevation of the surface, they are not very obvious. 

; In attempting to estimate the thickness and relations of the Coal 
formation area of New Brunswick, the facts observed on the northern 
coast of the province, between Bathurst and Bay Verte, are of the 
_ utmost importance. I have not myself explored this region, having 
seen it only at a few points;.but Sir William Logan has given a 
detailed section of a portion of it in the vicinity of Bathurst, and 
much information is contained in the MS. notes and sections of the 
late Professor Robb of Frederickton referred to above. 

_ Near Bathurst, the Lower Carboniferous or “ Bonaventure” For- 
mation, as it has been named by Logan in its extension into Canada, 
is represented by thick beds of red and gray conglomerate, including 


aos * “ Observations on the Geology of Southern New Brunswick,” by Professor Bailey, 
_ M.A.; Preliminary Report, by H. Y. Hind, M.A., ete. 


a I i a ee ee eee 


4 


ee 


228 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


red and gray shales, in one of which occur remains of plants, fossilized _ 
by the gray sulphuret of copper, in the manner often observed in the 

Carboniferous rocks of Nova Scotia. Over these are reddish sand- — 
stones of considerable thickness, succeeded by gray sandstones and 
shales, including underclays, many fossil plants, and two thin beds of 
coal. The thickness of these, as measured by Sir W. E. Logan, is © ; 
about 400 feet. These beds appear to be on the north side of an 
anticlinal which runs out toward Shippegan. South of this, according 
to Professor Robb’s observations, the dip, though slight, is to the south- — 
ward, and the gray and nearly horizontal sandstones of the Miramichi 
River, which contain fossil plants and a thin seam of coal, are in the 
centre of a great flat synclinal which occupies the greater part of the 
breadth of the coal-field. South of the Mirainichi, the gray sandstones, 
with an opposite dip, extend to Richebucto, where a small bed of 
coal occurs at a place called Coal Brook, with the accompaniments 
represented in Fig. 61. 


Fig. 61.—Section on Coal Creek near Richebucto.—Dr Robb. 


aoe 4 
alll a i SE as Suhtine 


Sandstone, 


* a — 
AR NE i a Ace, Si al a DO 


Shale. 
Coal, 15 inches. 


—— Shale or underelay. 


- Sandstone. 


Under this, and extending to Buctouche, are reddish grits, which 
Professor Robb regards as a repetition of those at Bathurst, so that 
we have at Buctouche an anticlinal bringing up the lower members 
of the Carboniferous series. From Buctouche to Shediac the dips are 
southerly. Shediac Harbour seems to be near the centre of another 
flat synclinal, and thence to Cape Tormentin the beds dip to the N.E. 
at small angles. Cape Tormentin appears to be in the axis of an 
anticlinal form, extending inland toward the wide Lower Carboniferous 
area of Albert county, but on the coast not bringing up anything 
older than the lower part of the Coal formation. The end of this 
undulation, at the extremity of Cape Tormentin, is covered by a small 


STRUCTURE OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 229 


Ts of micaceous red sandstone, which appears to be an outlier 
of the New Red Sandstone of Prince Edward Island. Bay Verte 

_ presents another slight synclinal undulation, continuous apparently 
with that which appears at Dorchester Ferry; and south of this is 
the anticlinal which brings up the Lower Carboniferous limestones of 

Northern Cumberland, and which limits the coal trough of the Joggins 
in Nova Scotia. 

The coast section above described, as given in Professor Robb’s 
manuscripts, is included in the general section attached to the map, 
to which the reader is referred. 

It would appear from this section, compared with those farther inland, 

as, for example, in the vicinity of Frederickton, that in the northern 
and western part of the New Brunswick coal area the Lower Carbon- 
iferous Formation is little developed, except in the form of grits and 
conglomerates; and that the greatest development of the calcareous 
members of the Lower Carboniferous and of the Lower Carboniferous 
Coal measures occurs in the southern part of the area, the principal 
exception being the occurrence of limestone and gypsum in the Tobique 
outlier. The same deficiency occurs in Nova Scotia on the northern 
side of the Cobequid Hills. 

In the next place, in so far as ascertained, the Coal formation proper 
appears in New Brunswick to have a less thickness than in Nova 
Scotia, and to include only two principal coal groups—one near the 
base, and the other near the summit. To the former, I refer the 
coals of the coast near Bathurst, of Richebucto, and of the vicinity of 
Frederickton, unless, indeed, the upper members of the series there 
overlap and conceal the lower; to the latter, those of Miramichi, 
and possibly those of Cocagne and Grand Lake. This would accord 
also with such evidence as fossils afford, since, as I have elsewhere 
shown,* the plants of the Coal measures near Bathurst have a Lower 
Coal formation aspect; those of Grand Lake are more akin to those of 
the Upper Coal formation. 

On the one hand, the great uniformity of the New Brunswick 
area, so far as observed, would lead to the belief that these exposures 
represent fairly its available resources of coal, which, in that case, are 
great as to area, but insignificant as to thickness, and consequently as 
to productive value. On the other hand, it is quite possible, judging 
from the analogy of other countries, that there may be portions of this 
area as yet unexplored, in which mineral fuel may have been more 
bountifully produced. Farther, as the Grand Lake beds seem to 
belong to the Upper series, and borings already made would indicate 
that the Lower series may be reached there, it would be desirable that 


* “Synopsis of the Carboniferous Flora.” 


9 


230 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


effectual measures should be taken to ascertain their actual value, — 
either by boring or by searching for their outcrops, and also that the — 
Grand Lake beds themselves should be proved in their extension both 
east and west. In Nova Scotia very remarkable changes of thickness 
occur in the coal-beds in tracing them from one locality to another; — 
and though this is perhaps less likely in New Brunswick, yet it is ” 
quite possible that more valuable beds than any yet known may exist, _ 
more especially in the central part of the area, where the great flatness — 
of the beds and their general covering with soil and forest have pre- 
vented any effective exploration. 

I have not had an opportunity of visiting the coal mines at Grand 
Lake; but, from a paper read by Mr Matthew before the Natural 
History Society of New Brunswick, it appears that mining is pro- 
secuted at two places,—Coal Ridge and Coal Creek. At the former 
place the coal is found in a bed nineteen inches in thickness. At the 
latter the thickness is only seventeen inches—the distance between 
the two localities being three and a half miles. Only one bed appears 
to have been discovered. The dip of the coal is to the southward at 
a very small angle. 

Mr Matthew states, in addition to the considerations above mentioned, 
the very important fact, that older slates are found cropping out to the 
surface about ten miles from the mouth of Coal Creek. This would 
indicate, as he states, that the Coal measures may be very shallow at _ 
this place. It gives, however, a probability that the coal-beds may 
vary in productiveness on different sides of such an island of older — 
rocks, as is observed to be the case in Nova Scotia. In other words, 
if the New Brunswick coal area is traversed by buried ridges of older 
rocks, these may divide it into subordinate areas of deposit, some of 
which may be much more valuable than others. 

In conclusion, I would venture to express the opinion that the 
question as to the actual value of the coal area of New Brunswick can 
be settled only by the slow progress of accidental discovery, or by 
boring operations undertaken in those places where the upper series of 
coal-beds makes its appearance; and that the analogy of the Nova 
Scotia coal regions would indicate that the probability of the oceur- 
rence of large beds will be greatest along the southern side of the coal 
area, and where the Coal measures approach most closely to the older 
rocks. Of course, it would be useless to bore so near to these last that _ 
only the lower part of the Carboniferous series would be penetrated. 
It is where indisputable indications exist of the presence of the upper 
portion of the Coal measures that such trials should be made; and the 
best scientific advice as to locality should be secured before entering 
on expensive operations. 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 231 


‘ _ 2. The Lower Carboniferous Coal Formation in New Brunswick. 
‘This remarkable group of rocks, which does not appear, so far as 
known, in the coal area of Cumberland, though it is developed in other 
parts of Nova Scotia, appears in New Brunswick to be of considerable 
- thickness, and can be traced from the neighbourhood of Dorchester for 
some distance along the north side of the coast range of metamorphic 
hills. It is characterized by the same species of fossil plants as at 
Horton Bluff in Nova Scotia, and, like the beds at that place, these 
are rich in remains of fishes. They differ, however, from the rocks of 
similar age in Nova Scotia by the remarkable development of highly 
bituminous shales in connexion with considerable deposits of an 
~ asphaltic mineral, to which the name “ Albertite’” has been given, 
and which is highly valued as a material for the manufacture of coal 
oil and illuminating gas. I examined these deposits in 1852, in the 
company of Sir Charles Lyell, and shall first give, without any 
material alteration, the account of the locality as I then saw it, and 
as it was described in the first edition of this work, adding a sum- 
mary of more recent observations, and the new conclusions to which 
they lead. 

Albert Mine, Hillsborough.—The beds at this place are thin-bedded © 
shales, composed of extremely fine indurated clay with much _ bitu- 
minous matter. Some of them contain much lime, and when this is 
dissolved away by the weather or by an acid, the bituminous matter 
remains in the form of light porous flakes, resembling half-decayed 
bark. These shales contain great numbers of fossil fishes in a remark- 
ably perfect state. They are flattened by pressure; but their forms 
are perfectly preserved, and the fins are as perfect as they were in life. 
They belong to the genus Palewoniscus, and are probably identical 

. with some of those in the Coal formation of Nova Scotia (Fig. 62), 


© 


Fig. 62.—Paleoniscus Alberti (?)—Jackson. 


but they have been buried in such a manner that every scale is in its 
place, instead of being scattered about, as at the Joggins and in the 


CSS 


232 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Carboniferous rocks generally. The shales containing these fossils 
have been singularly disturbed and contorted, and they contain a vein 
of a remarkably pure and beautiful bituminous substance, allied to 
pitch-coal, and of great value as a material for gas-making. This 
substance unfortunately became a subject of litigation; and as one 
point in dispute was whether it should be called coal or asphaltum,, 
scientific gentlemen were summoned from the United States as 
witnesses, and the most discordant opinions were given, both as to 
the name of the mineral and its geological age. This was not 
wonderful in the circumstances, for the substance was really a new 
material, intermediate between the most bituminous coals and the 
asphalts, and the geologists examined had enjoyed very few oppor- 
tunities of studying that very remarkable group of Lower Carboniferous 
rocks to which the deposit belongs. Consequently some, in all sin- 


-cerity, called the mineral coal, others asphalt; and some maintained 


that it was in the true Coal formation, while others believed it to be 
in the Old Red Sandstone. Only one of the geologists employed, Dr 
Percival of New Haven, assigned the deposit to its true geological 
position, as subsequently ascertained by Sir Charles Lyell and the 
writer, and stated above. To give an idea of this singular deposit, I 
quote the following details from a paper contributed by me to the 
Geological Society of London :— 

“The pit for the extraction of the mineral is situated on the south 
side of Frederick’s Brook, a small stream running eastwardly into 
the Petitcodiac, and near the junction of two branches of the brook. » 
In approaching the mine from the south, the shales are seen in nearly 
a horizontal position in a road-cutting. This may be a deceptive 
appearance. Dr Percival, however, considers it the true arrangement 
at this point. At the pit-mouth the beds dip to the south at angles 
of 50° and 60°, and consist of gray and dark-coloured thin-bedded 
bituminous shales; and these shales appear with similar dips or the 
south branch of the brook. The outcrop of the coal is not now seen, 
but in a line with it I observed a remarkable crumpling and arching 
of the beds in the bank of the brook, at the point where the south- 
wardly dipping beds above noticed meet a similar or the same series 
dipping to the north-west; this is represented in Fig 63. The 
outcrop of the coal in the bed of the brook was, as I was informed, 
very narrow, and the appearances now presented are as if the shales 
had arched over it. On the northern side of the arch above referred 


to, and in the north branch of the brook, are seen a thick series of 


bituminous and calcareous shales, with three beds of sandstone, the 
whole dipping to the north-west at a high angle. The strike of 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 233 


one of the most regular beds I found to be S. 18° W. magnetic. 
Many of the shales contain scales of fish, and one of them has a 


Fig. 64.—Bent Strat 
Fig. 63.—Arched Strata, near ions Alb rhe Mi eb 7 Pig 


Albert Mine. 


peculiar oolitic structure, consisting of a laminated basis of impure 


coaly matter or earthy bitumen, with crystalline calcareous grains, 
which are removed by weathering, and leave a light vesicular 
inflammable residuum of very singular aspect. The shales are in 
some places remarkably bent and contorted, as if by lateral pressure 
when in a soft state. A part of one of these flexures is accurately 
represented in Fig. 64, and illustrates some appearances in the mine 
to be subsequently noticed. 

“The principal shaft has been sunk perpendicularly from the 
outerop of the coal, and at its bottom is sixty-seven feet south 
of it. The gallery connecting the bottom of the shaft with the 
coal shows thin-bedded bituminous shales with calcareous and 
ironstone bands and concretions, dipping at the end nearest the 
coal §.S.W., at an angle of 60°, though a dip to the S.E. is more 
prevalent along this side of the mine. The coal at this place is about 
ten feet in thickness, and its upper surface dips N.W. about 75°. On 


the S.E., or under side, it rests against the edges of the somewhat © 


contorted beds already noticed as dipping to the southward, and on 
the north-west side it is overlaid by similar beds dipping in the same 
direction with the coal, but so much contorted as to present on the 
small scale a most complicated and confused appearance. The coal 
itself, as seen in mass underground, presents a beautiful and singular 
appearance. It has a splendent resinous lustre and perfect conchoidal 
fracture ; it is perfectly free from mineral charcoal and lines of impure 
coal or earthy matter. It is, however, divided into prismatic pieces 
by a great number of smooth divisional planes, proceeding from wall 
to wall, much in the manner of the cross structure seen in carbonized 
trees, and in the streaks of pitch-coal in the ordinary coals. At the 
N.W. side or roof, the coal joins the rock without change. On the 
S.E. side, on the contrary, there is a portion of coal a few inches thick, 
Q 


& 


~ becoming N. 29° E.* for about twenty-five feet, when it returns to a . 


234 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


including angular fragments of the shale, some beds of which on this — 
side are very tender and cleave readily into rhomboidal pieces. The — 
coal enveloping these fragments must have been softened sufficiently — 
to allow them to penetrate it, but it has more numerous and less 
regular divisional planes than in the central parts of the mass, and 
has probably been shifted or crushed somewhat, either when it re-. 
ceived the included fragments or subsequently. Both at the roof 
and floor, the coal shows distinct evidence of a former pasty or fluid — 
condition, in having injected a pure coaly substance into the most 
: : minute fissures of the containing rocks. 
Fig, 65.— Relation of the © Albert O0 both roof and floor also, but espe- 
Coal” to the containing beds, as ? Poa 
seen near the shaft of the mine. cially the latter, there are abundant 
evidences of shifting and disturbances in 
the slickenside surfaces with which they — 
abound. All these appearances I have 
endeavoured to represent in Fig. 65, 
which agrees in the essential points with _ 
a similar figure given by Professor — 
Taylor, who does not, however, repre- — 
sent the contorted state of the beds and the crushing of the lower side _ 
of the coal. . 
“The levels of the mine extend on both sides of the shaft along the 
course of the coal. On the south-west they extend about 170 feet, | 
when the coal narrows to a thickness of one foot. In this direction, — 
however, I had not time to examine them. In proceeding to the — 
N.E., the coal has a general course of N. 50° E., bending gradually to 
N. 65° E., and everywhere presenting the appearances already noticed, 
though attaining, in one place, a width of thirteen feet. At the distance 
of about 200 feet from the shaft, a remarkable disturbance occurs. — 
The main body of the coal bends suddenly to the northward, its course 


course of N. 50° E. At the bend to the northward, a small part of | 
the vein proceeds in its original course, and is stated by the persons _ 
connected with the mine to run out, jeariae a large irregular promon- ' 
tory of rock between it and the main body of the coal. This disturbance — e 
has been variously represented as a fault, and as a cutting of the vein 4 
across the strata. Though I confess that the appearances are of ait 
puzzling character, and are but imperfectly exposed in the mine, the — 
impression left on my mind is, that it is, on a large scale, a flexure — 


* These measurements were made with a pocket prismatic compass. They differ ; 
slightly from those of Dr Jackson, either from accidental circumstances, or from being _ 
taken in different levels of the mine. ; 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 235 


similar to that represented in Fig. 64, and accompanied by a partial 

tearing asunder of the beds. It seems evident that the beds must 

+ have been in a soft state at the time when this disturbance occurred, 
although there may have been yc rata | some vertical anon 

’ especially on the west side of this ‘ Jog.’ 

mye Beyond this flexure, the deposit contracts in width, and becomes 

_ more regular, and eventually its containing walls assume a conformable 
dip to the S. 5° E., at an angle of 69°. The appearance presented at 
- the time of my bist in the extreme end of the most advanced level, is 
~ represented in Fig. 66, where it will be observed that the S.E. wall 
still shows indications of the prevailing contortions of the beds, and of 
the manner in which these cause the ends of ,, 6. 66,—Bection uf the 
strata to abut against the coal. beds at the East end of 

“ At this place, an exploratory level, driven to Allert Mine. 

the 8.E., shows a series of bituminous shales, \ 
with bands of ironstone, dipping regularly to the 
south-eastward. I could not, in any part of the 
mine, find beds corresponding to the Stigmaria 
underclay of ordinary coal-seams, though on the 
§.E. side some of the beds are of a more compact 
and purely argillaceous character than those on 
the N.W. side or roof of the seam. The ironstone 
bands and fish-bearing shales are, however, not 
very dissimilar from those in some Coal measures of the ordinary Coal 
formation. They present no indications of metamorphism or of the 


passage of heated vapours, and all their appearances show that their . 


bituminous matter has resulted from the presence of organic substances 
at the time of their deposition. 

“Tt is evident that all the above phenomena can be explained on 
the supposition that this coaly mass occupies a fissure running along 
an anticlinal bend of the strata; and that, apart from the character of 
the mineral and the containing beds, this would be the most natural 
explanation. On the other hand, when we consider the contorted 
condition of the beds, indicating disturbance when in a soft state, and 
the slickenside joints, pointing to subsequent shifts, we cannot refuse 
to admit that a conformable bed of true coal, if subjected before and 

| after its consolidation to such movements, might present all the 
| appearances of complication and disturbance observed in this mass, 
| more especially if originally of small extent, and thinning out toward 
| the edges. On this view we should have to suppose,—(1.) Disturbance 
and contortion of the beds while soft, and, at the point in question, a 
regular and somewhat abrupt arching of the beds; (2.) A fault throwing 


9 


c 


» disposed to fly into fragments. Its hardness is 3, nearly, of Mohs’ — 


236 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


down the south side of the arch along a line coinciding in part of its — 
course with the highly inclined underside of the coal at the north side _ 
of the arch; and (3.) Removal of the upper part of the north side of — 
the arch by denudation. Fig. 67 represents the appearances which 
would thus be produced, and it will be seen that they very closely — 
correspond with the present condition of the deposit, not excepting its - 
thinning toward the surface. If — Fig, 67. dial raphescanaaon Gea od 
be the true explanation, it is probable Cause of the appearances at Albert 
that the sunken south side of the bed Dine. 

has not yet been reached in the ex- 
cavatious. It might, however, in 
approaching it from above, show a 
succession of wedge-shaped included 
masses of rock or “horses,” one of 
which I saw in the floor of the lowest 
level. On this view, also, the ‘Jog’ z 

or fault above described may be a lateral bend received by the bed 
in the original contortion of the strata; and at this point the straight — 
fracture, producing the supposed downthrow, may have left the bed, 
and thus caused the appearance of the vein running in the former — 
course of the bed along the line of fault, and also the greater regularity 
of the bed beyond the ‘Jog.’ This explanation is represented in 
Fig. 68.” . 

As many readers of this work Fig. 68—The “Jog” at Albert Mine, — 
may be interested in the controver-  %”@ #8 supposed relation to the line of 
sies respecting this mineral, I may ae ‘ 
shortly mention its physical and 
chemical properties, and the results 
at which I have arrived respecting 
its nature and origin. 

The substance has externally an 
appearance not dissimilar from the 
ordinary asphalt of commerce in its 
purest forms; but it is very much 
less fusible, and differs in chemical  , 'w, =z 
composition. Its fracture is conchoidal. Its lustre resinous and 
‘splendent or shining. Its colour and the powder and streak on 
porcelain, black; and it is perfectly opaque. It is very brittle and — 


Magnetic. 


seale. Its specific gravity is 1:08 to 1:11 (according to Jackson a 


2h, 
“4 


Hayes). It emits a bituminous odour, and when rubbed becomes ‘y 


electric. In the flame of a spirit-lamp it intumesces and emits jets of | 4 


oe” TR oe eee ie A il 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 237 


gas, but does not melt like asphalt. In a close tube, however, it can 
be melted with some intumescence. In the above characters, with 

_ the exception of the colour of the powder, it agrees more nearly with 

the finer varieties of Jet or Pitch-Coal, than with any other substance. 
_ For this reason I made comparative trials of its composition and that 

of specimens of jet from Whitby, with the following results :— 

be Albert Mineral. Whitby Jet. 

Water ‘ : ’ “4 1°5 

Volatile combustible matter . 57:2 571 

Coke . d : : . 42-4 41-4 


1000, 100-0 

Ash in coke ° ; 27 4-0 

These results indicate a remarkable similarity in the proportion of 
volatile and fixed combustible matter; an ultimate analysis might, 
however, establish important differences of detail. 

If we compare the “ Albertite,” as it has been named by persons 
desirous of not committing themselves, with the substances most nearly 
allied to it, we can scarcely avoid arriving at the following conclu- 
sions:—lIn its behaviour in the fire, chemical composition, and electrical 
properties, the substance is nearly allied to jet, from which, however, 
it differs in its extreme brittleness, its greater uniformity of texture, 
and more perfect lustre and fracture, and also in its black streak: a 
character which also separates it from ordinary bituminous coal and 
all the varieties of asphaltum. Its nearest analogue in this last 
particular is Lesmahagow cannel. Its lustre and fracture remarkably 
assimilate it to the finer varieties of asphalt, but its streak, mode of 
combustion, and chemical composition, effectually separate it from 
them. On the whole, the above considerations, in connexion with a 
number of experiments made by Jackson, Hayes, and others, and 
published in the Reports on the mineral, place the substance at the 
head of the Pitch Coals or Jets, as the purest variety of that species 
of bituminous coal. It has, however, some claims to be viewed as a 
distinct mineral species, intermediate between coals and asphalts; and 
I suspect that its chemical composition may approach to that of 
Asphaltene, the coaly ingredient of the Asphalts. 

Under the microscope, I have not been able to detect any organic 
structure, though I have found in some slices cells filled with yellow 
resinous matter, similar to those that occur in cannel-coal. Mr Bacon 
of Boston, however, states (in Jackson’s Report), that he has found 
traces of cellular tissue; but Professor Quekett of London, after 
examining many specimens, considers it destitute of organic structure. 


Cc 


0 


ae! a ee Se, =. =. = ae Arie a oe. wk Pee -— 
Se ee De Ree MES TL Le kc a 


4% J 


238 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Some specimens of the mineral are laminated, and have brilliant — 
discs about a line in diameter on the surfaces of the lamine. Under 
the microscope, these discs exhibit very fine concentric and radiating 
lines, but they are merely concretionary, and in Pictou coal such dises 
sometimes occur in an oblique position as regards the lamination. 
The Albertite has been declared to be free from sulphur; but minute. 
concretions of ironstone and iron pyrites occur in it, and films of iron 
pyrites line some of the fissures of the containing beds. These — 
appearances are, however, rare. 

In inquiring into the origin and mode of formation of the deposit, 
the following alternatives present themselves :—(1.) It may have been 
a bed or sheet of bituminous matter, thinning out at the edges, like — 
that in Kent, U.C., described in the Report of the Canadian Survey 
for 1851-2,* and probably produced by the oxidation and hardening ~ 


‘of the liquid produce of naphtha-springs. (2.) It may be bituminous 


matter melted by internal heat or fluid at ordinary temperatures, like 
petroleum, and poured into an open fissure, and subsequently consoli- 
dated, as was perhaps the case with the chapapote of Cuba.t (3.) It 


may, like jet and other coals, have resulted from the bituminization __ 


of woody matter. With respect to these several hypotheses, I can 
merely state the probabilities which occur to me from the facts already 
known, and which may of course be greatly modified by the more 
perfect exploration of the deposit. 


On the first of these hypotheses, though there is no great improba- | 
bility in supposing the deposit to have been a conformable bed, it does 


not seem likely that so large and extremely pure a mass of bituminous 


matter could be a deposit from springs, or that, without alteration of — 


the containing beds, it could have assumed an aspect and consistence 
so much akin to those of coal. It also seems difficult on this view to 
account for the deposition, in waters tenanted by fish, of the accom- 
panying laminated bituminous shales. 

The second view requires us to suppose that, after the crumpling 
and contortion of the beds, and the production of an open fissure, an 
underlying portion of the bituminous shales was exposed to heat and — 
pressure, which caused its bituminous ingredient to be melted, forced — 
upward, and consolidated in the upper and unaltered portion of the — 
beds, or that the more liquid bituminous matter naturally oozed.out of — 
the containing rocks. This would account for the occurrence and — 


_ most of the appearances of the coaly deposit; but we must of course 


still suppose that the bituminous matter was originally produced 
during the deposition of the shales, probably from organic matter. — 
* Page 90. + Taylor, Statistics of Coal. 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 239 


‘Some countenance is given to this view by the existence of petroleum 
‘springs at present in the continuation of the same deposit, and by the 
presence of minute fissures filled with the mineral, which might, 
however, be explained on the supposition of pressure exerted on a 
soft or semifluid bed. 

The hypothesis of formation from woody matter, after the manner _ 
_ of coal, is also accompanied with serious difficulties. The composition ~ 
of jet and of recent bituminous coal found in peat-bogs, prove the » 
possibility of this mode of formation; and this is certainly the most 
natural way of accounting for the production of the coaly and bitu- 
minous matter of the containing beds; but large and pure beds of 
coal are usually accompanied by evidences of growth in situ, and © 
accumulations of drift-trunks are usually loaded with earthy matter, 
while none of these conditions exist in the deposit in question. The 
want of the first is, however, perfectly consistent with the long and 
perfect decomposition implied in this view, as well as in the homo- » 
geneity of the mass, and the abundance of bitumen in the containing _ 
shales; and in a deposit containing so little evidence of strong currents 
or violent changes, it may not be unreasonable to suppose that drift 
vegetable matter may have accumulated during long periods in clear 
water. In connexion with this it is worthy of remark, that the com- 
parative absence of iron pyrites, in connexion with the presence of 
large quantities of carbonate of iron in the shales, proves* that these 
beds were deposited in fresh and very pure water, if it be admitted 
that their bitumen resulted from the decomposition of organic matter. 
Neither is the great purity of the mineral an evidence against its 
accumulation in the manner of ordinary coal, since varieties of coal 
almost equally pure have long been known.+ On this view, then, 
which is perhaps the most probable of the three, the Albert deposit is 
a fresh-water formation of a very peculiar character, belonging to the 
Lower Carboniferous period, and very singularly distorted by mechanical 
disturbances. 

The above was the impression on my mind in 1855 as to the origin 6 
of the Albertite. Now, in 1867, I confess that it is somewhat modi- 
fied. The subsequent explorations of the deposit have given to it 
more unmistakably the aspect of a vein or fissure. The remarkable | 
veins of altered asphalt which I have seen in the rocks of the Quebec 
group at Point Leir, have afforded a parallel case more distinct in 
its character. All the more recent explorers who have visited the 


© 


* See paper by the writer on the ‘‘ Colouring Matter of Red Sandstones,” in Pro- 
ceedings of Geological Society. 
+ See Assays in Taylor's Statistics of Coal. 


’ 
: 
; 
; 
: 


240 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


loeality—Hitchcock, Bailey, and Hind more especially—have adopted — 


_ the theory of a vein filled with bituminous matter. I regard therefore — 
this mode of occurrence, or the second of those above mentioned, as 


established, and it only remains to consider whence the supplies of 
liquid bitumen could have been obtained. I have no hesitation im 
assigning them to the highly bituminous Lower Carboniferous shales, — 


These beds are manifestly of the same character with the so-called 


“oil coals’? of Nova Scotia, and the earthy bitumens of Scotland. 
They must have been beds of mud charged with a great quantity of 
finely comminuted vegetable matter, of the nature of peaty muck, 
which has become perfectly bituminized, and which probably in an 
earlier stage of its formation was more prone to ooze into fissures as 
a liquid petroleum than at present. The deposit of the Albert Mine 
would thus be a vein or fissure constituting an ancient reservoir of 


_ petroleum, which, by the loss of its more volatile parts and partial 


oxidation, has been hardened into a coaly substance; and the examples __ 
of similar phenomena which I have seen in Canada induce me to believe 


~ that the agency of internal heat would not be required to produce the 


observed result. It is true that one able observer has supposed that 
the supplies of petroleum from which the Albertite has been formed, 
have been afforded by the underlying Devonian beds; but no evidence 
exists of the occurrence of bituminous matter in these rocks in New 
Brunswick. The peculiar Corniferous limestone which is the reservoir 
of petroleum in Canada, does not occur in New Brunswick, and the 
Lower Carboniferous shales themselves contain abundance of the- 
material required. In this view, though the Albert shales are Lower 
Carboniferous, the vein of Albertite must have been formed at a later 
period, after the beds had begun to experience disturbance. In this 
as in other respects the deposit of this curious mineral differs remark- 
ably from ordinary coal, which always constitutes conformable beds 
contemporaneous with the enclosing strata. 

With regard to the original formation of the shales, their lamination 
and their great thickness, as well as the nature of their material, show 
that their formation was gradual, and probably occupied a long period. 
I do not regard the state of preservation of the fishes as any objection 
to this. They may have been killed by occasional eruptions of mud 
loaded with organic matter rendering the water unwholesome. When 
once embedded in mud of this character, their parts could not be 
separated, and even their soft tissues might be preserved, as in modern 
peat, for a long time. The swarms of cyprids which devoured dead 
fishes in other parts of the Carboniferous areas do not seem to have 
been present. Farther, though in some layers the fishes occur in a 


4 
f 


me 


7 
o 
3 


* 


FOSSILS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 241 


ect state of preservation, in the greater part of the deposit they 
found to be represented only by scattered scales. On the sup- 
position that the shales themselves represent what may be called 


__ vegetable mud, this may have accumulated in water at times sufficiently 
pure to be inhabited by fishes, while at other times streams or inun- 


dations of muddy water may have caused the destruction of the fish 
in certain localities. The conditions may in this way be compared to 


those represented by the calcareo-bituminous shales at the Joggins. 


The best exposure that I have seen of the Albert shales is on the 
Memramcook River, where they present a continuous cliff for some 
distance, exhibiting beds of brownish and black very pure grained 
shale, all highly bituminous, though of various degrees of richness. 
The stratification is apparently arched, the crown of the arch being 
capped with conglomerate, in which are slender asphaltic veins. The 
thickness of shales observed at this place was estimated at 150 feet. 

Westward of the Albert Mine, it would seem, according to Profes- 
sor Bailey, that two or more bands of calcareo-bituminous shale extend 
along the base of the metamorphic hills, or possibly there may be 
repetition of the Albert shales by folds along parallel lines. Professor 
Bailey mentions their occurrence at Baltimore, six miles west of Albert 
Mine, also at Elgin and Pollet River. At the former place, fish-teeth 
of the Rhizodont type and Lepidodendron corrugatum were found 
by Mr Hartt, giving the character of the fossils here a very strong 
resemblance to those of Horton Bluff. Still farther westward, the 
shales occur at Sussex, at Trout Creek, and, lastly, at Norton, fifty 
miles westward of the Albert Mine. In these more western localities, 
however, the Albertite has not been found in workable quantities. 
Springs yielding petroleum flow from these rocks in various places, 
and attempts have been made to obtain the substance in profitable 
quantities, but hitherto, I believe, without any encouraging amount 
of success. 


3. Fossils of the Carboniferous District of New Brunswick. 


I give here merely a list of the plants determined by myself, prin- 
cipally from the collections of Mr G. F. Matthews, Mr C. F. Hartt, 
and Sir William E. Logan, with a few animal fossils noticed by Mr 
Hartt in the Appendix to Bailey’s Report on New Brunswick. It 
will be observed, in connexion with the previous statements, that the 
plants from Bathurst and Baie de Chaleur are supposed to belong to 
the lower set of coal-beds in the Middle Coal measures; those from 
Grand Lake and Mirainichi to the upper set of beds. 


2 


oO 


QAP THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


FOSSIL PLANTS. 
(a) Middle and Upper Coal Formations. 


Dadoxylon materiarium, Dawson, Miramichi. 
Dadoxylon Acadianum, Dawson, Dorchester. 
Calamodendron approximatum, Brongnt, Coal Creek, Grand Lake. 
Antholites rhabdocarpi, Dawson, 
Calamites Suckowii, Brongnt,Coal Creek, Grand Lake: Gardin : Creda 
C. Cistii, Brongnt, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; Baie ‘ig Chaleur. 
C. Toei Schiot: 1%, 5.3 45 4 
C. canneformis, Brongnt, Gardner’s Creek. 
Asterophyllites grandis, Sternberg, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; Baie de 
Chaleur. 
Annularia sphenophylloides, Zenker, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; Baie 
- de Chaleur. F 
Sphenophyllum emarginatum, Brongni, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; 
Baie de Chaleur. | 
8. saxifragifolium, Sternberg, Baie de Chaleur. 
Cyclopteris (Nephropteris) obliqua, Brongnt, Coal Creek, Grand Lake. 
C. (? Neuropteris) ingens, L. § H. 
Neuropteris rarinervis, Bunbury, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; Baie de 
Chaleur. 
N. gigantea, Scernberg, Coal Creek, Grand Lake. 
N. Loshii, Brongnt, Gardner’s Creek? Baie de Chaleur. 
N. aur Bhiia: Brt. 3 
Odontopteris Schlotheimii, rene Baie de Chaleur. 
Sphenopteris munda, Dawson, Coal Creek, Grand Lake (Fig. 69).* 
8. latior, Dawson, 5 3 at ») (hig FO}: 
S. gracilis, Brongnt, ss f y 
S. artemisifolia, Brongnt, 
S. Canadensis, Daan Baie ae Chala (Fig. 71). 
S. obtusiloba? Brongnt, ,, 
Alethopteris lonchitica, Sternberg, Coal Creek, Grand Lake. 
A. nervosa, Brongnt, Baie de Chaleur. 
A. muricata, Brongnt, Bathurst. 
A. pteroides, Brongnt, F 
_A. Serlii, Brongnt, Baie de Chaleur. 
A. grandis, Dawson, ‘ (Fig. 72). i 
Beinertia Gcepperti, Dawson, Coal Creek, Grand Lake; Baie de — 
Chaleur. : 


* Figs. 69 to 73 represent some interesting ferns and a Neeggerathia characteristic of — 
or peculiar to the Coal Formation of New Brunswick. 


”? 


FOSSILS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 243 


Fig. 70.— Sphenopteris latior. 


Fig. 69. — Sphenopteris 
4 ey) 


munda, 


a 
(a) Pinnule magnified. 


Fig. 71.—Sphenopteris Canadensis. 


(a) Pinnule magnified. 


(a) Pinnule magnified. 
Fig. 72.—Alethopteris grandis. 


244 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Palzopteris Harttii, Dawson, Coal Creek, Grand Lake. 
Lepidodendron Pictoense, Dawson, ,, | Newcastle River, Grand Lake. 


Lepidostrobus squamosus, Dawson, ,, = ” 
Cordaites borassifolia, Corda, a si ” 

C. simplex, Dawson, » Baie de Chaleur. 
Cardiocarpum bisectatum, Dawson, ,,. Newcastle River, ° + a 


Fig. 73.—Neggerathia dispar. Half nat. size. 


Neggerathia dispar (Fig. 73), Dawson, Baie de Chaleur. 
Halonia? sp.? Dawson, Coal Creek. 


(6) Lower Coal Formation—(Horizon of the Albert shales, etc.). 
Cyclopteris Acadica, ee Norton Creek. a 


Lepidodendron corrugatum, * “ 
Cordaites borassifolia Corda, Albert ahales: (Figured in Jackson’s— 
Report.) 


FOSSIL ANIMALS. 


Mr Hartt mentions (Appendix to Bailey’s Report) that the only 
animal fossils he has found in the Coal measures are Spirorbis carbon- 
arius, attached to plants, and coprolites of fishes. In the Lower Car- 
boniferous Limestones he has observed fossils of most of the genera 
to be noticed in subsequent pages as occurring in these beds in Nova 
Scotia; but they have not been examined as to species, which, however, 
in so far as my observation extends, are identical with those of Nova 
Scotia. Dr Jackson has named and figured three species of Paleo- 
niscus from the Albert shales. One of these is represented in Fig. 62 
above; and I have seen another specimen which appears to belong to 
a second of this species, but the figures and descriptions are not suf- 
ficient for their certain determination. 


* See Figs. 74, 75, and 76 below. 


RH OE NS 


‘ a mr 


MINERALS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 245 


4, Useful Minerals of the Carboniferous District of New Brunswick. 


The information under this head has been kindly communicated to 
_ me by Professor Bailey, of King’s College, Frederickton. 

Bituminous Coal.—Though covering so large a surface area, or 
more than two-thirds of the entire extent of the province, the Carbon- 
iferous or coal-bearing rocks of New Brunswick have afforded as yet 

_ but little promise of large or valuable deposits of this most important 
product. With the single exception of the beds at Grand Lake in 


Queen’s County, which are but 22 inches in thickness, no stratum of ~ 


bituminous coal, sufficiently large or pure to be profitably worked, has 
yet been discovered. Nor can the prospects of future pees be 
_ regarded as very encouraging. The following are ‘the more important 
facts from which this conclusion may be drawn :— 

Ist, The strata of the New Brunswick Coal-field are nowhere greatly 
disturbed, the beds being nearly horizontal and continuous over wide 
areas. Borings or other explorations therefore at various points 
afford an approximately accurate idea of the whole district. Such 
borings, undertaken at Grand Lake in 1837, affirmed the existence, at 
the depth of about 250 feet, of a second bed of “ bituminous shale and 
coal,” eight feet in thickness; but as prominence is given to the shale, 
and the relative proportion of each not stated, the observation is of 
little value. Similar borings have more recently been made on the 
Cocagne River in Kent County, where the formations resemble those 
of Grand Lake, to a depth of 410 feet. Several small seams of coal 
were passed through, the largest of which was about 31 inches (or 
more correctly 19 inches and 12 inches, with 12 inches of freestone 
intervening),* but the results were not such as to justify farther 
exploration. 

2d, The whole formation, though of great superficial extent, has 
apparently but slight thickness. This is evidenced in two ways: 1st, 
By the fossils of the associated beds, which, according to Professor 
Dawson, indicate the admixture of the floras of several. different 
horizons; and, 2dly, By the fact that in the Grand Lake district, as 
shown by Mr C. R. Matthews, the rocks of the Coal measures are 
penetrated by those of the older metamorphic formations upon which 
they rest. With strata nearly horizontal in position, and having 
apparently but slight thickness, the borings already made give little 
promise of future discoveries of great value. 

To these general conclusions, however, it is but right to add, that 


* For this information I am indebted to Mr Edward Allison of St John, by whom 
these explorations were undertaken. 


= —_ a — 
A lg mG cn EG lig) SS Sig RS cg Sak gam pl Tala alla ee 


— 


246 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


but a small proportion of the entire coal-field has been made the 
© subject of accurate examinations, and these, for the most part, have — 
been confined to its central and southern portions. The eastern coast 
region, and certain detached areas near the Bay of Fundy, may yet — 
prove more productive than the regions hitherto examined. It follows, — 
moreover, from the nearly horizontal character of the formation, that 
such beds as do exist may have a wide lateral extension, and if ata 
moderate depth, may be removed, as is done at Grand Lake, ata 
comparatively trifling coast. 

The coal of Grand Lake, as well as of all the other outcrops yet 
observed in the true Carboniferous formation, is the ordinary bitumi- 
nous or caking coal, capable of ready ignition, but requiring frequent 
stirring for complete combustion. While not so well adapted for 
household use as the foreign imported coals, it has, from its com- 

- parative cheapness ($4 to $5 per ton in the market of St John), — 
attained a local consumption of nearly 6000 chaldrons annually, and — 
for manufacturing purposes is preferred to any of the imported coals. 
About 1000 tons of this coal were exported in the year 1865. It is 
capable of yieldmg 8500 cubic feet of gas per ton, but of inferior 
quality, and is not employed for this purpose. ; 

The raising of this coal has heretofore been undertaken by many 
separate parties, and by a rude system of quarrying. It is now 
proposed to undertake operations of a more systematic kind, preceded 
by a preliminary boring, the results of which, it is hoped, will givea 
more accurate idea of the real value of the coal-field. = 


Table of all known Out-crops of Bituminous Coal in the Province of New 
Brunswick equalling or exceeding five inches in thickness.* 


County. Locality. Thickness. | Variety. Quality. Remarks. e ; 
Ft. In. ¥: 
York,. . ...|Nashwaak River, 0 5 /|Caking,. .|Fair, . .|Few bushels remoy- 5 
ed and burnt. os 
Queen’s,. . . |Newcastle District, L3=8 Do: hee Does < + 
5000 chaldrons r - 
Do. . . . |Salmon River, 1 10 DOE ere es Os ace moved in 1864. q 
12,863 since 1828. ; 
Do. . . . |Coal Creek, fea, | ee Do t 
= 
Do. . . .|Washademoak, 1-0 Do Do . |Few bushels 4 
removed. 3 
King’s, . . . |“Dunsinane,’. . 1 10 /|Bituminous,} Do. . . |Opened, not worked . 
Albert, . . . |Cape Enrage,. . 0 8 /|Caking,. .}| Do. . . |Not worked. 
Kent, . . . |Cocagne River, . ea) Do. e 
Richibucto River, dt Do. Fair, ~ 
Gloucester, . |New Bandon, . O38 Do. Do. 


* Extracted from Bailey’s Report. 


MINERALS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 247 


‘Tea ble of all known Out-crops of workable Bituminous Shale and Asphaltum. 


County. Locality. Thickness. | Variety. | Quality. Remarks. 


. - » {Apohaqui, . . . Irregular 


King’s, 
a ee, veins,. . |Albertite, . |Superior, |Not explored. 


| Do. 


- - - 1S. Branch of the 
Kennebeckasis R. Ps Do. ° Do, Not worked. 
.- .»|Ward’s Creek, . ous Bituminous 
Shale, . (Fair, . . Do. 
. - |Dutch Valley, . 4: Do. 6 | DOsso) Do. 


. . {Albert Mine, . . /1 inch to 17 


feet, . .|Albertite, . |Superior, |Extensively worked. 
. |East Albert Mine, af Do.0-)s.|, Des Now being opened. 
. .|Baltimore,. . . |6feet, . . |Bituminous 
h : Shale, ./Good,. .|Works erected but 
fil. abandoned. 
auebo. . . .|Curtle Creek, . . {10 feet, . . Do. .| Do. . . |Claims taken out. 
; Westmoreland, |Memramcook,. . |Large beds, Do. -| Do. . . |Now being worked. 
; ’ * * *. 
: Quantity of Coal raised at Grand Lake since 1828. 
R 1825, +» ° 66 Chaldrons. 1835, ok 3,537 Chaldrons. 
1830, see 70 =" 1838, vee 2,143 i 
1833, ape 138 - 1864, aan 5,000 9 
1834, oe 687 * 
é Total number of Chaldrons, 11,641. 


Albertite—This most valuable mineral is wholly confined to the 
rocks of the Lower Carboniferous Formation of King’s, Albert, and 
Westmoreland Counties. It has at different times and by different 
“guthors been regarded as an asphalt, an asphaltic coal, a true coal, and 
a jet; but most authorities now agree in considering the substance as 

a variety of asphalt or a solid hydrocarbon, originally fluid, like 
petroleum, and derived from the decomposition of vegetable or animal 
products. The mode of occurrence of the mineral, and a discussion of 
the views concerning its origin, having already been ‘given in a 
‘Previous section, farther remarks in this connexion are deemed 
unnecessary. . 
_ From the original locality near Hillsborough, discovered in 1849, 
56,289 tons have been exported in the three years, 1863 to 1865, 
paying during the same period to the Government a royalty of 
$8,089,29. The principal market for this coal is in the United States, 
where it is employed in the manufacture of oil and gas. Of the former, 
it is said to be capable of yielding 100 (crude) gallons per ton, while 
of the latter the yield is 14,500 cubic feet, of superior illuminating 


248 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


power. In the latter case, where other coals are at the same time 


employed, there is left as a residuum a valuable coke. 
Numerous attempts have been made to obtain Albertite from othell 
localities than that above alluded to; but though the mineral has been 


have tte as yet met with any marked success. The peculiar nature 


and origin of the substance, and the uncertainty attending all subjects 
ine to mineral apone may be one cause of this result. As, 


however, the accompanying and very characteristic shales have been 


traced over a wide extent of country, and have been observed to 


contain Albertite, though in small quantities, at points more than fifty 


miles remote from each other, it is reasonably hoped that other 
workable deposits will yet be found. 
Bituminous Shales.—These, as above stated, occupy a wide extent 


- of country, having been traced, in more or less parallel bands, from 


Apohaqui Station, near Sussex, to Dorchester, in the county of 
Westmoreland. The amount of bitumen contained in them is very 
various, that of the “ Black Band” or richest bed at the Caledonia 
Works, in Albert, yielding 63 gallons of crude oil per ton, while those 
on the Memramcook, in Westmoreland, yield only 37. Numerous 
leases have been taken out within the last year for operations on 
these shales, both in Albert and Westmoreland, a company in the 


latter being about to erect 100 retorts, with the design of subjecting to 


distillation 100 tons of shale per diem. This is at present regarded 
as more profitable than to export the shale for distillation abroad, 


especially to the United States, where it would necessarily come into — 
competition with the immense production of natural oils in that country. — 
1230 tons of shale were exported in the year 1865, of the value of — 
$3075. The “ Black Band” shales of Caledonia will yield 7500 cubic — 
feet of gas per ton (about one-half of the quantity yielded by the — 


Albertite), but leaves as a residuum a bulky and worthless ash. 
Petroleum.—Springs containing an admixture of mineral oil or 


petroleum have been observed at several points in the Carboniferous — 
districts, on the sides of the Petitcodiac River, in Albert and Westmore- — 
land counties, and borings have been undertaken, but the amount of 


oil so far obtained has not proved sufficient to be remunerative. The 


latter is sometimes fluid, floating on the surface of the water; in other 


ones yer am 
Vie Foe ee i 


id 


Ss 
. 


IR 


cases, hardened by exposure into a sort of mineral pitch termed 


“‘ maltha.” 
Common Salt.—Saline springs, containing variable proportions of 
common salt, occur in the rocks of the Lower Carboniferous series, at 


a variety of points, and especially near Sussex, on the Salt Spring 


MINEKALS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 249 


in the parish of Upham in Westmoreland, and on the Tobique 
Victoria. No beds of rock salt have been observed, nor is it known 
what depth the saliferous strata may be found. Salt has long been 

made by the evaporation of the brines from Upham and Sussex, and 
is of excellent quality, but the works have heretofore been conducted 
upon a very limited scale. 

_ Gypsum (Sulphate of Lime).—This is a very abundant mineral in 
_ New Brunswick, the deposits being numerous, large, and in general 
‘ of great purity. They occur in all parts of the Lower Carboniferous 

district, in King’s, Albert, Westmoreland, and Victoria, especially in 

the vicinity of Sussex, in Upham, on the North River in Westmoreland, 

at Martin Head on the Bay shore, on the Tobique River in cliffs over 

- 100 feet high, and about the Albert Mines. At the last-named locality 

the mineral has been extensively quarried from beds about sixty feet in 

’ thickness, and calcined in large works at Hillsborough. 8646 barrels 

of plaster were exported in 1863, principally to the United States; 

but the trade has declined since the outbreak of the American war, 

and during the last year the buildings employed by the company 
were consumed by fire. 

Anhydrite (Anhydrous Sulphate of Lime).—This mineral oceurs with 

_ the last at Hillsborough, and the two are employed in connexion. 

Alum.—This important substance frequently results spontaneously 
from the weathering of pyritous shales, and has been observed in 
small quantities at Grand Lake and elsewhere, resulting from these 
eauses. As pyrites is abundant in the province, it may prove a source 
of the future supply of this substance. Alum was a few years ago 
manufactured in considerable quantities at Shepody Mountain, but the 
works have been abandoned, and are now in ruins. 

Freestones are abundant in the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Albert 
and Westmoreland, and numerous quarries have been opened. They 
are of red, yellowish, and olive tints, often so soft as to be readily cut 
when freshly dug, but hardening on exposure, and are highly prized for 
building purposes, both in the province and in the United States. 

Grindstones ave found in the same quarries, and are of superior 
character. In 1864, 6814 tons of stone, including building and grind- 
stones were exported from the province, while in 1860 the amount 
was over 13,000 tons. 

Limestones ave abundant in the Lower Carboniferous series, 
especially in the counties of King’s, Queen’s, Charlotte, St John, 
Albert, Victoria, and Westmoreland. The beds of this series are 
dark and more or less bituminous, yielding lime inferior to that of 
the older formations (Laurentian and Silurian) in St John and Char- 

K 


THE CARBONIFEKOUS SYSTEM. 


lotte counties, which afford the greater part of the lime used in 
province. 

Manganese-—Deposits of the peroxide of this metal, so lar 
employed in bleaching and glass manufacture, occur in the provir 
at several points, especially at Bathurst, near Shepody Mountain, at 
Quaco, and Upham. At the latter locality, near the source of Ham 
mond River, the deposit is large and of excellent quality, and co 
siderable quantities are annually removed. 219 tons were expo 
in 1864 from the localities above mentioned. The ores occur, 
the exception of that at Bathurst, in limestone near the base of t 
Lower Carboniferous system. Wad or black manganese ore is a 
abundant, but, while richer ores abound, is not of value. 


251 


CHAPTER XV. 


7 é THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM—Continued. 


CENTRAL CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF NOVA SCOTIA AND ITS OUTLIERS— 
USEFUL MINERALS. 


Carboniferous District of Colchester and Hants. 


In this district, which is as extensive as that of Cumberland, from 
which it is separated by the Cobequid chain of hills, we have a very 
great development of the limestones and gypsums corresponding to 
the Napan and Pugwash rocks of Cumberland, and the Mountain or 
Lower Carboniferous limestone of England, and a very small devel- 
opment of the Coal measures. In other words, in the Carboniferous 

_ period marine deposits were formed to a greater extent and perhaps 
for a longer time on the south than on the north side of the Cobequid 
chain, which, we shall presently see, was then a ridge probably not 
so high, but perhaps nearly as continuous as at present. 

On consulting the map, it will be seen that this district is very 
irregular in its form; partly because the modern bay, with its fringes 
of marsh and New Red Sandstone, penetrates into it, and partly 

because it in like manner penetrates in long inlets, now river valleys, 
into the older metamorphic hills to the-eastward. Viewing this dis- 
trict, then, as a portion of the dried-up bed of the Carboniferous sea, 
its original shores can be observed both on the north and on the south. 
Thus on the flanks of the Cobequids, the Lowest Carboniferous beds 
consist of conglomerates; the stones and pebbles of which are identical 
with the rocks of the hills from which they have been derived, just as 
the materials of shingle beaches on modern coasts are derived from 
neighbouring cliffs. In like manner, at the base of the Horton and 
Ardoise Hills, the lowest beds consist of white sandstones composed 
of the debris of granite, and shales made up of the mud produced by 
the slow wasting of slate; both of these materials being furnished by 
the rocks of the hills. One difference, however, of a marked character 
occurs on these opposite shores. The material of the lowest rocks on 
the south side of the district is fine and almost destitute of pebbles ; 


a 


eo Sanne re ft nen ee oF 


SS SES 


$2 Se 


A= 


252 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


that of the corresponding rocks on the north or Cobequid side is — 
very coarse, being made up of large pebbles and even stones of con- — 
siderable size. Similar differences occur in modern seas, and depend — . 
on the configuration and elevation of coasts, and their comparative — a 
exposure to the sea-swell and prevailing winds. The deposits-in the 
more central part of the district are more uniform and persistent in — 
their character. ; 

In noticing this Carboniferous area, I shall describe, in the frei 
place, some of the localities and sections in which the arrangement 
and character of its rocks are most distinctly exposed; and these will — 
afford us opportunities of studying the Lower Carboniferous series, — 
almost as perfect as those which we enjoyed at the Joggins in the © 
case of the Coal formation deposits. i 

At Wolfville and Lower Horton, in the south-western part of the 
district, we find the Lower Carboniferous beds to consist of gray sand- 
stones and dark shales, resting on the edges of the slates of the Gas- _ 
pereau River. In the road-cuttings in Lower Horton, the sandstones — 
may be seen to contain fine specimens of Lepidodendron, a genus of 
which we have already seen examples at the Joggins. There appear 
to be two or three species of this genus in the beds of Horton Bluff, 
and one of them at least is distinct from any of those found in the true — 
Coal measures, and is most characteristic of this Lower Coal formation. 
It is the species which I have named L. corrugatum (Fig. 74), and is 
found on the same geological horizon as far west as Ohio. It is also 
closely allied to a characteristic species of this age in England and 
on the continent of Europe. With these Lepidodendra are found 
at Horton Bluff several other fossil plants, more especially the fine 
fern (Fig. 75), which I have named Cyclopteris Acadica, Cordaites 
(Fig. 76), Stagmaria, and the conifer Dadoxylon antiquius. 

The Cyclopteris Acadica was a magnificent fern, unsurpassed by 
any in the Middle Coal formation. Its leaf-stalks are often two 
inches in diameter, and the frond, with its hundreds of wedge-shaped 
leaflets, must have been several feet in breadth. In some of the shales” 
at the same locality fish-scales are extremely abundant, and make up 
apparently the greater part of the mass of some thin beds. The whole 
of these rocks are, however, much better seen at Horton Bluff, a fine 
range of cliffs extending along the west side of the Avon estuary. 
At this place the beds do not dip regularly in the same direction, but 
have been broken into great masses which dip in different ways, and 
have been fractured and displaced by faults or slips of one mass or 
another up or down, so as to break the continuity of the layers. Such 
disturbances are very frequent in all the sections of this district, and 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 253 


‘it will be easily understood that in the upheaval of large surfaces of 
rock, these would readily give way along the lines of greatest and 


Fig. 76.—Fragment of Leaf 
of Cordaites. 


Fig. 74.—Lepidodendron corrugatum 
— portion of bark. 


é qi MA 4) it My 
a 


(a) Pinnules showing venation. (b) Fragment of stipe. 
(c) Stipe, Pinnules, and remains of fructification. 


least pressure, and be tilted in different directions and slipped up or 
down. The general dip of these beds, however, so far as it can be 
ascertained by putting together their disjointed portions: appears to 
be to the north-east or from the older slaty rocks. 

The Horton Bluff beds are the geological equivalents of the beds 


Rts 


254 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Fig. 77.—Placoid and Ganoid Fishes from the Lower Carboniferous.— Horton Bluff. — 


re = SES 


(a, b,c, d) Portion of Jaw, Tooth, and Scales of Rhizodus Hardingi, Dawson—nat. size. Thee 

tooth (0) is a little too slender. . Ss 
(e, f) Portion of Jaw and Scale of Acrolepis Hortonensis, Dawson—the scale magnified. 
(g, h) Spine of Ctenacanthus and portion magnified. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 255 


Ipsvical described as occurring at Hillsborough in New Brunswick ; 
and like them they consist of dark calcareous shales abounding in 
remains of fish. At Horton, however, the bituminous matter so 
abundant at Hillsborough, is almost entirely wanting, and the fish- 
scales and teeth are scattered apart, implying a less amount of vege- 
table matter and different conditions of deposition. There are also at 
_ Horton Bluff numerous bands of coarse limestone, and thick beds of 
- the white granitic sandstone already referred to, as well as gray and 
red sandstones and marls in the lower part of the section. The most 

Btcresting and abundant fossils in this section are the remains of fish, 

which occur in incalculable numbers; every surface in some of the 

shales being thickly scattered over with their bright enamelled scales 
and sharp conical teeth. Some scales are smooth, others finely 
punctured, others marked with irregular ridges, and others with con- 
centric lines; but all belong to the tribes of ganoids and placoids, 
which appear to have had exclusive possession of the Carboniferous seas. 

I have figured fragments of three of the most common species of the 
larger fishes whose remains occur at Horton Bluff (Fig. 77). The first 
is a species of Rhizodus, allied to R. gracilis, M‘Coy, from the Carbon- 
iferous shales of Gilmerton, Scotland, but differing from that species 
in the less curved jaw, not tuberculated, but marked with irregular 
vermicular lines, and in the thicker, finely striated, less flattened teeth. 
Seales of this fish much larger than these figured are often seen in 
the Horton beds. I name it R. Hardingi, in honour of the late Dr 
Harding of Windsor. The jaw and scale represented at e, f, Fig. 77, 
belong to a species whose remains are very abundant in the Horton 
beds, and may be recognised by the pointed and deeply furrowed 
shining ganoid scales, and the equal and flattened teeth implanted in a 
dentary bone, whose outer surface is furrowed somewhat like that of the 
scales. It seems to belong to the genus Acrolepis, and I have named 
it A. Hortonensis. The spine of Clenacanthus, figured above, also appears 
to benew. ‘The same beds contain immense numbers of small scales, 
probably of Pal@oniscus. The appearances in these fish-beds, as in 
the bituminous limestones of the Joggins, indicate the long residence 
of these animals in the locality, and the gradual accumulation of their 
harder parts, as successive generations died or were devoured by their 
larger brethren, and as the waters in which they lived were gradually 
filled up by the deposition of fine mud. We have also evidence that 
trees grew on the neighbouring land, for trunks, branches, and leaves 
of Lepidodendron are very abundant, and Stigmaria is also found. 
In one bed, indeed, the trunks of Lepidodendron are found rooted in 
the erect position. They are very numerous but small, the largest 
being only eleven inches in diameter, and their height is only six 


256 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


inches. The bed immediately overlying them is filled with prostrate _ 


Fig. 78.—Entomostraca from the Lower Carboniferous Coal Formation.—Nat. size 
and magnified. 


(a) Cythere, (b) Leperditia Okeni. (c) Beyrichia. (ad) Estheria.  (e) Leaia Leidii. — 


and flattened branches of trees of the same kind. This is the oldest 
fossil forest yet known in Nova Scotia, perhaps in the world. Small 
reptiles tenanted these forests, for Sir W. E. Logan found in 1841 a 
few footprints of a small creature of this class—the first ever found in 
rocks of so great age. Coprolites, or the fossil excrements of fishes— __ 
small bivalve crustaceans—Leperditia Okeni, a Beyrichia, a Cythere,and : 
an Estheria*—and trails, resembling those made by worms on muddy ‘ 

shores, are also very abundant at Horton Bluff (Fig. 79). There are 


Fig. 79.—Casts in Sandstone of Trails of Worms in Clay.—Halfway River. 


* Tn the figure (Fig. 78) I have endeavoured to represent these species, and have 
added the beautiful Leaia Leidii, of which I have specimens from rocks of this age 
at the Strait of Canseau, and which Mr Hartt has found within the limits of the district — 
now under consideration at Parrsboro’. JI am indebted to Professor Jones of Sandhurst 
for the determination of these Entomostracans. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 2Ot 


curious little pairs of oval impressions of the character of those 
nd in the Silurian rocks of Canada and New York, and formerly 

Fic. 80.—Rusichntes SUPposed to be fucoids, to which the name Ruso- 
_ earbonarius— Half- phycus was applied. Regarding them, for reasons 
_ way River. stated in a paper on the subject published in the 
Canadian Naturalist, to be burrows of Trilobites 
or other crustaceans, I have proposed for them the 
name Rusichnites, and have described the present 
species as I. carbonarius (Fig. 80). These and 
the worm-tracks above mentioned are best seen 
at Halfway River, between Horton and Windsor. 
No coal lias been found in these rocks. 

It is evident that in the section above described, we have the oceur- 
rence, in the very lowest part of the Carboniferous system, of beds 
very similar to the Middle Coal formation as it occurs in Cumberland, 
though sufficiently distinct in their mineral characters and association 
of fossils to prevent us from confounding the two; an error which has, 
however, been committed by some of the earlier writers on the geology 
of the country, and has led to much additional confusion. Beds of 
similar character and age occur at Halfway River, near Windsor, on 
the St Croix River, at Upper Rawdon, and at the Gore. In all these 
localities they skirt the base of the slate hills. On the north shore of 
Hants, they have been thrown up to the surface by an anticlinal bend 
of the strata, and are seen at Five Mile River, Noel, Teny Cape, and 
Walton (Fig. 81). In all these places they appear to underlie the 
great Lower Carboniferous marine limestones. We have observed a 
similar fact at Hillsborough, and it also occurs in some parts of the 
eastern coal districts. We may therefore conclude that in the very 
dawn of the Carboniferous era, before or coeval with the formation of 
the great limestone and gypsum beds, conditions somewhat similar to 

those afterwards so extensively exemplified in the true coal measures 
prevailed very widely in Nova Scotia. This is not in any way unac- 
countable, for we have no reason to doubt that marine deposits were 
forming somewhere when alluvial flats existed at the Joggins, or that 
there were shores, dry land, swamps, estuaries, and lagoons, contem- 
porary with the seas in which the Hants and Cumberland limestones 
were formed. At the same time, it is true that in the older Carbon- 
iferous period marine deposits were formed in the greatest quantity, 
while in the later portion of the period there was much more of swamp 
and estuary deposition. 

We may now direct our attention to the strictly marine deposits 
which rest upon the Horton Bluff beds, and which may be seen along 


258 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


both sides of the estuary of the Avon, not directly in contact wi h 
the shales, etc., which intervene between them and the metamorphic 
EZ hills, but in such positions as to leave no doubt 
as to their relative age. One of the best expos- 
ures of these rocks in this vicinity is on the right 
bank of the Avon, immediately above-the Windsor — 
bridge, and I shall describe this section in detail, — 
that the reader may at the outset be familiarized 
with the principal members of that great gypsi- ‘ 
ferous series which occupies the greater part of the — 
district now under consideration. & 
The first rock seen south of the bridge is a thick 
bed of red marly sandstone, a soft rock coloured — 
red by peroxide of iron and cemented by carbon- 
ate of lime. Below this is a bed of greenish — 
marl, similar to that above in composition, but 
wanting its colouring matter. Then there is a — 
thick gray limestone, containing enough of frag- — 
ments of shells to lead us to infer that it may 
have been made up of such materials, but so 
decomposed and agglutinated together that itm 
appears now a compact, almost non-fossiliferous, 
rock. Below this we find again red and greenish — 
marly sandstones. The whole of these beds dip 
to the north at an angle of 50°. At this point, — 
however, there is a fault, marked by a little gully, _ 
cut in consequence of the surface water finding — 
a more ready passage at this place. The next 
beds seen are again red marls, but dipping to the 
south at an angle of 55°. On these rests a 
yellowish limestone, above which are more red — 
and greenish marls.* Next we have another lime- — 
stone of flaggy or laminated structure, with an 
number of fossil shells scattered over some of — 
the surfaces, as if they had lived on these surfaces 
or been scattered over them after death. These 
shells, like those of the Cumberland Lower Carbon- — 
iferous limestones, belong to the genera Productus, — 
Spirifer, and Terebratula, all shells of the same 
family, one of the most singular of the tribes of 
bivalve shell-fish, and, in so far as we can judge 


* According to Mr Hartt, this bed also dips to the N.W., and the break cceurs: 
immediately to the south of it. 


d Black shales. e Small beds of limestone. 


Low®R CARBONIFEROUS, 


Fig. 81.—Section at Walton. 
c Gray and red conglomerate. 


a, a’ Triassic Red Sandstone; the lowest bed a hard calcareous conglomerate. 
J Black shales with calcareous bands. 


6 Red shale and marl with limestone bands. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND IIANTS. 259 


m the habits of its living representatives, intended to inhabit 
he depths of ocean. The presence of fossil shells of this tribe 
is therefore considered by all geologists as conclusive evidence that 
} - the deposits in which they occur were formed in the bottom of the 
open sea. Above this limestone, in the order of succession, we have 
alternations of marls and limestones, and next a bed of white erystal- 
line gypsum, contrasting strongly in its purity and whiteness with the 
_ other beds of more mechanical origin. Here the shore becomes low 
and no rock is seen, but a little to the eastward we find the great 
‘gypsum quarries of Windsor, excavated in the outcrop of a very thick 
bed, the strike of which would bring it out to the shore just where 
our section fails, and where the gypsum has been removed partly by 
the river and partly by the quarrymen who earliest dug this rock for 
exportation. A little farther to the southward, at the next bluff point, 
there is a very thick bed of limestone, filled with, or rather made up 
of, fossil shells of various species and genera, affording a remarkably 
perfect display of the shelly coverings of the creatures that inhabited 
the Carboniferous seas. 

A descriptive list of the species found here and elsewhere in Nova 
Scotia, in limestones of this age, will be appended to this chapter, 
with figures of several of the more characteristic species; and in this 
place I shall merely mention them generally, and with reference to their 
living analogues. 

At the head of these ancient Molluses is a Nautilus, to a cursory 
observer not unlike the ordinary Nautili of the Indian Ocean; nor are 

- these ancient Nautili inferior in dimensions to their modern relatives, 
for at Windsor they may sometimes be seen as much as six inches 
in diameter. With the Nautilus, we may occasionally find species 
of Orthoceras, a shell of the same family, but straight instead of 
being whorled. The species usually seen is about one-fourth of an 
inch in diameter, and four or five inches in length; but I have seen 
specimens nearly an inch in diameter. The Orthoceras as well as the 
Nautilus was a chambered or partitioned shell, intended to serve as a 
float as well as a protection to the animal, which could thus sport on 
the surface of the sea as well as creep upon its bottom. The inner 
chambers of these shells are now empty or incrusted with crystals of 
eale-spar; but the outer chambers are filled with hard limestone, often 
containing numbers of smaller shells. A species of Conularia is 
also found in this limestone, though less abundant here than in 
some other places to be hereafter noticed. This shell is believed to 
have belonged to an animal of the class Pteropoda, which contains 
little swimming molluscs, furnished with a pair of fins or flappers for 


‘ 


260 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


locomotion at the surface of the water. In addition to these shells, we 
have several species of univalves, resembling the modern Naticas, or 
whelks and periwinkles, and a number of bivalves belonging to the 
class Lamellibranchiata, and to the genera Aviculopecten, Macroden, 
Cardiomorpha, ete., all of which may be considered as erepceaam es 


Terebratula, two of Spirifer, an es anil species of Rhy nchonallala 
and two of Productus. These shells belong to a tribe (the Brachtopoda) 
differing in some important particulars from the ordinary bivalve shell-_ 
fish, and remarkable as having been very numerous in ancient periods 
of the earth’s history, and comparatively few now. Some of the most 
abundant species of these genera are figured in subsequent pages. 
_ The Terebratula is not unlike some of the modern representatives — 
of the family. The Rhynchonellas are still represented in our 
modern seas by the Parrot-bill Rhynchonella (R. psittacea), now 
found, though rarely, on the coasts of Nova Scotia. The Productus 
is remarkable for the great convexity and comparative magnitude of — 
one of its valves, which, as has been conjectured by an eminent zoolo- _ 
gist, may have been the lower valve, and have formed a sort of cup 
containing the animal, and closed by the smaller valve. The Spirifer 
and Athyris are distinguished by the presence within the shell of two 
spiral stony threads, twisted like cork-screws, and connected with the 
support of the long spiral arms with which all these creatures were. 
provided. These screws are often finely preserved in the Windsor — 
limestone. I may mention here, that in all the Carboniferous lime- — 
stones of Nova Scotia the shells of this family are usually found with _ 
the valves closed and the interior often hollow. This shows that they 
were not dashed about by violent waves, nor exposed to be filled with 
fine mud. Yet it does not prove that the death of the animals was 
sudden, for the hinge of the modern Rhynchonella and Terebratula is so 
constructed that it does not gape when dead, like other bivalve shells; 
but when dead and empty, the hole or notch in the hinge for the pe- _ 
duncle, by which these shells were attached, would admit mud, had this _ 
been present, which in many instances seems not to have been the case. — 
The appearances are those which should occur in a. bed of shells — 
gradually accumulated in deep and clear water. 
Descending a little lower in the animal scale, we have fragments of — 
the stems of Crinoids, which were complicated starfishes, mounted on __ 
a stalk. A pretty little branching coral is also very abundant, and ; 
with shells, which are entangled in great numbers among its branches, 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 261 


ikes up whole layers of the limestone. There are also sea-mats or 
olyzoa, of the genus Fenestella, some of which spread out into leaves 
- several inches in length. 

* tbe only vanes in this limestone that appears to be identical with 


the Joggins is the little Siiidonble which has attached itself ie the 
nside of the outer chamber of some of the larger Nautili, after the 
th of their owners, and this is evidently a distinct species from the 
carbonarius. The reason of the difference in the fossils of these 
ifferent members of the same geological system is, that one is of 
marine or deep-sea origin, while the other represents the tenants of the 

‘shallow creeks, lagoons, and estuaries of the same period. A similar 

_ difference subsists in all modern seas. While, however, distinct species 

and genera of fossils occur in the littoral and oceanic deposits of the 
same era, still more decided differences distinguish the formations of 
one period from those of another ; for instance, the Lower Carboniferous 
limestones from those of the older Devonian and Silurian periods. 
Hence, if the student once familiarizes himself with the shells of the 
Windsor limestones, or even with the species represented in the fol- 
lowing pages, he has the means of recognising the limestones of the 
same age in all parts of the country, and of distinguishing them from 
those of every other formation. 

The sandstones and marls of this Windsor section differ little from 
the similar beds in the coal measures, except that they are less lami- 
nated, and less sorted into sand and clay, and contain no vegetable 
remains—all indications that they were deposited in deep water at a 
distance from land, and where changes of tides and currents had little 
influence. The limestone is evidently the result of the growth of shells 
and corals in the sea-bottom, forming in the course of ages thick and 
widespread masses, like the coral reefs of the Pacific, with beds of fine 
ealeareous mud and comminuted shells and corals washed from these 
banks or reefs by the sea. The coral and shell bank itself forms a rich 
fossiliferous limestone. The material produced around it by the 
wasting action of the sea becomes a compact earthy limestone, with 
few fossils, except minute fragments of shells, often only to be detected 
by the microscope. 

: The only apparent anomaly in the deposit is the gypsum, which 
must have been formed by chemical action, or deposited from solution 
in water. Various explanations may be given of the origin of the 
veins and masses of gypsum which occur in different geological 
formations, from the Silurian to the Tertiary, and which, so far as I 
am aware, are peculiar to the Lower Carboniferous series in no country 


a 


262 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


‘ 


except Nova Scotia and Virginia. Different explanations may no 
doubt apply to different countries and modes of occurrence. For | 
example, in the Upper Silurian of New York, gypsum occurs in such © 
circumstances that it has been supposed to have resulted from the — 
action of local sulphuric acid springs on limestone in situ (Dana) | 
while in the case of the gypsum occurring in rocks of similar age in — 
Upper Canada, Dr Hunt supposes that the mineral was deposited — 
from sea-water by its partial evaporation in lagoons, as it is now said 
to be produced in some of the coral islands of the Pacifie,—for instance, _ 
Jarvis Island.* Again, there can be no doubt that detached crystals, 
nodules, veins, and the disseminated gypsum of marls may have been — 
introduced by segregative processes, and by the percolation of — 
gypseous waters. I think it not improbable that there are in-— 
stances of all or most of these modes in the gypsiferous rocks of Nova 
Scotia. But for the occurrence of the mineral in so thick and exten- 
sive beds, interstratified with marl and limestone, there appears to 
me to be but one satisfactory theory—that of the conversion of sub- 
marine beds of calcareous matter into sulphate of lime, by free — 
sulphuric acid, poured into the sea by springs or streams issuing from 
voleanic rocks. Modern voleanoes frequently give forth waters — 
containing sulphurous and sulphuric acids. In the voleanic region of — 
Java, for instance, there is a lake of sulphuric acid from which flows _ 
a stream in which no animal can live. The water of this stream — 
being probably more dense than sea-water, will naturally flow for — 
some distance along the bottom of the sea, and if it meets with beds — 
of calcareous matter will convert them into gypsum. One of the — 
voleanoes of the Andes gives origin to a similar stream; and the — 
volcanic mountain of Maypo, in the same range, is surrounded by ~ 
great masses of gypsum, probably produced by the action of sul- 
phurous waters or vapours on the limestone of the region. We know 
that in the Carboniferous sea of Nova Scotia there were great beds — 
of shells and corals. We also know that the volcanic action which 
upheaved the metamorphic hills which formed the land of the period, — 
was not quite extinct when these shell-beds were growing. The — 
production of gypsum was a natural consequence of the action of 
sulphuric acid, evolved from such voleanic regions, on the caleareous 
beds and reefs. In accordance with this view, the gypsum is found 
only in association with the marine limestones, though, as might have 
been anticipated, these last sometimes occur without any gypsum. 
In all other respects, except this conversion of part of the limestone 
into gypsum, and some changes probably of similar origin in the 
* Hague, quoted by Dana. 


"cial ai dees tinea 


_ CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 263 


iated marls, the Lower Carboniferous series of Nova Scotia and 
Brunswick resembles the corresponding formation in Great 
‘ in and the United States, to the fossils of which its shells and 
_ eorals have also a very marked resemblance, and several of the species 
are identical. 
The rocks we have examined at Windsor may serve as a specimen 
of those that occupy nearly the whole low country of Hants, the 
ter part of the Carboniferous area of Colchester, and the long 
belt extending up the Musquodoboit River. The limestones and 
_ gypsums, which form the most important members of the series, appear 
at a great number of places, and are extensively quarried. The 
principal localities are the St Croix River, Newport, Kennetcook 
_ River, Walton, Noel, White’s or Big Plaster Rock, and other places 
on the Shubenacadie, Brookfield, Onslow, Stewiacke, and Upper and 
Middle Musquodoboit. One of the finest natural exposures of gypsum 
in the province is on the St Croix River, a few miles from Windsor. 
Here the gypsum forms a long range of cliffs of snowy whiteness. 
This cliff consists principally of the variety of gypsum named “hard 
plaster,’ or “sharkstone,” by the quarrymen; the latter name 
referring to the rough shagreen-like texture of its weathered surfaces. 
It is Anhydrite, or gypsum destitute of the combined water which 
gives to the ordinary variety its softness and its usefulness as a 
material for modelling and plastering. Anhydrite occurs in connexion 
with most of the beds of gypsum, generally forming separate beds, but 
sometimes mixed in large masses or nodules, or minute transparent 
erystals, with the common plaster. It is not at present applied to 
any useful purpose, being too hard to be profitably ground for agri- 
cultural uses. It may, however, be used as a substitute for marble, 
for the internal decoration of buildings, and some of the varieties in 
the cliffs of the St Croix are well adapted to this use, and could be 
procured in any quantity. 

Having thus described the Lower Carboniferous rocks as they occur 
at Horton and Windsor, I shall now attempt to give a general view 
of their arrangement in the area now under consideration, as well as 
their relations to certain limited tracts of coal measures which rest 
upon them, especially in the northern part of the district. To effect 
this, I shall take advantage of the sections afforded by the Folly and 
De Bert Rivers, and the Shubenacadie; and shall describe these as 
they would appear to an observer descending the southern slope of 
the Cobequids, following the course of the Folly River, crossing 
Cobequid Bay, and ascending the Shubenacadie to the Grand Lake. 

On the Folly River, about eight miles from its mouth, we leave 


a 


= Tet 


264 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the ancient metamorphic slates of the hills, and enter the Carbon- 


iferous system, which we find resting on the edges of the slates, and 
dipping to the south. The first rock seen is conglomerate, in enor- 
mously thick beds, and made up of fragments of all the rocks of the 
hills. Passing this ancient beach of the old Carboniferous sea, we 
find, without the intervention of any marine limestones, coal measure 
rocks, consisting of gray sandstones and dark shales, with a few thin 
seams of coal, and abundance of leaves of Cordaites, and a few 
Calamites and Stigmaria. Succeeding these beds isa great thickness | 


of red and gray sandstones and shale, with a general dip to the south- 
ward, though broken by so many faults that it is not easy to form an 


estimate of their aggregate vertical thickness. Finally, we observe, 
as we descend the river, these same sandstones and shales dipping at 
high angles to the northward. They are then overlaid by the new ~ 
. red sandstones, and we see no more of the Carboniferous rocks till — 


we approach the mouth of the Folly and De Bert, where we find the 


Lower Carboniferous limestone, gypsum, and conglomerate, mentioned is 
in our description of the New Red, and dipping to the north-east. The 


fossils of this limestone are the same species found at Windsor and 
elsewhere in beds of the same age. We have here a broken and 
disturbed coal measure trough, constructed in the same manner with 
that of Cumberland, but on a much smaller scale, and probably 
including only the lower members of the Coal formation. The 
absence of the Lower Carboniferous limestone near the hills cor- 


responds with what we observed in Cumberland, and is accounted for 


by the circumstance that the Cobequids formed the shore of this 


ancient sea, while the limestones could be formed only in deep water 
at some distance from the turbid surf and the pebbly beach—an 
alrangement corresponding exactly with what is observed in the — 


modern coral-reefs of the Pacific. 


We can trace the Coal measure band, of which the Folly River 4 
gives us a cross section, all the way from Advocate Harbour, near — 
Cape Chiegnecto, to the upper part of the Salmon River, where it — 


adjoins the Carboniferous district of Pictou. It is everywhere much 


broken and disturbed; and though it widens considerably toward its — 


eastern extremity, it nowhere attains a great development, either in 


horizontal extent, or in the magnitude of its coal-seams. From — 
Advocate Harbour to Partridge Island this belt consists principally 


of greatly contorted and somewhat altered shales and sandstones, 
containing a few fossil plants, some scales of fishes, and in places 
abundance of shells of Nazadites. In a bed near Partridge Island, 
Dr Harding of Windsor found, several years since, a fine series of 


oe Si al ~ 


xT 


a 
> 
q 
=. 
& 
a 
“4 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 265 


nts, probably of a small reptilian animal. More recently other 
_ footprints, of larger size, and referable to the genus Sawropus, were 
~ found in these beds by J. M. Jones, Esq., F.L.S., of Halifax. These 
indications of vertebrates of the land will be noticed in a subsequent 
pepe Eastward of Partridge Island, in Clarke’s Head, we find 
e Lower Carboniferous limestones vorhenhat altered, with beds of 
eommon gypsum, and a beautiful purple variety of anhydrite. At 
"Mos River and Harrington River, the black shales and gray sand- 
) gtones again appear. In Beonepty, we have these and the Lower 
~ Carboniferous limestone with its characteristic fossils, and on the banks 
of the Portapique and Great Village Rivers, the whole series is well 
"exposed, with appearances similar to those observed in the Folly. 
_ Eastward of the latter river, the Coal formation band widens rapidly. 
On the Chiganois and North Rivers, it contains bituminous limestones, 
with Cyprids and fish-scales; thick beds of shale, with clay-ironstone ; 
several small coals, the largest, I believe, about eighteen inches in 
thickness; and in the beds associated with these coals are fossil plants 
of several of the species described in ‘connexion with the Joggins 
section. On the North River also we find the lower limestone under- 
lying the Coal measures at the base of the mountains, and re-appearing, 
‘in greatly increased thickness and associated with beds of gypsum, 
on the south side of the trough. Still farther eastward, on the Salmon 
River, there is a bed of good coal nearly two feet in thickness, and * 
associated with shales, containing fine specimens of Ulodendron, Ferns, 
and other Coal formation fossils. 

Applying to this narrow Coal formation trough the information we 
have obtained from the Joggins section, we may conclude that along 
the base of the Cobequid Mountains, on their southern side, a band of 
swamps and shallow and land-locked waters existed contemporane- 
ously with the wider tract of the same description on the northern 
side of the mountains; and it is quite possible that the northern edge 
of the Lower Carboniferous limestones may have formed a barrier-reef, 
separating this narrow littoral band from the more open sea without, 
In its present condition, this Coal formation belt of the south side of 
the Cobequids presents many difficulties to the geologist. The 
various movements which have taken place along the south side of 
the mountains, and which have probably continued up to the close of 
the New Red period, have shattered these rocks in lines parallel to and 
at right angles with the hills, and have also bent and contorted them 
in a remarkable manner. In this respect, the Carboniferous rocks on 
the Cumberland side of the hills differ very much from those of the 
Colchester side; the former being very little disturbed in comparison. 

8 


a 


, ae 


266 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


| 
Crossing Cobequid Bay from the mouth of the Folly to that of the é i 


Shubenacadie, we find the first rock that appears at the mouth of the 
latter to be a black laminated crystalline limestone without fossils, and _ 
supporting a great thickness of marls and gypsum similar to fhods of ‘ 
Windsor. I spent several days in exploring this section in 1842, in | 
company with Sir Charles Lyell, and the late Mr George Dana of | 
Truro. The limestone and mazrls resting on it dip to the south-west. 
It thus appears that the Lower Carboniferous beds on the opposite 
sides of the bay dip inland, so that the bay forms, in so far as these = 
rocks are concerned, an anticlinal valley—a somewhat rare occurrence 
in this region, where the beds of sedimentary rocks usually dip away 
from hills rather than from depressions. The rocks in the banks of — 
the Shubenacadie are, however, much broken by faults, though the — 
general dip in the lower part of the river appears to be to the ih 
ward. The rocks succeeding the “ Black Rock” limestone, for about 
three miles up the estuary of the Shubenacadie, consist principally of * 
soft marly sandstones filled with veins of reddish fibrous gypsum, 
which run in every direction, and form a network so complicated that — 
it is difficult to understand how the rocks could have been supported — 
in such a manner as to leave open the fissures which the gypsum fills, 
It is possible, however, that these cracks were not all open at once, — 
but were produced by different movements to which the mass has — 
been subjected; and there is another way of accounting for hs 4 
appearance, to be stated shortly. There are also a few wide veins — 
filled with the peroxide of iron and sulphate of barytes. The former — 
is in part in the red ochrey state, and in part in the state of red and — 
brown hematite, often in beautiful coralloidal forms with an internal 
fibrous structure. The barytes is in small tabular crystals. These 
veins also contain oxide of manganese and cale-spar. Their contents — 
were probably introduced by water, rising from rocks beneath which 
afforded these materials.* 

The reader will observe that the veins of gypsum contained in these — 
rocks are very distinct from the large beds of the same mineral. The 
latter were formed as horizontal layers at the same time with the 
containing beds. The former have filled up cracks opened after the 
beds were consolidated. The fibrous texture, which the gypsum veins _ 
nearly always display, arises from the circumstance that little slender 
prisms of the mineral have sprouted forth from the sides of the fissures _ 
until they filled them. Hence they always stand at right angles to 
the sides of the vein. Similar appearances are observed in the greater 


t 4 


* For the manner in which these minerals may have been formed, see descriptions 
of mineral veins at Five Islands and Acadia Mine. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 267 


i r of minerals lining or filling veins or fissures. I am inclined 
to believe, however, that the fibrous gypsum in the gypseous marls 
has been produced in a different manner from the “combs” of quartz 
and other minerals found in the fissures of slate, trap, ete. The 


_ they often appear to have been added to at each side; and we may 
infer that the prisms of gypsum grew by additions to each end, 
furnished by water permeating the rock, and pressed the sides of the 
: re apart as they grew in length. Veins of fibrous ice are formed 
in this way in banks of clay, exerting an enormous expansive force, 
sufficient to break down the strongest retaining walls; and when 
circumstances are favourable, these clusters of icy prisms may be seen 
to raise objects lying on the surface of water-soaked clays to the 
height of several inches. Wherever segregation and crystallization 
are going on in the fissures of rocks, similar effects may be produced; 
and it is quite possible that they play an important part in geological 
dynamics. It is at least not unlikely that some of the remarkable 
contortions and dislocations observed in the gypsiferous rocks of Nova 
Scotia may have been produced in this way. 

These marly rocks contain a bed of anhydrite and common gypsum, 

in addition to the gypsum veins above mentioned. 
Proceeding to the southward, along the eastern bank of the river, 
we reach a high cliff of brownish-red and gray sandstones, dipping S. 
30° W., and containing a few fossil plants. These beds probably 
overlie those previously noticed, and much resemble the sandstones 
that in the Joggins section intervene between the lower limestones 
and the Coal measures. ‘To the southward of this cliff, which is called 
the Eagle’s Nest, the shore for some distance shows no section. On 
the west side, however, where the rocks corresponding to the Eagle’s 
Nest form a high cliff, they are separated by a fault from an immense 
mass of gypsum named White’s or the Big Plaster Rock, and one of the 
principal localities of the extensive gypsum trade of this river. The 
Big Rock at one time presented to the river a snowy front of gypsum, 
nearly 100 feet in height; but it has been greatly reduced by the 
operations of the quarrymen, who bring down enormous quantities 
by blasting. It is a massive bed; arranged in thick layers, and the 
whole bent into an arched or almost cylindrical form. In its lower 
part there is much anhydrite, and also dark laminated limestone, 
having on its surfaces of deposition immense numbers of flattened 
shells of Conularia. A compact limestone, containing Terebratula, 
also appears near the bottom of the mass. Faults, denudation, and 
disturbance render it quite impossible to discover in the river section 


a 


268 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the relations of this mass of gypsum to the neighbouring beds. Its 
nearest neighbour to the south is a series of dark shales and gray 
sandstones, with a few fossil plants of Coal formation genera. These 
beds are very much contorted, but have a prevalent dip to the south. 
I have no doubt that they are equivalents of the Horton Lower Carbon- 
iferous shales. A sheet of paper could hardly have been crumpled — 
into more fantastic curves than these beds, no doubt once flat and hori- 
zontal. This is an effect of lateral pressure acting upon them while 
in a soft state, and it testifies to the enormous forces of this description * 
which have been applied before these beds attained their present hard 
and brittle condition. These beds appear on both sides of the Five - 
Mile River, a stream running into the Shubenacadie at right angles, — 
and they extend along the course of this stream and that of the Ken- % 
netcook, which is continuous with it, though flowing in the opposite é 
- direction, far into the interior of Hants. On the Kennetcook, they 
contain a small seam of coal, and have more the aspect of true Coal eo 
measures than any other beds I have seen in this county. But from 
recent observations made by Professor How of Windsor, I am inclined 
to believe that all these beds are Lower Carboniferous. % 
Hitherto we have ae few fossils in this section ; but at aa next 


a grand example of a foabiliforous limestone, forming the cliff named — : } 
Anthony’s Nose. This limestone, which is a mass of corals and shells — 
similar to those noticed at Windsor, is about 40 feet thick, and stands — 
quite on edge, projecting like a huge wall into the river. Soft marls — 
rest against each side and include a bed of gypsum, and, at a little — 
distance, a thick bed of this mineral appears with an arched stratifi- 
cation. On the opposite side of the river there are other limestones _ 
and gypsums, also very much disturbed; and, immediately adjoining 
them on the south, there is a cliff of reddish sandstone, like that of 
Eagle’s Nest, and nearly in a horizontal position. = 

Beyond this place, the river section is not continuous, but gypsum 
and limestone, full of marine shells, appear in several places, and the — 
marls and red sandstones occasionally peep forth from beneath thick — 
beds of boulder-clay. Finally, at Gay’s River, Key’s on the Shuben- 
acadie, the lower end of Grand Lake, and Nine Mile River, the gypsum 
and limestone are seen almost in contact with the ancient metamorphi¢ 
slate and quartzite which bound this Carboniferous district on the | 
south. 

At one of these places, Key’s, on the old Halifax road, one of the 
beds of gypsum contains white and bleached-looking quartzose pebbles 
and sand. In this case,it is probable that the acid which produced 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 269 


he gypsum acted on a mass of calcareous matter, mixed with sand 
d gravel, which became entangled in the gypseous mass produced, 
ch instances of the enclosure of foreign bodies in gypsum are rare. 
_ Thave, however, seen layers of sand and earthy matter, and fragments 
of limestone, and in a few instances vegetable remains have appeared 
in the earthy layers. Some beds of gypsum are also blackened by 
_ bituminous matter, derived no doubt from animal or vegetable 
substances. 
Over nearly all the beds of gypsum in this region, the whole surface 
is riddled by funnel-shaped cavities, named “ plaster-pits,” by the aid 
of which the gypsum may be traced in localities where it does not 
itself reach the surface, These pits are well exposed in the face of 
the “Big Rock” formerly described. They are produced by the 
solvent action of the surface water penetrating through the fissures of 
the gypsum, in a manner which we shall have better opportunities of 
studying when we arrive at the gypsiferous districts of Cape Breton. 
The section formed by the long narrow tideway of the Shubenacadie, 
and continued less perfectly along its fresh-water portion, enables us 
to form an idea of the structure of the southern part of the Hants and 
Colchester area, across its whole breadth. It is evident that the 
regular succession of the beds has been much disturbed by faults or 
fractures, most of which have a direction approaching to east and west. 
They have shifted the masses of beds, so that we cannot now, without 
extensive investigations of all the minor sections afforded by tributary 
streams, put them together into a continuous series. The following is 
the nearest approximation to such a restoration of the original arrange- 
ment that I can offer :—l1st, From the mouth of the Shubenacadie 
westward to Walton and Cheverie, the shales which lie at the base of 
the Carboniferous system appear in several places, and immediately 
resting on them are red sandstones and marls, with limestone and 
gypsum; and the lowest bed of limestone is a laminated dark-coloured 
crystalline bed without fossils. 2dly, The red sandstones and marls 
with gypsum and limestone, form a wide band extending through 
Hants to the Avon estuary, south of these lowest members of the 
series; and in places there appear, in and over these beds, gray and 
brown sandstones with fossil plants. 3dly, Along the course of Five 
Mile and Kennetcook Rivers, extend rocks having the aspect of the 
Lower Coal formation, which appear to be thrown up along an anticlinal 
line. 4thly, Immediately to the south of these, we again find the red 
marls, gypsum, and limestone, forming a second broad belt, extending 
from Rose’s Point and Admiral’s Rock, on the Shubenacadie, through 
Newport to Windsor. This is the re-appearence of the same part of 


“it a ho ee Wao ee Ss et ee oe 2 es 2 ee -.. i 
i . ee ee Ngee 


270 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the formation seen below White’s Plaster Rock, and it is worthy of © 
note, that it is here much more fossiliferous than in the lower part of 
the river. Lastly, From the point of the Gore Mountain, along the _ 
base of the Douglas and Rawdon Hills, we can trace the Lower Carbon- _ 
iferous shales all the way to Horton. That trough-shaped arrangement, 
so characteristic of the Carboniferous rocks in this part of Nova Scotia; 
can therefore be traced even in the fractured section of the Shu- 
benacadie. g 
Eastward of the Shubenacadie, the Carboniferous district splits into 
three branches, entering between the hilly ridges of the metamorphie 
country to the eastward. The most northern of these passes along the 
valley of the Salmon River, and is connected with the Pictou district. 
The second passes up the Galler of the Stewiacke River. The third 
_ forms a narrow band extending from the Grand Lake nearly to the 
sources of the Musquodoboit River. In the northern branch, both the 
Lower Carboniferous and Coal formation series appear, as we have : 
already noticed; but in the two others the Lower Carboniferous rocks a 
prevail almost or altogether to the exclusion of the Coal formation. 
In one place only on the Lower Stewiacke, do rocks having the aspect a 
of Coal measures appear. In the Stewiacke branch, which, in the : 
period in question, must have been a sheltered bay or chants them 
corals and shells of the limestones attain a magnitude and perfection 
not, so far as I know, equalled in any other part of the province. 4 
Gypsum also abounds in this branch, and in one place there is a large 
deposit of sulphate of barytes. In. the southern or Musquodoboit — 
branch there is much gypsum and also limestone; but the latter does — 
not appear to be rich in fossils. I have fama in it only a few 
fragments of Crinoids. j 
As the district just described presents the most important develop- — 
ment in the province of the Lower Carboniferous series, I have — 
employed it to introduce the reader to that part of this great system 
of rocks, just as the Cumberland district served a similar purpose in 
relation to the Coal measures; and I may now conclude by a review 
of the condition of Southern Hants and Colchester at the time when 
the marine limestones and gypsums were produced. At this roa 
then, all the space between the Cobequids and the Rawdon Hills was 
an open arm of the sea, communicating with the ocean both on the 
east and west. Along the margin of this sea there were in some 
places stony beaches, in others low alluvial flats covered with the 
vegetation characteristic of the Carboniferous period. In other places 
there were creeks and lagoons swarming with fish. In the bottom, 
at a moderate distance from the shore, began wide banks of shells and 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 271 


and in the central or deeper parts of the area there were beds 
-caleareous mud with comparatively few of these living creatures. 
the hills around, volcanoes of far greater antiquity than those 
whose products we Koclandlipalles in a former chapter, were altering and 
peaning the slaty and quartzose rocks; and from their sides every 
d-flood poured down streams of red sand and mud, while in many 
- pee rills and springs, strongly impregnated with sulphuric acid, 
_ were flowing or rising, and, entering the sea, decomposed vast 
quantities of the carbonate of bits accumulated by shells and corals, 
and converted it into snowy gypsum. Of the creatures that may have 
erept or walked on the land, we know nothing except the hint afforded 
by the few footprints found by Logan and Harding in the shales 
_ of Horton and Parrsboro’, and which testify that reptilian life in 
some of its lower forms had already begun to exist. The sea had 
already attained almost its maximum of productiveness in fishes and 
creeping things, but we have no reason to believe that the land had 
_ yet received from its Creator any of those higher creatures which 
were destined to be introduced in a subsequent “ creative day.” 


Useful Minerals of the Hants and Colchester District. 


Gypsum is at present the principal product of this district. It is 
largely quarried at Windsor, Newport, Walton, Shubenacadie, and a 
number of other places; and, in 1861, 124,241 tons* were quarried, 
amounting to the value of over %83,000 at the ports of shipment. 
The greater part of this large annual produce of gypsum is exported 
to the United States for agricultural purposes. The quantity of gypsum 
in this district is enormous, and probably cannot be exhausted by any 
_ demand eyer likely to occur. It is now quarried only in the places 
most accessible to shipping, and its small value per ton indicates the 
facility with which it can be obtained, in a country in which the price 
of labour is by no means low. 

Limestone is also extremely abundant in this district, and might be 
quarried and exported as readily as the gypsum. Limestone being 
abundant in New Brunswick and in the United States, is not, however, 
in demand for exportation, and the wants of the country are at present 
small; especially in a district in which the land is in most places well 
supplied with calcareous matter. It may be anticipated, however, 
that a demand will arise for lime to supply the wants of the shore- 
districts, which are almost entirely destitute of this mineral. 

Iron Ore occurs in veins traversing the Lower Carboniferous lime- © 

* 118,215 in Hants and 6026 in Colchester. 


ae. 
~ 


- to four tons of ore. They are apparently nearly zn situ, as veins of 


limestones. The most important localities at present are Teny Cape — 


eH THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


stones and sandstones near the mouth of the Shubenacadie and in 
Brookfield. The ores are red ochre, red hematite, and brown hematit 4 
associated with sulphate of barytes and calcareous spar. One of the 
veins of the east side of the Shubenacadie, near its mouth, is of con- — 
siderable magnitude, and it is probable that such veins, more or less _ 
valuable, will be found in the country between this place and Brook- — 
field, where, however, the quantity of iron seems much greater than 
on the Shubenacadie. : 4 

At Brookfield, about 24 miles east of the Brookfield station on the ‘ 
railway between Halifax and Truro, a deposit of fibrous brown limonite 
has been discovered, and has been examined by Mr Barnes of Halifax 
and Professor How of Windsor, to whose reports I am indebted for 
the following information :—The ore occurs in large boulders, seat- — 
tered over a surface of 50 acres, and some of them containing three 


the same mineral are found in the locality, enclosed in a brownish — 
ferruginous quartz rock or hardened sandstone, of a character fre- . 
quently seen in this part of Colchester, and which is either of Devonian — 
or Lower Carboniferous age—probably the former. The ore occurs — 
at or near the junction of these rocks with ordinary Lower Carbon- 
iferous shales and limestones, which would seem to be unconformable — 
to them. Sulphate of barytes, of excellent quality, is found in the — 
latter rocks at no great distance, associated with iron ore, and probably — 
under the same conditions in which these minerals occur near the — 
mouth of the Shubenacadie. oA 

The ore of Brookfield is of excellent quality, and should the quantity 
prove considerable when the mine is opened in the solid rock, its 
vicinity to the railway will render it a very valuable property. The = 
masses on the surface have no doubt been left by the denudation or — 
washing away of the containing rock, and would seem to indicate an 
important deposit; but veins and masses of this kind are often very _ 
irregular and uncertain, so that, to determine the real value of the — 
deposit, better openings than those which now exist would be — 
required, %s 

Ores of Manganese.—These are found at several places in this dis- 
trict, in veins or disseminated in nodules in the Lower Carboniferous 


in Hants, and Onslow Mountain in Colchester. From the former place — 
about 1000 tons, worth £8 to £9 per ton, are stated by Professor How 
to have been extracted up to this time. The following account of the - 
Teny Cape locality is taken from a paper by Professor How in the 
Philosophical Journal for March 1866 :— “a | 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 273 


__ “ Pyrolusite.—This species is found at numerous localities in different 
arts of the province, and is now being mined in considerable quantity 
at one of them, viz., at Teny Cape in Hants Co., about five miles from 
Walton, where about a thousand tons have been got out within the 
last two years, the bulk of which has been readily sold in England, 
It occurs here in the form of nodules of irregular, generally rather 
‘flattened shape, of all sizes, from that of a bean up to that of a man’s 
head, or even twice as large, and weighing proportionately up to about 
twenty-five pounds. These masses lie loose in a bed of ‘soil’ about 
afoot thick and a foot below the surface: they consist of pyrolusite 
and psilomelane. Some feet below this bed, in a gray and brick- 
coloured limestone containing magnesia, the ore is found, in very thin 
- deposits, which, from the easily separable nature of the rock, can be 
laid bare in sheets, and also in ‘pockets’ or interrupted chains of 
' deposits of very variable dimensions, sometimes but a few inches in 
depth, and thickening out to several feet. I have seen one egg-shaped 
mass exposed in situ estimated to be of three tons weight. One of 
these ‘ pockets,’ running east and west at a depth of 15 feet from the 
surface, was about 72 feet in length, varied in thickness from 6 inches 
to 14 feet, and was practically exhausted on the removal of about 130 
tons of ore. A second runs parallel with this, at a depth of 30 feet 
from the surface, and has been found to extend at least 105 feet: it 
had yielded up to August last about 300 tons of ore; and a large 
quantity remained. Below this, again, at a depth of 50 feet from the 
surface, other deposits have been met with, the form and dimensions 
of which have not, so far as I know, been fully made out, but which 
have afforded many tons of good ore. The whole thickness of the 
limestone holding manganese is estimated at about 300 feet. 
_ “The minerals associated with pyrolusite at Teny Cape are iron ore 
(brown hematite, I believe), barytes, and calcite. The first of these 
is oceasionally found at the line of junction of the ore and rock, which, 
as before mentioned, is sometimes red. The barytes is of pure white 
— eolour, is often disseminated in varying quantity through the pyro- 
 Jusite, and is probably constantly present in all but the pure crystals 
of the species. The calcite is also occasionally imbedded, in trans- 
parent crystals, but more often exists as an incrustation; it sometimes 
forms specimens of great beauty, when it lies in opaque snow-white 
mammillary masses of finely crystalline structure, or in piles of nail- 
head erystals, half an inch or an inch across, of gray or snow-white 
colour, on black lustrous masses of well crystallized pyrolusite. 
“The pyrolusite found at Walton is sometimes attached to brown 
hematite in a reddish limestone resembling that at Teny Cape. 


7 


oe eS ae ane | le | et ei or a om. ) eee 
Cy lee inion = -_ ae None : ee Ws 
< : ae eae " ‘ 
: 3 { : ~=) gp u 


274 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


“The forms of the mineral are various. It is generally highly a 
crystalline. The masses at Teny Cape are sometimes of a gray black, 
and consist of closely packed fine long fibres, sometimes are made up 


jet-black crystals with perfect See all these varieties aa 
readily to the knife. The Pictou ore (found at a distance of about — 
seventy miles) is coarsely fibrous. The greater part of that from 
Walton is in soft, black, lustrous, short crystals; one specimen, how- 
ever, has been met with almost crypto-crystalline in structure and of 
bluish-gray colour, closely resembling the ore from Saxony. A very 
similar specimen from Amherst, Cumberland Co., forty miles from 
Walton, gave on analysis in the air-dry state,— 


Water -. ’ : - ven Sane 
Binoxide of “nee ae : » 5 Wt04 
Gangue andloss . , - 2:35 


100-00 


The insoluble matter (gangue) was brownish white, and most probably _ 
consisted of barytes. 

“ T have no doubt that specimens of the greatest possible purity could 
be selected at Teny Cape. I have examined a good many samples of 
dressed ores, and have commonly found from 80 to 93 per cent. bin- 
oxide; a specimen obtained at a depth of 50 feet from the surface, 
taken as a sample of dressed ore, and weighing about a quarter of a 
pound, gave me in the air-dry state, in summer, 93°83 per cent. bin- 
oxide of manganese, with barytes and a mere trace of iron. It isa 
very valuable property of this ore, as regards its use by glass-makers, _ 
that, when cleaned, it contains remarkably little iron. The first ship- — 
ment sent to England, consisting of about seven tons and a half, a 
on analysis in Liverpool, 91-5 per cent. binoxide, and less dicen a half — 
per cent. of iron. m, 

“ South of Teny Cape, at a distance of some ten miles, large nodules — 
of manganese ore are found resembling in appearance those described _ 
as occurring in the ‘soil’ at the former place. One of these weighed 
180 pounds; a fragment from. another, weighing thirty-five pou 
was examined by Mr H. Poole, a pupil of mine. The-mass was black, 
of unequal hardness, portions scratching apatite, and therefore shoul 
5°5, while the rest vinldad easily to the knife. The powder of the — 
harder parts was nearly as black as that of the softer. The water of — 
composition was found by weighing in chloride of calcium; the 
binoxide of manganese by oxalic acid; the results were these:— 


Nocite ee  e) e a 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 275 


Hygrometric water. t 1-660 
Water of composition . ‘ 3°630 
Peroxide of iron ‘ ‘ 603 
Soluble baryta . ‘ ‘ ‘724 
Insoluble (barytes?) . ‘ 1:728 
Binoxide of manganese . 84620 


92-965 

which show that the mass consisted chiefly of pyrolusite. That the 

associated mineral was psilomelane follows from its appearance and 

hardness, the colour of its powder, and the amount of water contained, 
which is too little for manganite, and too much for any of the other 
~ manganese minerals.” 

Tt is an interesting fact that silver, to the amount of five ounces 
to the ton of ore, has been found in a specimen from Teny Cape, on 
assay by J. Taylor and Co., in London.” 

The deposit of manganese ore on the property of the “‘ Onslow East 
Mountain Manganese and Lime Company” occurs under similar geo- 
logical conditions with that of Teny Cape, and has been very favourably 
reported on, both as to the quantity and quality of the mineral, by 
Mr Barnes, Professor How, and Dr Honeyman. 

Galena, or sulphuret of lead, is found in disseminated crystals and 
small veins in limestone at Gay’s River and some other places. Some 
specimens which I have examined contain a considerable proportion 
of silver; and one bed of limestone at Gay’s River, pointed out to 
me many years ago by the late Mr G. Duncan, has so much dissemi- 
nated galena that favourable opinions have been expressed as to its 
economic value; but I am not aware that it has yet been worked. 
The occurrence of valuable ores of lead in the Lower Carboniferous Q 
limestones in England and other countries gives some reason to hope 

that more important indications of this metal may yet be discovered. 

Sandstone suitable for building purposes occurs at Horton, Halfway 

River, Windsor, the Shubenacadie, and probably many other places ; 

but not in such quantity nor of such excellent quality as in the Coal 

formation of Cumberland and Pictou. For this reason it may not, 
for some time at least, be worthy of attention as an article of export, 
but it can be abundantly obtained for domestic use. 

- Clays suitable for bricks and common pottery can also be procured 

in large quantity on the Shubenacadie. Yet in the last census Hants 

made no return of bricks, while the quantity made in Colchester was 

stated at 420,000. 

Coal in small seams occurs at Salmon River, North River, Chiganois 0 


@, 
ie 
* 
j 
ew 


of its main line of railway, that the subject well merits a thorough — 


The large quantity of sulphate of lime contained in. this brine is, — 


276 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


River, De Bert River, Folly River, and Great Village River, in the 
Coal measure belt extending along the south base of the Cobequids, — 
and these small seams appear at intervals as far west as Cape Chieg- 
necto. I have seen the outcrops of these coals in several places, and 
according to my own observations and the best information I can 
obtain from others, none of them exceed eighteen inches of clean coal... 
Better seams may possibly be found, but the measures are exposed by ~ 
so many river sections that it sais auillkalg that they should have 
so long escaped observation. Indications of coal have also been” 
observed in the Coal measure band extending from Lower Stewiacke 
toward and along the Kennetcook River. These measures are not 
well exposed, and I believe that nothing definite is known as to their 
real value. The occurrence of coal in this central district would, 
however, be of so great importance to the province, and to the success — 


investigation. <4 

Sulphate of Barytes, which is manufactured into a pigment employed 
as a substitute for or adulteration of white lead, has been quarried on 
the banks of the Stewiacke. The deposit, which at first appeared to — 
be large, is stated to be now exhausted, at least in so far as it can be 
reached by the ordinary operations of the quarryman. As already 
stated, this mineral is said to occur in connexion with the iron deposits __ 
of Brookfield. 

Brine Springs issue from the Lower Carboniferous rocks in several 
parts of Nova Scotia. In the district now under consideration they 
are found at Walton in Hants county. A specimen analyzed by — 
Professor How gaye, in the imperial gallon of water,— 


Chloride of sodium, or common salt . 787-11 grains. 
Sulphate of lime . - : : Pe Oe ete 
Carbonate of lime . : : ; oa ee 
Chloride of magnesium . : ; : 448 ,, 
Carbonate of magnesia, carbonate of iron, and 

phosphoric acid . : - . traces. 


‘ 
+ 


967-48 ; 
4 


without doubt, connected with the abundance of gypsum in the Lower ~ 
Carboniferous series, and points to the association of gypsum and 
common salt, probably in the gypseous marls. Professor How ex- — 
presses a favourable opinion of this and other saline springs in Nova 
Scotia as profitable sources of common salt. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 277 


ae Gold. —A deposit of this metal, perhaps of even more interest in a 
geological point of view than practically, though apparently of some 
yalue in this last respect, occurs in the Lower Carboniferous conglo- 
_ merate at Corbitt’s Mills, four miles north of Gay’s River in Colchester 
unty. It was described in the Canadian Naturalist for 1864 by 
Mr C. F. Hartt, and Dr Honeyman has favoured me with manuscript 
notes of a visit to the place in 1866. From these sources I extract 
e following information :—The locality is at the junction of the 
+ Lower Carboniferous conglomerate with the slate and quartzite, forming 
the extremity of the ridge separating the valleys of the Stewiacke and 
- Musquodoboit Rivers. The slates belong to the Silurian gold-bearing 
formation, and contain small but rich auriferous quartz veins. The 
_ conglomerate is formed of the debris of these older rocks, and gold 
occurs in it exactly as in modern auriferous gravels, being found in 
the lower part of the conglomerate, and also in the hollows and crevices 
of the underlying slate. The fact is interesting, as showing that the 
gold veins existed in their present state at the beginning of the Car- 
boniferous period, and that the causes which produce the more modern 
gold alluvia were then in operation. By a later repetition of this 
process, the drift or boulder clay which overlies the conglomerate 
is at this place also slightly auriferous. In the Report of the Com- 
missioners of Mines for 1866, it is stated that the high prices charged 
for land at this place had interfered with the operations of those 
desirous of opening the deposits; but that a crushing-mill had been 
erected, and that mining operations on such a scale as would prove 
the value of the deposit would soon be undertaken. Should they 
prove successful, they will present a curious and perhaps unique 
instance of mining for gold in rocks of the Carboniferous system, and 
will stimulate inquiry as to the possible productiveness of the Lower 
Carboniferous beds in other places where they come into contact with 
the older auriferous slates, as is the case in many places in the valleys 
of the Stewiacke, Musquodoboit, and St Mary’s sai as well as in 
the eastern part of Hants. 


oe ee SR Te 1 aeet eee: = Ree one 
‘ ; 5. > x > : et Se a ih q . 


278 


CHAPTER XVI. 


i 


q 
THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD—Continued. 


THE MARINE FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 


Tue short list of those published in the first edition of “ Acaditill 
Geology ”’ was derived principally from that given by Sir C. Lyell in 
his “Travels in North America,” on the authority of M. De Verneuil, 
who examined the collections made by Sir Charles. This list was, 
however, necessarily very imperfect ; and since it was prepared, a larg ee 
amount af additional material has accumulated, and some important 
investigations have been made. In 1862, pele aware that MrT. — 
Davidson was engaged in the examination of British Carboniferous — 
Brachiopods for the Palzontographical Society, I sent to that eminent — 
paleontologist, the best living authority on Brachiopods, a collection — 
of these shells, representing all the species known to me, and he very _ 
kindly undertook their examination along with those in Sir C. Lyell’s 
collection. The results were given to the world in an able memoir is ia 
the Proceedings of the Geological Society of London for 1863. This 
was an important step in advance; but the other fossils, not Brachio- — 
pods, still remained untouched. Ea the meantime, Professor How of — 
Windsor, and his pupil, H. Poole, Esq., jun., had made some interesting — 
discoveries at Windsor and Kennetcook, and a new Trilobite from the 4 
latter place, sent to me by the former suaiteniiel was described by Mr — 
Billings in the Canadian Naturalist, under the name Phillipsia Howi. i 
About the same time, Mr C. F. Hartt undertook the work of collecting | 
carefully and systematically at Windsor and Stewiacke; and not only — 
found several new species, but developed characteristic differences in — 
the fossils of the successive limestones of the Windsor section. Mr — 
Hartt proposed to prepare for publication the results of these researches, — 
and has written a paper on the subject for the Canadian Naturalist; 
but a voyage to Brazil and subsequent engagements have prevented — 
him from completing the task of describing and fully cataloguing the 
species. In these circumstances, I have been obliged to prepare sue 

a list as was possible under the circumstances. It is much in advance — 


of that previously given, and will, I trust, aid materially in subsequent 
. 


7; 
: 
| 


MARINE FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 279 


nvestigations ; but it is still incomplete, and will no doubt be much 
‘modified by future investigations. In preparing it, I have been much 


knowledge of Mr Billings. I shall copy Mr Davidson’s descriptions 

of the Brachiopoda, and shall give as many figures as possible, to aid 

‘students and collectors, and to facilitate comparisons with the fossils 

‘ ‘other countries. 

Before proceeding to give the list of these fossils, there are two 

important geological questions in relation to them which must engage 

‘our attention. The first is the possibility of dividing the marine lime- 
stones of the Carboniferous period into different stages or sub-forma- 

tions. The second is the precise geological and geographical relations 
of the fauna. 

' With regard to the first of these points, I have myself indicated the 
possible division of the Lower Carboniferous limestones into an upper 
and lower series, and also the fact of some of the species extending 
their range to the Upper Coal formation. But Mr Hartt has gone 
into the subject much more minutely, and I shall give, in the first 
place, a summary of his results, in connexion with my own. 

In the section at Windsor above referred to, several limestones 
appear; but owing to faults and bends of the beds, their precise rela- 
tions to each other are not very evident; still an approximation to 
these can be obtained; and I believe that the order given below will 
be found in the main to be an ascending one—each limestone being 
separated from those next it by a considerable thickness of sandstone, 
marl, or gypsum. 

(a.) Limestone of Avon Bridge (Avon Limestone, Hartt)—Spirifer 
Limestone. A thick band of compact, laminated, oolitic, and brecciated 
limestone, not highly fossiliferous, but containing Productus cora 
(var. Nova Scoticus, Hartt)—Spirifer glaber, S. octoplicatus(?), Rhyn- 
chonella Ida, Phillipsia and Bakevellia, and an Arca-like shell which I 
have not seen elsewhere (A. punctifer). This is a very thick and im- 
portant series of beds, and appears to correspond with the lowest 
Carboniferous limestone as seen in other localities. 

(b.) Limestone, laminated, oolitic, compact, and concretionary— 
Crinoidal Limestone. Abounds in fragments of crinoids, minute shells 
of a Dentalina, Serpulites, and small Gasteropods, especially species of 
Pleurotomaria. Bakevellia antiqua also abounds in it, and it is a re- 
markable repository of minute shells, many of which are yet undescribed. 
A limestone similar to this exists apparently in a similar position on the 
Shubenacadie River. 


Ogee PP) al a Desh fC at. wa ee, Dent a 


280 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


(c.) Gray or bluish earthy limestone, laminated and concretionary 
(Kennetcook Limestone, Hartt)—Zaphrentis Limestone. Contain: 
Phillipsia Howi, Zaphrentis Minas, Cyathophyllum Steviacum, Spt 
striata, Athyris subtilita (?), Productus semireticulatus, Strophomen 
analoga, Edmondia Hartti, Cypricardia insecta, Orthoceras later 
Stenopora, and Fenestella. This limestone has been recognised 
Mr Hartt as the equivalent of the beds containing Zaphrentis and 
Phillipsia on the Kennetcook River, and it can be identified with one — 
of the limestones of Lower Stewiacke. . 

(d.) Brownish or buff-coloured impure limestone, very rich in shells 
(Windsor Limestone, Hartt)—Aviculopecten Limestone. This limestone 
especially abounds in Lamellibranchiates, particularly species of 
Aviculopecten, Pteronites, Macrodon, and Modiola. Naticopsis Howi ] 
is also very characteristic. It also contains Productus cora (var.), 
Terebratula sacculus, Rhynchonella Evangelini, Hartt, a Leperditia, and — 
a Serpula ; and the little coral Stenopora exilis is very common. Bake- 
vellia antiqua also occurs in it, and a Conularia. The Brachiopods in — 
this bed are small and depauperated, indicating probably shallow and _ 
turbid water. This limestone appears to correspond to the shell lime- _ 
stone of Gay’s River, near Wordsworth’s, that of ‘‘ Anthony’s Nose,” — 
Shubenacadie, and the yellow limestone of De Bert River. 

(e.) Compact gray shelly limestone (Stewiacke Limestone, Hartt), 
Productus Limestone. ‘This is the richest of all the beds in footed and — 
contains the greater number of those mentioned in the following lists. ¢ 
More especially it abounds in Productus cora, Athyris subtilita, Tere- 
bratula sacculus, Fenestella Lyell, Macrodon Harding, Conularia— 
planicostata ; and it is the special habitat of Nautilus Avonensis, and — 
Orthoceras dolatum, O. Vindobonense, O. laqueatum, and O. perstric-— 
tum. It is the equivalent of the upper or red De Bert limestone, 
the Admiral’s Rock on the Shubenacadie, and the Brookfield shell 
limestone. Do 

Are these subdivisions of the Windsor limestones, as indicated 
by Mr Hartt, merely local, or have they a more general value # 
In writing to Mr Davidson, i in 1862, I was inclined to believe that the 
lithological differences in the limestones are local, and ‘may have 
been ee through the limestones having been depute in limited 
basins or narrow straits, and probably at a time of much volcanic dis- 
turbance,” and that the only general distinctions are those between the 
Lower limestones and the Upper, the former being “ darker in colour, 
more laminated, and less fossiliferous,” and characterized by the preva-_ 
lence of certain species of fossils. Mr Hartt’s investigations have 80 . 
far modified these conclusions, that I am prepared to admit, for the area 
4 

. 


. 2a 5 be wee SY ae 
pai ; 


THE CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 281 


olchester and Hants at least, a more minute general subdivision. 
vould still, however, group sections (a), (b), and (c), as the Lower 
ries, which I believe can be traced throughout Nova Scotia, and 
xctions (d) and (e) as the Upper series, which is also very generally 
stributed. To these I would add a third group (f), including the 
pper Carboniferous marine limestone of Wallace, with Productus 
mireticulatus (2), a small and depauperated form, Aviculopecten sim- 
lex, Terebratula sacculus, and Cardiomorpha, sp. Taking this view, 
e following table will give the distribution of these sub-formations 


as far as known to me :— 


ar View of the Subdivisions of the Carboniferous Limestone of 


Nova Scotia (in descending order). 


oes Colchester and Pictou and 
Subdivisions. ‘Hants. Cumberland. Antigonish. Cape Breton. 
(/) Upper Marine Mackenzie’s 
Limestone Mill, Wallace. 
(e) Productus UpperLimestones of | Minudie, Limestones near | Limestones of Len- 
Limestone. | Avon R. at Wind-| Napan, and Fish Pools, nox Passage, Irish 
sor, Stewiacke R., | Pugwash East R. Upper} Cove, Sydney Har- 
De Bert R., and} Limestones. Limestones, bour, Middle R., 
Brookfield. Ad- Antigonish, and Boulardarie ; 
miral’s Rock,Shu- Upper Limestone, 
benacadie. C. Dauphin. 
(d) Aviculopecten| Yellow Limestone Lower Lime- | Streptorhyncus | Lower Limestone, 


Limestone. 


Phillipsia 
Limestone. 


(6) Crinoidal 
Limestone. 


of Windsor and 
De Bert R., An- 
thony’sNose,Shu- 
benacadie; Wood- 
worth’s Limestone, 
Gay’s River. 


(c) Zaphrentis or | Blue Limestones of 


‘Windsor,Kennet- 
cook and Cockme- 
gun R.; Steven’s 
Limestone, Lower 
Stewiacke(?); Low- 
est Limestone, De 
Bert R. 


Crinoidal Lime- 
stones of Windsor, 
near 
Rock and Rose’s 
Plaister Quarry, 
Shubenacadie, 
Upper Musquodo- 
boit. 


(a) Spirifer Lime-| Lower Limestones 


Admiral’s | . 


stone of Pug- 


Shale, East R.(?) 
wash (?) 


of 
and 


It is doubtful | Limestones 
iftheseappear| Ohio R. 
in Cumber- Lochaber, 
land ; but they 

may be looked 

for in the 

neighbouring 

parts of New 

Brunswick. 


Limestone and 

Shale of Grant's 

Bridge, East R., 

‘és and Forks of 
East R. 


Lower or Litho- 


Irish Cove, etc. 


These Limestones 


probably exist at 
Mabou, and on the 
Bras d’Or Lake, 
in various places. 


Lower Limestone 


stone. of Windsor; strotion Lime-| at C, Dauphin (?) 
Lower Gay’s R. stone of Spring- 
Limestone, Black ville, East R. 
Rock, Shuben- 
acadie; Economy 
Limestone. 


282 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


With regard to the second point above referred to, the age of these 
limestones and their equivalency with those of other countries, it is 
necessary to relate the history of the question, and then to state the 
peculiarities of these beds which have caused so various opinions 1 
be entertained in regard to them. The earliest statement as to their 
age was that of Mr R. Brown, in Haliburton’s “ Nova Scotia.” He — 
correctly regarded the limestones of northern Cumberland as Lower 
Carboniferous, on the evidence of their stratigraphical position, 
underlying the Cumberland Coal-field. At the same time, in the — 
central part of the province, where the relation to the Coal formation 
was not clear, and the physical aspect of the rocks was peculiar, these — 
beds were assigned to the New Red Sandstone. Messrs Jackson and . 
Alger and Dr Gesner continued to hold this last view, and the latter _ 
extended it to the Cumberland beds previously placed in their true — 
position by Mr Brown. Sir William Logan, in 1841, visited Horton — 
Bluff and Windsor, and finding that the beds at the former place, — 
which he supposed to be the Coal measures, were lower than the 


age. Mr Lonsdale, after a hasty examination of the fossils, concur- j 
red in this view. Sir Charles Lyell, in his examination of the province — 


in 1843, saw good reason to doubt this; and, with the aid of the. 


were subsequently fully confirmed by more extended observations — 
made by the writer and by Mr R. Brown. The Carboniferous dai 
of these beds is now established on the surest grounds, both strati-- 
graphical and palzontological. In regard to the former, the fact — 
that in the sections at Cape Dauphin, at the East River of Pictou, and 
in Cumberland, the marine limestones underlie the productive Coal 
measures is indisputable, and these limestones contain the fossils of the — 
upper beds of the Windsor series. In regard to the fossils, Davidson, — 
the best authority on the subject, affirms them to be Carboniferous; 
and in so far as the Brachiopods are concerned, many of them identical — 
as to species with those of the British Carboniferous limestone. De | 
Koninck, the celebrated Belgian paleontologist, confirms this view; 
stating, as quoted by Davidson, that this fauna “completely recalls _ 
that of the Carboniferous limestone of Visé in Belgium.” Yet it is tr 
that the rocks themselves, the limestones, the red sandstones, the marls, 

and the gypsums, have much the aspect of Permian rocks, and that the | 
fossils, though Carboniferous, have, in the upper beds especially, an 
unusual number of forms common to the Carboniferous and Permian; 
while on the other hand, as has been observed by Mr Hartt, they do 


THE CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF COLCHESTER AND HANTS. 283 


st resemble the so-called Sub-Carboniferous limestones and fossils of 
s Western States, but are more nearly allied to those upper members 
of the Carboniferous known in the west as Permo-carboniferous. Dr 
Ne yberry and Mr Meek, to whom specimens have been shown by Mr 
Jartt, were much struck by these differences and resemblances; and 
he latter suggests the idea that we may here have what M. Barrande 
vould call a “colony” of Permian forms in the Carboniferous age,—a 
suggestion which contains the germ of the true solution. This same 
solution, in another form, is also indicated in the following extract 


limestone of Brookfield :— 

_ “The very remarkable shell-rock above described occurs at Brook- 
- field, a little east of the Shubenacadie River; it was first discovered 
by the late Mr G. Duncan, and by him made known to Dr Dawson. 

~ Tt is in the line of strike of the Shubenacadie beds, and is doubtless a 
continuation of them. This rock has such a great general resemblance 

to certain Permian shelly limestones with which I am acquainted, 
that, had the specimens been submitted to me without any indication 
as to their geological age, I should certainly have felt somewhat 
puzzled to determine whether I had to deal with a Permian or a 
Carboniferous rock and its fossils; and, indeed, when M. de Verneuil 
determined these fossils for Sir C. Lyell in 1845, he enumerated, 
among others, Terebratula elongata and T. sufflata, Schl., Spirifera 
eristata, Schl., Avicula antiqua, Miinster, a Modiola, a Littorina, and 
one or two other fossils which he considered to be common to both 
the Permian and the Carboniferous strata. Although I may modify 
to some extent the lists of species published by Sir C. Lyell and Dr 

~ Dawson, I quite coincide with what is stated by the former author, at p. 

205 of his ‘Travels,’ viz., ‘That geologists should at first arrive at this 
result (of considering the rocks in question as the equivalents in age of 
the Permian of Russia) will surprise no one who is aware how many of 
the fossils of our Magnesian limestone and Coal resemble each other, 
or who studies the lists given at p. 218, in which several species both 
of shells and corals from Nova Scotia, identical or closely allied to well- 
known Permian or Magnesian limestone forms, are enumerated.’ ” 

I venture to give the explanation of the whole difficulty in the 
following statements, the illustration of which must be sought in the 
descriptions of these rocks in other parts of this work :— 

(1.) The faune of the seas of the Lower Carboniferous, Coal 
formation, and Permian periods, both in Europe and America, present 
so great similarities that they may, in a broad view of the subject, be 
regarded as identical. 


" most Permian aspect. The lower Windsor limestones and those of 


) the upper limestones of Colchester and Hants may have been deposited 


284 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


ee to lapse of time, but to vicissitudes of fee conditions. At | 
Windsor, for example, the fauna of the Aviculopecten bed is manifestly 
that of a tela and more sandy sea than that of the Productus bed; _ 
and further, the change from the fauna of the Lower series to that of 
the Upper series coincides with the deposition of the great gypsums 
and gypseous marls. It is the same in the Shubenacadie section. y: 

(3.) It follows that, if the peculiar Permian conditions indicum by | 
the rocks came in earlier in Nova Scotia than in Europe, the character _ 
of the fauna might also be changed earlier. In other words, we have 
both rocks and shells with Permian aspect in the Lower Carboniferous 
period. ; 

(4.) In accordance with this, it is the Upper series of limestones, and 
those most nearly related to the gypsums and marls, that have the q 


Economy and Pictou have much more the ordinary Lower Carbon- = 
iferous character and fossils. a 

(5.) In the little bed of marine limestone at M‘Kenzie’s Mill, — 
Wallace, we have an example of the existence of some members of — na 
this fauna in the period of the Upper Coal formation, where we have — 
also a greater number of the fossil plants that extend upward from the 4 
Coal formation into the Permian; and there is nothing to preclude 
the supposition, already stated in the preceding chapter, that some of — 4 


contemporaneously with the Middle Coal formation. At the same 
time, it must be admitted that this last supposition is not proved, and 1 
that the appearances in those places where the Coal measures occur — 
are not in its favour. ; 

(6.) It is evident that the marine fauna of the Lower Carboniferous — 
in Nova Scotia more nearly resembles that of Europe than that of the z 
Western States. This is no doubt connected with the fact that the . 
Atlantic was probably an unobstructed sea basin as now, while the — 
Appalachians already, in part, separated the deep sea faunz of the — 
Carboniferous seas east and west of them. In the Permo-carboniferous 
period the connexion may have been more complete, or perhaps the 
shallow-water species may have at all times been able to migrate. 
Perhaps, however, there was no migration in the case, but only the 
recurrence of similar and representative species under similar conditions ~ 
of existence. 

(7.) It must not be overlooked that, as a set-off to the Permian 
appearance of the fossils of the Lower Carboniferous in Nova Scotia, 
we have the occurrence of such old forms as Phillipsia, Centronella, 


LOWER CARBONIFEROUS FOSSILS. 285 


ularia, Strophomena, Zaphrentis, ete., either not found, or rarely 
yind, higher than the Lower Carboniferous in other countries. 

It is a matter of regret to me that I have not had time fully to 
investigate all the facts bearing on this curious question. I would 
commend it to those who may follow me, to whom that which I have 
een able to do may at least be of service in guiding their researches. 


Descriptive List of Fossils of the Carboniferous Limestone. 


Protozoa. 


formed of several elongated or short cells, separated from each other 
externally only by slight constrictions; diameter about 1-40th of an 
inch. This little shell is very abundant on the surfaces of bed (d), 
- Windsor, but always in fragments. I do not feel at all certain as to 


show true septal plates, but only slight constrictions at the nodes. 


, Be. 82.—Dentalina ; nat. size and magnified. Fig. 83.—Lithostrotion Pictoense. 
“a Longitudinal and Transverse 
4 Sections, 


RADIATA. 


Lithostrotion Pictoense, Billings (Fig. 83), coll. J. W. D., East River, 
Pictou.—This fine coral is characteristic of a thick bed of limestone 
at Lime Brook, East River. The following description has been 
kindly prepared by Mr Billings :— 

_ *Corallum fasciculate, dendroid. The corallites are elongate, eylin- 
dro-turbinate, the young individuals springing from the sides of the 
adult at various heights, rapidly attaining the full size; at first slightly 
divergent, then parallel, and usually in contact with each other, or 
nearly so. They seem to be covered by a thin compact epitheca, and 


Se A ee NE sale Sain To eee See en a Sar 


286 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


served is seven lines, but it is probable that the average is about six 
lines. In a transverse polished section, six lines across, the inner area” 
is three lines in diameter, and shows twenty-four septa, which do not 
penetrate more than half a line. The columella is obscurely indicated _ 
in the centre. The external area is one and a half lines in width, with 
the inner side of the epitheca crenulated by about forty-eight septa, one 
half of which can be indistinctly traced across to the inner wall. In, 
the longitudinal section the external area exhibits a tissue of imbri- — q 
cating meniscoid cells, inclining upwards and outwards, their upper _ 
sides convex, lower sides with one or two concavities, due to the con- 
vexity of the cells below them. The average size of these cells is 
one line in length by half that in width; there are many smaller and 
larger ones. In the inner area the transverse diaphragms or tabula 
~ are thin and crowded, apparently four or five, on an average, in one line; : 
they seem to be much elevated in the centre, and also sometimes — 
turned upwards at their junction with the inner wall. The axis is q 
indistinctly indicated. . 

“The only species with which this need be compared is L. affine — 
(Fleming), of the Carboniferous limestone of England and Ireland. — 
According to the description and figures of Edwards and Haime, that é 
species has the corallites about five or six lines in diameter, and grouped 
together as they are in this; but they are not annulated exteriorly, — 
except by small wrinkles; the inner wall is not so distinctly defined; 
the inner area narrower, and the columella more compact and per- — 
fectly developed. It has also thirty or thirty-two principal septa, 4 
while in this there are only about twenty-four. : 

“The two specimens on which the above description is founded are 
imbedded in compact limestone, and although in the polished sections _ 
their internal characters are well defined, yet in a large collection 
individuals might be found to connect it to L. affine. It is a ciosely — 
allied species, but I think distinct.’’ x 


Zaphrentis Minas, n. sp. (Fig 84, a), collected by Professor ston 
at Kennetcook.—Corallum conical, slightly curved. Calice circular, ‘' 
thin-edged, rather shallow; septal fossula narrow, extending from the 
centre to the concave side. Principal septa about thirty-two. Tabule 
irregular. Epitheca thin, marked externally with longitudinal striae 
and coarse scaly ridges, especially near the upper part. My longest 
specimen is two inches in length, and has probably lost an inch of 
the lower part. It is one inch in diameter. The same species occurs 
at Cockmegun River and Stewiacke; and small specimens, possibly — 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. . 287 


of the same species, at West River, Pictou. In old specimens the 
sides become very rugose, and the coral becomes narrowed at the top. 


Fig. 84.—(a) Zaphrentis Minas ; (b) Cyathophyllum Billingst. 


Cyathophyllum Billingsi, n. sp. (Fig. 84,b).—Corallum circular in 
eross section, short, curved at the base. Unbroken surface with 
vertical low ribs and strong transverse plates; broken surface with 
square reticulation. Calice shallow, with about forty equal, straight 
septa. Coll. Hartt, Lower Stewiacke. 


Fig. 85.—(a) Stenopora exilis ; (b) Chaetetes tumidus. 


Stenopora exilis, n. sp. (Fig 85, a), coll. J. W. D. and C. F. Hartt, 
Shubenacadie, Windsor, Stewiacke.—This is the coral, or one of the 
corals, designated as Ceriopora spongites in my former edition, and it 
is scarcely distinguishable by external characters from Calampora 
Macrothii, of King’s Permian fossils; but it wants entirely the generic 
_ characters of Calamopora, and therefore I describe it here as a distinct 
species, though by no means affirming that it may not be identical 
with some of the species of little branching Carboniferous corals about 
which so much confusion exists. It presents slender cylindrical 
branches, ramifying irregularly and sometimes anastmosing, from half 
a line to a line in diameter, and covered with minute contiguous hex- 
agonal cells with small spines or papille on their separating walls. 


ru - eed € —T a pea el eA, ore oe 


288 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


In a longitudinal section the cells are seen to rise vertically, and then 
suddenly curve to the surface, increasing at the same time in diameter, 
and having near the aperture a few thin transverse plates. It is 
perhaps worthy of inquiry whether this may not have been a Polyzoan _ 
allied to Helopora. It is very abundant at Windsor and on the Shu- — 
benacadie, subdivision (d). q 
Chaetetes tumidus (Fig. 85, b), Edwards and Haime.—I refer to this" 
common Carboniferous species, a coral -very abundant at Stewiacke, and 
occurring also at Windsor and in Cape Breton, and which a careless — 
observer might readily confound with the preceding. It is, like it, a 
slender branching coral, but often more robust, and sometimes pre- — 
senting even rounded or papillose masses; and in the longitudinal section 
its tubes do not curve suddenly outwards, but turn from the centre — 
with a gentle sweep toward the surface. Externally also it has no — 
- spines on the separating walls. Though I suspect that the synonymy 
given by Edwards and Haime includes several species, I feel certain 
that the present is one of them, and I have no hesitation more par- 
ticularly in identifying it with Favosites scabra of De Koninck. All 
these small branching corals of the Paleozoic rocks require a thorough _ 
microscopical examination. 


Slat 


iil an th a ca oe ae 


Crinoidea.—Though some beds of limestone on the Shubenacadie _ 
at Windsor, and on the East River of Pictou, are full of crinoidal 
fragments, more particularly the joints of the stems, no specimens — 
sufficiently complete for description have yet been found. 


Mo.uusca. 


Polyzoa. 4 

Fenestella Lyelli, n. sp. (Fig. 86), coll. J. W. D., Windsor; coll. 4 
Hartt, Stewiacke——This beautiful species is very ‘ae a of e 
Fig. 86.—Fenestella Lyelli. 


(a) Natural size. (2) Portion enlarged. (c) Cells and spines in profile. 


ise jn ee 


t~ 


— FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 289 


one of the limestones of the Windsor series, and is, I think, certainly 
new and undescribed. The non-poriferous side has thick parallel 
_ pbifureating ribs, with rounded surfaces finely striated longitudinally, 
connected by much thinner and rounded cross bars, enclosing oval 
~ fenestrules. The poriferous side has the bars angular above, and 
with a central carina, bearing a row of small tubercles, which in the 
best specimens are seen to bear delicate spines. The pores are in 
two rows at the sides of the ribs. Its nearest allies are LF’, reteformis, 
Schlot., and F. carinata, M‘Coy, but it differs materially from both, 
more especially in its characteristic spines. 
Fenestella, another species, coll. J. W. D., Stewiacke, with two 
rows of large contiguous pores. Resembles J. Morrisii, M‘Coy, but 
~ has the pores closer to each other. 
Fenestella with larger fenestrules, not determinable. Coll. J. W. D., 
West River, Pictou. 
Berenicea, Lamx.—Two species of encrusting Polyzoa occur on 
shells in Mr Hartt’s collections from Windsor. They may, in the 
meantime, be referred to this genus, but are not determinable. 


# 
é 
| 


Brachiopoda. 


The following descriptions of the Brachiopods of the Carboniferous 
limestones of Nova Scotia are extracted from Mr Davidson’s paper 
above referred to, and the figures are from his drawings :— 

“ Terebratula sacculus, Martin, sp., 1809, and varieties (Fig. 87). 

“ Terebratula elongata and T. sufflata, De Verneuil, in Sir C. Lyell’s 
‘Travels in North America,’ vol. ii., p. 220, 1845; and in Dawson’s 
* Acadian Geology,’ p. 219 (Fig. 27), 1855. 


Fig. 87.—Terebratula sacculus, Martin ; and interior, showing loop. 


“ All the Terebratule from the Lower Carboniferous strata of Nova 
Scotia that have been forwarded to me by Dr Dawson, as well as 
those brought from that country by Sir C. Lyell, are variable in shape, 
but are evidently referable to a single species. M. de Verneuil has 
identified this shell with Schlotheim’s 7. elongata, and mentions that 


290 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


a ‘gibbous variety of the preceding one’ is referable to 7. sufflata 
of the same author. - 
“ During a lengthened examination of 7. hastata and T. sacculus” 
from the Carboniferous rocks of Great Britain, as well as of 7. elongata 
and J. sufflata from the Permian strata of the same kingdom, I was 
led to the conclusion that the specific identity of 7. sacculus and Te 
sufflata was clearly established ; and, when treating of the Carboniferous — 
T. hastata and of the Edenton yi LLestltte I observed that, although 
it was an unquestionable fact that some specimens of these two so- 
called species could not be distinguished, more difference is shown 
between the greater number of 7. hastata and T. elongata, and that 
the strong resemblance appeared to be the exception. It must also 
be allowed that it is often impossible to distinguish certain examples” 
of T. sacculus and of 7. hastata, which forms appear to merge the 
- one into the other, and that the same may be said sometimes with — 
reference to 7. sufflata and T. elongata. All this proves how inti- — 
mately connected are the British forms of Carboniferous and Permian — 
Terebratule. 
“ But to return to the Nova-Scotian specimens, I could not perceive 4 
in any of them the wide and gradually depressed or shallow sinus, — 
which, in the larger valve of all well-shaped examples of 7. elongata, 
commences towards the middle of the valve and extends to the front, 
and which produces in the frontal margin a convex curve. In nearly _ 
every specimen the ventral valve is uniformly convex or but very ~ 
slightly depressed near the front, as is the case with the larger number — 
of 7. sacculus and of its synonym 7. sufflata. I think, therefore, that 
it will be perhaps preferable to refer the Nova-Scotian Terebratule 
to Martin’s 7. sacculus ; and in this view I am supported by Professor 
De Koninck, notwithstanding some examples may resemble certain 
specimens of 7. elongata, T. fusiformis (Vern.), or T. hastata. The 
largest specimen I have seen was not quite an inch in length, and the _ 
greater number were much smaller. The interior, with its perfect, — 
short, simple loop, is often found, and is exactly similar to the one — 4 
we find in Martin’s species. Sir C. Lyell mentions that he obtained — 
this shell at Windsor, Brookfield, Shubenacadie, Gay’s River, De Bert 
River, Middle pee and Cape Beckam Dr Daweon cisfeaueed it in~ | 
- the same localities, to which he has added Pugwash, East River of 
Pictou, Lennox Passage, ete. 
“‘ Athyris subtilita, Hall, 1852 (Fig. 88, a, b,c). 
“ Athyris subtilita, in ae rard Stansbury s ‘Exploration of the x 
Valley of the Salt Lake of Utah,’ p. 409, pl. 2 (figs. 1, 2). 
“The Nova-Scotian specimens all appear to be snide in size, but are 


“ 


la Sa ple iia Yom ME 8 


arctica tiated, tsi * 


lh I th Sa de 


— 


ees eS a a 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 291 


cactly similar (except in dimensions) to those found in other parts 
f America and Europe. The spiral processes are often preserved. 


Fig. 88 (a, b).— Athyris subtilita, Hall; (c) interior, showing spires. 


_ “This shell occurs by millions in the Lower Carboniferous limestone 
of Shubenacadie, Brookfield, ete. 


“ Spirifere.—The four so termed species referred to in the lists given 
by Sir C. Lyell and Dr Dawson appear to belong to two, or at most 
_ three (?) species. 
_—-* §pirifera glabra, Martin, sp. (Fig. 89). 
— “Conchyliolithus Anomites glaber, Martin, Petrif. Derb., pl. 48 (figs. 
we, 10), 1809. 
“ Spirifer glaber, De Verneuil, in Sir C. Lyell’s ‘Travels in North 
- America,’ vol. ii., p. 221, 1845, and in Dawson’s ‘Acadian Geology,’ 
p. 376, 1855. 


Fig. 89.—Spirifera glabra, Martin. 


“This appears to be a common fossil in the Lower Carboniferous 
limestone of Nova Scotia. It is identical in character with those 
found in Great Britain; one example brought home by Sir C. Lyell 
measured 13 lines in length by about 17 in breadth. 

“Tt occurs at East River of Pictou, Mabou, Cape Breton, Windsor, 
Brookfield, Merigomish, etc. 

“ Spiriferina cristata, Schlotheim (Fig. 90). 

“Spirifer octoplicatus, Sow., Min. Couch. pl. 562 (figs. 2, 3, 4); 
Dav. Mon. Carb. Brach, p. 38, pl. 7 (figs. 37, 47). 


292 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


“ At p. 221 of his ‘ Travels,’ Sir C. Lyell mentions Spirifer cristatus, 
Schl., Sp. minimus, Sow., and Sp. octoplicatus, Sow., as having been 
found in the Lower Carboniferous limestone of Nova Scotia; but itis 
probable that at least two of the shells so termed—namely, Sp. cristatus 
and Sp. octoplicatus, are referable to a single species. The Nova- 
Scotian specimens of the shell under notice are all very small, none 
of those that have come under my notice exceeding four lines in lengt! 
by five in width; they exactly resemble some specimens of the same | 
species found in the Carboniferous shales of Capel Rig, East Kilbride, 
Scotland. -_= 

“Sir C. Lyell mentions having found this shell at Windsor, Brook- 
field, Shubenacadie, and De Bert River, in Nova Scotia; and Dr 
Dawson adds East River, but that it is nowhere so plentiful as in the — 

shell conglomerate of Brookfield. 


Fig. 90.—Spirifer cristata, Schlotheim. Fig. 91.—Spirifer acuticostata, De Koninck. 


Pe Ne 
a al 


“' Spirifer acuticostata, De Koninck (Fig. 91). 

“ Spirifer acuticostatus, De Koninck, ‘ Description des Animaux Fos- _ 
siles qui se trouvent dans le Terrain Carbonifére de la Belgique,’ 
p: 265, pl. 17, fig. 6. 

ts Shell aaa and transversely oval; valves convex, and ornamentedl 
with from twelve to fourteen small penis ribs. The mesial fold is 
comparatively wide, flattened, and longitudinally grooved along the 
middle. The sinus in the ventral valve has a small median angular 
rib, which commences at about the middle of the valve and extends 
to the front. Beak small, incurved; area triangular and of moderate 
dimensions. Length aS lines, ie five lines, depth three lines. 

“ Upon sending a proof of the plate illustrating this paper to Professor 
De Koninck, he wrote back that two of my figures were referable to _ 
Sp. acuticostatus ; and, except in size, they certainly resemble those a 
given by the Seanuenicted Belgian Professor. It must, however, be — 
remembered that in some specimens of Sp. cristatus, or of its Carbon 
- iferous representative, Sp. octoplicatus, the mesial fold is flattened along 
its middle, and even possesses in some cases a shallow groove along 
its centre, as seen in De Koninck’s Sp. acuticostatus. All these 
 adifentons in British specimens have been described and illustrated — . 
at pages 38 and 226 of my ‘Monograph of British Carboniferous — 
Brachiopoda.’ a 


ios ee eae 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 293 


“This small shell is very abundant in the shell limestone of Brook- 

Shubenacadie, and in some other localities in Nova Scotia, where 

it is always associated with Sp. cristatus, of which it may perhaps 
after all be no more than a modification. 


__ “Camarophoria and Rhynchonella.—The specimens referable to 
these genera sent me by Dr Dawson, as well as those brought to 
_ England by Sir C. Lyell, are generally very small, and not in all 


Fig. 92 (a).—Camerophoria globulina, Phillips nat. size and magnified ; (b) variety 
of the same. 


“ Qamarophoria (2?) globulina (2), Phillips (Fig 92, a, 6). 
“Terebratula globulina, Phillips, Eneycl. Metr., vol. iv., article 
‘Geology,’ pl. 3, fig. 3, 1834. 

“ Terebratula rhomboidea, Phillips, Geol. Yorksh., vol. ii., p. 222, 
pl. 12, figs. 18, 20, 1836. 

“ Hemithyris longa, M‘Coy, British Pal. Foss., p. 440, pl. 3, D., fig. 
24, 1855. 

“Of this very small shell I have been able to examine only three 
specimens; but it is stated to be abundant in a yellow arenaceous 
limestone at De Bert River, where, according to Dr Dawson’s expe- 
rience, it is always small. I have also felt somewhat puzzled in the 
determination of this fossil; but, after having consulted Professor De 
Koninck, I concluded to refer the specimens to the same species, not- 
withstanding the apparent difference they present. Professor De 
Koninck referred one of them to 7. rhomboidea, Phillips, which is a 
synonyme of Camarophoria globulina ; and after minutely comparing 
the Nova-Scotian specimens with the Carboniferous and Permian 
types, I could perceive no difference sufficient to warrant the creation 
of a new species. The three specimens were exactly of the same size, 
namely, three lines in length by three in width, and two and a half in 
depth. The uncertainty which both Professor De Koninck and myself 
have experienced refers to a specimen which much resembles, in minia- 
ture, a form of Rhynchonella acuminata; but when we remember 


294 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


that Phillips himself figures a specimen of his Terebratula rhomboidea 
with a simple mesial fold, we need not be surprised to find the same 
peculiarity in one of those from Nova Scotia. Indeed, after carefully 
examining the three examples forwarded by Dr Dawson, I cannot : 
bring myself to believe that they should be specifically separated. ‘Tt! 
is well known that the same peculiarity occurs with Rhynchonella 
acuminata; and any one who examines plates 20 and 21 of my ‘Mono- 
graph of British Carboniferous Brachiopoda’ must feel surprised at the 
immense variability of which some species are susceptible. ; 


Fig. 93.—Rhynchonella Dawsoniana, Davidson; nat. size and magnified. 


“« Rhynchonella Dawsoniana, un. sp. (Fig. 93, a, b). 
“Shell very small, almost circular, a little wider than long; dorsal _ 
valve moderately and uniformly convex to about half its length from 
the umbone, at which point a very slightly elevated and flattened — 
mesial fold begins to rise, and extends to the front; the surface of 4 
the shell is also either almost entirely smooth or ornamented with — 
from eight to twelve slightly marked ribs. The ventral valve is — 
gently convex, with a wide sinus; beak small and incurved. Length — 
three and a half lines, width four lines, depth two and a half lines. 
“This small species does not appear to be rare in a black Lower 
Carboniferous limestone at Lennox Passage, and is not unlike, except 
in size, certain examples of M. de Verneuil’s Terebratula superstes; — 
but this last-named Permian shell belongs to the genus Camarophoria, — 
while the one under description belongs to Rhynchonella. I have — 
compared it with a number of equally small young examples of Rhyn- — 
chonella pugnus, from which it appears to differ. 
“ Rhynchonella Acadiensis, n. sp. (Fig. 94). 
“Shell small, obscurely ‘howe about as wide as long; dora 
- valve rather more convex than the re Oa, and presenting, when 
viewed in profile, a regular curve. The rigs fold commences to- 
wards the middle of the valve, while the surface is ornamented with — 
twelve or thirteen small radiating ribs, of which four or five occupy — 
the surface of the fold. The sinus in the ventral valve is of moderate 
depth, and the surface is ornamented as in the dorsal valve. Ther 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 295 


eak is gently incurved, and exhibits a small circular foramen under 
sangular extremity. Length five lines, width five lines, depth three 
! nes. 


Fig. 94.—Rhynchonella Acadiensis, Davidson ; nat. size and magnified. 


Ww 


“ Of this shell I have seen but two specimens, which I detached from 
-alump of the Brookfield shell-limestone, and of which one exhibited 
__ the twocurved internal lamellx characteristic of the genus Rhynchonella. 
It is quite distinct from young shells of Rhynchonella pugnus and R. 
pleurodon. In the last-named species the ribs that adorn the lateral 
portions of the dorsal valve are very much curved, while those of the 
ventral are nearly straight, with their extremities bent upwards; in 
addition to which, the ribs begin to be longitudinally grooved along 
their median portion at some distance from the margin. None of 
these characters are observable in the small Rhynchonella under 
description. 

“ Rhynchonella, sp.—Upon some fragments of Lower Carboniferous 
limestone brought from Nova Scotia by Sir C. Lyell are several imper- 
fect, undeterminable valves of a Rhynchonella, which differs from the 
preceding species by its size, as well as by the number of its small 
radiating ribs. Of these last I have counted as many as thirty-five 
or forty upon each valve. In size it appears to have measured about 
seven or eight lines in length by nine in width. I abstain from 
proposing for it a specific denomination, as the material is so imper- 
fect. The specimen belongs to the Geological Society. 

“ Rhynchonella pugnus (?), Martin, sp., Petrif. Derb., tab. 22, figs. 
4, 5, 1809. 

“ Two or three very small specimens, received from Dr Dawson after 
my plate had been completed, muth resemble certain young shells of 
Martin’s species; they are derived from the Lower Carboniferous 
limestone of Windsor and East River. 

“ Strophomena analoga, Phillips (Fig. 95). 

“ Producta analoga, Phillips, Geol. Yorksh., vol. ii. pl. 7, fig. 10, 
1836. 


“Upon a specimen of dark, impure limestone brought from Nova 


a 


ee ee 


296 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Scotia by Sir C. Lyell, and now in the Society’ s ee I found ‘ 


list had been anne with Productus Martini. 


Fig. 95.—Strophomena analoga, Phillips. Fig. 96.—Streptorhynchus crenistria, 
Phillips, and sculpture magnified. 


“ Streptorhynchus crenistria, Phillips (Fig. 96). ; 

“ Several crushed valves, referable to this species, occur on a speci- e 
men of Carboniferous shale from East River, Pictou,* for which I am 2 
indebted to Dr Dawson. These valves eee resemble certain small 4 
specimens found in several British Carboniferous shales. Their : 
surfaces are covered with numerous radiating raised strie, with a 
smaller rib between the larger ones, the whole being closely intersected 
by fine concentric lines, thus giving to the longitudinal ribs a 
crenulated appearance. Professor De Koninck coincides in my 
identification. 


“ Productus.—Although Sir C. Lyell and Dr Dawson mention seven 
species of this genus as having been found in the Lower Carboniferous } 
rocks of Nova Scotia, all these, as well as the specimens I have been . 
able to examine, can be ed to two species only, namely, P. semi-— 
reticulatus and P. cora; and I may mention that Prof. De Koning 
coincides in this view. - 

“‘ Productus semireticulatus, Martin (Fig. 97). 

“ Anomites semireticulatus, Martin, Petrif. Derb., pl. 32, figs. 1, 2, and 
pl. 33, fig. 4, 1809. 

“This species is so well known that all I shall require to state is, 
that the Nova-Scotian specimens are exactly similar to those found in — 
Europe. Producta Martini, P. concinna, P. antiquata, P. Scotica, 
mentioned by Sir C. Lyell at p. 220 (vol. ii.) of his ‘Travels in 
America,’ as well as by Dr Dawson in various pages of his ‘ Acadian 
Geology,’ belong to a single species, namely, Productus semireticulatus, 
Sow. The ‘ P. spinosa, Sow. (?) var. of P. Martini,’ of Sir C. Lyell’s 


* The locality is incorrectly given Shubenacadie in the paper quoted. 


a ee A ol ae 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 297 


belongs likewise to the species under description; but P. spinosa, 
Sow., specimens of which I have not seen from Nova Scotia, is a 
‘distinct species. Sir C. Lyell mentions Windsor, Brookfield, Shubena- 
~ eadie, East River, De Bert River, and Minudie. Dr Dawson states 
- that the shell is found almost everywhere—at Pugwash, near Amherst, 
Boulardarie, Cape Breton, Horton Bluff, Gay’s River, en 


2 Pig. 97.—Productus semireticulatus.—Martin. 
fs 


Hiei NV 

rit Mh Ve \ 

oT) aaa Ain 
sil \ | \) 


ti a 


fini): 


ve 


LARVA YY 


(a) Ventral valve. (0) Small specimen showing dorsal valve. 


“The largest specimen measured one inch and a half in length by 
about the same in width. The variety Martini is also found in the 
same locality. 


Fig. 98.—Productus cora.—D’Orbigny- 


aK 


(a) Dorsal, and (6) ventral valve. 


“ Productus cora, D’Orbigny, 1842 (Fig. 98). 

“ Productus cora, D’ Orbigny, ‘Palaéont. du Voyage dans l’ Amérique 
Mérid.,’ p. 55, pl. 5, figs. 8, 9, 10,1842. 

“ P. comoides and P. Scoticus, De Kon. 1843 (not of Sow.) 

“ Producta corrugata, M‘Coy, ‘ Synopsis of the Carb. Limest. Fossils 
of Ireland,’ pl. 26, fig. 13, 1844. 

“P, Lyelli, De Verneuil, Sir Charles Lyell’s ‘Travels in North 
America,’ vol. ii. p. 221, 1845. 

“ P. tenuistriata and P. Neffedievi, De Vern., ‘ Russia and the Ural 
Mountains,’ 1845. 

u 


298 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


“ P. cora, De Koninck, ‘Mon. du Genre Productus,’ pl. 4, fig. 1, 1847. 
“ P. pileiformis, M'Chiomey, ‘Descr. of New Species of Posse from 
the Paleozoic Rocks of the Western States of America,’ p. 40, 1849. 
“« P, Lyelli, Dawson, ‘ Acadian Geology,’ p. 219, fig. 9, 1855. 
“ P. Cora, Dav., ‘ Mon. Carb. Brach..,’ pl. 36. fig. 4, pl. 49 , fig. 9, 1861. 
“ After a very eae examination of nine or ten specimens of P. 
Lyelli from the Lower Carboniferous limestone of Nova Scotia, I 
have reluctantly been obliged to place M. de Verneuil’s species among 
the synonymes of P. cora, the latter name (as may be seen by the li i 
of synonymes above given) claiming three years’ priority. All the — 
Nova-Seotian specimens I have been able to examine were small, not 
exceeding about 11 lines in length by some 12 or 13 in width. But — 
it must be remembered that, as a general rule, the Nova-Scotian — 
species and specimens, although adult, are small, and in this respect: 
are exactly similar to those we find in Scotland. The surface is — 
covered with numerous longitudinal, straight, or slightly flexuous, = | 
narrow, thread-like, rounded striz, mi sulci, or interspaces, of rather 
less width ; nantes striz are also tee and thee intercalated between — 
the larger ones. The ribs are also regularly and closely crossed by 
small concentric lines. Bs. 
“P. cora is a widely spread Carboniferous species, having been 
found in many parts of America, India, Europe, ete. 
“Sir C. Lyell found this shell at Windsor, Horton Bluff, Shubena- 
cadie, Gay’s River, Minudie, and Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia. Dr — 
Dawson states that it occurs almost reyes Pugwash, on the 
eastern coast of Cumberland, at Lennox Passage, M‘Kenzie’s Mill, at 
the eastern extremity of Wallace Harbour, etc.” 


c 


Mr Hartt has kindly furnished the following descriptions and 
specimens of additional species of Brachiopoda :— 4 

Rhynchonella Ida, Hartt, Bed A, Windsor. Coll. C. F. Hartt.— 
Shell elliptical, transverse, wider shall long, rounded on the siden " 
truncate in front, angular at the umbo, inequivalve. Dorsal valve 
large, more eed than the ventral, moderately arched, slightly 
aoe it in umbonal region, with a wide, slightly elevated meee fold. 

Ventral valve less arched than dorsal, highest in the middle, from 
which point it curves regularly to the umbo and posterior —- 
Umbo sharp, angle made by sides of valve at the umbo a right angle. 
Outline of ihaen a right angled triangle rounded at the acute angle. — 
Sides of valve depressed. = shallow sinus corresponds to the fold of 
the dorsal valve. It originates near the middle of the valve. Umbo- 
more or less strongly recurved. Foramen small, triangular. Deltidium 


r) 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 299 


in two narrow pieces. False hinge area narrow. Surface marked by 
—21 large elevated rounded radiating plaits, each one of which 
mereases in size from the umbo to the margin. They also increase 
1 size from the sides to the sinus or fold, on the side of which the 
largest one occurs. The sinus is occupied by 3—4 small plaits of equal 
ze. Length, 5-16th inch; breadth, 9-16th inch; thickness, 4-16th 


. 7 The above is believed to be identical with a species referred to by 
Mr Davidson, as represented in the collections submitted to him, by 
_ only one imperfect specimen, and delineated at fig. 15 of his paper. 


Rhynchonella Evangelina, Hartt.—Shell minute, length about 5-16ths 


Tn dorsal aspect square, the umbo forming an angle, the three others 
rounded, in umbonal aspect triangular. Dorsal valve very much 
larger, and more inflated than the ventral; would be semi-globose but 
“for a prominent mesial fold, which ovigittitns at or about the middle of 
the valve, and seems growing higher and higher to the posterior mar- 
gin, beyond which it projects, forming one of the angles of the square. 
In profile the fold describes a more or less regular quadrant, the pos- 
terior part of which becomes parallel, or nearly so, with the longi- 
tudinal axis of the shell. The summit of the fold bears two or three 
_ angular plaits, separated by a deep groove or grooves, which origi- 
nate with the fold, and grow deeper as the latter becomes more elevated. 
Fold with steep flattened sloping sides; occasionally these bear 
minor supplementary grooves. On each side of the shell are two or 
three large radiating angular plaits, originating about half-way from 
the umbo to the margin, in running towards which they increase in 
Size, describing in profile a regular curve. As the valve has a more 
‘or less steep slope from the shuld to the sides of the valve, these 
plaits have a narrow slope on the inner and a long one on the outer 
side, so as to give to them an imbricated appearance. Ventral valve 
depressed forward, with a deep, wide mesial sinus, beginning near 
the umbo, and sortésponding to the mesial fold of the opposite Frain 
Sinus occupied by prominent plaits corresponding to the grooves on 
the summit of the fold. On the sidgs of the shell, plaits, corresponding 
in like manner to these grooves of the opposite valve. Where there are 
two grooves on the fold, the two corresponding ventral plaits are 
formed near the anterior part of the sinus by the bifurcation of a single 
plait. Umbo angular, sharp-pointed, and quite strongly recurved. 
Poramen narrow, triangular, with deltidium in two pieces. Interior 
of dorsal valve with the two short curved processes so characteristic 
of the apophysary system of Rhynchonella. 


& 
9] 
, 
‘ 
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. 
ve 
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a 
aX 
* 
- 


300 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


This is probably the species referred by Mr Davidson, with doubt, 
to R. pugnus (?) in his paper above referred to. i 
Centronella Anna, Hartt (Fig. 99).—Shell orbicular, lenticular, 
equilateral, inequivalve, the dorsal (ventral, Hall) valve being con- — 
siderably more arched than the ventral (dorsal, Hall). Dorso-ventral 
diameter about half that of the width of shell—length about a quant 


of an inch. 
Fig. 99.— Centronella Anna, Hartt. 


(a) Shell natural size. (6) Internal loop. 


Ventral valve with lamella which take their origin near together. — 
_ These lamelle separate slightly from one another until they are inclined — 
to one another at an angle from 30°-45°, when they curve towards the 
mesial line, and meeting at a very acute angle, are prolonged back- _ 
wards in a pointed arch to three-quarters—four-fifths the length of the 
shell, the width of the arch being approximately one-half its length. _ 
The planes of the lamellx are at first parallel, but their dorsal edges 
soon become moderately inclined outward. The lateral bands are not 
only bent toward the mesial line, but they are strongly curved, with — 
the convexity towards the ventral valve, the curve being slightly 
greater than that of the valve. This loop supports on the dorsal side — 
a thin plate, whose plane coincides with the dorso-ventral and antero- 
posterior diameter of shell, and a thin plate extends from the apex of 
the arch forward (backward auct.) for about two-thirds its length. — 
This plate seems to be of uniform thickness throughout. At the point — 
of the arch the supporting lamelle are exceedingly slender. Tracing 
them anteriorly, they are seen running along the ventral border of — 
the mesial plate, on each side, like a raised line. Increasing in width, 
they separate themselves more and more along the dorsal margin — 
from the mesial plate, to whose ventral border they are attached for 
its whole length. The plate has an outline similar to that of a — 
transverse section of a biconvex lens whose diameter is twice its thick- 
ness, but in both the loops under examination there is on the dorsal 
edge a notch which appears to be organic, and to correspond to that . 
of the loop of Centronella Julia, Billings. : 

The mode of attachment of the mesial plate with the lateral bands 
is very well shown in my specimens. Professor Hall has called atten- 
tion to the strong resemblance between the loops of Centronella and 
Rensselaria, but there is a much greater resemblance between the - 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 301 


loops of my Carboniferous species and that of Rensselaria. This 
+ ‘Sp pecies is not uncommon in the Windsor limestones at Windsor, where 
it is usually so preserved as to show the interior with loop. The shell 
appears to be very fragile, and specimens showing the external char- 
acters are rare; at least I do not possess an example. ‘There is a 
species of Centronella occurring in the Stewiacke limestones at 
Windsor and Stewiacke which may be identical with this, but I 
_ have no good specimens for comparison. 
_ Centronella, as far as I am aware, has been found only in Devonian 
_ rocks. Its occurrence in the Saaen ous limestones of Acadia, with 
forms so Permian in character, is very interesting. 
___ Spirifera striata, Martin, coll. Hartt, from Windsor.—A ventral 
valve, 14 inch in breadiie has been found by Mr Hartt in the Wind- 
: ‘sor limestones. It does not appear to differ from specimens of the 
well-known British S. striata in my collection. It is the largest 
Spirifer yet found in Nova Scotia, and helps to redeem our Lower 
Carboniferous shells from the charge of prevailing smallness. 
Crania.—A valve attached to a specimen of Productus cora in the 
collection of Mr Hartt from Windsor. It is too obscure to be deter- 
mined or named, 


Lamellibranchiata. 


Modiola Pooli, n. sp. (Fig. 100), coll. J. W. D. and H. Poole, 
Shubenacadie, Windsor, Irish Cove, C. B.—Tumid, elongate; nearly 
cylindrical, but more tumid in front; surface with delicate lines of 
growth. 

Fig. 100.—Modiola Pooli (cast). Fig. 101.—Pteronites Gayensis. 


— Modiola Avonia, n. sp., coll. Hartt, Windsor.—A regularly ovate, 
smooth (?) species, known to me only by casts which abound in bed (d). 

Pteronites Gayensis, n. sp. (Fig. 101), coll. J. W. D., Gay’s River, 
Chester, similar in general form to P. latus, M‘Coy. Beaks prominent, 
pointed; hinge-line straight, reflected, anterior extremity very short, 
posterior part flattening and widening with a regular curve to the 
broad rounded posterior extremity. Surface with rounded concentric 
wrinkles. 

Bakevellia antiqua, Munst., coll. J. W. D., Gay’s River.—A very 
characteristic and abundant shell, with the last species, and also in the 


302 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Aviculopecten limestone at Windsor. The elongated form Cerato- 
phaga is also present. “f 

Macrodon Hardingi, n. sp. (Fig. 102), coll. J. W. D. and Hartt, 
from Windsor, especially in bed (e), where it is very abundant. tines 
line nearly straight, with the short cardinal teeth and long narrow 
posterior teeth characteristic of the genus. Length about twice thet 
depth, but variable; beak one fourth of the length from the front, — 
which is pointed, and descends with a regular curve to the straightish 


Fig. 102.—Macrodon Hardingi. 


(a)Cast. (b) Outer surface. (c) Sculpture magnified. 


or slightly incurved ventral margin. Posterior extremity truncated, 
almost vertically, angular above, slightly rounded below. In old 
specimens very tumid at the beaks, so that the thickness sometimes 
exceeds the breadth. The shell, which seems to have been thick, is — 
usually represented by casts of the interior, which are smooth, some-— 
times with deep marks of the muscular impressions and a trace of a 
rib proceeding from the front of the beak ; but when the outer surface _ 
is preserved, it is seen to be covered with regular squamous concentric — ; 
folds, fringed at the edges with delicate radiating lines. This beautiful — 
shell, most characteristic of the upper stages of the Lower Carbon- a 
eas limestones, is allied to Byssoarea reticulata, M‘Coy, of the 
Trish Gatbouievous and to Arca M‘Coyana and anatina, De Koninck, — 
of Belgium, also to Byssoarea tumida of the Permian,—but it is” 
decidedly a new species. The specimens figured are of medium size. _ 
The largest are one and a quarter inch long and seven lines thick at 
the beaks. 
Macrodon curtus, n. sp., coll. J. W. D., Windsor, ete., with the pre-_ 
eeding.—This shell differs from the last in the following particule — | 
It is much shorter, broad opposite the beaks, and narrowing posteriorly, 
and covered with ‘evapldl lines of a As I have not seen ti q 
teeth, it may belong to a different genus. On the other hand, it may — 
be a depauperated variety of the preceding, but I have no connecting 
forms. * | 
Macrodon (2) Shubenacadiensis, n. sp. (Fig. 103), coll. J. W. Dye . 
Shubenacadie.—Short and ovate, hinge-line straight, umbo one-third — 
of the distance from front. Phas extremity broadly and ecle 


: 


Da 


ae 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 303 


minded. Anterior end gibbous and narrow. Very common at 
Shubenacadie and Windsor, also in Cape Breton. Its genus is 
ncertain. 

_ Macrodon.—A fourth species is known to me only by a few casts 
of the interior. It is more elongated than M. Hardingi, and is 
rounded at the posterior extremity. Its external surface is unknown. 


_ _Edmondia Harttii, n. sp. (Fig. 104), coll. Hartt, Windsor.—Trans- 
versely oblong, flattened, regularly rounded posteriorly, marked with 
yery coarse concentric lines of growth. Resembles EZ. sulcata, Phil., 
of the English Carboniferous limestone, but is more elongated and 
‘rounded posteriorly. Length one inch six-tenths, breadth eight- 
- tenths. 


Fig. 105.—2dmondia anomala. Fig. 106.— Cypricardia insecta. 


(a) Outline of hinge-plate. 


Edmondia anomala, n. sp. (Fig. 105), coll. Hartt, Windsor.— 
Transversely elongate; anteriorly elongate and pointed; posteriorly 
descending abruptly from a line passing backward from the tumid 
beaks to the lower side of the posterior margin. Surface marked in 
the central part with regular concentric folds. Fuleral plate extending 
more than half-way from the beak to the posterior end, widening and 
abruptly rounded posteriorly. Resembles a Sedgwickia in form, but 
differs in the hinge. 

Cypricardia insecta, n. sp. (Fig. 106), coll. Hartt, Windsor, bed (a). 
—Transversely oblong. Thrice as wide as long, anterior end very short, 
posterior somewhat keeled. Hinge-line rather more than half as long 
as the shell, posterior margin rounded. Surface covered with strong 
concentric folds. Length, one inch nine-tenths. 


304 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM, 


Pleurophorus quadricostatus nu. sp. (Fig. 107), coll. Hartt, Stewiacke, 
—Shell elongate, beaks near anterior end. Hinge-line nearly straigl * 
central margin with a fold and sinus under the beak, and curving 
thence to the rounded posterior end; four obscure padinttan ridges 
diverging from the beak to the posterior margin, crossed by low con~ 
centric undulations. Length, five lines. Bed (e). § 


Fig. 107.—Pleurophorus quadricostatus. . Fig. 108.— Cardinia sub-angulata. 


Isocardia.—Like I. transversa, De Koninck, but narrower. A cast — 
from East River, Pictou. Collected by Mr D. Fraser. 
Cardinia nana, De Koninck, coll. J. W. D., Onslow, in an impure, — 
black, flaggy limestone.-—The specimens are re than the Belgian ; 
but behatwide similar. f 


Cardinia sub-angulata, n. sp. (Fig. 108), coll. J. W. D., Pugwadi 
Form oval, with an obscure ridge from the beak to the lower part of — 
the posterior end. Surface covered with irregular lamellar lines of — 
growth. 4 

Cardinia Antigonesensis, n. sp. coll. J. W. D., Antigonish. 4 
Regularly oval, but somewhat narrower posteriorly ; “bea a little in 
front of the pide, Breadth rather less than half the length. Sur- ‘ 
face marked with delicate growth lines, but smooth. * 


3 


Arca punctifer, n. sp., coll. Hartt, Windsor.—Shell broad oval in — 
form, truncate posteriorly, the tumid beaks and middle portion de- — 
scending abruptly behind to the straight hinge-line. Surface with — 
regular flattened concentric ridges, crossed, especially near the posterior _ 
margin, by oblique radiating lines, each composed of a thin ridge — 
bearing a row of minute papille. Bed (a). The specimen is only — 
a fragment, but must have been nearly an inch broad and two inches 
long when entire. ry 
Cardiomorpha Vindobonensis, Hartt (Fig. 109).—This species is 
known only by casts, one of which is faithfully ropes in the 
_ figure. " 
Cardiomorpha Archiacana, De Koninck, occurs Mey the above i = 
the Windsor limestones. - 
Conocardium Acadianum, Hartt (Fig. 110), coll. Hartt, Windsor— 
Triangular, with a very prominent central ridge. Prolonged posteri-- 
orly into a very long wing or siphonal tube. Anterior slope marked . 


: a 


at, A aU Ts nile en Bee 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 305 


th radiating ribs, about twelve in number, and becoming wider and 
tter toward the margin. Length about three lines. 


ig. 109.—Cardiomorpha Vindobonensis (cast). Fig. 110.—Oonocardium Acadianum; 
» nat. size and magnified. 


“ 


Conocardium.—A fragment of a cast of a much larger species, with 
very distinctly marked scaly ribs, occurs in Mr Hartt’s collection 
from Stewiacke. 


Aviculopecten Lyelli, n. sp., coll. J. W. D. and C. F. Hartt (Fig. 
111), Windsor, Shubenacadie, etc.—Shell orbicular, as wide as long, 


Fig. 111.—Aviculopecten Lyelli. 


(a) and (b) Varieties of sculpture; (c) hinge-line. 


narrowed behind, hinge-line equal to three-fourths the longitudinal dia- 
meter. Left valve slightly convex, greatest convexity being just behind 
the middle, sloping thence gradually to the border, where it is almost 
plane; umbo well marked, and quite strongly incurved. Ears flattened, 
the posterior not separated from the umbo, but sloping gently there- 
from. Anterior separated from the umbo by a narrow, steep, smooth 
slope. Anterior ear rounded, and with a wide shallow notch under 
it; posterior pointed, and with its lateral margin concave. Surface 
of valves ornamented by about sixty rounded, well marked, radiating 
plaits, separated by deep furrows as wide as the plaits. The plaits 
increase both in height and breadth in going from the umbo to the 
margin. They inerease near the front and sides by implantation. 
Those on the side of the valve are slightly curved; on the umbo they 
ean scarcely be distinguished. The plaits are ornamented by numerous 
sharp squamous processes, which appear to be arranged in concentric 
tows. ‘These rows are separated by a space equal to that between 


ae 8 oh oo eee eth A 


306 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the plaits. The plaits in the internal cast appear nodose. The ribs 
are visible in the cast of the interior, but less distinctly. In som 
specimens which have the surface well preserved, the tubercles in the 
ribs become elegant scaly processes, and in others the spaces 
between the ribs have regular microscopic concentric lines between 
the ribs. In others there are occasional coarse concentric ridges, 
Though at first disposed to regard some of these varieties as distinct, 
the comparison of a great number of specimens induces me to regard 
them as varieties of the same species. It is allied to A. fallaa, 
M‘Coy, and A. occidentalis, Shumard. a 

Aviculopecten reticulatus, n. sp., coll. J. W. D. (Fig. 112), Gay’s 
River.—In form and size similar to the last, but the left valve mu h 
flattened, and the surface marked with numerous sub-equal ribs, crossed 
by strong concentric striz, giving a reticulated appearance. 


Fig. 112.—Aviculopecten reticulatus ; Fig. 113.—Aviculopecten simplex. 
Sculpture magnified. = 


(a) Sinistral, and (6) dextral valve. 


Aviculopecten simplex, n. sp. (Fig. 113), coll. J. W. D., Shubenacadie— 
Windsor, ete.—Shell semi-orbicular, equivalve, very convex, the thick- — 
ness being equal to half the transverse diameter, greatest just behind - 
the middle, sloping thence with a gradual curve to the front, hinge- — 
line less than longitudinal diameter. Ears well marked, anterior ones” 
abruptly flattened, that of the right valve being flatter than the — 
other, and separated from the umbo by an oblique groove. Anterio ia : 
ear of left valve with a shallow rounded notch; that of the right 
valve much deeper. The groove separating the es from the umbo 
is concave, narrow and shallow at first, but becomes wider and deeper i 
until it runs into the notch. The right valve has a narrow, concave, — 
triangular area. Umbones approximate, much inflated. That of left 
valve touches and passes slightly beyond the hinge-line. That of 
the right is elevated above the hinge-line by the hinge-area. Surface 
_ of valves generally smooth, ornamented by a few more or less 7 
minent concentric lines of Bee 

This species approaches to A. pusiilus of the Permian, but differs 
in being more tumid, more nearly circular, and having longer ears. A 
single valve found = the Upper Coal ae limestone approaches — 
still more nearly to A. pusillus. It may represent another species, 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 307 


a variety of the preceding. Its nearest relative in the Carboniferous 
Europe is, I think, P. gibbosus of M‘Coy. 

Aviculopecten Acadicus, Hartt (Fig. 114).—Left valve minute, 
§-32ds of an inch in width, circular, arched, umbones not distinctly 
seen, posterior flattened moderately, not distinctly separated from the 
u iho. Surface of valve, exclusive of the ears, which are not exposed, 


eparated by a space equal to twice the width of one of the lines. 
n these spaces secondary lines arise, not attaining the dimensions of 
the primaries, so that the surface is covered with alternately large and 
all lines; there are also a series of delicate concentric lines, which 
_ gives to the surface a reticulated appearance. 
¥ A single specimen of this pretty little shell occurs in Mr Hartt’s 
~ collection from bed (a) at Windsor. It seems quite distinct from the 
others. 
_ Aviculopecten cora, n. sp. (Fig. 115), coll. J. W. D., Shubenacadie. 
—Similar in general form to A. Lyelli, but more regularly tumid, 
longer, with smaller ears, and the surface regularly marked with very 
fine radiating striae, resembling those of Productus cora. 


Fig. 114.—Aviculopecten Acadicus; Fig. 115.—Aviculopecten cora; Fig. 116.—Aviculo- 
sculpture magnified. sculpture magnified. pecten Debertianus. 


_ Aviculopecten.—Fragments of large specimens from the Shubena- 
eadie; have broad nodose ribs, resembling Pecten plicatus. 

_ Aviculopecten Debertianus (Fig. 116), n. sp., collected by J. W. D., 
Lower Limestone, De Bert River.—Shell rather flat, broader than 
long, small; breadth less than half an inch. Anterior ear narrow, 
convex, separated by a deep notch from the margin. Posterior ear 
very small. Surface in perfect specimens marked with’ concentric 
furrows and obscure radiating lines. This species resembles P. pusédlus 
more nearly in general form than any of the preceding, but in the 
ears is nearer to P. depilis, M‘Coy. 


Pteropoda. 

Conularia planicostata, n. sp. (Fig. 117), coll. J. W. D., Irish Cove, 
Cape Breton, Windsor, and Shubenacadie—Form very elongate, 
pyramidal. Cross section square, but by pressure becoming rhombic ; 
surface marked by thin raised ribs, in perfect specimens with very 


OS EA Pe ee nT eae a nen er 
> _— Pace tis +h ~~ ¢ i * 


308 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


delicate oblique strie on their edges. The ribs vary much in thei 
distance in different parts of the same specimen, and in different 


Fig. 117.—Conularia planicostata. 


| 
| 
; 


> 


specimens (from five in a line to ten in a line). They form an nial 
of about 120° in the middle line of each face—breadth of full-grown 
specimens about half an inch; length, two inches or more. There is 
no indication whatever that this shell had any internal partitions, 
though it occurs both flattened, as at Big Plaister Rock, and re ain- . . 
ing its original form, as at Irish Cove and Windsor. Mr Hartt — 
has proposed the name “ Nova Scotica” for a more elongated form, 4 
with finer and more numerous ribs; but on comparing numerous — 

specimens, I am inclined to regard it as a variety. The shell of . 
Conularia is usually regarded as that of a Pteropod, which seems the 
most probable view. If the shell of a Cephalopod, it must have esi 
of the nature of a straight Argonauta. It is curious to observe in the 

flattened specimens that the shell always gives way at the edges, with- 
out breaking, as if there was a suture or weak line there. The shell 
was exceedingly thin, especially at the smaller extremity, where it 
seems to terminate in an obtuse rounded form. The aperture in the 
best specimens rises at the sides in angles corresponding to those of — 
the plications. 2s 


Gasteropoda. 


Euomphalus, a small species with narrow whorls, resembling zz 
quadratus, M‘Coy, but slightly rounded above and marked with lines 
of growth, appears in fragments in Mr Hartt’s collections from Windsor, 
and seems to be the same with still more imperfect specimens in my — 
own collection from the galena-bearing limestone of Gay’s River. A 
small species, similar to E. levis, also occurs in Mr Poole’s collections” 
from Windsor. 3 . 

Euomphalus exortivus (Fig. 118), n. sp., coll. J. W. Ds East River, | 
Pictou.—About half an inch in diameter, with about Ge narrow 
whorls coarsely marked with lines of aeaetl and with a strong rib 
along the middle of the whorls above. Collected by Mr D. Fraser. 

Bellerophon.—I have a specimen collected by Professor How at — 


PS. 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 309 


on etcook, which indicates a fine shell of this genus; but it is only 
east of the interior, and gives no good specific characters. 


Fig. 118.—Zuomphalus exortivus. 


(a) Shell partly preserved. (b) Cross section. 


_ Turbo.—To this genus I refer, in the meantime, two pretty little 
species contained in my own collections from Pugwash, and those of 
~ Mr Hartt from Windsor. One is a little shell with four whorls, and 
_ about twenty folds in the suture. It occurs at Pugwash and Windsor. 
_ The other is similar in size and form, with seven or eight revolving 
lines. It is found at Windsor. 
 Dentalium—In my collection from Economy and Pugwash are 
easts which may represent two species of this genus,—one circular in 
outline, the other oval and slightly curved; but both are too imperfect 
for description. 

Naticopsis Howi, Hartt (Fig. 119), col. J. W. D. and C. F. Hartt, 
Windsor, Gay’s River, De Bert River, ete.—Allied to N. plicistria, 
Phillips, but different in markings, having merely delicate growth 
lines on the whorls, and always of small size. 


Fig. 119.—WNaticopsis Fig. 120.—WNaticopsis dispassa Fig. 121.— 
Howi. (cast). Platyschisma dubia. 


Naticopsis dispassa, n. sp. (Fig. 120), coll. J. W. D., Pugwash, 
Windsor.—A small species of the type of N. ampliata, Phil., and 
marked in the same way with delicate transverse lines of growth, but 
flatter in general form, and less depressed in the spine. 

_ Platyschisma dubia, n. sp. (Fig: 121), coll. H. Poole, Windsor.—I 
refer to this genus with doubt the shell represented in the figure. It 
seems to be very rare, as I have only met with one example. 

Loxonema acutula, n. sp. (Fig. 122), coll. Hartt, Windsor.—An 
extremely slender species, scarcely two lines long, and with fifteen 
or more whorls, marked with traces of four or five revolving lines. 
It corresponds to L. polygyra, M‘Coy, and L. acicula, Phillips, but 
is more slender and delicate than either. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Murchisonia gypsea, n. sp. (Fig. 123), coll. H. Poole, Windsor.— 
Like M. nana, De Koninck, but larger, and with only two revolving 
ridges on the whorls. q 
Fig. 122.—Loxonema acutula, magnified. Fig 123—Murchisonia gypsea (ca si 


~ 


Murchisonia tricingulata, n. sp., coll. J. W. D., Windsor, Pugwash.— 
Resembles M. angulata, Phil., but has a keel above as well as below 
the central band on the whorls. i 

Pleurotomaria dispersa, n. sp., coll. H. Poole, and Hartt, Windsor. — 
—There are several small species of this genus. One, which is very | 
abundant in bed (0), Hartt, at Windsor, is that above named. It 
has four flat whorls, giving it an almost regular conical form, with — 
delicate strie across the whorls. Ea 

Pleurotomaria ignobilis, n. sp., coll. Hartt, Windsor—AImost exactly 
of the form and markings of P. nobilis, De Koninck, with three re- | 
volving carinz ; but without the delicate sculpture between the caring, 


Cephalopoda. 
Fig. 124.— Nautilus Avonensis. 


aS 
Ne 4 


(a) Shell of small size. (2) Cross section. 


ss FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 311 
a 


filus Avonensis, n. sp. (Fig. 124), coll. us W. D., Windsor, 
o .—A large species, the outer chamber sometimes two inches 
more in diameter. Whorls much flattened dorso-ventrally, slightly 
ulated at inner edge. Siphuncle dorsal, septa convex, about one- 
hth of an inch apart. Belongs to genus Cryptoceras, D’Orbigny. 
undant at Windsor, and named after the Avon River, on the banks 
which it occurs. 

Gyroceras Harttii, n. sp. (Fig. 125). A fragment of a small angulated 
cies, resembling NV. sulcatus, Sowerby, coll. J. W. D., Windsor.—It 
is the whorls somewhat quadrate, with two broad flutings at the 
des, and two narrower flutings at the edges of the flat dorsal surface. 
he inner surface is regularly rounded, and the siphuncle is dorsal. 


Fig. 125.— Gyroceras Harttii. 


Orthoceras laterale, Phil., collected by Professor How at Kennet- 
ook. —Resembles this species as figured by De Koninck, too closely 
fo permit me to distinguish it. 

_ Orthoceras dolatum, n. sp. (Fig. 126), coll. J. W. D., Windsor.— 
Like O. pygmaeum, De Koninck, in external form. Siphuncle mar- 
ginal, slightly beaded; shell flattened at one side. Septa one-half 
he larger diameter distant from each other. 


: ‘Fig. 126.— Orthoceras Fig. 127.— Orthoceras Fig. 128.— Orthoceras 
dolatum. Vindobonense. laqueatum. 


~ Orthoceras Vindobonense, n. sp. (Fig. 127), coll. J. W. D., Windsor. 
’ *Bection nearly round. Siphuncle about one-third the diameter 


Ba. THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


from the side. Septa distant from each other rather less than one 
half the diameter. Resembles O. laterale, but is smaller, more cylin- 
drical, and with the septa more distant in proportion. 

Orthoceras laqueatum, Hartt (Fig. 128), coll. Hartt, Windsor.— 
Round, with submarginal siphuncle, and about twenty-six regular 
Sassi flutings. Resembles A. Gesneri, De Koninck, but differs in 
being round, destitute of sculpture on the flutings, a with septa 
more distant from each other—about one-third of the diameter of the 
shell. 

Orthoceras perstrictum, n. sp. (Fig. 129), coll. Hartt, Windsor ail 
fragment of a small species with very regular transverse microscopic 
striz, much finer than those of O. conquestum, Koninck, the siphunele 
sub-marginal, and the septa deeply concave, and distant fon each other 

nearly the diameter of the shell. 


Fig. 129.— Orthoceras perstrictum. Fig. 130. —Serpulites Hortonensis. 


le 


; 

Articulata. 
Spirorbis angulatus, n. sp., coll. J. W. D., Windsor, on shells of 
Brachiopods.—Differs from Spirorbis carlo in the angular form 
of the whorls, which rise to an edge above, and in being smooth, with 
fewer ae more rapidly increasing in size. It is very like the A 
modern S. Nautiloides of our coasts. 
Serpulites Hortonensis, n. sp. (Fig. 130), coll. Professor How, Half-_ 
way River.—Smooth or obscurely annulated, half a line in diameter. — 
Nearly straight toward the aperture, coiled in a discoid manner at the — 
smaller end. Some specimens have a grooved appearance longitu- 
dinally, but I believe this to be due to crushing. This shell perhaps 
belongs rather to the Lower Coal formation shales than to the pro- — 
perly marine beds. _ 
Serpulites annulatus, n. sp. (Fig. 131), coll. H. Poole and C. F. Hartt, 
Windsor.—Cylindrical, about a line in diameter, coarsely marked with 
rings of growth and coiled in a loose irregular spiral. . { 
Serpulites inelegans, n. sp., coll. Hartt, Windsor, bed (6 ).—Cylindti, 
tapering, marked with faint transverse striz, slightly waving in form; 
greatest diameter, 1-6th inch; length, 14 inch. " ‘ | 


Beyrichia Jonesit, n. sp. (Fig. 132), coll. Hartt, Windsor. — 
about 1-10th inch, breadth 2-3ds of length. Very tumid; surface | 


i ' 


FOSSILS OF THE CARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONES. 313 


ivided by two deep furrows, proceeding toward the ventral margin 
m a circular pit nearly in the centre, and diverging at an angle of 
rout 60°. Margin very narrow; outline nearly semi-circular. It is 
early allied to B. Kloedeni of the Devonian. 

Phillipsia Howi, Billings (Fig. 133), “Canadian Naturalist,” 
1. viii. p. 209.—This species was described by Mr Billings from 
pecimens found by Prof. How of Windsor, at Kennetcook, Hants 
punty. It is closely allied to P. meramecensis, Shumard, and P. 
insignis, Winchell, from the Lower Carboniferous of the United States, 
but differs in the greater number of rings in the axis of the pygidium 


ry g. 131.— Serpulites Fig. 132.—Beyrichia Jonesii ; Fig. 133.—Phillipsia 
annulatus. nat, size and magnified. Howi. 


v 


or tail-piece, the only portion known. These Phillipsias of the Carbon- 
_ iferous are very interesting as the last representatives of the great 
ply of Trilobites, so abundant in the older Paleozoic rocks. 
_ Phillipsia ee teaerartn Hartt.—Pygidium semi-elliptical, very 
| convex ; one or two segments appear to be wanting from the anterior 
_ margin; but the width of the pygidium in that part must have been 
greater than its length. Ten or eleven articulations are visible on the 
side lobes and twelve on the axis, which is very prominent and 

‘ moderately tapering. The axial rings are depressed, convex, becoming 
smaller, more crowded, and more indistinct toward the apex. Ribs on 
side lobes depressed, convex, decreasing in length, breadth, and distinct- 
ness from before backward, while at the same time they become more 
and more inclined pedestal The six anterior ribs preserved show a 
distinctly marked groove, originating on the posterior margin at about 
one-third the length of the rib from the axis, and running obliquely, 
inereasing in depth to the end of the rib. Smooth border none, or 
extremely narrow at anterior angles, but becoming 3-5ths the width of 
the axis near the posterior part of pygidium, which is not visible in the 
only specimen I have examined. 

Crustacean—In Mr Hartt’s collection there is a single fragment 
which would seem to indicate a Crustacean different from the Trilobites, 
and probably of higher type. It occurred in bed (e), and must await 
the discovery of additional remains. 

x 


314 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Actinoceras.—The species represented at the end of this chap 
(Fig. 133 a), and which has only recently come under my notice, wai 


collected by Mr D. Fraser on the East River of Pictou. I hava : 
Pe named it A. znops. nd 
pz Anthracosia.—The only species of this genus known to me in Nova q 
a Scotia was omitted inadvertently from its proper place in this chapter. 4 
4 It was found by Mr J. Barnes at Baddeck, Cape Breton, in a brow ne d 
ti ish shale of the Lower Carboniferous, and is figured at the end of | 
¥ the chapter under the name A. Bradorica (Fig. 133 6). 
It is a curious fact that, except a few teeth of fishes, no remains of 7 
a vertebrate animals have yet been found in the marine imiestinne which — 
have afforded the above species of invertebrates. This is the more . 
remarkable since remains of fishes are so abundant in the Lower — 
* Carboniferous shales, and also in the Coal formation. 
Though I have noteed in the above list about 87 species of ani- = 
mals, I think it probable that many more remain to be discovered; — 
indeed there are in the collections now in my hands imperfect specimens — 
which indicate the existence of several others. These limestones must 
continue for some time to afford a rich field to industrious collectors 4 
and it is much to be desired that those who may engage in this work 
would place their collections where they may be studied and descriaa 
a as there is no doubt that many fine specimens from these beds are 
buried in the cabinets of amateurs, and have been practically losh@ - 
science, = 


Fig. 133 a.—Actinoceras inops, n. sp. Fig. 133 b.—Anthracosia Bradorica, n. sp. 


> Pe Fe se, 2 OR 


y 4 ——— 4 se 
” OR OE 
. 


~ 


— 


ij 


‘= 
: 
« 
ab 
a 
“4 
§- 
Af, | 


315 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD— Continued. 


_ CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICTS OF PICTOU, ANTIGONISH, AND GUYSBOROUGH ; 


ISOLATED PATCHES AT MARGARET'S BAY AND CHESTER BASIN. 


Carboniferous District of Pictou. 


In noticing this and the following districts, I shall avail myself of the 


details into which we have entered, to enable me to condense my 


descriptions, and to dwell only on those features that may be peculiar, 
or very dissimilar from those already described. In entering the 
Pictou coal district from Colchester, we pass over disturbed and some- 
what altered Lower Carboniferous sandstones and conglomerates, with 
intrusive and metamorphic rocks on either side, forming outlying 
masses of the Eastern Cobequids. ‘The first characteristic and dis- 


_ tinetly marked beds that we find are the limestones on the upper part 


of the West River. At the Salt Springs these limestones, with their 
accompanying sandstones, are seen in a vertical position, and with 
their fissures filled with micaceous iron-ore,—a very decided proof of 
igneous action. There appears to be in this part of the Pictou district 
a considerable area of altered Carboniferous rocks, showing that in this 
Vicinity active voleanic agencies have subsisted after the deposition 
of the Lower Carboniferous series. A little farther down the West 
River, at M‘Kay’s Lime Rock, we find the limestone unaltered, and 
containing Crinoids, Terebratule, Fenestella, Corals, and other fossils, 
similar to those of the limestones of Hants and Colchester, and more 
especially to the lower limestones already mentioned. Having thus 
reached a known member of the Carboniferous series, we may take a 
general glance over the district, with the aid of the map, and mark the 
distribution of its principal rock formations. 

From the West River we can trace the limestones and other members 
of the Lower Carboniferous series to the East River, along the valley 
of which they enter, in the form of a narrow bay, into the metamorphic 
district to the southward. Beyond the promontory of these latter 
rocks bounding this inlet on its eastern side, the Lower Carboniferous 


adie 


316 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


rocks continue to skirt the older hills as far as the coast of the Gulf 
of St Lawrence at M‘Cara’s Brook, near Arisaig, where they rest 
unconformably on slates belonging to an older formation. The lowest 
Carboniferous rocks seen here are conglomerates interstratified with 
beds of amygdaloidal trap, which have flowed over their surfaces a 5 
lava currents, just as the trap of the Bay of Fundy has flowed over 
the red sandstone. Several of these ancient lava streams alternat 
with beds of conglomerate; and while their lower parts have by their ¢ 
heat slightly altered the underlying bed, their upper parts, cooled and — 
ee. acted on by the waves, have contributed fragments to the overlying ' 
conglomerate. Over these conglomerates is a great series of reddish 
and gray sandstones and shales, similar to those we have observed — 
elsewhere. They contain no gypsum, but there is a thick limestone 
with a number of the fossil shells already noticed in similar beds of — 
this age. Along the whole southern edge of the Pictou district, — 
therefore, we observe the Lower Carboniferous series, distinguished by _ 
its ecardatinite fossils, and containing beds of limestone and cee 
a 
ay though the latter, as ay as the associated marly beds, is less impo 
ant than in Hants County. To the northward of these older members — 
ae of the system, we find in some localities, and especially on the East 
River, a large development of the productive or Middle Coal measures; 
and the remaining part of the district, stretching along the coast of 
Northumberland Strait, and connected with the eastern part of Cum- 
berland, presents precisely the same characters which we have observed 
pe in the last-mentioned district, of which it is strictly a continuation. ; 
The most remarkable feature in the Pictou district is the enormous — 
thickness of Coal measures on the East River, forming the Albion 
Mines Coal-field; and these deserve a detailed notice, not only from 
their economical importance, but their geological interest, as presenting 
a vastly greater development of coal seams and their accompaniments — 
than we have observed elsewhere. I shall therefore describe the 
general arrangement of the rocks on the East River with the aid of 
the sections (Figs. 134 and 136). 4a 
The oldest Carboniferous bed that I have observed on the East 
River is a limestone resting directly on the edges of a hard meta-_ 
morphic slate, which must have formed the sea-bottom on which | 
the former rock was deposited. Angular fragments of the slate are 
included in the lower part of the ieee This limestone, which | | 
appears at Lime Brook on the east branch of the East River, contains in 
its upper part fossil corals of the genus Lithostrotion, already described 
as L.. Pictoense. On this limestone rest marls with gypsum veins, and | 
at least one large bed of gypsum and anhydrite, the oc of which | 


- | 


& 


Z 
be 


ns 2) 
ite Yi 
"= c ? 


<<) 5 

= 

> 
ce 


- , CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 


rs distinetly at Forbes Lake and Creelman’s Farm on the East 
ich, and Jess conspicuously at Springville. Above these gypseous 
which, being soft, have been eroded into a valley, is another 


‘SOzUIS UREMTIS (v) 


Se Limestone of Lime Brook, ete, 
----- Gypsum of Springville, ete. 


a 


‘SOLIOS SNOLAJTMOGIVD IaMOrT (¢g) 


Qs 


p=---- Albion Mines. 


2 ----- New Glasgow. 


5K 
e fy 
: 


‘(9ET “SI, Ose 90g) 


“nong fo waar sng ay) fo syooy snosafiuog.ng ayn fo uoyoay po.2UaDH 


Coal and Limestone of Fraser’s Mt. 


Coal at Loading Ground. 


Pictou Harbour. 


moryeULIoy [LoD zeddqQ (a) ‘ayeron10[Su0o ywary (p) 


mestone rich in fossil shells, including many of those already noticed 
1d some others. Succeeding this in ascending order is a great series 
hard brownish sandstones and shales, like those of Eagle’s Nest on 
e Shubenacadie, and probably corresponding to the lower members 


© 


O 


318 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


of Sir W. Logan’s Joggins section. These occupy the East Branch and — 
Main River for some distance. They contain a few fossil plants, in — 
one instance impregnated with carbonate and sulphuret of copper; — 
and at least two beds of limestone, not rich in fossils, but affording the — 4 
characteristic species Terebratula sacculus, Streptorhyncus crenistria, if 
and Productus semireticulatus. One of these limestones, seen — 
the forks of the river, is remarkable for showing, when slices are Ld 
examined under the microscope, that it is made up of mia fragments . 
of shells with entire specimens of very minute species.* The rocks © 
in this part of the section are much fractured; but a comparison with 
the continuation of the same beds in M‘Lellan’ s Brook, shows that the 
order is ascending, and that the Coal measures rest on the rocks last — 
described. : 

The Coal measures of the Albion Mines consist of the same materials, . 
and contain many of the same fossil remains with those of the Joggins; _ 
but they differ in the arrangement of these materials and fossils. — 
Instead of a great number of thin beds of coal and bituminous shale, 
we have here a few beds of enormous thickness, as if the coal-forming — 
processes, so often interrupted at the Joggins, had here been allowed 4 
to go on for very long periods without interference. It is almost a 
necessary consequence of this that erect plants are not found in the — 
Albion measures, and that well-preserved vegetable fossils are com- — 
paratively rare, while vast quantities of vegetable matter have been 
accumulated in the state of coal. The sections at the Albion Mines 
are not perfect. They show, however, five or six seams of coal, and 
an immense thickness, perhaps 800 feet, of black shales with Cypris 
and remains of ferns and other leaves. There are also underclays and 
ironstones abounding in Stigmaria. . 

In attempting to give a general idea of the structure of this coal- 
field, I shall first notice the order and succession of the beds, then : 
gist distribution, and next some remarkable and exceptional features” 
which they present, as compared with the districts previously noticed. | 

The section of the beds, in descending order, as made up from a — 
comparison of the results of borings and excavations by the different 


coal companies, is as follows :— , 
Ft. i 


Gray freestone or sandstone. > li 
Black shale and clay, with layers of aa ‘aoe 
sandstone and ironstone + . ; : : -419 9 


Forward, 435 0 
* See Table in last chapter. 
+ These beds are given from the observations of Mr Hudson in the Forster Pit, 
Albion Mines. 


aice 


i - . / € é 
CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 319 
Ft... in, 
Brought forward, 435 0 
ain Coal seam (greatest thickness) . : . - oo a1 
ee shale, and ironstone : : ‘ a! iy ee 
Deep Coal seam. ; . ; 4 ee oe 
Shales, sandstone, and ironstone, with befer thin coals, 
viz. the Third seam, ‘ Purves seam, and Fleming 
seam,” in all about Elva feet thick . F 280 0 
M‘Gregor Coal seam . : aL O 
Shale, with many beds of “hes aad inyers of iron- 
stone and underclays  . . “ - 240 O 
Coal and earthy bitumen, “ Frazer ae and Stellar 
coal” . . ‘ . : ‘ g : . see 
1192" 3 


The above is to be regarded as a mere approximation, and the 
‘measurements are taken in a line perpendicular to the surface, the 
beds being inclined at an angle of about 20°. In this section it will 
be observed that the total thickness of beds is less than in the Middle 
oal measures of the Joggins section, but that the quantity of coal is 
vastly greater. In other words, the deposit of vegetable matter has 
been greater and more continuous, and that of earthy matter less. 
_ When the first edition of this work was published, the extension of 
the Pictou Coal seams was known only in the Albion mining area near 
the East River, where the dip is to the north-east and the strike 
‘north-west. eS oiisequant explorations by Mr Poole, recorded in a 
paper published in the “Canadian Naturalist,” showed that about a mile 
and a half westward of the river the beds are bent and faulted, and 
: turn suddenly to the southward. It was afterwards ascertained eo Mr 
J. Campbell, and by the agents of the “ Acadia” and “ Nova Scotia” 
i anics, that the line of outerop takes an extensive curve of more 
| rt an a mile to the southward, forming the area of the “ Intercolonial”’ 
Company, and then, sweeping again to the northward, resumes a north- 
\ ey course, passing toward the Middle River. Here it would 
eem to turn round the end of a-synclinal, or to be cut off by a fault 
in its extension with northerly dip, and it is next seen to return on a 
_ curved line, skirting a ridge of older rock, probably of Devonian age, 
and a conglomerate connected with this, toward New Glasgow; near 
which, on the Haliburton or “ Montreal and Pictou” area, the beds 
ue ‘appear with high dips to the southward. The East River Coal area 
between that river and the Middle River would thus appear to con- 
stitute an irregular trough with a deep bay to the southward, and 


FI 


© 


© 


320 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
possibly a gap on the north, as represented on the sketch-map (Fig. 
135), which I must, however, remark is merely an attempt to reduce 
to order complexities not as yet fully intelligible. The relations a 
this trough to the rocks to the northward we shall leave until we have — 


o attempted to trace the synclinal in its extension to the East. %) 


Fig. 135.—Sketch-map of Pictou Coal District. 


A, Upper Coal formation. Coal Areas.—(1) General Mining Association, or Albion A 
B, Middle Coal formation. Mines; (2 and 4) Acadia; (3) Nova Scotia or French’s; _ 
C, New Glasgow conglomerate. (5) Intercolonial or Bear Creek; (6) Montreal and Pic- 
D, Lower Carboniferous. tou or Haliburton’s; (7) German Company, and others; — 
E, Devonian and Silurian. (8) Sutherland’s River; (9) New Glasgow or Kirby’s. \ 


o 


At the date of the publication of the first edition of “Acadian Geology,” ee : 
little was known of the extension of the Albion Coal measures to the | 
eastward of the East River. I could at that time only indicate the 

.~ occurrence of Coal measures with a dip showing a considerable fold | 
or bend of the measures in M‘Lellan’s Brook, and the probable exten- 
sion of the productive Coal measures in the direction of Merigomish. — 
Subsequent observations by Mr Poole threw additional light on the 
bend of the measures, and more recently several discoveries of coal | 
have been made, and I have seen, through the kindness of Mr Moore — 
of Montreal, plans prepared by Mr Barnes of Halifax which appear to 
me approximately to establish the true distribution of the beds. 


©) 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 321 


Tt would appear that immediately to the east of the East River, a 
ynclinal fold, apparently with some disturbance in its axis, occurs. 
This throws the beds round into the north-westerly dips seen in 
M‘Lellan’s Brook. Beyond this there is an anticlinal, succeeded by a 
second synclinal, on the east side of which, in the vicinity of Suther- 
md’s River, the coal beds reappear with north-westerly and northerly 
lips. The most eastern exposure on this tortuous line of outerop is 
bed stated to be ten feet in thickness, seen near Sutherland’s River, 
about two miles from its mouth. 
~ No doubt the coal beds extend still farther to the eastward, along 
or under Merigomish Harbour, and they will also be found in all the 
belt of country between Sutherland’s River and the East River. 
_ The line above indicated refers to the northerly dipping outcrop 
continuous with that of the Albion Mines; but fronting this there is, on 
the east side of the East River, as indicated in the general section in 
the first edition of this work, and reproduced without alteration in Fig. 
134, a narrow line of outcrop, in which some at least of the beds re- 
appear with southerly dips along the line of the fracture which skirts 
_ the outcrop of the great New Glasgow conglomerate. This exposure 
is continuous with that already noticed immediately opposite New 
lasgow, and includes the beds long known in the vicinity of that 
_ place on the east side of the river, with others recently traced farther 
- to the south and east. 
_ Eastward of New Glasgow, according to observations made by Mr 5 
Kirby on his coal areas, the line of strike curves somewhat to the 
northward, forming a broad indentation parallel to the projection on the 
_ Opposite side of the trough, and then, returning toward the south, passes 
toward the shores of Merigomish Harbour, where its extension has not 
yet been observed. The beds of the Upper Coal formation which © 
are seen at Little Harbour, appear in Merigomish Island apparently 
W fithout any synclinal arrangement between hate and the Lower Car- 
- boniferous rocks of the adjacent mainland. There is, however, a con- 
i. eeereble space concealed by Merigomish Harbour, and by the beach 
between Merigomish Island and the mainland, and it is to be observed 

b: ths ut the Upper Coal formation beds on the island dip to the north, 
g ~ while those on the nearest part of the mainland dip to the N. W., and 
ee seem to belong to the lower part of the Coal formation. This indicates 
either intervening curves or dislocations, or that the upper series is 
- unconformable to the lower. 

_ In the above general notice mention has been made of a great bed 
4g of conglomerate occurring immediately to the northward of the East 
_ River Coal trough, and which, as it appears very conspicuously at 


322 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


glomerate.” At New Glasgow this conglomerate dips ata high angle 
to the north, but at the Middle River and several other places it is _ 
found dipping to the south, and the relations of the Coal measures to 
it on the northern side of the Albion Mines trough, in the vicinity of — 
New Glasgow, would seem to render it certain that the conglomerate 
underlies the productive Coal measures, and crops out from beneath 
them on an anticlinalline. This would give it the geological position of . 
the Millstone-grit series, but no such massive conglomerate is known ~ 
in that series elsewhere, though there are conglomerate beds of minor _ 
dimensions. Again, the beds on the north side of the conglomerate, and _ 
evidently overlying it, are not those of the productive Coal measures _ 
as developed at the Albion Mines, but Coal measures of minor im- 
_ portance, believed to represent the Upper Coal formation; and these 
supposed Upper Coal formation beds exhibit very regular northerly — 
dips, as if they had not participated in the foldings and fractures of the 
beds of the Middle Coal formation. Lastly, toward the Middle River 
there appears, rising from beneath the conglomerate, a series of hard — 
and altered grits and coarse shales, with obscure remains of fossil 
plants, which were pointed out to me in the summer of 1866 by Mr — 
John Campbell, and which I believe to be an island of older rock — 
which must have penetrated the Carboniferous beds, and protruded — 
above them at the time of their deposition, representing on a very — 
small scale the attitude of the Cobequid Hills with reference to the Coal | 
formation of Colchester and Cumberland. we 

These statements being premised, as well as the further fact that 
the opinions of geologists in regard to this conglomerate have oscillated _ 
between the extreme views that it is a bed overlying the Middle Coal — 
measures, and forming the base of the Newer Coal formation, and, | 
on the other hand, that it is the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate _ 
thrown up along the line of an anticlinal,—I proceed to quote from q 
the first edition of this work and the supplement thereto, published in — 
1860, the reasons which I then assigned for believing that it is a 
contemporary beach of shingle, limiting the area of deposition of the 
thick coal seams of the Albion Mines area, and giving rise to their 
exceptional character. This view was first advocated in my paper 
on the structure of the Albion Coal Measures in the Journal of the 
> London Geological Society, 1853; and the reasons for it are thus | 
given in the first edition of this work :— 4 

‘1. The outcrop of the conglomerate extends from a point opposite 
the promontory of metamorphic rock east of the East River to the 
high lands of Mount Dalhousie, in the eastern extremity of the Cobe- 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 323 * 


juid range of hills, crossing the mouth of an indentation in the meta- 


tremities; so that in all probability it never extended over the low 
arboniferous district included within its line of outcrop. This is the 


denudation better than any of the associated beds. 3. The conglomerate 
is full of false stratification and wedge-shaped beds of reddish sand- 
stone in the manner of ordinary gravel-ridges, and it even presents 
_the appearance of passing into sandstone toward the dip, as if the coarse 
_ conglomerate were limited to the vicinity of the outcrop. 4. In the 
_ sandstone overlying the Albion measures, as well as in portions of the 9 
_ Coal formation manifestly overlying the great conglomerate, there are 
small seams of coal corresponding in their characters with those of the 
_ Joggins and Sydney, where no similar conglomerate occurs. 5. The 
supposition that the Albion coal was formed in a depressed space, 
separated by a shingle-bar from the more exposed flats without, 
~ accounts for the great thickness of the deposits of coal and carbonaceous ¢ 
shale, the comparative absence of sandstones, and the peculiar texture 
and qualities of the coal, as well as the association with it of remains 
of fish and Cypris ; since modern analogies show that such an enclosed 
space might be alternately a swamp and lagoon without any marked 
_ change in the nature of the mechanical deposits. 6. Movements of 
depression causing the rupture of the barrier, or enabling the sea to 
overflow it, and perhaps also admitting currents of oceanic water 
through the valleys of the metamorphic district to the southward, 
_ would sufficiently account for the overlying sandstones, as well as for 
the denudation of the Coal measures supposed to have preceded the 
accumulation of these sandstones.* 7. The dislocation extending 
along the outcrop of the conglomerate is easily explained by the sup- 
position that, in later elevatory movements, this hard and strong bed 
determined the direction of fracture of the deposits. 

“To these reasons I may add,.that if in the Carboniferous as in the 
modern period, westerly winds prevailed in this latitude, it would be 
very natural that a beach should be thrown out from the eastern end 
of the Cobequid range across the bay to the eastward, in which the 

Albion Coal measures are situated.” 
In the supplementary chapter (1860), after referring to some 


es Pe loa bw men Zl 


- 


* These sandstones overlie the Coal measures near the Albion Mines, but with dip 
to the N. 


_ sures in the Fraser Mine, which are uniformly downthrows to the a 


» the two seams is 1574 feet), which shows that the disturbances must 


324 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


additional observations made by Henry Poole, Esq., I concluded as — 
follows :— a 

“The facts above stated in no respect shake the conclusion that q 
the New Glasgow conglomerate is contemporary with the Albion Coal 
measures, and the remains of a great accumulation of shingle sepa-_ 
rating these from the more open space without. On the contrary, — 
they tend to confirm it; and none of the fossils obtained by Mr Poole _ 
indicate any recurrence of Lower Carboniferous rocks in the anticlinal 4 
which throws up the conglomerate in association with beds of the — 
Middle Coal measures. A very remarkable fact stated by Mr Poole " 
is perhaps a proof of the contemporaneous disturbances and changes 
of level connected with the original formation of this conglomerate. — 
He says, —‘There are numerous small faults running across the mea- 


west; and I may here mention that I observed, some years ago, in 
the Desp seam, several faults from four to ten feet each, which could 
not be found in the main coal workings above (the distance between 
have taken place previous to the formation of the Main Coal Seam.’” — 

I now hold that the additional fact above stated, of the occurrence - 
of a ridge of older rock penetrating the conglomerate between the 
East and Middle Rivers, gives further confirmation of this theory _ 
of the relation of the conglomerate. This ridge of older rocks must — 
have been surrounded with a deposit of gravel in the Millstone-grit — 
period, and so often thereafter as the area was submerged, either on — 
one side or the other; and with its associated gravel-ridge must have — 
formed just such a dam or barrier as is required to account for the — 
very exceptional character of the enormous coal beds of the area | 
included within it. It results that the New Glasgow conglomerate is 
not that of the Lower Carboniferous, which underlies the marine lime- 
stones, but is to be regarded as an anomalous and peculiar modification | 
of the Millstone-grit, succeeded in ascending order on the south side 
by the great Coal measures of the Albion Mines, and on the north by — 
a depauperated representative of these beds, graduating upward into 
the Upper or Newer Coal measures. 

I may further remark that the relation of these latter beds to di 
conglomerate and the hard rocks below it, is similar to that which I 
believe obtains on a larger scale along some parts of the northern and — 
eastern slope of the Cobequids. If the view above given is correct, 
it would follow that the Coal measures on their return dip to the south 
near New Glasgow should present some marked points of difference, 
as compared with those of the Albion Mines, and that there may be 
places where their outcrop has been so far spared by denudation as to 


7 CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 
proximate to the original margin of the thick beds in this direction. 
ch a place I should expect to find in the bend of the outerop to 
reccterard of Mr Haliburton’s mine opposite New Glasgow. 
I I have endeavoured to represent to the eye the above theoretical 
ws in the following ideal sections :— 


Carboniferous beds. 
(f) Silurian. 


5 
Ee 
° 
HW 
—_~ 
2 
i 
E 
= 
g 
° 
ee 
2 
w 
2 
eo 
‘2 
~~ 
3 
io) 
2 
es 
i=] 
ao 
3 
~~ 
a 
| 
s 
Ee 
a 
& 
3 
o 
a 
Ss 
a 
oy 
£ 
£ 
oo 
—_ 
iS 
— 
Cael 
3 
a 
uw 
3° 
bo} 
c= | 
= 
a 
Ss 
S| 
=| 
i) 
> 
i) 
a 
-—_- 
s 
a 


Fig. 136, b.—Jdeal section representing the present arrangement of the Coal formation of East River, Pictou. 


(a) Devonian ridge; (%) conglomerate; (c) great Coal measures; (d@) minor Coal measures; (e) Lower Carboniferous; 


fF Sei 


pif these views are correct, we have a right to expect that the tract 

of Coal formation country to the siteclaatsh of the great conglomerate, 2 
and extending from it to the eastern extremity of the Cumberland 
; dis trict, should present characters similar to those of that district. 
Accordingly the section on the tideway of the East River, and the 
corresponding sections on the Middle River, and on the coast toward 


ME IE ya NO NS ae ee ey ka 
a4" s os c ey 


326 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Merigomish, show a series of Coal formation rocks not very dissimilar _ 
from some parts of the Joggins section. Their dips are to the north- 
ward, and in their lower part there is a bed of concretionary and — 
laminated limestone, the only fossil in which appears to be the little _ 
Spirorbis already so frequently mentioned. Almost immediately above — 
this limestone is a small bed of impure coal, probably two feet hic 
These beds are accompanied by some black shales, and succeeding 
them, in ascending order, is a series of sandstones and shales abounding _ 
in leaves of ferns, calamites, ete. The highest beds seen on the south — 
side of Pictou Harbour and at Merigomish are thick bedded gray 
sandstones, which afford grindstone and building stone, and abound 
in petrified coniferous wood; and with these are associated some 
shales and underclays, with thin seams of coal, one of which in Meri- 4 


_ gomish Island is eleven inches thick. In the continuation of the 


same series, coal has been found at the loading ground at South 7 
Pictou, and near the mouth of the Middle River. 3 
Northward and westward of Pictou Harbour, which occupies a syn- _ 
clinal depression, is a series of rocks, nearly resembling those just 
described, and generally dipping to the south-east at angles of 15° to — 
25°. In Roger’s Hill, six miles westward of Pictou, are thick beds of © 
coarse conglomerate, considerably disturbed, associated with green- 
stone and hard claystone, and showing in one part a vein of crystalline 
sulphate of barytes. This conglomerate I believe to be geologically 
identical with that of New Glasgow. It is succeeded by a great series — 
of deposits, chiefly consisting of reddish sandstones and shales; but — 
including several thick beds of gray sandstone, affording quarries of — | 
valuable grindstone and freestone, and accompanied by gray shales, 
conglomerates, thin beds of coarse limestone, and thin beds of coal. 
As there are no very good natural sections in this part of the country, 
it would be difficult to ascertain the aggregate thickness of these 
deposits; it must, however, be great, since they occupy, with general — 
south-east dips, the whole country from the hills last named to the 
entrance of Pictou Harbour. The principal fossils found near Pictou 
are Calamites, Lepidodendron, Endogenites, coniferous wood, ferns, 
Sternbergia,* and carbonized fragments of wood impregnated with 
iron pyrites and with sulphuret and carbonate of copper. In this 
series also, and near the town of Pictou, is a bed of sandstone con- 
taining erect calamites, evidently rooted zn stu, and described ina 
paper by the writer in the Proceedings of the Geological Society for 
1849. The appearances at this place are so similar to those observed 
at the Joggins, and they need not be noticed here; but these and the 
occurrence of Stigmaria in situ in some of the shales and sandstones” 


* Transversely wrinkled stems, believed to be casts of the pith of plants. 


aa eS hl ee 
nd “te .% 4 
“ 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 327 


of the same neighbourhood, serve to indicate the analogy that obtains © 
between the coal-rocks of Cumberland and this part of Pictou. Some 
of the shales near the town of Pictou are loaded with ferns and Cor- 
daites ; and shells of a Naiadites (N. arenacea) also occur, though rarely. 
Small seams of coal are believed to occur in this neighbourhood, but 
their outcrops cannot at present be seen. 

‘The coast section, westward of the entrance of Pictou Harbour, is 
for some distance very imperfect. Much red sandstone, however, 
appears ; and a bed of limestone from two to three feet thick, and a 
small bed of coal, have been discovered. Some gray sandstones also 
appear; in one of which there are numerous fragments of carbonized © 
wood, containing sulphuret aud carbonate of copper. This deposit, 
and others of a similar nature found in this series at various places, 9 
have given rise to hopes that valuable deposits of copper may be found 
in this part of the Coal formation. These ores of copper are always 
~ associated with remains of fossil plants, and they have no doubt been 

_ produced by the deoxidizing effects of this vegetable matter on water 

impregnated with sulphate of copper, and probably rising in the form 
of springs from some of the older subjacent rocks. 
The rocks in the coast section west of Pictou Harbour dip to the 
south-eastward as far as the mouth of Carribou River, beyond which 
the same beds are repeated, but better exposed, and dipping to the 
north. One of the cupriferous beds above referred to, a coarse gray 
sandstone, appears in Carribou River, and was at one time worked for 
the copper it contains, but is now abandoned. At the mouth of the 
river are gray sandstones, red sandstones, and red and gray shales, 
and associated with these is a bed of coal five inches in thickness, 
_ with the usual underclay with Stigmaria rootlets. Beyond this place, 
'asfar as the second brook beyond Toney River, there is a great series 
of beds having precisely the aspect of the Upper Coal formation of } 
Cumberland, and containing one thin bed of non-fossiliferous limestone, 
and a great thickness of reddish shales, some of them finely ripple- 
marked and worm-tracked, and with leaves of ferns. The beds then 
become horizontal, and are repeated with southerly dips (S.S.E.), at 
first at a small angle, but toward-the extremity of Cape John the dip 
inereases, and the rocks at length become vertical. The lowest beds 
Seen at the extremity of the cape are gray coarse sandstones, with 
Calamites and carbonized trunks of trees. Associated with these are 
reddish sandstones and shales, and in front of the cape, but under 
water, is the outcrop of a small bed of gypsum. The northerly dip- 
ping beds in the above section extend to the westward across River 
John, and are continuous with those described (vide Cumberland 
District) as occurring on the French river of Tatamagouche. The 


_.. 


A 
é 


Y 


_ of Spirorbis, attached to much-decayed plants. Scales and teeth of 
large fishes are also found in it, as well as fragments of the bony — 


S 


ET ETON, Poe ED ee Oe ae Se eee 
k aS ante 


328 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


southerly dipping beds towards Cape John probably extend under 
Tatamagouche Bay, and are continuous with the rocks on the south 
side of Cape Malagash. 

A coal district so singular in its structure, and probably also in the — 
mode of formation of its beds, as that of the Albion Mines, might be 
anticipated to afford interesting and peculiar fossils. Unfortunately, 
however, these beds are not exposed in good natural sections, and the 
operations of the miner are a very imperfect substitute for these. 
One bed, however, included in the Albion main coal has afforded 
some interesting facts. It is a seam of coaly ironstone varying in 
thickness from four inches to a foot, and in some portions of the mine 
is extracted with the coal and thrown aside as rubbish, so that large 
quantities of it can be examined at the surface. It contains abundance _ 


spines with which they were armed.* Some of the latter are half 4 
an inch in diameter. A still more interesting fossil was found by the — 
writer in this bed in 1850. It is the upper part of a skull, seven — 
inches in breadth and five inches in length, and armed with strong 
conical teeth, somewhat curved, and finely striated longitudinally — 
(Fig. 137). This fossil was sent to London, and examined by Professor _ 


Fig. 137.— Outline of Skull of Baphetes Planiceps reduced ; and Tooth, natural size. 6 


KY) 


ne 


ot henna ps 


Se Ratio 


(a) Anterior part of skull, viewed from beneath. 

(b) One of the largest teeth, natural size. » 
Owen, by whom it was described and figured in the Proceedings of — 
the Gagged Society (1853) under the name of Baphetes Planiceps, — 
alluding to its supposed amphibious habits, and the flatness of its : 
skull. This creature was probably a large frog-like reptile, which 
preyed on the fishes whose remains are found with it in the “holing 
stone,” as the bed is called by the miners. It will be more fully 
described in the next chapter. This band, with its peculiar fossils, — 
shows that, at Pictou as at the Joggins, the coal-forming area was _ 

* See page 210 ante. > 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 


cas: onally submerged under brackish water, perhaps by the partial 
ure of the great conglomerate bank to which we have already 


Useful Minerals of the Pictou District. 


Coal is the most important of these; and Pictou was long the 
‘incipal producer of this valuable miuerelAt in British America, having 
nly recently been outstripped by the Coal-field of Cape Breton. 
Jpwards of 237,000 tons were raised in 1866. The greater part of 
e Pictou coal is shipped to the United States, and is used in iron- 
Risdiies and gas-works, and for the production of steam. The 
principal mines are those worked by the General Mining Association 
and the Acadia Company, though several other collieries are being 
put into working condition. I may shortly notice the principal coal 
areas in succession. 


The coal hitherto exported by this Company has been obtained 
4 principally from the “main seam” (see p. 319), and chiefly from its 
‘upper twelve feet, though in recent years the lower part of this seam, 
and also the “ deer seam,” have been worked. The pits originally 
_ worked were on the low ground immediately west of the East River, 
where an engine-pit was sunk to the depth of about 400 feet. In the 
pro gress of these works, however, it was found that the coal deterio- 
rated very much in quality i in its extension to the eastward ; and this 
circumstance, in connexion with a serious “ crush” in the ate deter- 
mined the proprietors to make new openings to the westward, anne 
the Dalhousie pits, as well as others toward the dip. These are the 
present working pits. In the Dalhousie pits the whole thickness of 
the main seam and also the deep seam are worked. In 1866, the 
Poster pit, 450 feet deep, was sunk near the Dalhousie pits, and a new 
shaft is being made in advance of the old eastern workings, and will 
be of considerably greater depth. An interesting historical sketch of 
_ these mines, with a notice of their present state, is given by Mr 
= Rutherford, Inspector of Mines, im his Report for 1866, from which I 
quote the Bie wing: — 

7 ; “The extraordinary thickness of the beds of coal in these collieries 
as given them a well-deserved celebrity ; the number as well as the 
+ ne of the seams in this coal-field being perhaps unparalleled. Having 
en in operation many years, a large extent of coal has been mined. 
" ‘Only two seams have, however, been sunk to and worked, viz., the 

main seam and the deep seam,—the latter lying 25 fathoms palsit the 


1 . (1.) General Mining Association (Fig. 135—1). 


i] 


© 


» workings were considerably extended both east and west; they a 2 / 


330 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


former, and being the next in the series in descending order. T ney 
dip to the north-east at an angle of 20°, or about 1 in 23. The thick- 
ness of the main seam is so well oan that it is unnecessary to give 
a section of it. Its average thickness may be stated to be 38 feet. 
Several shafts have been sunk to the seam, the workings in connexion 
with which have received a peculiar classification, which had its 
origin in the following circumstances :—A large tract of workings to 
the rise of the shafts, which are distant from the crop 250 yards, 
extending 800 yards to the west and 200 yards to the east of them, 
and covering an area of about 40 acres, forms the earliest work 1 
portion of the seam. In nearly the whole of this district about 12 fee! 
only of the upper part of the seam has been worked, the lower portal 
being considered inferior in quality. These. workings are locally 
known as the “ burnt mines,” and are so designated in consequence of | 
a fire that occurred some years ago in the stables, and was only extin- 
guished by closing the shafts to prevent the admission of the air into — 
the mines. Further to the dip other shafts have been sunk, and they, 
with some situated 960 yards to the west, and known as the Dalhousie 
pits, are the present working shafts. sein the former of these the 


in the upper part of the seam only, and their extent is alerts 90 acres. 
In some workings to the dip of these an accident occurred in May 
1861, which was attended with still more disastrous results than ‘the 
pupeadinis one, it being found necessary to fill the mine with water in 
order to extinguish the fire. An attempt was made to get into these 
workings in 1862, but their condition was such that they were aban= j 
doned, al this eit from this circumstance, has received the name 
of ‘Crushed Mines? designation sufficiently indicative of the stall a 
of the workings on re-opening the mine. 3 
“The main seam is at present worked on the east side of the ‘Crushed 
Mines,’ and in the Dalhousie pits on the west side. In the Inttelf q 
the seam has been worked the entire thickness, the lower portion bei 
much improved in quality. The extent of workings in this distriet 
is now upwards of 100 acres. | | 
“The difficulty of working a seam of such a thickness and with such 
a declination has unfortunately been exemplified during the last tw 
years in this district of the mine. Whilst the modus operandi re- 
mained the same, a change appears to have been made in the scale of 
pillarage to meet the requirements of so largely an increased height o i 
seam, which, however, proved inadequate, and a large extent of workings | 
has been aaa still is under the effect of a crush in consequence. 2 . 
“The system of working pursued from the commencement of the | 


‘ez 
* 


at, CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 


liery has been continued ever since, with some modifications in the © 
e of the pillars. The bords are driven 18 feet wide, and the pillars 

e made from 8 to 18 yards thick, with holdings at irregular intervals. 

y regular pillar working has been attempted in this seam. 

“ The ‘deep seam’ is worked at the Dalhousie pits only. Its average 

ickness is 15’ 6”. It is worked the entire height of the seam, and © 

| the same principle as the main seam; the bords and pillars being 

‘a similar size. The workings are alkigoilite on the west side of 

e pits; and the main level in that direction has been driven 1600 

wds. It is about 250 yards from the crop. The workings extend 

an area of 60 acres, the whole of which is standing in pillars, © 

vith the exception of a few near the face, a partial working of which 

has recently been begun. : 
-“ An extension of the works at these mines is in progress. During 

he year a new shaft has been sunk to the main seam near the face of 

e west workings. This shaft is 450 feet deep to the top of the seam, 

md is intended to be used for drawing coal. A steam-engine for 

joisting has been erected, and a railway between the pit and the main © 

line in part constructed. Another shaft has also been begun to the 

dip of the ‘Crushed Mines’ pits, and is now upwards of 300 feet 

dec p- An additional shaft for ventilation has been put down near © 

the crop of the deep seam, and a slope is being driven in the main 

ez m, to be connected eit, the pit above referred to. The working — 

Bowers of this already extensive colliery will, on the completion of ~ 

e works, be much increased.” 

"The following detailed section, taken from a continuous specimen 

f the main seam, extracted for the New York Industrial Exhibition 

y Mr Poole, late manager of the mine, will enable the reader to 

nderstand the available amount of good coal which the main seam 

ontains, as well as the structure of the bed. As this section has, since 

he publication of my first edition, been copied without acknowledgment, 

md in terms leading to the inference that it was drawn up in New 

York, I may state that it was prepared by myself from a careful 

ispection of the specimen, to which I was kindly invited by Mr Poole, 

vhile it lay on the ground after having been extracted from the mine. 


1. Roof shale: vegetable fragments and attached Spir- rt. in, 


orbis (in specimen) . : : : : bikes | he? ee 3 
2. Coal, with shaly bands , i : - Oy Ge 
38. Coal, laminated ; layers of mineral shied and bright 
coal; band of ironstone balls in bottom. Ree Py) 


Carry forward, 2 94 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
Ft. 
Brought forward, 2 


E { 4. Coal, fine, cubical, and laminated; much mineral 
fe | charcoal é : : : 3 
c 4 5. Carbonaceous shale and ironstone, vith layer of coarse 
= coal (“holing stone”); remains of large fishes and 
@ | coprolites. This bed varies much in thickness 0 
= | 6. Coal, laminated and cubical, coarser towards bottom 9 — 
7. Ironstone and carbonaceous shale, with coaly layers 
and trunks of Lepidodendron, Ulodendron, Sigil- 
laria, Stigmaria, etc., all prostrate . : 
8. Coal, laminated as in No. 6, a line of ironstone balls 
in bottom : : 
g [ 9. Coal, laminated and Garces a aye niall iroteighe 
Ss balls; many vascular pindles of ferns in this and 
5 underlying coal : e ; . ; 1G 
= 10. Ironstone and pyrites . : : : 2 1g 
= | 11. Coal, laminated and cubical, as abisvé ‘ é aa 


12. Coal, coarse, layers of cinaindts shale and pyrites 
13. Coal, laminated, with a fossil trunk in pyrites ae | 
14. Coal, laminated and cubical, with layers of shale, 
passing downward into black slicken-sided under- ~ 
clay with coaly bands. ; : : . 2 oe 
15. Underclay (to bottom of specimen) : : . 01 


Thickness perpendicular to horizon . ; - 40 — 


Vertical thickness . 3 i . ‘ . 38 


From this seam at least 24 feet in vertical thickness of good coal 
can be extracted. <A cubic foot of Pictou coal weighs about 82 lbs. — 
rather less than 28 feet being equal to a ton of coal; hence a square 
mile of this seam would yield in round numbers 23,000,000 tons of — 
coal—an enormous quantity as compared with the present annual pro-— 
duce, but less than two-thirds of the annual consumption of Great 
Britain. The other seams in the Albion measures may be safely : 
estimated at half the value of the main seam. a 

The Albion coal has a laminated texture, and much mineral charcoal 
on its surfaces, and is a highly bituminous caking coal. Its specifie 
gravity, according to the trials of Professor W. R. Johnston,* is 1 318 3 
to 1325. The result of twelve trials made by the writer of samples 
from different parts of the mine was, that the specifie gravity van 


* Report to the United States Government on American Coals. aE 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU, 333 


m 1-288, which is that of the best coal extracted, to 1:447, which 
that of the coarsest coal that has been worked. The mean specific 
avity of six samples, taken from the top, middle, and bottom of the 
am, in the central part of the mine, was 1-325, or exactly the same 
ith one of Professor Johnston's results. According to Professor 
yhnston’s trials, 1 pound of this coal is capable of converting 7-45 
) 7-48 pounds of water into steam, or from the temperature of 212°, 
‘41 to 8-48 pounds. This gives it a high place among bituminous 
oals as a steam-producer. The worst defect of Pictou coal is, that it 
ontains a considerable quantity of light bulky ashes; and this causes 
‘to be much less esteemed for domestic use than on other grounds it 
leserves. It is very free from sulphur, burns long, with a great pro- 
it uction of heat, and remains alight when the fire becomes low much 
onger than most other coals. 

The following assays show the composition of the eal from the 
ipper floor in different parts of the mine, and illustrate its gradual 
leterioration at either extremity of the workings. 


S.E. side: Old workings a ides 
3 (about 1 mile B. of ojd'workings. Dalhousie Pits 
: { Moisture . eer TSO! (4 1°550 
4 Volatile combustible . 25875 27:988 
=| Fixedearbon . Sy yt 60:837 
* | Ashes ; : . 10°425 9°625 


r ee ——— 


4 100-000 100-000 


‘ {Moisture . . , 1500 1-500 2-2 
i Volatile combustible . 24-800 28°613 22:7 
) Fixed carbon . ee LCA OR 61:087 62-0 
| Ashes | : 3 Be Sy 8-800 1335 


Thinned 
out 


__ 


100-000 100-000 100:0 

‘Moisture . Sa A D250 1:800  . 2°5 
} Volatile Boniliistible 22-375 27-075 . 22-7 

= | Fixed carbon . . 52475 59:950 58:8 
gl Ashes =. |. 22900 11-175 16-0 
100-000 100-000 100-0 


Tt will be observed that in all parts of the mine the lower coal is 
inferior to that of the middle of the seam, and still more so to that of 
i@ upper part above the “holing stone,” or the “ fall coal,” as it is 
armed by the miners. It will also be observed that all the coals in 
ie first column are inferior to those in the second, and that those in 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the third are also inferior, while in this part of the mine the 
three feet of fall coal have disappeared, or been reduced to an i 
nificant thickness, by thinning out or being replaced by shaly matter. 

The following table gives the composition of all the varieties o} 
coal in the whole thickness of the seam, as ascertained by, an elaborate 
series of assays made by the writer in 1854 :— 


Assays of Samples of Albion Coal, taken at distances of one fot 
thickness, in the main seam. 


Volatile matter Volatile matter 
by rapid coking. by slow coking, C@tPon fixed. 


No. 

1. Coal — 26:0 E99 63°8 

2. Do. ia 27°8 24:1 63°8 

3. Do. ot 27:4 DRT 60:0 

4. Do. 350 20-2, 25°0 65°5 

Be Di oe 25°8 25:1 64°8 

6. Do. a3 Bice 24:9 62°5 

foo. ane 2A 22-0 68:5 

8. Do: ie 26°8 27-9 66:7 

9... Dos 27-0 A I, 61:3 

10. Ciibonsteenas shale 16:4 15:9 26°3 
11. Coal Y 28°8 25°8 59-7 14°53 
12. Do. os 27:2 25-4 62°5 12-be 
1dr 0; oh 27°6 24-7 65°5 9-3 
14. Do. ae 26°6 23.9 61-0 15-4 
15: “Do. a 26°8 4a3°1 65°1 

16. Do. ee 28°8 24°9 62°3 

tee. ate 30°4 26-0 65:0 

18. Do. ee 26-0 26-1 63°0 

19. Do. ae .26°0 25-0 66°3 

20. Do. re 26°8 22-7 63°6 

21. Coarse coal 25°8 Pao 08°3 e 
22. Do. a 27-2 22-5 60.3 17-2 
23. Coal be 29-4 23°6 64:3 

24. Coarse coal 25°8 22°4 57°6 

25: Do: Ee 25°8 23°1. 60-2 

26. D0; eae 27°8 21°9 54°8 

27. Coal stk 27:0 24:3 65:5 

28. Do. BS 25°6 22-4 65:0 

29. Do. nt 25°8 23-7 62-7 

30. Do. nee 22 23:1 67°4 

31. Do. a 32°6 22-4 66°5 


32. Coarse coal 22:2 21-5 50°4 


\ Fv CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 335 


ese coals being taken from the western part of the workings, do 
how the fall coal of the old pits, this part of the seam having 
ep, as already explained, thinned out. All these coals afford a fine 
icular coke, and their ashes are light gray and powdery) with the © 

c Beetion of those of the coals marked “coarse,” which are heavy 

nd id shaly. 
The Deep Seam, situated at the vertical depth of 150 feet below 
@ main seam, and consequently cropping out to the surface about 
50 yards to the south-west of the outcrop of the latter, contains about 
elve feet of good coal, divided by intervening ison of shaly and 
mpure coal into three bands. The best coal of this seam is superior 
‘0 that of the main seam, but owing to the division above mentioned, 
it cannot be worked so economically as the main seam, and is there- 
ore likely to be left until the latter is exhausted, at least in its more 
wecessible portions. The comparative purity of some portions of this » 
seam, however, would entitle them to demand a higher price in the 
market than the ordinary produce of the Pictou mines. Its best por- 
ions contain only from 5:3 to 11 per cent. of ashes, and afford much 
illuminating gas, and a fine vesicular coke, similar to that of the main 
seam coal. The ashes of some of the deep seam layers are of a reddish 
colour, whereas those of the coal from the main seam are invariably 
white or light-gray. There can be no doubt that nothing but its 
association with a bed of so much greater magnitude prevents this © 
seam from being more extensively worked. 

The following sectional view of the Deep Seam as it occurs at the 
Dalhousie pits, is taken from a series of samples furnished to me by 
Mr Poole in 1854 :— 

1. Gray argillaceous shale—roof. 
2. Tender laminated coal, much mineral charcoal. 
3. Laminated compact coal, less mineral charcoal. 
4. ” ” 
5. Carbonaceous ironstone, crusts of Cyprids. 
6. Laminated compact coal, much mineral charcoal. 
7. Laminated coarse coal. 
8. Laminated compact coal. 
9. Laminated coarse coal. 

10. Laminated compact tender coal. 

11. Laminated compact coal. 

12. Laminated compact coarse coal. 

13. Laminated compact hard coal. 

14. ‘i e thick layer of minerat charcoal. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


15. Laminated compact coal. 


16. a 3 much mineral charcoal. 
17. ” 7 
18. Shaly coal, scapes of plants. , 


The results of assays of these several samples are given in the 
following table :— an 


Assays of Samples of Coal taken at distances of one foot in the 


om Deep Seam. = 
= No. Dy tapi coeing, yslow coking, Carbon fixed. Ashes. 
yn 2. 24°8 21:0 67:6 11-453 
ot 3. + Good coal a4 25°2 25°2 67:3 T54 
ie 4. 28-4 23-9 70:8 53 
oe 5. Ironstone and coal 26:8 275 18-5 54:08 
ie i 7} Coarse mal 23:2 20:5 59-1 20:4 
2 he as 23°6 20°4 48-0 3-48 
‘6 8. Good-coar-* -... 26°2 22-4 70°3 (3 
‘a A 9. Coarse coal... 2a, py | 49°3 286 
a = 1! } Good non 24°8 20°4 68°9 107% 
= 2 24:8 223 643 «13:4 | 
oe o "Coarse pled 23°4 20°5 51°2 28°34 
13. Pi 23-0 20-1 55'3 246 
14, 27°4 23-9 68-1 8:0\ a 
1. | Gua ae [290 22:9 71:5 56 
: 16. 26°8 FS 69°6 8-5 = 
ive 24°6 19°9 63°83 163 
os 18. Shale and coal 17-6 2A1 23°0 55°98 
4% The following summary of these two beds and the intervening 


measures, from the observations of Mr Poole in sinking the first 
engine pit at the Dalhousie Mine, gives at the same time an idea of 
the gigantic development of workable coal at this place. 


Surface clay ‘ 
Shale and bands of ee ae eee 


Main Seam— Ft in 
Coarse coal OQ. 
Good coal De 
Tronstone Oca 
Good coal 14 ee 
Ironstone 0 4 
Coarse coal (ee 
Ironstone Dye 


Carry forward, 28 3 


a 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 


Ft. 
Brought forward, 28 


Coarse coal 
Ironstone 
Coarse coal 
Tronstone 
Coarse coal 


Shale and bands of ironstone alternate 
Deep Seam— 

Bad coal 

Good coal 

Ironstone 

Coal 

Slaty coal 

Good coal 

Coarse coal . 

Good coal, “ worked 2 Carr” 

Inferior a ‘ 


OwrFrPrOWrFwWo 


24 9 


; Total 295 3 


_ As Pictou coal is now largely used in the manufacture of illumi- 
lating gas, the following comparative trials of the volume of gas 
v hich it affords, made by the writer in the spring of 1854, may be 
ateresting. They were made on a small scale, by means 4: an iron 
etort and graduated glass vessels; but their accuracy was afterwards 
sonfirmed by trials of some of the coals on the large scale in the Pictou 


qas-work, 
Cubic feet 
per Ton. 


Coal from upper nine feet of the main seam, from thé Dal- 
housie pits, i ; . 3902 

Coal from middle “a main seam, che parion now mined in 
the lower floor. , . 5080 
Coal from upper three feet a hest al of deep seam, . . 6668 
- Coal from lower three feet of best coal of deep seam, . . 8504 


_ The average yield of the first of these samples in the Pictou Gas- 
work is about 4000 cubic feet. As some of the other coals now 
worked are even more productive of gas, it may be anticipated that 


- 338 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the reputation of Pictou coal in the gas-works will increase. I 
mention here that the value of Pictou coal for this purpose, as well as 
* for family and steam uses, depends in part on the good quality of its 
a coke, and in part on its comparative freedom from sulphur. These 
“igs excellent qualities, in connexion with its great heating power, mo 
than compensate for its large percentage of ash as compared with 
some other coals. nd 

(2.) Acadia Coal Company (Fig. 135—2, 4). 
- The principal area worked by this Company lies immediately to the 


ay north of that of the General Mining Association, or toward the rise 0 : 
a the beds. Its chief value therefore depends on the lower seams of 
es © coal, and more especially those known as the M‘Gregor and oil coals.* 


‘a 


_ The M‘Gregor seam is that from which the greater part of the coal of 
this Gee is extracted. It is worked by “slopes” or galleries 
e © extending downward from the outcrop, and up which the coal is drawn 
mS on rails. 
The M‘Gregor seam is stated by Mr Hoyt,+ the general agent of the) i 
ies Company, to be 12 feet in thickness, as follows :— ; 


* 2 Ft. , anu 
3 Ae ; Coal (first bench) 2 : : : : Bi ee 
a: Shaly band 5 ; : ' $ : 0 6 
Yi Coal (second bench) 3. (O 
re. Coal (coarse) : ; ‘ : <2 tee 
ie Shake! vey: ots wc Sea tet One a 
ed Coal (good) Lira 
12.48 


At present only the two upper benches, or six feet in all, are worked, 
and the coal obtained from these is of very good quality, containing 
on the average, according to an analysis obtained from Mr J. D. B. 
Fraser of Pictou, the former proprietor of the mine, only about 8 per 
cent. of ashes. The thickness of the coal is stated to increase in 

9 working to the westward, and to diminish to the eastward; and it is 
somewhat remarkable that its quality improves with its thickness 
According to the report above cited, the quality and reputation of 

2 this coal will depend much on the care taken to separate the material 
of the “shaly band” from the good coal, as the presence of this 

» material greatly increases the amount of fe and deteriorates ihe 
coke, though it does not seem materially to affect the yield of § 
sahich amounts to the large return of 9500 feet from a ton of 2240 ibe 


* For position of these coals, see section ante. + Report, 1866. 


ae : = ath om 


r faa . +t 
pes THE CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 339 


A bout five feet above the M‘Gregor Seam there is a smaller seam, 
ree feet three inches thick, and of good quality, which may perhaps 
‘future be worked in connexion with the other. The other seams 
etween the M‘Gregor and Deep Seams, known as the “ Purves Seam” 
nd “ Third Seam,” are said to be each four feet in thickness, but are 
ot worked. 
Under the M‘Gregor bed, as shown on the general section above, 
es a very curious bed, known as the “stellar” or “oil” coal. It 
s five feet in thickness, having, according to Mr Hoyt, the following 
ection :— 
*, Ft. in. 
Bituminous coal. , : ; : ith 
Stellar oil coal ; ‘ 4 ; 3 1 a 
Bituminous shale. ‘ ‘ ‘ é 4, 10 
ai 9 
The material known as stellar coal is, as I have maintained in 
previous publications, of the nature of an earthy bitumen; and geolo- 
gically is to be regarded as an underclay or fossil soil, extremely rich 
in bituminous matter, derived from decayed and comminuted vegetable 
substances. It is, in short, a fossil swamp-muck or mud, which, as I 
have elsewhere pointed out,* is the character of the earthy bitumens 
and highly bituminous shales of the Coal formation generally. Its value 
depends on the high percentage of illuminating gas and of mineral oil 
which it yields on distillation ; and it is likely, on this account, to form 
an important portion of the produce of this coal area. According to 
the results of different trials, it is stated to yield from 50 to 126 
gallons of oil per ton, the larger amount being apparently the yield of 
he pure “stellar coal,”’ so named from its scintillatory appearance in 
burning. According to an analysis by Professor How of Windsor, 
this gives,— 
; Volatile matter . : : : 66°33. 
Fixed carbon. A ; : 25:23 
Ash : : : : ° 8:21 
Moisture. HBR oe : ; 23 


100-00 


The sample to which the above analysis refers gave of crude oil 
120 gallons per ton. 
_ The immense amount of petroleum obtained from wells in Canada 


* Paper on Conditions of Accumulation of Coal, “ Journ. of Geol. Soc.” 


- colonial Company, and first developed S Mr John Campbell, is 


coal, that the main seam in its extension to the westward, while it 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


and the United States has for the present diminished the demand for 
the earthy bitumens; but it is certain that they must again come 
largely into use, as the wells diminish in their yield and addition al 
uses are found for the mineral oils. q 

In addition to the area south of that of the General Mining Associa 
tion, the Acadia Company possess a property to the westward, in 
which the continuation of the main and other seams occurs in magni- 
ficent proportions, and with the same characters as in the Campbell or 
Bear Creek area of the Intercolonial Company, next to be noticed. — 


(3.) Intercolonial and Nova Scotia Companies (Fig. 135—5, 4). 
In addition to the collieries above described, there are others organ- / 
ized, and which have made more or less progress toward extensive 
mining operations. The Bear Creek area, the property of the Inter- 


probably the most important, and has recently been examined “- 
reported on very favourably by Mr Charles Robb and Mr Barnes. 
includes the continuation of the main and other seams beyond a 
great flexure or downthrow at the western extremity of the area of — 
the General Mining Association, already referred to. Ina pit sunk e 
on the main seam by Mr Paphell I found the section of that bed to 
be as follows :— 
Roof, black shale. Ft. in. 
Tender good coal. . : F ‘ r 0 
Shaly coal ‘ 0 
Good coal ’ : : f : 5 
Shaly parting . : : : ; ! 0 
Good coal 4 
Pyritous coal . 0 
Good coal 7 
Coarse coal 2 


: 
| 
: 


Total thickness . 19 


The dip is N. 75° E. at an angle of 20°, and the actual chika 
eighteen feet of coal, of which sixteen feet are of excellent quality. - 
appears from this section, and from trials which I have made of the 


a : 


2 Re in thickness, improves in quality. Still farther west, on 
the property of the “ Acadia” and “ Nova Scotia” Companies, where 
slopes have been opened i in this seam, the section is substantially the — 
same, except that in the latter the shale or clay-parting thickens to | 
Beet inches. 


rey CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 


oh 


On ‘the Bear Creek area the deep seam also has been recognised 

's proper place, and has a thickness at right angles to the measures 

7 Beven feet.* Other beds, supposed to be the equivalents of the 

eves and M‘Gregor Seams, the latter six feet in thickness, have also 

é a found. These discoveries enormously increase the ascertained 
stent and value of the Pictou Coal-field, as compared with that at @ 

e time of the publication of my first edition; and when taken in con- 

exion with the previous observations made by Mr Poole, leave no 

oom whatever for the doubts which I find expressed by some prac- 

ical men as to the precise equivalency of the beds last mentioned with 

those so long known at the Albion Mines. 


(4.) Montreal and Pictou Company (Fig. 135—6). 


The only colliery as yet opened on the northern side of the Coal 
rough, on this side of the East River, is that of the Montreal and 
Pictou Company, immediately opposite to New Glasgow. Here the 
Coal measures dip, according to Dr Honeyman,+ 8S. 20° E. at an angle 
of 65°. A shaft has been sunk to a depth of 180 feet; and, according 
to a Report by Mr Rutherford, published by the Company, has exposed 
the following section of Coal measures. The measurements are at 
right angles to the horizon, so that the thickness given does not 


represent the actual vertical thickness :— 


SPSCANDSSCSCSOAM|MSOSOSOOSE 


Drift clay 
Shale 
Freestone 
Shale 

Coal 

Fire-clay 

Hard sandstone 
Fire-clay and Ironstone 
Dark shale 
Coal .. 

Shale and neal 
Fire-clay 
Tronstone band 
Coal 

Fire-clay 

Coal 

Fire-clay 


© 


* Robb's Report. + Letter to the Author. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


7% a, If, as is probable, these beds represent the Albion Mines Coal 
: Q Measures, or a part of them, it is evident that in crossing the trough 
they have materially changed in the character and thickness of the 
beds of coal. This was to have been anticipated from the views 
previously stated, as the shaft- which afforded the above section i 
© only about 600 yards from the conglomerate, and consequently the 
locality cannot be very far from the original margin of the trough 
» in this direction. In the circumstances, the discovery that the coal 
o. preserves its value thus near to the conglomerate, and is so accessible, 
is very gratifying, and greatly enhances our estimation of the value 
of this coal-field as a whole. I must add, however, that it is searcely 
. fair to say, in the words of a recently published public Report, that 
this discovery has given to the coal-field “a conformation which 
a . appears to have been entirely unsuspected.” The synclinal form of | 
. .» the measures was indicated in the former edition of this work, and is” { 
¥ a necessary consequence of the view as to the character of the great 
a conglomerate advocated therein. It was more fully stated in the ; 
— paper by Mr Poole and myself in the “ Canadian Naturalist” for 1860, _ 4 
= and in my supplementary chapter in “ Acadian Geology ;” and the} j 
outerops of coal near New Glasgow, on this side of the trough, had q 
long been known. ‘The conformation or structure of the area had ] 
Pa thus been established by geological investigation before the coal y 
discovered opposite New Glasgow; but this in no respect Jetraglil 7 
from the credit due to the gentlemen whose energy and enterprise — 
have developed the coal-beds in that locality. It is all the more 4 
creditable to them that their operations were not undertaken on chance, ; 
but on a consideration of probabilities established by facts previously 
ascertained. The facilities for shipping the coal in the area above j 
referred to are very great, and there can be little doubt that the — 
outcrops discovered aa be traced farther to the westward, and 
perhaps afford scope for additional collieries in this direction. 
high angle at which the beds lie will require different management in 
the details of mining from that which has been usual in the Pictou — 
© Coal-field, and it is not improbable that this high angle will be con-_ 
nected with numerous fractures and abrupt flexures of the strata. - 


(5.) Coal Areas on the East Side of the East River (Fig. 135—7, 8, oF 
Openings have been made by the “German” Company on the | 
continuation of the main seam eastward of the East River. The | 
5 result is stated to have been, that the quality of the coal was found to 
be unsatisfactory,* and operations were consequently abandoned. — 
This would appear to show that the inferiority of the main seam coal 
* Rutherford’s Report, 1866. q 


, u CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 
served in the eastern working of the General Mining Association 
tends beyond their property on the east side of the river. I have 
tributed this to the effects on the process of coal formation produced 
y the spur of older metamorphic rock which extends forward into 
is part of the coal area from the southward, and in this case the 
erioration may apply to a considerable area near the southern edge 
f the trough, but the coal may be expected to improve in following 
toward the dip. I regret that I have not any details as to the 
recise aspect and character of the coal as exposed by the German 
Jompany, as this might have enabled more precise conclusions as to 
its cause and extent to be arrived at.* The appearance of workable 
oal farther eastward toward Sutherland’s River has been already 
ferred to, and on the opposite side of the trough, eastward of New 
Glasgow, two beds of coal, stated at four feet each in thickness, have 
been found. Much additional exploration is required in this part of 
e area, to ascertain the arrangement of the strata, and also the 
eculiar character and distribution of the beds of coal, which may be 
expected to differ materially from those on the west side of the river. 
1 (6.) Other Parts of the Pictou Coal-field. 
The small seams of coal seen at Merigomish Island, Little Harbour, 
Fraser’s Mountain, South Pictou, and Carribou, appear to belong to a 
second and upper series of coal seams, as compared with those of the 
Albion Mines, or more properly, perhaps, two distinct groups of coals.+ 
Phey have not been ascertained to be of workable value, and, as already 
stated, may be considered as the representatives of the Upper Coal 
formation or the upper part of the Middle Coal formation, as devel- 
yped at the South Joggins. The facts already stated show that the 
productive Coal measures on the East River belong to a special and 
imited coal area, while the beds northward of the New Glasgow 
mglomerate belong to a larger area, continuous to the north with 
at of Cumberland. For this reason, we should not be disposed to 
xpect in this wider area, surrounding Pictou Harbour, a repetition of 
he great beds of the Albion Mines, but there is no reason to suppose 
that the coal actually present is limited to the thin beds just mentioned. 
On the contrary, the analogy of the Cumberland Coal-field would lead ~ 
us to expect that under these beds, and cropping out northward and 
* A hand specimen from this mine, for which [ am indebted to Mr Barnes, in its 
highly laminated and shaly character, corresponds with what might be expected on the 
‘iews above stated. 
The coal-beds of Fraser’s Mountain, Little Harbour, and Merigomish Island, are 


very probably members of one group of coal-seams, and those of the loading ground 
a nd other places near Pictou Harbour of a second and higher group. 


544 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


westward of Pictou Harbour, there should be other and perhaps mot 
valuable beds. At present, however, little is known of the dete 
structure of this part of the Pictou Coal-field, and the distance from 
navigable water of those portions of it in which coal is likely to be found, 
prevents any expensive explorations from being made. I anticipate 
that the careful tracing, for practical purposes, of the northern edge of 
the East River Coal-beds, along and around the New Glasgow con- 
glomerate, will, in a few years, give data which may be employed te 
work out the true relations and practical value of such beds as may 
occur in the area now under consideration. : 


Minerals other than Coal. 


Clay Ironstone occurs in the Pictou Coal measures, apparently of 
good quality, and in sufficient abundance to be extracted profitably, 
if in a country in which smelting-furnaces are in operation. At 
present, however, no attention is paid to it. From the abundance of — 
boulders of Brown Hematite scattered over the surface of the Lower | 
Carboniferous rocks on the East River, I have inferred that veins of — 
that rich ore of iron exist in these rocks, in the same manner as at the } 
Shubenacadie. The outcrop of these veins had not been observed 
at the time of the publication of my first edition, but I am informed 
by Dr Honeyman that veins of this mineral have recently been dis- 
covered zn situ, and that there is reason to believe that they penetrate — 
the Silurian rocks. The presence of these ores, in connexion with a 
large bed of peroxide of iron in the older slates to be hereafter de- — 
scribed, leaves little doubt that were other circumstances favourable, 
iron-works might be established on the East River without any defi- 
ciency in the raw material. The following analysis of the ore is by 
Professor How of Windsor :— a 


Peroxide of iron, with traces of phosphoric acid , 84:54 


Alumina and phosphoric acid . 2 : : : 0-19 j 
Sesquioxide of manganese : ; : : : 0-16 = 
Magnesia i : f : ; : * ‘ 043 


Water . : ‘ : : - : ; : 11-40 
Siliceous gangue . Miia te , é : : 2-22 
Carbonic acid and loss’. : : : . oo 0-45 
10000 

Gray Freestone, for architectural purposes, is found in a 
number of places in the Pictou Coal formation, and is quarried botl 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PIGTOU. 345 


ring colonies. Many buildings have been constructed of Pictou 
reestone in the large cities of the American Union; and its cheap- 
ess, durability, and fine colour, are likely to secure an extended 
emand. The principal quarries are on Saw Mill Brook, at the head 
f Pictou Harbour, where stone of excellent quality and colour, and 
both in blocks and flags, is found in great abundance. These quarries 
have been very extensively opened, and a railway and loading pier, 
hree-fourths of a mile in length, have been constructed. The greatest 
quantity shipped in any year has been 3000 tons; but with the present 
facilities from 10,000 to 12,000 tons can be annually shipped from the 
Acadia Quarry,” which is the principal opening. 
Gypsum, in workable quantity, occurs only on the East River, and 
 isat too great a distance from a port of shipment to be quarried at 
_ present, except for domestic use. 
_ Limestone is quarried for use in the country, at the East and West 
Rivers, and small quantities are occasionally taken from the beds at 
— Merigomish and Cape John. A curious concretionary limestone, 
_ belonging apparently to the Upper Coal formation, and occurring at 
4 Titiaéer’s Mountain and at Little Harbour, near New Glasgow, has 
attracted some attention as a marble for “iy ative purposes. 
_ Manganese Ore, Sulphate of Barytes, Umber and Ochres, are found 
in small quantities. Brick and Pottery clays also occur. 
The Copper Ores found in the Coal formation have been already 
mest The principal localities are Caribou River, the West 2 
er, a little below Durham, and the East River, a few miles above 
= Albion Mines. Similar appearances also occur on French and 
augh’s Rivers, in the band of Coal formation rocks connecting the 
berland and Pictou districts. In all these places the principal |, 
is the gray sulphuret of the metal, with films and coatings of the 
reen carbonate. These ores are apeyetited with fossil plants, tos 
. which, as already explained, their accumulation is to be attributed. 
The ores are rich and valuable, and the only reason which prevents u 
| them from being worked, is the belief that the deposits are too limited 
to be of economical importance. This has been found to be the case ® 
in two instances in which trials have been made by the agents of the 
_ Mining Association. The following is the composition of a sample 
from Caribou, analyzed by the writer :— 


. Copper . ; ; ; 40-00 
Tron : : r : 11:06 
Cobalt . . : : 2-10 


Carry forward 53:16 


346 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. : 


Brought forward 53:16 


Manganese. : : 50 
Sulphur . ; ; . 25°42 
Carbonate of lime . ' 92 

| 80-00 


Carboniferous District of Antigonish County. 


slaty and syenitic rocks, forming the hills of Merigomish and those — 
extending toward Cape St George. In the coast section, the last and _ 
lowest rocks of the Pictou Carboniferous district are seén near M‘Cara’s 
Brook to rest unconformably on slates to be subsequently described, — 
- and which are of Silurian age. Passing these, towards Malignant i 
Cove, the lower Carboniferous conglomerates and sandstones are a s 
seen, but very much disturbed and altered by heat. It is a very 
instructive study to compare the soft conglomerates and their inter- — 
stratified trap at M‘Cara’s Brook, with the continuation of the same a 
beds eastward of Arisaig Pier, See they appear fused into hard — 
quartzose rocks, in some of which the original texture is entirely obli- 
terated. 

The conglomerate and sandstone seen at Malignant Cove conduct us — 
through a gap in the metamorphic hills, or round by Cape St George, 
to the gypsiferous rocks of the Teieeeakana of Antigonish. These 
run along the south side of the metamorphic hills with general — 
southerly dips, from Cape St George to the western extremity of this 
district, and exhibit a very large development of the gypsums and 
ee oe the latter containing some of the fossils already noticed in | 
other ieeddiees - 

At Cape St George, the Lower Carboniferous conglomerates appear 
to be largely developed, and associated with these there are sandstones 
and shales containing fossil plants, and also a bed of gypsum. val 

I am indebted to Dr Honeyman for specimens of these shales, | 
showing Lepidodendron corrugatum, the most characteristic plant of 
the Lower Carboniferous Coal measures, and a stipe of Cyclopteris 
Acadica. They also hold scales of Acrolepis and Paleoniscus. The — 
shale and the fossils are precisely similar to those of Horton Bluff. ; 
Similar shales occur farther to the westward, holding the same fossils, 
and are stated to be so rich in Bape matters that hopes are | 
entertained of utilizing them asa source of coal oil. The beds noticed | 
below as occurring in Right’s River, are probably of the same age. — 
In the vicinity of Morristown there are red sandstones, conglomeniag i 


f 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF ANTIGONISH COUNTY. 847 


d gray sandstone, the latter containing Calamites, Sternbergia, and 
ther Coal formation fossils, and no doubt higher in the series than 
he beds last mentioned. Near Morristown these beds dip to the 
N.E., and have been disturbed by a spur of trappean or altered rock, 
containing kernels of epidote, and associated with contorted dark 
hales, probably Lower Carboniferous. Beyond this interruption, the 
goast shows soft reddish sandstones and shales, with some beds of gray 
mdstone and conglomerate, dipping to the S.8.E. at an angle of 50°, 

and on these rests a bed of limestone nearly 100 feet thick; in its 
ower portion laminated, the lamin being occasionally broken up so 

as to give it a fragmentary or brecciated appearance; in its upper 
art compact, and penetrated by small gypsum veins. On this lime- 

stone rests a rock consisting of alternate layers of limestone and 

: above which is a great thickness of pure flesh-coloured 

_ erystalline gypsum, and on this again, white laminated fine-grained 

5 em with minute grains of carbonate of lime. The whole thick- 

of the gypsum is about 200 feet, and it forms a beautiful cliff 
| _onting the sea (Fig. 138). 


Be Fig. 138.— Clif of Crystalline Gypsum near Ogden’s Lake, Sydney County. 


- ™d rs 


Dy This gypsum and limestone cait be traced with scarcely any inter- 
ruption to the village of Antigonish, about five miles distant, where 
the same beds are seen in the banks of Right’s River. Nesir the 
mouth of this river, at the head of Antigonish Haabeih, is a thick a 
of white gypsum, dipping to the south-west. Gueeesiiing this, 

_ descending order, after a small interval (which appears to have sane 
occupied by sandstones, now nearly removed by denudation), is a bed 
of dark-coloured limestone, in which, at different points where it 


op OO Re ees kr ne ee 
* i -~ “h oe a at 


348 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


appears, I found Productus semireticulatus, with other shells, also 
occurring in the East River; and Productus cora, a shell not yet met 
with in the East River limestones, but very characteristic of the 
gypsiferous formation in other parts of the province. Below this 
limestone there is another break, also showing traces of sandstones 
and a bed of gypsum, and then a thick bed of dark limestone, partly 
laminated and partly brecciated, without fossils, and containing in i Ss 4 
fissures thin plates of copper-ore. Beneath this limestone is a great 
thickness of reddish conglomerate, composed of pebbles of igneous 
and metamorphic rocks, and varying in texture from a very coarse . 
conglomerate to a coarse-grained sandstone. In one place it contains _ 
a few beds of dark sandstones and shales. These are succeeded by 
red, gray, and dark sandstone and dark shales, in a disturbed condition, | 
_ but probably underlying the conglomerate. They contain a few fossil 
plants, especially a Lepidodendron which appears to be identical with 
the species already mentioned as found in a similar geological position 
at Horton and Noel. The limestones, with their characteristic fossils, — 
may be seen still farther west on the West River of Antigonish. 
Dr Honeyman has recently discovered the pygidium of a Phillipsia _ 
in these limestones, being the second instance of the occurrence of — 
Trilobites in the Lower Carboniferous of Nova Scotia. He has also, in — 
the Transactions of the Nova Scotia Institute, published an interesting 
paper on the Geology of Antigonish County, in which he more aceu- 
rately than heretofore defines the limits of the formation. I have 
availed myself of this paper in correcting the geological map in this 
edition. a 
On the west side of the Ohio River, about fifteen miles from Anti- — 
gonish, this Carboniferous district terminates against the metamorphic 
hills, which here occupy a wide surface, and send off a long branch to 
Cape Porcupine in the Strait of Canseau. This branch consists in great 
part of slates older than the Carboniferous system, but it also appears 
to contain altered Carboniferous rocks. It bounds this district on the _ 
south. Along its northern side, the Lower Carboniferous limestones _ 
and gypsum appear at the north end of Lochaber Lake, at the South 
River, and at the northern end of the Strait of Canseau. They | 
are probably continuous, or nearly so, between these points. In = 
coast between the place last mentioned and Antigonish, Carboniferous | 
rocks, principally sandstones, appear in several places; and towards | 
Pomket and Tracadie, in the central part of the district, the Coal for- | 
mation, probably its lower portion, is seen; and small seams of coal | 
have been found in it. I have had no opportunity of examining them, _ 
but have no doubt that they form the southern edge of the coal-field 
> 


’ 
_— 
4 


4 


i 


i | 
7 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF ANTIGONISH COUNTY. 349 
\ 

ying St George’s Bay, and the eastern side of which appears at 
ort Hood in Cape Breton. 

The Antigonish area thus appears to be of triangular form, with 
ne Lower Carboniferous beds extending along its western and south- 
astern sides, and the Coal formation occupying a limited space on the 
northern side. It is rich in limestone and gypsum, and has that fertile 
saleareous soil which so generally prevails over the rocks of the 
rypsiferous series. 


’ 
{1C) 


Coal and Salt of Antigonish County. 


- Until recently it was supposed that all the Carboniferous rocks in 
the vicinity of Antigonish Harbour were referable to the Lower Car- 
boniferous; but I learn from a manuscript report of Mr J. Campbell, 
kindly communicated to me by Mr Chisholm of Antigonish, that a 
limited, though productive, coal-field has been discovered in the 
vicinity of South Lake Brook, extending north-easterly from the road 
to Malignant Cove. On the south side of the area the beds dip to 

the northward at angles of 30° to 40°, and are underlaid on the south 
by Lower Carboniferous bituminous limestones and shales. The 
northern side of the area has not been explored, but the Coal measures 
must be limited in this direction by the Lower Carboniferous and 
eneous rocks occupying the coast from Malignant Cove to Cape St 
George. It would appear from Mr Campbell’s report that five beds 
‘of coal have been discovered as follows, in ascending order :— 


i Coal . F ‘ 2 ft. 
1.<~ Shale. 5 : oo 
é Coal ‘ ‘ F Gri. 
Beds, unknown at bolas 

2. Coal ¢ ‘ : D551 IDs 
Beds, unknown Peas 

3. Coal , ; ‘ Diss 0. ils 


Beds—thickness not ascertained. 

4. Coal . 5 , 4 ft. to 6 ft. 
Beds, thickness not ascertained. 

5. Coal Pete z 4 ft. or more. 


The precise quality of the coal has not been ascertained, but specimens 
shown to me much resembled that of the Richmond Mine, or of the 
Lower beds at Pictou. 

_ Brine Springs—Salt springs arise from some parts of the Lower 
_ Carboniferous rocks, which have caused boring operations to be 
undertaken for brine, with good prospects of success In a boring 


Pas 
oS 


hie oe ee * 


the harbour landing-place, to the depth of 154 feet, the rock penetrated _ 
was gypseous marl with thin bands of limestone. After passing 
through about 122 feet of this material, and a bed of limestone 1 foot 
2 inches thick, a bed of gypsum was reached from which a flow of — 
strong brine entered the bore hole. The gypsum has been penetrated: ‘ 
to the depth of eighteen feet, and is probably one of the thick beds 
above referred to. The brine is said to be copious and rich in salt. 


Carboniferous District of Guysborough. 


This district is separated from that last described by a narrow bee =. 
of metamorphic country forming a range of low elevations. Part of these - 
altered rocks may belong to the Lower Carboniferous series itself, but — 
_ the greater part of them are of higher antiquity. On the south side 4 
of this ridge, we find a belt of Ge rocks, extending from = 
the Strait of Canseau along the north side of Chedabucto Bay. 
Westward of the head of this bay, the Carboniferous rocks extend in 
a narrow band, separating the inland metamorphic hills from those of | 
the Atlantic coast, almost as far as the sources of the west branch of 
the St Mary’s River, fifty miles west of Chedabucto Bay. 

North of the town of Guysborough, and’not very far from the meta- _ 
morphic rocks, is a bed of blackish laminated limestone. I could find 
no fossils in it, but it has the character of the lowest Carboniferous — 
limestones as seen elsewhere. It has some of its fissures filled with — 
micaceous specular iron, and is associated with conglomerate and — 
sandstone somewhat altered. This limestone dips N. 60° W. at a 
high angle. Limestone re-appears with a high easterly dip on the 
opposite side of the harbour, and near it are altered shales nearly ina 
vertical position. Southward of the town of Guysborough, limestone — 
again appears in thick beds, and between it and the town are reddish | 
sandstones and conglomerates dipping S. 60° E. Some of these beds 
are evidently made up of the debris of the granite-hills to the south- _ 
ward, proving that these older hills were land undergoing waste in 
the Carboniferous period. 

The whole of the beds near Guysborough Harbour are much disturbed 
and in part altered; and, immediately to the westward of the town, a 
spur of porphyritic and trappean rock extends from the hills to the 
northward, nearly across the Carboniferous valley: the eruption of 
these igneous rocks has probably occurred in the Carboniferous period, 
and effected much of the baking and other alteration which the rocks 
of that period have experienced. 

Beyond this ridge of igneous rock, the long valley extending to 


aaa. te eS 
* 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF GUYSBOROUGH. 351 


he westward is occupied by gray and reddish sandstones and conglo- 
ierate, with gray shales in a few places, the whole forming a narrow 
rough. On the southern margin of this trough, the conglomerate 
contains pebbles of gray quartzite, micaceous flag, and blue slate, 
wecisely similar to the metamorphic rocks immediately to the south- 
ward, and in these conglomerates and the sandstones resting on them, 
[found a few fragments of Calamites and Lepidodendron. Fossils 


in it any coal; nor do the limestones appear, so far as I am aware, 
west of Guysborough. 
____ With the exception of limestone and freestone for building, I am 
not aware that this district affords any useful minerals. Galena, or 
ulphuret of lead, is said to have been found in small quantities near 
_ Guysborough, and small veins of Specular Iron traverse many of the 
altered rocks in that vicinity. The soils of this valley, however, 
especially on the St Mary’s River, are causing it to rise rapidly in 
importance as an agricultural district, and its scenery is in many places 
~ yaried and beautiful. 
Before passing to the coal-fields of Cape Breton, I may shortly 
: “notice two limited patches of Carboniferous rocks occurring on the 
margin of the metamorphic rocks on the south coast of Nova Scotia, 
at Margaret’s Bay and Chester Basin. 
At Margaret’s Bay, red and gray sandstones and a bed of limestone 
_ appear, though much buried under masses of granitic drift. In lime- 
stone from this place, I have found the Terebratula sacculus, a char- 
acteristic Lower Carboniferous shell. At Chester Basin, the Lower 
, ri: rocks appear still more distinctly, and contain thick 
beds of limestone of various qualities. One of the beds is said to be 
Ben hydraulic cement, and another, in weathering, leaves an umber 
of a rich brown colour, which is manufactured and sold under the 
name of Chester mineral paint. The limestone at this place contains 
_ several of the shells already mentioned as characteristic of the Carbon- 
iferous system. A small seam of coal is also stated to occur near 
_ Chester; but I have not seen it. 
_ These isolated patches are interesting, as they are evidently portions 
of the margin of a Carboniferous district either sunk beneath the 
_ Atlantic or removed by the action of its waves. 


eS. SSS 


. 
RESTORATIONS OF BAPHETES. DENDRERPETON, HYLONOMUS, AND HYLERFETONs 
. e 


y 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 


‘x the Carboniferous period, though land plants abound, air-breathing 
animals are few, and most of them have only been sexily recognised. 
Ve know, however, with certainty that the dark and luxuriant forests 
of the coal period were not destitute of animal life. Reptiles crept 
: der their shade, land snails and millipedes fed on the rank leaves 
and decaying vegetable matter, and insects flitted through the air of 
1 the sunnier spots. Great interest attaches to these creatures; perhaps 
the first-born species in some of their respective types, and certainly 
belonging to one of the oldest land faunas, and presenting prototypes 
. of future forms equally interesting to the geologist and the zoologist. 
It has happened to the writer of these pages to have had some share 
in n the discovery of several of these ancient animals. The Coal for- 
mation of Nova Scotia, so full in its development, so rich in fossil 
remains, and so well exposed in coast cliffs, has afforded admirable 
ypportunities for such discoveries, which have been so far improved 
that at least nine out of the not very large number of known Carbon- 
iferous reptiles, have been obtained from it. I propose in this chapter 
0 give a general account of these interesting creatures, referring the 
re der for more full details to my special publication on the subject, 
“The Air-breathers of the Coal Period.” * 
f 
7 Footprints. 
bi lt has often happened to geologists, as to other explorers of new 
egions, that footprints on the sand have guided them to the inhabi- 
nts of unknown lands. The first trace ever observed of reptiles in 
the Carboniferous system, consisted of a series of small but well- 
marked footprints found by Sir W. E. Logan, in 1841, in the Lower 
_ Coal measures of Horton Bluff, in Nova Scotiay and as the authors 
of all our general works on geology have fhere in so far as I am 


si 
wa Ri * Montreal and London, 1863. 


Y 
; 
; 
“3 
4 


 Peoge 


> ee ae 


PTO Se ee RS ee ee 5 Se ae 


1843, when he was on his way to Canada, to commence the survey 


_ the received statement will be, that the first indications of the existence 


a” eee oe 6 ae mon fo Te aang eh eth) Hi 


354 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. ‘ a 


aware, failed to do justice to this discovery, I shall notice it here i in, 
detail. In the year above mentioned, Sir William, then Mr Logan, 
examined the coal-fields of Paes eae and Nova Scotia, with hel 
view of studying their structure, and extending the application of the 
discoveries as to Stigmaria underclays which he had made in the % 
Welsh coal-fields. On his return to England, he read a paper on 
these subjects before the Geological Society of London, in which he 
noticed the discovery of reptilian footprints at Horton Bluff. The 
specimen was exhibited at the meeting of the Society, and was, I 
believe, admitted on the high authority of Prof. Owen, to be probably 
reptilian. Unfortunately, Sir William’s paper appeared only in 
abstract in the Transactions; and in this abstract, though the foot- 
prints are mentioned, no opinion is expressed as to their nature. Sir 
William’s own opinion is thus stated in a letter to me, dated June 


a 


At ti i i al PO i 


A 


which has since developed so astonishing a mass of geological facts :— 

“Among the specimens which I carried from Horton Bluff, one is 
of very high interest. It exhibits the footprints of some reptilian 
animal. Owen has no doubt of the marks being genuine footprints. — . 
The rocks of Horton Bluff are below the gypsum of that neighbour-— 
hood; so that the specimen in question (if Lyell’ s views are correct*) 
comes from the very bottom of the coal series, or at any rate very 
low down in it, and demonstrates the existence of reptiles at an earlier — | 
epoch than has hitherto been determined; none having been previously — 
found below the magnesian limestone, or, to give it Murchison’s new — 
name, the ‘ Permian era.’ ” 

This extract is of interest, not merely as an item of evidence in 
relation to the matter now in hand, but as a mark in the progress of — 
geological investigation. For the reasons above stated, the important 7 
discovery thus made in 1841, and published in 1842, was overlooked; _ 
and the discovery of reptilian bones by Von Dechen, at Saarbruck, 
in 1844, and that of footprints by Dr King in the same ‘year, in _ 
Pennyslvania, have been uniformly referred to as the first observation 
of this kind. This error I now desire to correct, not merely in the 
interest of truth, but also in that of my friend Sir William Logan, an 
of my native province of Nova Scotia; and I trust that hencefo 


o 


ene eer noe ona 


of reptiles in the coal Ses were obtained by Logan, in the Lower _ 
Coal formation of Nova Scotia, in 1841. Insects and arachnidans, it | 


* Sir Charles Lyell had then just read a paper announcing his discovery that the | 
gypsiferous system of Nova Scotia is Lower Carboniferous, in which he mentions the Hl 
footprints referred to as being reptilian. j f 

\ 
7 


o 
u 


T 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 355 


be observed, had previously been discovered in the Coal forma- 

tion in Europe. 

The original specimen of these footprints is still in the collection of 
- Sir William Logan. It is a slab of dark-coloured sandstone, glazed 
with fine clay on the surface; and having a series of seven footprints 

~ in two rows, distant about three inches; the distance of the impressions 
‘in each row being three or four inches, and the individual impressions 
"about one inch in length. They seem to have been made by the points 
of the toes, which must have been armed with strong and apparently 
blunt claws, and appear as if either the surface had been somewhat 
b firm, or as if the body of the animal had been partly water-borne. In 
‘one place only is there a distinct mark of the whole foot, as if the 
~ animal had exerted an unusual pressure in turning or stopping sud- 
 denly. One pair of feet, the fore feet I presume, appear to have had 
four claws; the other pair may have had three or four, and it is to be 
observed that the outer toe, as in the larger footprints discovered by 
Dr King, projects in the manner of a thumb, as in the cheirotherian 
tracks of the Trias. No mark of the tail or belly appears. The 
impressions are such as may have been made by some of the reptiles 
to be described in the sequel, as, for instance, by Dendrerpeton 
Acadianum. 

Attention having been directed to such marks by these observations 
of Sir William Logan, several other discoveries of the same kind 
were subsequently made in various parts of the province, and in 
different members of the Carboniferous system. The first of these, 
in order of time, was made in 1844, in beds of red sandstone and 
shale near Tatamagouche, in the eastern part of Nova Scotia, and 
belonging to the Upper or newer members of the Coal measures. In 
examining these beds with the view of determining their precise 
geological age, I found on the surface of some of them impressions 
of worm-burrows, rain-drops, and sun-cracks, and with these, two 
kinds of footprints, probably of reptilian animals. One kind consisted 
of marks, or rather scratches, as of three toes, and resembling some- 
what the scratches made by the claws of a tortoise in creeping up a 
bank of stiff clay; they were probably of the same nature and origin 
With those found by Logan at Horton. The others were of very 
different appearance. They consisted of two series of strongly marked 
elongated impressions, without distinct marks of toes, in series four 
inches distant from each other, and with an intervening tail mark. 
They seem to have been produced by an animal wading in soft mud, 
so that deep holes, rather than regular impressions, marked its foot- 
steps, and that in the hind foot the heel touched the surface, giving 


+i 
% 


a | 


a a ee ee 


ne ee ee oe ee M ra we ae M 


356 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


a plantigrade appearance to the tracks. Rain-marks had been im- 
pressed on the surface after the animal had passed over it, and th 
had probably aided in obliterating the finer parts of the impressions 
These observations were published in the Journal of the Coke 
Society of London, vols. 1 and 2. iL 
Shortly ateeeet Dr Harding of Windsor, when examining a carg 
of sandstone which had been landed at that place from Parrsboro 
found on one of the slabs a very distinct series of footprints, each with 
four toes, and a trace of the fifth (Fig. 139). Dr Harding’s specimen 


Fig. 139.—Footprints of Dendr erpeton (2) From Parrsboro’ ,—slab with footprints reduced, 
and two impressions, natural size. 


is now in the museum of King’s College, Windsor. Its impressions 
are more distinct, but not very different otherwise, from those abov q 
described as found at Horton Bluff. The rocks at that place ar 3 
probably of nearly the same age with those of Parrsboro’. I a 
wards examined the place from which this slab had been quarried 
and satisfied myself that the beds are Carboniferous, and probably 
Lower Carboniferous. They were ripple-marked wat sun-crackec 
and I thought I could detect trifid footprints, though more -obseure 
than those in Dr Harding’s slab. Similar footprints are also stated 
to have been found by Dr Gesner, at Parrsboro’. In these Parrsboro’ 
beds Mr Jones, F.L.S., has Pee found a series of larger footprints | 


} 
j 


pi 


ae ee 
tbs - 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 357 


onnexion with the discovery of similar footprints in Cape Breton. 

TI have since observed several instances of such impressions at the 
oggins, at Horton, and near Windsor, showing that they are by no 
neans rare, and that reptilian animals existed in no inconsiderable 
numbers throughout the coal-field of Nova Scotia, and from the 
yeginning to the end of the Carboniferous period. Two examples are 
ured’ in my “ Air-breathers,” with those already described. On 
~ comparing these with one another, it appears that Logan’s, Harding’s, 
and one of mine are of ilar, general character, and may have 


and hind feet nearly of equal size. The other belongs to a smaller 
‘animal, which probably travelled on longer limbs, more in the manner 
of an Painary quadruped. Its toes cannot be distinguished. On the 
“whole, these footprints, while differing from those found by Dr King 
in Pennsylvania, do not prove the existence of any kind of animal 
‘distinct from those to be described in the sequel, and known to us by 
the preservation of portions of their skeletons. 

The study of these footprints shows that the animals which pro- 
duced them may, in certain circumstances, have left impressions of 
only two or three of their toes, while in other circumstances all may 
have left marks; and that, when wading in deep mud, their footprints 
were altogether different fia those made on hard a or clay. In 
some instances the impressions may have been made by animals 
wading or swimming in water, while in others the rain-marks and 
sun-cracks afford evidence that the surface was a sub-aérial one. 
They are chiefly interesting as indicating the wide diffusion and 
abundance of the creatures producing them, and that they haunted 
tidal flats and muddy shores, perhaps emerging from the water that 
‘they might bask in the sun, or possibly searching for food among the 
rejectamenta of the sea, or of lagoons and estuaries. 

_ Mr Brown of Sydney has added to our knowledge of Carboniferous 

footprints by the discovery of a fine slab, now in the museum of 
M‘Gill University, which indicates the existence of an animal of con- 
siderable size, the breadth of thefoot being three inches (Fig. 140). 
The specimen was thus described by the writer in the “Canadian 
Naturalist :’”— 

“The slab exhibits with some distinctness three footprints of the 
right side, and less distinct traces of the left feet. The feet are short 
and broad, the fore foot as large as the hind foot, the toes short, broad, 
and deeply impressed in the sand. Four toes are distinctly marked 
in both fore and hind feet, and there are indications of a fifth in one 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


of the footprints. The stride is considerably greater than the brea 

of the body. The toes are somewhat turned inward. The figure is 
reduced to one-sixth, so that the animal must have been rather larger 
than Dendrerpeton Acadianum, with shorter toes and broader body.” 


Fig. 140.—Footprints of Sarees Sydnensis (reduced). 


Ly 


i 


These footprints are quite different in form from those previously 
found by Sir W. E. Logan, Dr Harding, and the writer. They more 
nearly resemble those figured by Dr King and Mr Lea from he 
Carboniferous of Pennsylvania; and may have been produced he 
animal generically related to that which has left the traces named 
Sauropus primevus by the latter author.- For this reason, until w 
shall obtain some knowledge of the animal from more definite remains, 
I propose for it the name of Sawropus Sydnensis. The specimen wai 
found by Mr Brown in the Coal formation at North Sydney. 

These footprints add a ninth species to the reptilian fauna of the 
Coal formation of Nova Scotia, and are the first traces of this ki 
discovered in the Cape Breton Coal-field. 

The footprint already mentioned as having been found by 
Jones of Halifax at Parrsboro’, is almost precisely of the same size | 
and form with the preceding, and may possibly have belonged to the 
same species. It has five distinctly marked toes. 


— 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 359 
Baphetes planiceps, Owen. 


ines; and on arriving at the railway station in the afternoon, found 

yyself somewhat too early for the train. By way of improving the 

ne thus left on my hands, I betook myself to the examination of a 

urge pile of rubbish, consisting of shale and ironstone from one of the 

its, and in which I had previously found scales and, teeth of fishes. 

n the blocks of hard Carbonaceous shale and earthy coal, of which the 

pile chiefly consisted, scales, teeth, and coprolites often appeared on 

the weathered ends and surfaces as whitish spots. In looking for these, 

[ observed one of much greater size than usual, on the edge of a block, 

and on splitting it open, found a large flattened skull, the cranial bones 

which remained entire on one side of the mass, while the palate and 
eth, in a more or less fragmentary state, came away with the other 

half. Carefully trimming the larger specimen, and gathering all the 
smaller fragments, I packed them up as safely as possible, and returned 

{| from my little excursion much richer than I had hoped. 

_ The specimen, on further examination, proved somewhat puzzling. 
; supposed it to be, most probably, the head of a large ganoid fish; 
but it seemed different from anything of this kind with which I could 
compare it; and at a distance from comparative anatomists, and 

without suffcient means of determination, I dared not refer it to any- 

ing higher in the animal scale. Hoping for further light, I packed 

up with some other specimens, and sent it to the Secretary of 
‘the Geological Society of London, with an explanatory note as to 
‘its geological position, and requesting that it might be submitted to 
; oe competent osteologist for examination. Fora year or two, how- 
r, it remained as quietly in the Society’s collection as if in its 
original bed in the coal-mine, until attention having been attracted to 
such remains by the discoveries made by Sir Charles Lyell and myself 
in 1852, at the South Joggins, and published in 1853,* the Secretary 
or President of the Society rediscovered the specimen, and handed it 
to Professor Owen, by whom it was described in December 1853,-+ under 
the name of Baphetes planiceps, which may be interpreted the “ flat- 
headed-diving animal,” in allusion to the flatness of the creature’s 
skull, and the possibility that it may have been in the habit of diving. 
_ The parts preserved in my specimen are the bones of the anterior 
and upper part of the skull in one fragment, and the teeth and palatal 
mead in others (see Fig. 137, ante; also Fig. 141). The teeth are 


* Journal of Geological Society of London, vol. ix. 
+ Journal of Geological Society, vol. x.; and additional notes, vol. xi. 


\ 


360 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


conical and somewhat curved, the outer series from a line to two lines in 
diameter, and the inner series three lines or more. They are implanted 
in shallow sockets in the maxillary and premaxillary bones, and are 
anchylosed to the sockets. 


(a) Fragment of maxillary bone showing sculpture, four outer teeth, and one inner tooth; nat. size, 
(2) Section of inner tooth; magnified. (c) Dermal scale; nat. size. 


trie layers. The whole of these characters are regarded as allying the 
animal with the great crocodilian frogs of the Trias of Europe, first” 
known as Chetrotherians, owing to the remarkable hand-like im-— 
pressions of their feet, and afterwards as Labyrinthodonts, from 
beautifully complicated convolutions of the ivory of their teeth. : 

The only additional remains attributable to this creature, found since | 
the publication of Professor Owen’s description, are a bone and a seute 
or scale. The former may be a scapular or sternal bone, and if so, | 
would warrant the belief that the creature possessed anterior limbs of | 
considerable size; the proportion relatively to the skull being much _ 
the same as in the American bullfrog. The latter is marked in the | 
same way as the bones of the head, and would indicate that Baphetes | 
was protected by bony dermal scales, resembling those of the crocodile. _ 

Of the general form and dimensions of Baphetes, the facts at present 
known do not enable us to say much. Its formidable teeth and 


a 
~ 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 361 


trong maxillary bones show that it must have devoured animals of 
onsiderable size, probably the fishes whose remains are found with 
it, or the smaller reptiles of the coal. It must, in short, have been 
procodilian, rather than frog-like, in its mode of life; but whether, 
like the labyrinthodonts, it had strong limbs and a short body, or like 
he crocodiles, an elongated form and a powerful natatory tail, the 
emains do not decide. One of the limbs, or a vertebra of the tail, 
yould settle this question, but neither has as yet been found. That 
there were large animals of the labyrinthodontal form in the Coal 
period, is proved by the footprints of Sawropus, already noticed, which 
may have been produced by an animal of the type of Baphetes. On 
the other hand, that there were large swimming reptiles seems estab- 
lished by the recent discovery of the vertebrae of Eosaurus Acadianus, 
at the Joggins, by Mr Marsh.* The locomotion of Baphetes must 
_have been vigorous and rapid, but it may have been effected both on 
land and in water, and either by feet or tail, or both. 
_ With the nature of its habitat we are better acquainted. The area 
of the Albion Mines Coal-field was somewhat exceptional in its char- 
acter. It seems to have been a bay or indentation in the Silurian 
land, separated from the remainder of the coal-field by a high shingle 
beach, now a bed of conglomerate. Owing to this circumstance, while 
in the other portions of the Nova Scotia Coal-field the beds of coal 
are thin, and alternate with sandstones and shales, at the Albion 
Mines a vast thickness of almost unmixed vegetable matter has been 
deposited, constituting the “main seam” of thirty-eight feet thick, 
and the “deep seam” twenty-four feet thick, as well as still thicker 
beds of highly carbonaceous shale. But, though the area of the Albion 
Goal measures was thus separated, and preserved from marine incur- 
sions, it must have been often submerged, and probably had connexion 
with the sea, through rivers or channels cutting the enclosing beach. 
Hence beds of earthy matter occur in it, containing remains of large 
fishes. One of the most important of these is that known as the 
“Holing stone,”—a band of black highly carbonaceous shale, coaly 
matter, and clay ironstone, occurring in the main seam, about five feet 
below its roof, and varying in thickness from two inches to nearly 
two feet. It was from this band that the rubbish-heap in which I 
found the skull of Baphetes planiceps was derived. It is a laminated 
bed, sometimes hard and containing much ironstone, in other places 
Soft and shaly ; but always black and carbonaceous, and often with 
layers of coarse coal, though with few fossil plants retaining their 
forms. It contains large round flat scales and flattened curved teeth, 
* Silliman’s Journal, 1859, 
. 2A 


362 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


which I attribute to a fish of the genus Rhizodus, resembling, if nu a 
identical with, R. lancifer, Newberry. With these are double-pointe 
shark-like teeth, and long cylindrical spines of a species of Diplodus (S 7 
(D. acinaces).* There are also shells of the minute Spirorbis, so 
common in the Coal measures of other parts of Nova Scotia, and 
abundance of fragments of coprolitic matter. : 

It is evident that the “ Holing stone”’ indicates one of those periods” 
in which the Albion Coal area, or a large part of it, was under water, 
probably fresh or brackish, as there are no properly marine shells in 
this or any of the other beds of this Coal series. We may then 
imagine a large lake or lagune, loaded with trunks of trees and 
decaying vegetable matter, having in its shallow parts, and along its” 
sides, dense brakes of Calamites, and forests of Sigillaria, Lepido- 
- dendron, and other trees of the period, extending far on every side 
as damp pestilential swamps. In such a habitat, uninviting to 
but no doubt suited to Baphetes, that creature crawled through swamps _ e 
and thickets, wallowed in flats of black mud, or swam and dived i 
search of its finny prey. 


. 


Dendrerpeton Acadianum, Owen. 


The geology of Nova Scotia is largely indebted to Sir Charles 
Lyell. Though much had previously been done by others, his personal 
explorations in 1842, and his paper on the gypsiferous formation, 
published in the He year, first gave form and shape to some of 
the more difficult features of the geology of the country, and brought 
it into relation with that of other parts of the world. In geological 
investigation, as in many other things, patient plodding may accu- — 
mulate large stores of fact, but the magic wand of genius is required 
to bring out the true value and significance of these stores of know- 
ledge. It is scarcely too much to say that the explorations of a few 
weeks, and subsequent study of the subject by Sir Charles, with the 1 
ae and guidance given to the labours of others, did as much fon. 
Nova Scotia as might have been effected by years of laborious work : 
under less competent heads. 

Sir Charles naturally continued to take an interest in the geology 
of Nova Scotia, and to entertain a desire to explore more fully som a 
of those magnificent coast sections which he had but hastily examined; 
and when, in 1851, he had occasion to revisit the United States, h he 
made an afoieees with the writer of these pages to spend a few 
days in renewed explorations of the cliffs of the South Joggins. Th 
object specially in view was the thorough examination of the beds 

* See pp. 202, 203, ante. 


j 
q 
a 
4 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 363 


the true Coal measures, with reference to their contained fossils, and 
the conditions of accumulation of the coal; and the results were given 
to the world in a joint paper on “The Remains of a Reptile and a Land- 
shell discovered in the Interior of an erect Tree in the Coal Measures 


the South Joggins ;”* while other important investigations grew out of 
the following up of these researches, and much matter in relation to the 
vegetable fossils has only recently been worked out. It is with the 


_ These interesting remains were found in the interior of one of those 
fossil erect Sigillarie described in a previous chapter, and which, 


beach. While examining these “fossil grindstones,” we were sur- 
prised by finding on one of them what seemed to be fragments of 
bone. On careful search, other bones appeared, and they had the 
aspect, not of remains of fishes, of which many species are found fossil 
‘in these Coal measures, but rather of limb-bones of a quadruped. 
_ The fallen pieces of the tree were carefully taken up, and other bones 
‘disengaged, and at length a jaw with teeth made its appearance. 
We felt quite confident, from the first, that these bones were reptilian ; 
‘and the whole being carefully packed and labelled, were taken by 
Sir Charles to the United States, and submitted to Professor J. Wyman 
of Cambridge, who recognised their reptilian character, and prepared 
descriptive notes of the principal bones, which appeared to have 
belonged to two species. He also observed among the fragments an 
object of different character, apparently a shell, which was recognised 
_ by Dr Gould of Boston, and subsequently by Mr Deshayes, as probably 
‘a land-snail, and has since been named Pupa vetusta. 

__ The specimens were subsequently taken to London and re-examined 
by Professor Owen, who confirmed Wyman’s inferences, added other 
characters to the description, and named the larger and better preserved 
species Dendrerpeton Acadianum, in allusion to its discovery in the 
interior of a tree, and to its native country of Acadia or Nova Scotia 
(Fig. 142). . 

In form, Dendrerpeton Acadianum was probably lizard-like ; with 
a broad flat head, short stout limbs, and an elongated tail; and having 
its skin, and more particularly that of the belly, protected by small 
bony plates closely overlapping each other. It may have attained 
the length of two feet. The form of the head is not unlike that of 


* Journal of the Geological Society of London, vols. ix. and x. 


.' =. 


Re a oe pent aie aS ar ee ae oma eet ee 


‘ 
ew ee) 


364 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Baphetes, but longer in proportion; and much resembles that of rhe 
labyrinthodont reptiles of the Trias. The bones of the skull 
sculptured as in Baphetes, but in a smaller pattern. The nostrils ar 
small, and near the muzzle; the orbits are circular, and separated by 
Fig. 142.—Dendrerpeton Acadiunum, Owen. LE 


ae a tg 


' - m7 a ba ec, : “ i 4, " 
_ in - i 
entire nn ee a 


(a) Skull; natural size. (f) Ribs; natural size. . 
(b) Teeth, inner and outer series; magnified. (g) Cranial bone, showing seulpture. 
(c) Section of one of the outer series; magnified, (k) Humerus and ulna; natural size. 


(2) Distal end of femur and portion of 


(d) Bony scale; enlarged. 
tibia and fibula; natural size, - 


(e) Vertebra; natural size. 


a space of more than their own diameter. In the upper jaw-there 1s 
a series of conical teeth on the maxillary and intermaxillary bon 
Those on the intermaxillaries are much larger than the others, 
have the aspect of tusks or canines. Within this outer series of te 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 365 


t implanted apparently in the same bones, there is a second series 
f teeth, closely placed, or with intervals equal to the diameter of 
one tooth. These inner teeth are longer than the others, implanted 
in shallow sockets, to which they are anchylosed, and have the dentine 
plicated, except toward the point. A third group of teeth, blunt at 
the points, largely hollow in the interior, and with the dentine quite 
imple, appears in detached bones, which may represent the vomer. 
Only a part of this formidable armature of teeth appears in the skull 
represented in Fig. 142, as the bones of the roof of the mouth have 
been removed, adhering to the opposite side of the matrix. It will 
be observed that all these teeth are anchylosed to the bone; and that 
‘those of the vomer are thinly walled and simple, the outer series on 
the maxillaries and intermaxillaries simple and flattened, while the 
‘inner series of teeth are conical and plicated. In the lower jaw there 
was a uniform series of conical teeth, not perceptibly enlarged toward 
the front, and an inner series of larger and plicated teeth, as in the 
upper jaw. 
_ The scapular and sternal bones seem to have been well developed 
and strong, but only portions of them are known. The fore limb of 
the adult animal including the toes, must have been four or five inches 
in length, and is of massive proportions. The bones were hollow, 
and in the case of the phalanges the bony walls were thin, so that 
they are often found crushed flat. The humerus, however, was a 
strong bone, with thick walls and a cancellated structure toward its 
extremities; still, even these have sometimes yielded to the great 
_ pressure to which they have been subjected. Fig. 142 shows the 
— of the original specimen of the species. The cavity of the 
terior of the limb-bones is usually filled with cale-spar stained with 
ganic matter, but showing no structure; and the inner side of the 
bony wall is smooth, without any indication of cartilaginous matter 
— Jining it. 
_ The vertebra, in the external aspect of their bodies, remind one of 
ose of fishes, expanding toward the extremities, and being deeply 
hollowed by conical cavities, which appear even to meet in the centre. 
‘There is, however, a large and flattened neural spine. The vertebrae 
_ are usually much crushed, and it is almost impossible to disengage 
‘them from the stone. Fig. 142 exhibits the usual form, and there 
are others with long spines above and below, reminding us of those 
of the batrachians and reptiles which have tails flattened for swimming, 
and probably indicating that this was the case with Derdivierttdton: 
~ ribs are long and curved, with an expanded head, near to which 
they are solid, but become hollow toward the middle; and the distal 


366 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


extremities are flattened and thin walled. The posterior limb seems 
to have been not larger than the anterior, perhaps smaller. The bones 
represented in Fig. 142, which I refer to this member, probably 
belonged to a somewhat smaller individual than that to which 7 
humerus above mentioned belonged. The tibia is much flattened a 
the extremity, as in some labyrinthodonts, and the foot must havi : 
been broad, and probably suited for swimming or walking on soft — 
mud, or both. That the hind limb was adapted for walking is shown, 
not merely by the form of the bones, but also by that of the pelvis. — 
The external scales are thin, oblique-rhomboidal or elongated oval, 
marked with slight concentric lines, but otherwise smooth, and having 
a thickened ridge or margin; in which they resemble those of Arche- 
gosaurus, and also those of Pholidogaster pisciformis, recently described 
- by Huxley from the Edinburgh Coal-field,—an animal which indeed 
appears in most respects to have a close affinity with Dendrerpeton. 
The microscopic structure of the scales is quite similar to that of the — 
other bones, and different from that of the scales of ganoid fishes. 
In one of the specimens the scales of the throat remain in their natural — 
position, and are seen to be of a narrow ovate form, and arranged in 
imbricated rows diverging from the mesial line. g 
This ancient inhabitant of the coal swamps of Nova Scotia was, int 
short, as we often find to be the case with the earliest forms of lifage 
the possessor of powers and structures not usually, in the modern — 
world, combined in a single species. It was certainly not a fish, yet 
its bony scales, and the form of its vertebra and of its teeth might, 
in the absence of other evidence, cause it to be mistaken for one. We 4 
call it a batrachian, yet its denen. the sculpturing of the bones of 4 
its skull, which were certainly no more external plates than the similar 
bones # a crocodile, its ribs, and the structure of its limbs, remind 1 ; 
of the higher aul and we do not know that it ever possessed gills, 
or passed through a larval or fish-like condition. Still, ina great 
many important characters its structures are andouuialal batrachian. 
It stands, in short, in the same position with the Lepidodendra and 
Sigillarie under whose shade it crept, which, though placed by palazo- 
botanists in alliance with certain modern groups of plants, manifes y ; 
_ differed from these in many of their characters, and occupied a different 
position in nature. In the Coal period, the idistenctianam of physical — 
and vital conditions were not well defined—dry land and water, terres- A 
trial and aquatic plants and animals, and lower and higher forms | 
animal and vegetable life, are ew not easily separated fror 
each other. This is no doubt a state of things characteristic of the 
earlier stages of the earth’s history, yet not mendes so; for there 


ere ae en ee tans 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 367 


: Some reasons, derived from fossil plants, for believing that in the 
receding Devonian period there was less of this, and consequently 
zat there may then have been a higher and more varied animal life 
an in the Coal period.* Even in the modern world also, we still find 
cases of this early union of dissimilar conditions. It is in the 
vamps of Africa, at one time dry, at another inundated, that such 
ntermediate forms as Lepidosiren occur, to baftle the classificatory 
owers of naturalists; and it is in the stagnant unaérated waters, half 
vamp, half lake or river, and unfit for ordinary fishes, that the semi- 
reptilian Ama and Lepidosteus still keep up the characters of their 
valwozoic predecessors. 

_ The dentition of Dendrerpeton shows it to have been carnivorous in 
ahigh degree. It may have captured fishes and smaller reptiles, either 
on land or in water, and very probably fed on dead careases as well. 
as seems likely, the footprints referred to in a previous section be- 
long to Dendrerpeton, it must have frequented the shores, either in 
h of garbage, or on its way to and from the waters. The occur- 
rence of its remains in the stumps of Sigillaria, with land-snails and 
_ millipedes, shows also that it crept in the shade of the woods in search 
of food; and under the head of coprolitic matter, in a subsequent section, 
_ Ishall show that remains of excrementitious substances, probably of 
this species, contain fragments attributable to smaller reptiles, and 
other animals of the land. 

- Several of the bones of the limbs remain in sufficiently good preser- 
ration to allow of measurement of their size. I am thus enabled to 
give the following dimensions of parts of the animal :— 


Total length of skull - ie sae Cn anche” 
-_,,_ breadth of skull at the orbits . . 2 te 
Length of humerus : - : : 1°33 inch 

7 ulna : : ‘ : : 1 nf 

ne femur. : ‘ ; ’ 1 - 

9 rib . ; - ; : ; OTa" = 

“4 eleven vertebre in series . : 2:25 ,, 


> 
Ce 


, 
& 
v 


It would seem from these dimensions that the head was broad and 
the trunk slender; the anterior limb, including the foot, half as long 
_ again as the head, and the posterior limb rather smaller or shorter than 
_ the anterior. It would thus appear that while the general form of the 
a a was not unlike that of Menobranchus, re limbs were much 
ls arger, and must have carried the trunk without allowing any part of 


... ad ecb author’s paper on Devonian Plants, Journal of the Geological Society, 
ol. Xviii., p. 328. 


~ ereature were probably performed by the tail. It is interesting to 


368 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


it to touch the ground, as would also seem to have been the case from 
the footprints found in the Coal formation beds, and the size and form _ 
of the toes of which make it likely that they palo to this animal. 

From the relative dimensions of the bones, as compared with those 
of other specimens in my possession, I presume that this individual — 
was three-fourths grown, and I doubt if its total length much ex- — 
ceeded one foot. 4 

The limb-bones, though thin-walled and often crushed, evident 4 
had broad articulating surfaces; and in the case of the foie! limbs par- 
ticularly, were large and sine in proportion to the dimensions of the 
head and vertebral column. i. 

The large size of the fore limb I suppose to have been related to a 
habit of walking or standing in shallow water, with the snout in the — 
air, in the manner of newts, and the more rapid movements of the © 
observe that in Hylonomus the proportions of the limbs were reversed 
—the hind limbs being much larger than the fore limbs. 7 


Dendrerpeton Owent, Dawson. 


Among the reptilian remains found in erect trees at the South Jog- 
gins, there have occurred several portions of skeletons, which, from — 
their sculptured cranial bones, plicated teeth, and the forms af their — 
scales and limb-bones, I have referred to the genus Dendrerpeton, but — 
to individuals of much smaller size than the full-grown specimens of 
D. Acadianum (Fig. 143). [ 

On carefully examining these specimens, the result has been to 
establish a strong probability that there is a second species of Dendrer- — 
peton, smaller than D. Acadianum, and differimg from it in several — 
points. This species I propose to name D. Oweni. It differs from 
D. Acadianum in the following particulars :—(1.) Its much smaller — 
size; (2.) Its long and hooked teeth (it will be seen that these teeth 
differ very markedly in their proportions and form from those of the | 
larger species represented in Fig. 142); (3.) The greater plication of the _ 
ivory in the intermaxillary teeth (in D. Acadianum these teeth are, 
on the outside, simple almost to the base, and plicated on the inner 
side, while in this species they are plicated all around like the inner 
maxillary teeth); (4.) The form of the skull, which has the orbit 
larger in proportion, and is also shorter and broader. On the other | 
liad, when we have described the species of Hylonomus, it will be 
seen that this animal, except in size, differs from them quite as widely 
as does D. Acadianum. ‘ 

The distinctness of D. Owent is further confirmed by the fact that 


369 


pecies ; these I suppose to have belonged to young individuals. 
- The forms of the jaw-bones and of the vertebre, ribs, scapular bone, 


sature was not far removed from its larger relative. The bones of 


Fig. 143.—Dendrerpeton Oweni, Dawson. 


_ )a) Maxillary bone and mandible; natural size. _(f) Portion of cuticle showing horny scales; 


\) Portion of skull; natural size. enlarged. 

(©) One of the large anterior teeth; magnified. (g) Cuticle of posterior part of body; natural 
(a) Exterior teeth ; magnified, size, showing supposed position of 
(©) Foot; enlarged. hind leg at d. 


‘the foot, represented in Fig. 143, especially deserve attention. This 
‘is the most perfect foot of Dendrerpeton hitherto found; and T have 
enlarged it in the figure in order more distinctly to show its parts. 
It presents three long toes, with traces of a smaller one at each side, 
80 that there were probably five in all. If these toes be compared 
with the footprints on the slab discovered by Dr Harding, represented 
in Fig. 139, it will be seen that they very closely correspond, though 


370 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


the toes of the present species are much smaller. The footprints are 
precisely those which we may suppose an animal of the size of 
Dendrerpeton Acadianum would have made, if, as the bones fo - 
render in every way probable, this larger species had a foot similar oF 
that of D. Oweni. I suppose, for this reason, that these footprints are 
really those of Dendrerpeton Acadianum; and that this welll : 
continued to exist from the time of the Lower Coal measures to the 
period when those higher beds of the series in which its bones are 
found at the J oggins were deposited. a 

The present species must have lived in the same places with its 
larger relative; but may have differed somewhat in its habits. Its 
longer and hiniee teeth may have been better suited for devouring 
worms, larvee, or soft-skinned fishes, while those of the larger Den- 
drerpeton were better adapted to deal with the mailed ganoids of the 
' period, or with those smaller reptiles which were more or less protected 

with bony or horny scales. : 

In one of my earliest explorations of the reptile-bearing stumps of _ 
the Joggins, I observed on some of the surfaces patches of a shining 
black substance, which on minute examination proved to be the | 
remains of cuticle, with horny scales and other appendages. The — 
fragments were preserved; but I found it impossible to determine 
with certainty to which of the species whose bones oceur with them 
they belonged, or even to ascertain the precise relations of the several ' 
fragments to each other. I therefore merely mentioned them . q 
patil terms, and stated my belief that they may have belonged to 
the species of Hylonomus. More recently other specimens have been — 
obtained, which enable me to refer these specimens in part to the — 
present species and in part to the next species, Hylonomus Lyelli. 
The specimen represented in Fig. 143, I believe, for reasons stated in 
my memoir already referred to, to be the skin of a portion of the | 
hinder part of an individual of the present species. 


Hylonomus Lyelli, Dawson. 


In the original reptiliferous tree discovered by Sir C. Lyell and dua 
writer at the Joggins in 1851, there were, beside the bones of Del. 
drerpeton Acadianum, some onal elongated vertebra, evidently of a 
' different species. These were first detected by Prof. Wyman in h 
examination of these specimens, and were figured, but not named, in 
the notice of the specimens in the Journal of the Geological Society, _ 
vol. ix. In a subsequent visit to the Joggins, I obtained from 
cape erect stump many additional remains of these smaller reptiles, 
and, on careful comparison of the specimens, was induced to refer | 


» | 
= | 


a 


LAND’ ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 371 


em to three species, all apparently generically allied. I proposed 
-them the generic name Hylonomus, “ forest-dweller.” They were 
eseribed in the Proceedings of the Geological Society for 1859, with 
illustrations of the teeth and other characteristic parts.* The smaller 
necies first described I named H. Wymani; the next in size, that to 


yumber of specimens, I adopted as the type of the genus, and dedicated 
9 Sir Charles Lyell. The third and largest, represented only by a 
few fragments of a single skeleton, was named H. aciedentatus. 

Hylonomus Lyelli was an peice of small size. Its skull is about 
an inch in length, and its whole body, even if, as was likely, furnished 
with a tail, could not have been more than six or seven inches long. 
No complete example of its skull has been found. The bones appear 


~ to have been thin and easily separable; and even when they remain 
- together, are so much crushed as to render the shape of the skull not 


easily discernible. They are smooth on the outer surface to the naked 


eye, and under a lens show only delicate uneven strize and minute 


dots. They are more dense and hard than those of Dendrerpeton, and 
the bone-cells are more elongated in form. The bones of the snout 
would seem to have been somewhat elongated and narrow. <A 


| "specimen in my possession shows the parietal and occipital bones, or 
_ the greater part of them, united, and retaining their form. We en 


from them that the brain-case was rounded, and that there was a 


¥ parietal foramen. There would seem also to have been two occipital 
“condyles. Several well-preserved specimfens of the maxillary and 


mandibular bones have been obtained. They are smooth, or nearly 
go, like those of the skull, and are furnished with numerous sharp 
 eonical teeth, anchylosed to the jaw, in a partial groove formed by the 
outer ridge of the bone. In the anterior part of the lower jaw there 


_ is a group of teeth larger than the others. The intermaxillary bone 


has not been observed. The total number of teeth in each ramus of 
the lower jaw was about forty, and the number in each maxillary bone 
about thirty. The teeth are perfectly simple, hollow within, and with 


 yery fine radiating tubes of ivory. The vertebre have the bodies 


eylindrical or hour-glass shaped, covered with a thin, hard, bony plate, 
and having within a cavity of the form of two cones, attached by the 
apices. The ribs are long, curved, and at the proximal end have a 
shoulder and neck. They are hollow, with thin hard bony walls. 
The anterior limb, judging from the fragments procured, seems to 
have been slender, with long toes, four or possibly five in number. 
The posterior limb was longer and stronger, and attached to a pelvis 


* Journal of Geological Society, vol. xvi. 


372 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


so large and broad as to give the impression that the creature enlarged 
considerably in size toward the posterior extremity of the body, and 
that it may have been in the habit of sitting erect. The thigh bone 
is well formed, with a distinct head and trochanter, and the lower — 
extremity flattened and moulded into two articulating surfaces for the — 
tibia and fibula, the fragments of which show that they were much 

shorter. The toes of the hind feet have been seen only in detached — 
joints. ay seem to have been thicker than those of the fore foo a 


and this seems to have led ts the error of supposing that this flattened 
form was their normal condition; there can be no doubt, however, — 
that it is merely an effect of aca The limb bones present in 
cross section a wall of dense bone with elongated bone-cells, sur 
rounding a cavity now filled with brown cale-spar, and originally — 
occupied with cartilage or marrow. Nothing is more remarkable in © 
the skeleton of this creature than the contrast between the perfect an 
beautiful forms of its bones, and their imperfectly ossified condition, — 
a circumstance which raises the question whether these specimens may 
not represent the young of some reptile of larger size. a 

The dermal covering of this animal is represented in part by oval — 
bony scales, which are so constantly associated with its bones a 
can have no doubt that they belonged to it, being, perhaps, the clothing 
of its lower or abdominal parts ; while above, it was probably clad i 
the beautiful scaly covering represented in Fig. 144,* and which shows _ 
that the creature, while probably clad with bony scales below, — 
on its back an array of scaly and spiny ornaments comparable with — 
those of any modern reptile. The bony scales differ in form from 
those of Dendrerpeton; they are also much thicker. On the inn¢ 
side they are concave, with a curved ledge or thickened border at oe 
edge. On the outer side they present concentric lines of growth. —_— 

The only specimens which afford much information as to the general 
form of Hylonomus Lyclli are those represented in Fig. 144. The first 
is the original specimen from which I described the species in t 


* Description of Fig. 144. : z. 


(a) Skeleton in matrix, showing jaws, ribs, (f) Bones of foot; enlarged.” 


vertebre, pelvis, and bones of limbs. (g) Babictaines, showing foramen; enlarged. : 
(2) Portion of skeleton in matrix, showing (hk) Vertebra; enlarged. 
vertebra and limb bones. (j) Ribs; enlarged. - 
(c) Portion of maxilla with teeth; enlarged. (k) Bony scale; enlarged. 
(d) Cross sections of teeth; enlarged. (2) Portion of scaly cuticle. 
(e) Anterior end of mandible with teeth; (m to s) Horny scales, bristles, tubercles, ae 
enlarged. other appendages of the same; mag. 


humerus, but other bones which may have belonged to it are scattered 


Ste, eee a Se ee 


374 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


paper already referred to. The bones being small and of dark colour, 
are not very conspicuous, and many of them are broken, but many y 
are beautifully perfect; and even those which are removed have left 
very distinct moulds of their form in the fine-grained matrix. In the 
figure I have carefully traced their outlines in their natural position 
with the exception of the maxillary bone and mandible, which are 
removed from their place in the matrix, to bring the whole into a 
more compact form. The specimen also shows, in addition to the 
bones delineated, many fragments of the skull and scapular bones, 
crushed in such a manner that their forms cannot be distinguished. 
The specimen shows remains of thirty vertebrae, of which four appear 
to belong to the neck, and the rest are probably nearly all dorsal and 
lumbar. Of about twenty ribs more or less complete fragments 
remain. The fore limb is represented only by the impression of a— 


elsewhere on the stone. The pelvis is nearly entire, though crushed 
and flattened. One thigh bone remains tolerably perfect, and beside _ 
it lie the tibia and a part of the fibula, with several bones of the foot. 
The dimensions of these parts are as follow :— 


Length of maxillary ; ‘ 3 . OW@nech. 
= mandible . . : . OFS 
be longest rib (chord) . ‘ = ORI cag 


= humerus : : : -, Oniaae 
a3 femur. . : : - OC 
5 tibial os ‘ . ; . O4a% 
as principal bone of pelvis . -- Ones 


The other specimen above referred to shows the bones of the trunk, 
and part of those of the hind and fore limb, of a small individual, 
nearly in their natural position, and is remarkably instructive, as givmg 
some idea of the general form of the trunk. It shows the humerus” q 
and radius and ulna in a tolerable state of preservation, with a frag- _ 
ment of the scapula. About thirteen dorsal and lumbar vertebra can _ 
be made out, nearly in their natural position; and there are remai 
of five of the ribs. The hind limb is represented by fragments of 
femur, tibia, and fibula. F 

It is evident, from the remains thus described, that we have in — 
Hylonomus Lyelli an animal of lacertian form, with large and stou 
hind limbs, and somewhat smaller fore limbs, Gapable of walking ane 
running on land; and though its vertebra were imperfectly ossified — 
externally, yet the outer walls were sufficiently strong, and their 
articulation sufficiently firm, to have enabled the creature to erect 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 375 


ts elf on its hind limbs, or to leap. They were certainly proportionally 
eger and much more firmly knit than those of Dendrerpeton. Further, 
je ribs were long and much curved, and imply a respiration of a 
gher character than that of modern batrachians, and consequently 
,more highly vitalized muscular system. If to these structural points 
we add the somewhat rounded skull, indicating a large brain, we have 
efore us a creature which, however puzzling in its affinities when 
anatomically considered, is clearly not to be ranked as low in the 
seale of creation as modern tailed batrachians, or even as the frogs 
and toads. We must add to these also, as important points of differ- 
ence, the bony scales with which it was armed below, and the ornate 
apparatus of horny appendages with which it was clad above. These 
last, as described above, and illustrated in Fig. 144, show that this little 
animal was not a squalid, slimy dweller in mud, like Menobranchus 
and its allies, but rather a beautiful and sprightly tenant of the 
Coal formation thickets, vying in brilliancy, and perhaps in colouring, 
with the insects which it pursued and devoured. Remains of as many 
as eight or ten individuals have been obtained from three erect 
ae indicating that these creatures were quite abundant, as 
ell as active and terrestrial in their mode of life. 

With respect to the affinities of this species, I think it is abundantly 
asites that it presents no close felationship with any reptile hitherto 
~ discovered in the Carboniferous system, and that it presents characters 
- partly allying it to the newts and other batrachians, and partly to the 

= reptiles. The structures of the skull, and of some points in the 
vertebrae, certainly resemble those of batracians} but, on the other 
hand, the well-developed ribs, evidently adapted to eulates the chest 
sion, the broad pelvis, and the cutaneous covering, are unex- 
~ ampled in modern batrachians, and assimilate the creature to the true 
ards. I have already, in my original description above quoted, 
expressed my belief that Hylonomus may have had lacertian affinities, 
but I do not desire to speak positively in this matter; and shall con- 
tent myself with stating the following alternatives as to the probable 

lations of these animals :—(1.) They may have been true reptiles of 

q w type, and with batrachian tendencies. (2.) They may have been 

representatives of a new family of batrachians, exhibiting in some 

: points lacertian affinities. (3.) They may have been the young of 
‘some larger reptile, too large and vigorous to be entrapped i in the pit- 
- falls presented by the hollow Sigillaria stumps, and in its adult state 
losing the batrachian peculiarities apparent in the young. Whichever 
of these views we may adopt, the fact remains, that in the structure 
of this curious little creature we have peculiarities both batrachian 


a a ey, ee ee cae 


376 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


cerned. It would, however, accord with observed facts in relation 
to other groups of extinct animals, that the primitive batrachians of 
the Coal period should embrace in their structures points in after times _ 
restricted to the true reptiles. On the other hand, it would equally 
accord with such facts that the first-born of lacertians should lean 
toward a lower type, by which they may have been preceded. My 
present impression is, that they may constitute a separate family or 
order, to which I aie give the name of Microsauria, and which 
may be regarded as allied, on the one hand, to certain of the humbler — 
lizards, as the Gecko or Agama, and, on the other, to the tailed 
batrachians. 
It is likely that Hylonomus Lyelli was less aquatic in its habits 
than Dendrerpeton. Its food consisted, apparently, of insects and — 
similar creatures. The teeth would indicate this, and near its bones — 
there are portions of coprolite containing remains of insects and — 
myriapods. It probably occasionally fell a prey to Dendrerpeton, as — 
bones, which may have belonged either to young individuals of this — 
species or to its smaller congener H. Wymani, are found in larger — 
coprolites, which may be referred with probability to Deni oa 
Acadianum. : 


Hylonomus Aciedentatus, Dawson. 


This species is founded on a single imperfect specimen obtained bys 
me at the Joggins in 1859, and described in the Journal of the Geo- — 
logical Society, vol. xvi. In size, H. aciedentatus was about twice 
as large as the species last described. Its teeth are very different in — 
form. Those on the maxillary and lower jaw are stout and short, 
placed in a close and even series on the inner side of a ridge or _ 
of bone. Viewed from the side they are of a spatulate form, an 
present a somewhat broad edge at top, as in Fig. 145. Viewed i in 
the opposite direction, they are seen to be very thie in a direction 
transverse to that of the jaw, and are wedge-shaped. There 
about forty on each side of the mandible, and about thirty on each 
maxillary. | 

Since the publication of my previous paper, I have ascertained 
that the intermaxillary bones bore teeth of a peculiar form. They 
are larger than the others, thick and coming to a blunt point, which | 
is seamed with longitudinal and slightly spiral ridges. This singular : 
tooth must have been a most efficient instrument for crushing and 
penetrating the coats of crustaceans and insects, or the bony armour 
of the smaller ganoid fishes. Remains exist at the extremity of the 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 377 


wer jaw, which show that a few teeth there also were larger than 
e others, but whether they differed in form cannot be determined. 
he pulp cavity of the teeth is less extensive in proportion than in //. 
Lyelli, and the structure in the cross section is simple, showing merely 


‘adiating ivory tubes. 


Fig. 145.—Hylonomus aciedentatus, Dawson. 


y 
Ny 
iN 


apenas ——- 


~ (a) Maxillary bone; enlarged. (d) Section of tooth; magnified. 
_ (b) Mandible; enlarged. (e) Scale; natural size and magnified. 


a e Teeth; magnified, showing front and side (/) Pelvic bone (?); natural size. 


view of ordinary tooth and grooved (gy) Rib; natural size. 


a anterior tooth. (hk) Scapular bone (?); natural size. 


(i) Palate; natural size. 
g ¢ 
The remains of H. aciedentatus are too scanty to warrant much 
certain inference as to its form. Its vertebrae would seem to have 
resembled those of H. Lyelli, but-to have been elongated and more 
thoroughly ossified. Its ribs are similar in form and proportion to 
those of the last-named species. A pelvic bone and some detached 
j — bones, as well as very fragmentary limb bones, would 
_ indicate that its limbs were well developed. Its external scales are 
similar to those of the last species, but larger, and a few fragments of 
skin show scales and appendages similar to those of H. Lyelli, but of 
greater dimensions. The microscopic structure of its bone is also 
2B 


~<a A eee eee a a ery : ae pe Si at oi 


378 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


similar to that in the last species. No doubt a more perfect. specimen 
would show many points of difference between these species, not now 
appreciable ; but in the meantime the very different form of the teeth 
is a sufficient distinction. In H. Lyelli these are conical and pointed 
In the present species they are of a peculiar wedge shape—their 
diameter transversely to the jaw being the greatest at the base, while 
at the top they are sharpened to an edge. The peculiar form of the 
intermaxillary teeth may also serve as a distinctive character, though 
those of H. Lyelli are not yet known. The form of the vertebra 
would further seem to indicate different proportions of body. On the 
whole, while this species is in all probability generically related ‘ 
the last, it is certainly specifically distinct. Its habits and food may 
have been similar, but its dental apparatus was stronger and more 
formidable. 


Hylonomus Wymani, Dawson. 


This is the species of Hylonomus originally detected by Profes or z 
Wyman in the specimens brought from the Joggins by Sir C. Lyell 
and myself. Remains of several additional individuals have since : 
been found, but no skeleton approaching to completeness. I sha all 4 
describe fis the most diminutive of the reptiles of the Nova Scotia 
coal, with the aid of the fragments represented in Fig. 146, most of 
ae are almost microscopic in size. 

| 


Fig. 146.—Hylonomus Wymani, Dawson. 


(a) Mandible and maxilla; nat. size. (f) Bones of limb and pelvis; nat. size and mag : } 

(b, c, d) Portions of the same; magnified. (g) Bones of foot; enlarged. =. 

(e) Rib; nat. size and magnified. (h) Seales; enlarged. 
(i) Vertebre; nat. size and magnified. 


The skull seems to have been much of the same form as in Hylono 
Lyelli, but very thin and delicate, so that all the specimens hithert 
found are crushed and fragmentary. The maxillary and mandibular 
bones are furnished with teeth which are bluntly conical in form, am 
in the latter bone seem to be confined to its front part, or to be very 
small posteriorly. They are thus much fewer in number than in 
species last named. I have been able to make out only twenty-two 


= | 
<n) 

tf 4 
‘ ‘= 
< * 


ee en) ee ee Oe 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERLOD. 379 


the lower jaw, and they are alternately large and small, as if replaced 
| this manner as worn out. Their structure is of the same simple 
aracter as in the other species of Hylonomus, and they have large 
ulp cavities. 

he vertebrae: of this one are mocegri and characteristic. The 


r f the same form filled with sain sper, and poeballly once occupied by 
artilage. They have, in the dorsal region at least, strong articulating 
and lateral processes, and were furnished with numerous delicate ribs. 
In one of my specimens as many as thirty-eight of these little vertebrae 
may be seen lying together, and many of them attached to each other. 
This would indicate that the body was long and slender. It was 
furnished with limbs similar to those of H. Lyelli, but of course 
smaller. The pelvis is of the same expanded form with that of the 
~ last species, and a pair of fore-feet lying together on one slab show 
the remains of four slender toes. The bones of the limbs are very 
- delicate and thin-walled. The bony scales are oval, and similar to 
those of the other species of the genus, but very small. 
In length, Hylonomus Wymani could not have exceeded four or 
i five inches, including the tail. It may indeed be questioned whether 
this little creature was not the young of one of the other species. 
‘The form of the vertebrae and teeth would, however, prevent us 
from supposing that it stood in this relation to H. Lyellii To H. 
aciedentatus it bears a stronger resemblance in these respects, though 
not sufficient to render specific identity probable ; and the occurrence 
of so many specimens of the smaller species, without any of inter- 
_ mediate size, renders it likely that it did not attain to any greater 
_ dimensions. 
_ Hylonomus Wymani probably fed on insects and larvae, and searched 
for these among the vegetable debris of the coal swamps, which would 
afford to a little creature like this abundant shelter. It occasionally 
fell a prey to its larger reptilian contemporaries; for quantities of its 
tiny bones occur in coprolitic masses, probably attributable to Den- 
drerpeton. It is interesting to find reptilian life represented at this 
early period, not only by large and-formidable species, but by diminu- 
tive forms, comparable with the smallest lizards and newts of the 
modern world. The fact is parallel with that of the occurrence of 
several small mammalian species in the mesozoic beds. It will be 
Still more significant in this respect if the species of Hylonomus should 
be found to be truly lacertian rather than batrachian. 


380 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Hylerpeton Dawsoni, Owen. 


In the more or less laminated material which fills the interior of 
the erect trees of the Joggins, it often happens that the more distinctly — 
separable surfaces are stained with ferruginous or coaly matter, or 
with fine clay, so that the fossils which occur on these surfaces, and — 
which would otherwise be more available than those in more compact — 
material, are rendered so obscure as readily to escape observation. — 
This was unfortunately the case with one of the most interesting — 
specimens contained in the last of these trees which I had an oppor- ik 
tunity to examine. It consisted of the detached bones of a reptile — 
scattered over a surface so blurred and stained that they escaped my 
notice until most of them were lost; and I was able to secure only a 
jaw-bone and fragments of the =e with a few of the other bones. — 
On these fragments Professor Dizaks founded the genus Hylerpeton 
and the species named at the head of this article. His description i is 
as follows (Fig. 147) :— 


Fig. 147. Hylerpeton Dawsoni, Owen. 


(a) Mandible and portion of cranial bone; nat. size. 

(>) Fragment of maxilla, showing larger and smaller teeth. 
(c) Tooth enlarged, showing pulp cavity. 

(d) Section of tooth; magnified. 


4 


‘“‘This specimen consists of the left ramus of a lower jaw, whieh 

has been dislocated from the crushed head, of which the fore end of 

sa the left premaxillary is preserved, terminating near the middle of the _ 
i series of the teeth of the more advanced mandible. A fragment of 

the left maxillary, which has been separated from the premaxillary, 

: overlaps the hinder mandibular teeth. The fore part of the mandible 

é is wanting. The teeth in the remaining part are larger and fewer, 

| in proportion to the jawbone, than in Hylonomus or Dendrerpeton. 

n 

; 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 381 


ey have thicker and more obtusely terminated crowns; they are 
ose-set where the series is complete at the fore part of the jaw, and 
_ their base appears to have been anchylosed to shallow depressions on 
the alveolar surface. The shape of what is preserved of the upper 
_ jaw affords the only evidence, and not very decisively, that the present 
fossil is not part of a fish. It inclines the balance, however, to the 
reptilian side; and, accepting such indication of the class-relations of 
io fossil, it must be referred to a genus of Reptilia distinct from those 
~ it is associated with in the Nova Scotian coal, and for which genus I 
_ would suggest the term Hylerpeton. 
_ A small part of the external surface of the dentary bone shows a 
longitudinally wrinkled and striate or fibrous character. The outer 
- bony wall, broken away from the hinder half of the dentary, shows a 
large cavity, now occupied by a fine greyish matrix, with a smooth 
surface, the bony wall of which cavity has been thin and compact. 
We have here the mark of incomplete ossification, like that in the 
skeleton of Archegosaurus. The crushed fore part of the right dentary 
bone, with remains of a few teeth, is below the left dentary, and ex- 
emplifies a similar structure. The teeth slightly diminish, though 
more in breadth than length, towards the fore part of the series : here 
there are nine teeth in an alveolar extent of ten millimetres, or nearly 
five lines. The base of the teeth is longitudinally fissured, but the 
fissures do not extend upon the exserted crown. In their general 
characters, the teeth manifest at least as close a resemblance to those 
of Ganocephala as of Lacertia or any higher group of Reptilia ; whilst 
their mode of implantation, with the structure and sculpturing of the 
bone, weigh in favour of its relations to the lower aud earlier order 
of the cold-blooded Vertebrates.” 

I can add to the above description only a few facts obtained from 
careful examination of other fragments imbedded in the matrix. One 
of these is a portion of a maxillary bone. It has teeth similar to those 
of the lower jaw in form, but the last but one is twice the size of the 
others, and seems to have been implanted in a deep socket. All of 
the teeth have large pulp cavities, and the inner surface of the ivory 
is marked with slight furrows which are represented by ridges on the 
outer surface of the stony matter filling the pulp cavities. The ivory 
of the teeth, however, which is very much coarser than that of the 
species of Hylonomus, presents in the cross section a simple structure 
of radiating tubes. The surface of the cranial bones, of which some 
fragments remain, is marked in the same striate manner alluded to 
above by Professor Owen. The microscopic structure of the bone is 
much coarser than that of Hylonomus or Dendrerpeton, the cells being 


ie 


382 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


larger and in some portions less elongated. That the creature had 
stout ribs is shown by some fragments of these bones, but the vertebrae 
are represented only by a few bodies of small relative size and perhaps 
caudal. On the same surface were found the bones of a foot. It is 


of small size relatively to the head, and was probably for swimming — 
rather than walking. A few ovate bony scales were found with the — 


bones, and probably belonged to this species. 


On the whole, it seems certain that Hylerpeton must have been 


generically distinct from the other reptiles found with it, and it is 


probable that it was of more aquatic habits, swimming rather than — 


walking, and feeding principally on fish. More perfect specimens 
would, however, be required in order to warrant any decided statement 
on these subjects. It is possible, as suggested by Prof. Owen, that 


the affinities of the animal may be with Archegosaurus rather than — 


with any of the other coal reptiles; but I confess that my present 
impression is, that it tends rather toward the genus Hylonomus. It 
may possibly be a link of connexion between the Microsauria and the 
Archegosauria. 


Eosaurus Acadianus, Marsh. 


Fig. 148.—Eosaurus Acadianus, Marsh. Two vertebre.—Natural size. 


VW iy) 


Beside the species above described, Mr O. C. Marsh, in 1861,* 
added a new animal to the Joggins reptilian fauna—the Zosaurus 
Acadianus. ‘The species is founded on two large biconcave vertebra, 
in many respects resembling those of Ichthyosaurus, and indicating 


* The remains were discovered in 1855, though not published till 1861. 


4 


“y 
zB 


VE 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 383 


_reptile of greater size than any hitherto discovered in the coal, 
robably of aquatic habits, and possibly allied to the great Enaliosaurs 
r sea-lizards of the mesozoic rocks. The specimen was found in a 
bed of shale belonging to Group XX VI. of my Joggins section, in the 
upper part of the Middle Coal measures, and about 800 feet above the 
bed which has afforded the remains described in previous sections. 
The beds belong to one of those intervals of shallow water deposition 


The vertebre of Eosaurus have been fully and ably described by 
‘Mr Marsh in Silliman’s Journal. Agassiz and Wyman regard their 
affinities as enaliosaurian. Huxley suggests the possibility, founded 
on his recent discovery of Anthracosaurus Russelli, that there may 
have been Labyrinthodont Batrachians in the Coal period with such 
_ vertebrae. However this may be, if the vertebrae were caudal, as sup- 
_ posed by Mr Marsh, since they are about 24 inches in diameter, they 
_ would indicate a gigantic aquatic reptile, furnished with a powerful 
swimming tail, and no doubt with apparatus for the capture and 
destruction of its prey, comparable with that of Ichthyosaurus. 


Pupa Vetusta, Dawson. 


This, the first known representative of palzozoic land snails, so 
closely resembles the modern “ chrysalis shells” of the genus Pupa, 
that I have not thought it desirable to refer it to a different genus, 
though the name Dendropupa has been proposed by Prof. Owen. 
_ Mr J. 8. Jeffreys, and other eminent conchologists who have seen the 
shell, concur in the opinion that it is a true Pupa; so that this genus, 
and that mentioned in the next section, like Lingula and Nautilus, 
extend from the palzozoic period to modern times. 
__ It may be described as a cylindrical shell, tapering to the apex, with 
a shining surface, marked with longitudinal rounded ridges. The 
whorls are eight or nine, rounded, and the width of each whorl is 
‘about half the diameter of the shell. The aperture is rather longer 
than broad; but is usually somewhat distorted by pressure. The 
‘margin of the lip is somewhat regularly rounded, and is reflected out- 
ward. There are no teeth, but a slight indication of a ridge or ridges 
on the pillar lip, which may, however, be accidental. Length 3-10ths 
of an inch, or a little more. It was first recognised by Dr Gould of 
Boston, in specimens obtained by Sir C. Lyell and the writer in 1851, 
in an erect Sigillaria, containing bones of reptiles, at the Joggins. 
This little shell is remarkable, not merely for its great antiquity, but 
also because it is separated by so wide an interval of time from 


384 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


beds, and no other true land snail until we reach the Tertiary. 
Fig. 149.—Pupa Vetusta, Dawson. 


(a) Natural size. (6) Enlarged. (c) Apex enlarged. (d) Sculpture; magnified. | 


In the section of the South Joggins I have noticed the occurrence — 
of Pupa Vetusta in another bed 1217 feet below that above mentioned. — 
It belongs to group 8 of the section, and is between coals 37 and 38 2 
of Logan’s sectional list. It is a layer of gray indurated clay, witha — 
slightly nodular structure, and in some places becoming black and 
carbonaceous, and containing leaflets of ferns, Trigonocarpa, etc. The 
shells occur very abundantly in a thickness of about two inches. They 
have been imbedded entire; but most of them have been crushed and 
flattened by pressure. They occur in all stages of growth; the young — 
being, as is always the case in such shells, very different in general | 
form from the adults. This bed is evidently a layer of mud deposited — 
in a pond or creek, or at the mouth of a small stream in shallow water. 
In modern swamps multitudes of shells occur in such places; and it 
is remarkable that in this case land shells should alone be found, 
without any trace of aquatic molluscs. The shells which occur in 
this bed are filled with the surrounding sediment. Those which occur 
in the erect Scgillarie, on the other hand, except when they are 
crushed and flattened, are filled with a deposit of brown cale-spar. I 
infer from this that the latter, when buried, contained the animals, and 
consequently that these lived or sheltered themselves in the hollow 
trees, as is the habit of many modern land snails. 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 385 


‘Ee Zonites (Conulus) priscus, Carpenter. 

In the summer of 1866 I made some excavations in the bed above 
mentioned, and disinterred great numbers of the shells of the Pupa. 
My object was to find other remains if possible; and I was rewarded 
with the discovery of another little land shell, which my friend Dr 
_ P. P. Carpenter has described under the above name (Fig. 150).* It 


Fig. 150.— Conulus priscus, Carpenter. 


(a) Specimen; enlarged 12 diameters. (d) Sculpture; magnified. 

is quite different from the Pupa, being snail-like in form, with a wide 
aperture and a very thin shell, sculptured on the surface in a different 
way. The sub-genus Conulus is a subdivision of the old genus Helix, 
and is a group of modern snails, sometimes included in the genus 
Zonites. I may add that in the collections made in 1866 there are 
fragments which may indicate the existence of at least one other land 
snail, but not sufficient for description. 


Xylobius Sigillarie, Dawson. 
Fig. 151.—Xylobius Sigillariea, Dawson. 


(a) Natural size. (b) Anterior portion; enlarged. (c) Posterior portion; enlarged, 
I proposed, in 1859, the above name for an articulated worm-like 


animal, of which numerous flattened specimens were found associated 
* Journal of Geological Society, Nov. 1867. 


alt tal ig ae a NG a i 


tae Banish, 


386 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


with the Pupa vetusta. I was at first disposed to regard it as the 
larva of a coleopterous insect; but a careful microscopic examinatior 
of the specimens convinced - that it is a chilognathous Myriapod, 
allied to Julus. It may be described as follows (Fig. 151):— 

Body crustaceous, elongate, articulate; when recent, cylindrical, or 
nearly so, rolling spirally. Feet small, numerous; segments 30 or 
more; anterior segments smooth, posterior with transverse wrinkl 
see a furrowed appearance. In some specimens traces of a series of 
lateral pores or stigmata. Labrum(?) quadrilateral, divided by notches 
or joints into three portions. Mandibles two-jointed, last joint ovate 
and pointed. Eyes, ten or more on each side. 

This animal, the oldest gally-worm known at the time of its dis- 
covery, must, ike its modern congeners, have haunted the decaying 
trunks of swamps, and thus became entombed in the hollow Sigillaria 
in which it was found. Since its discovery, animals of similar type 
have been recognised in the Coal formations both of Great Britain an 
of the United States. 


Haplophlebium Barnesi, Scudder. 
The existence of insects in the Carboniferous period has:long been 
known. The Coal formations of England and of Westphalia afforded 
the earliest specimens; and, more recently, some interesting species — 
have been found in the Wes States.* They belong to the order 
of the Neuroptera (shad-flies, ete.), the Orthoptera (grasshoppers, 
crickets, etc.), and Coleoptera (beetles, ete.) 
In the Coal-field of Nova Scotia, notwithstanding its great richness 
in fossil remains of plants, insects had not occurred up to last year 
except in a single instance—the head and some other fragments of 
large insect, probably neuropterous, found by me in the coprolite or 
fossil excrement of a reptile enclosed in the trunk of an erect Sigillaria — 
at the Joggins, along with other animal remains. This specimen was — 
interesting chiefly as proving that the small reptiles of the Coal peri 
were insectivorous, and it was noticed in this connexion in my “ A ir 4 
breathers of the Coal period.” Last year, however, Mr James Barnes 
of Halifax, was so fortunate as to find the beansiGal wing repress 
in Fig 152, in a bed of shale at Little Glace Bay, Cape Breton. 
engraving is taken from a photograph kindly sent to me by Rev. D. _ 
Honeyman, F.G.S. It will be observed that, in consequence probably 
of the mutual attraction of loose objects floating about in water, a 
fragment of a frond of a fern, Alethopteris lonchitica, lies partly over 
the wing, obscuring its outline, but bearing testimony to its carbon- 


* See Lyell’s “ Elements,” and Dana’s ‘“‘ Manual” for references. 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 387 


yrous date. The wing has been examined by Mr 8S. H. Scudder, of 
ston, who has made such specimens his special study, and who refers 
to the group of Ephemerina (day-flies, shad-flies) among the Neur- 
era, and has named it Haplophlebium Barnesii. It must have been 
very large insect—seven inches in expanse of wing—and therefore 
nuch exceeding any living species of its group. When we consider 
that the larve of such creatures inhabit the water, and delight in 
uddy bottoms rich in vegetable matter, we can easily understand 
hat the swamps and creeks of carboniferous Acadia, with its probably 
nild and equable climate, must have been especially favourable to 
ich creatures, and we can imagine the larve of these gigantic ephe- 
meras swarming in the deep black mud of the ponds in these swamps, 
and furnishing a great part of the food of the fishes inhabiting them, 
while the perfect insects emerging from the waters to enjoy their brief 
span of aérial life, would flit in millions over the quiet waters and 
ough the dense thickets of the coal swamps. 


Fig. 152.—Haplophlebium Barnesti, Seudder. 


] (a) Profile of base of wing. J 


~ Mr Scudder describes the species as follows :— 

; “This is probably one of the Epkemerina, though it differs very much 
from any with which I am acquainted. The neuration is exceedingly 
- simple, and the intercostal spaces appear to be completely filled with 
minute reticulations without any cross-veins. The narrowness of the 
wing is very peculiar for an Ephemeron. The form of the wing and 

its reticulation remind me of the Odonata, but the mode of venation is 

very different ; yet there is apparently a cross-vein between the first 

and second veins in the photograph (not rendered in the cut) which, 


Le et AE ae Fe Ge 


PR 


388 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


extending down to the third vein, occurs just where the “nodus” is 

found in Odonata, and if present one unquestionably remove this 
insect to a new yeulienie family between Odonata and Ephemerina. 
I cannot judge satisfactorily whether it is an upper or an under wing g. 
The insect measured fully seven inches in expanse of wings—mucel h 
larger than any living species of Ephemerina. . 


Archimulacris Acadicus. 


The new genus and species above named (Fig. 153), have | been 
founded by Mr Scudder on a beautiful little wing discovered by: Mr 
Barnes at the East River of Pictou, in shale overlying the main seam 


Fig. 153.—Archimulacris Acadicus. 


of coal. The specimen is imperfect, being cut off by a leaf of Cordaitedll 
lying across it; but the venation of the part remaining is in very 
good fees Mr Scudder remarks upon it as follows :— 

“The only fossil cockroach yet described from America is the 
found by Lesquereux in the Carboniferous beds of Arkansas, | ; 
called Blattina venusta. The wing discovered by Mr Barnes at Pictou 
differs from it in the curve of the costal border (affecting the direction _ 
of nearly every vein in the wing), as well as in the extent and direction 
of the branches of the mediastinal vein, and in the distribution of the _ 
veinlets in the anal area. Nor does this wing agree in character with 
those of other fossil cockroaches; it is allied to some which Dr Giebel, 
in his generic division of the fossil Blattarie, referred to the genus 
Blattina. With two exceptions, he had placed all the Carboniferous 
cockroaches in the same group. This species, forming the type of a 
new genus, may be called Archimulacris Acadicus. The generic term . 
is derived from the Greek name of a cockroach.” 


In the Journal of the Geological Society, 1861, I _ 
follows some very remarkable impressions found on the surface of a 
rain-marked sandstone at the Joggins, containing also reptilian foot- 
prints : :—“ They consist of rows of transverse depressions, about an 
inch in length and one-fourth of an inch in breadth. Each trail con- 
sists of two of these rows running parallel to each other, and about 


LAND ANIMALS OF THE COAL PERIOD. 389 


six inches apart. Their direction curves abruptly, and they sometimes 
eross each other. From their position they were probably produced 
yy a land or fresh-water animal—possibly a large Crustacean or 
or gigantic Annelide or Myriapod. In size and general appearance 
they slightly resemble the curious Climactichnites of Sir W. E. Logan, 
f om the Potsdam sandstone of Canada.” To this I may add that 
‘the space between the rows of marks is slightly depressed and 
‘smoothed, as if with a heavy body like that of a serpent trailed 
along. The recent remarkable discovery in the Coal-field of Kil- 
kenny, Ireland, of the large serpentiform Batrachian, described by 
‘Huxley under the name Ophiderpeton, leads to the supposition that 
these trails may indicate the existence of a similar creature in Nova 
Scotia. 


' The contents of this chapter may be summed up in the statement, 
that the Coal formation of Nova Scotia has afforded of terrestrial 
Vertebrates no less than eight species of reptiles, some of them 
probably of higher type than the Batrachians; of land Mollusks the 
only two species known in the Paleozoic rocks; of land Articulates 

one millipede and two insects. While the reptiles differ much 

_ from existing types, and belong to families which have long ago 

passed away, the mollusks and articulates are remarkably like 

the creatures of their rank found in similar places at the present 
time, belonging in two instances even to the same generic groups. 


_ WNote-——While this chapter is passing through the press, I am 
_ informed by Mr Scudder, to whom I have submitted the numerous 
_ fragments of Myriapods in my collection from the Joggins, that he 

thinks he can recognise three additional species of Xylobius and a new 
generic form (Archiulus). I hope to give descriptions of these in 
the Appendix. 


~*~ >a" Tae °°” F ed | y=. 


. a) De A Te) en oe we! aa el ee 
Dt ENS Cap ncaa nN De Se ae 
: J eee ee f = 2 ay at ao 


390 


CHAPTER XIX. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF RICHMOND AND SOUTHERN INVERNES a 
USEFUL MINERALS—DISTRICT OF NORTHERN INVERNESS AND VICTORIA. 
—USEFUL MINERALS—DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY—USEF 
MINERALS. 


Carboniferous District of Richmond and Southern Inverness. 


Tuis district is separated from those of Sydney and Guysboro’ only 
by the Strait of Canseau, a narrow transverse valley excavated by the 
currents of the drift period. The Lower Carboniferous conglomerates 
and limestones are seen on both sides of the strait, and the lowest 
members of the system are seen at Plaister Cove and its vicinity, and 
are succeeded to the southward and eastward by the Coal formation. 
As this district presents some curious and interesting features, I shall 
notice some parts of it in detail. = 
The coast section in the vicinity of Plaister Cove is remarkable fox ¥ 
the highly perfect manner in which it displays the gypsiferous rock 
and the information which it consequently affords as to their struct e 
and origin. 4 
The following summary of the beds seen in this section is from a 
paper contributed by the writer to the Geological Society in 1849 
free Fig. 154) :-— 
“(1.) At M‘Millan’s Point, about three-quarters of a mile north of 
the Cove, are thick beds of gray conglomerate, in a vertical position. 
These beds form the base of the Carboniferous system in this district ; 
and, at a short distance inland, they have been invaded by trap and 
other igneous rocks, belonging to a great line of igneous disturban 
~ extending to the north-eastward. The conglomerates near M‘Millan’s- 
Point have been thrown up along an anticlinal line connecting 
igneous range last mentioned with that of Cape Porcupine, on wh 
flanks the same conglomerates appear. The valley now occupied by 
the strait is in great part due to the want of continuity of the igneot 
masses at this point, though the distribution of the surface detritus — 


in - CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF RICHMOND, ETC. 391 


ye that it has been subsequently deepened by diluvial waves or 
rents from the northward. 


t 


38. Limestone. 


8. Dark shales with calcareous bands. 


stone and gray shale. 


7. Marl. 


Fig. 154 
Coast Section at Plaister Cove. 


3 
e 
2 
i) 
5 
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a . 
fg S 3 
Head of Plaister Cove. : 2 3 
B ° Fg 
O° i: 
eee 
2, = ro 
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vt} a fo 
au Pe 
Bie) 68. be 
Z aga 
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Z Sog 
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4 al =| 
a ae 
a] 4 3328 
- : Bs} 
M‘Millan’s Point. ae 
wa 
= 


“(2.) Between M‘Millan’s Point and Plaister Cove the shore is 
ecupied by black and gray shales and very hard sandstones in fre- 
uent alternations. The sandstones have been much altered by heat, 
nd are traversed by veins of white carbonate of lime, sometimes 
nixed with sulphate of barytes. At the point immediately north of 
laister Cove these beds dip at a high angle to the south-eastward. 
(3.) Overlying these beds is a,bed of limestone about thirty feet 
in thickness; it is of a dark colour, laminated and suberystalline; its 
lamin are in some parts corrugated and slightly attached to each 
other, and in other places flat and firmly coherent; it is traversed by 
_ humerous strings of white calcareous spar, containing a little carbonate 
f iron and small crystals of blue fluor-spar, a mineral rare in Nova | 
eotia, and which I have found only in the Lower Carboniferous 
estones. The limestone supports a few layers of greenish marl 


' structure, asif the layers had been partially consolidated and afterwards y 


392 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


a eine dip. It is then bent into several small folds, and ola 
mately resumes its high dip to the south-east. I found no fossilsin 
this limestone, except at its junction with the overlying marl, where — 
there is a thin bed of black compact limestone containing a ia indis- 
tinct specimens of a small species of Terebratula. In appearance and 
structure this limestone is very similar to the laminated limestones 
which underlie the gypsiferous deposits of Antigonish and the Shu- — 
benacadie. “4 

“(4.) This bed is succeeded by greenish marl, traversed by veins — 
of red foliated and white fibrous gypsum, and containing a few layers — 
of the same mineral in a granular form; it also contains a few veins _ 
of crystalline carbonate of lime. In its ee part it has a brecciated 


broken up. Near its junction with the limestone it contains rounded — 
masses of a peculiar cellular limestone, coloured black by coals 
matter; and higher in the bed there are nodules of yellow ferruginous _ q 
ae with a few fragments of shells. The greenish colour of - 
the marl seems to be caused by the presence of a minute quantity of 4 
sulphuret of iron. Whena portion of the marl is heated the sulphuret — a 
is decomposed, and the colour is changed to a bright red. 
“(5.) On this marl rests a bed of gypsum, whose thickness I esti- a 
mated at fifty yards. Where the marl succeeds to the limestone, the 
shore at once recedes, and the gypsum occurs at the head of the — 
Cove. The gypsum is well exposed in a cliff about eighty feet in 
height; but, like most other large masses of this rock, it is broken 
by weathering into forms so irregular that its true dip and direction 
are not at first sight very obvious. On tracing its layers, however, — 
it is found to have the same dip with the subjacent limestone and 
marl. About two-thirds of the thickness of the bed consist of erystal- 
line anhydrite, and the remaining third of very fine-grained common 
gypsum. The anhydrite prevails in the lower part of the bed, and — 
common gypsum in the upper; but the greater part of the bed consists 
of an intimate mixture of both substances, the common gypsum forming 
a base in which minute crystals of anhydrite are scattered ; and bands 
in which anhydrite prevails, alternating with others in which common 
gypsum predominates. It is traversed by veins of compact gypsum, 
but I saw no red or fibrous veins like those of the marl. In some 
parts of the bed small rounded fragments of gray limestone are spar- 
ingly scattered along layers of the gypsum. 
‘“‘The exposed part of the mass is riddled by those singular funnel- 


os 


DISTRICT OF RICHMOND. 393 


haped holes named “ plaster pits,” sections of which are exposed in 
ne cliff; they penetrate both the anhydrite and common gypsum, 
hough they are contracted where they pass through harder portions 
of the rock, and especially the veins of compact gypsum, some of 
which are only slightly inclined, and look at first sight like layers of 
‘deposition. The pits of which I saw sections have evidently resulted 
_ from the percolation of water through the more open parts of vertical 
yints, and they were cut off where they were intersected by another 

slightly inclined set of open fissures, which afforded a passage to the 
water. The accompanying sketch (Fig. 155) shows one of these 
_ pits and its relations to the joints and stratification of the gypsum, 


Fig. 155.—Dlaster Pits. 


t (a) Gypsum vein. (b) Open joint. (c) Bedding of the gypsum. 
4 
‘ _ *(6.) Above the gypsum are a few layers of limestone, portions of 
which appear near the base of the cliff: one of them is studded with 
tarnished erystals of iron pyrites; another is a singular mixture of 
gray limestone and reddish granular gypsum. The portions of lime- 
Stone contained in this rock do not appear to be fragments or pebbles, 
and they are penetrated by plates of selenitie gypsum. They may 
be parts of a bed of limestone broken up and mixed with gypsum 
when in a soft state, or the limestone and gypsum may have been 
deposited simultaneously and separated by molecular attraction. A 
rock of this kind is not rare as an accompaniment of gypsum, and it 
may be merely a result of the mixture of the soft surface of the gypsum 
with the mechanical detritus first deposited on it. 

~ “(7.) On the opposite side of the creek, which makes a small break 
in the section, is a thick bed of marl, whose dip appears to be the 
same with that of the gypsum. In general character it resembles the 

2¢ 


“MM 


i. 


394 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


marl underlying the gypsum. In some parts it is greenish and homo- _ 
geneous in texture; in other parts it is brecciated, and some layers — 
have a brownish colour and shaly texture. In some parts it is highly _ 
gypseous and contains layers of granular gypsum, one of which ig 
black, its colour being due to a small pap aeiet of eoalyis or bituminous ( 
matter. : 


They dip to the E.S. E. at a high site, and overlie the gypsum ; : 
They are succeeded by a thick band of very hard gray and brownish — 
sandstones and shales, containing a few fragments of plants stained — 
with carbonate of copper. These are again overlaid by dark shales, — 
and these yy an enormous thickness of gray and brown sandstone — 
and shale. ° Some of the shales in this part of the section have assumed _ 
a kind of slaty or rather prismatic structure.” .. 
I beg the reader to observe, in the above section, the contrast | 
between the hardened Seated and shales and the soft marls 
gypsum, a contrast equally marked in other parts of the Carboniferou 
districts, and often producing, by the removal of the softer beds, that 
isolated position of the gypsum masses which is frequently so per- 
plexing. It is also important to observe, that this great mass ot 
gypsum is a regular bed, interstratified with the others, and belonging 
to the series of processes by which the whole were formed. I have 
already, in noticing the gypsum of Windsor, referred to its probable 
origin, and may now apply the same method of explanation to that 
of Plaister Cove. On this view, then, the history of this deposit wi 
be as follows :— 
First, The accumulation of a vast number of very thin layers of 
limestone, either so rapidly or at so great a depth that organic remains — 
were not included in any except the latest layers. Secondly, The 
introduction of sulphuric acid, either in aqueous solution or in the | 
form of vapour; the acid ae a product of the volcanic action whose 
evidences remain in the neighbouring hills. At first the quantity of 
acid was too small, or the breadth of sea through which it was diffused _ 
too great, to prevent the deposition of much carbonate of lime along b 
with the gypsum produced; and its introduction was accompanied . 
by the accumulation on the sea-bottom of a greater quantity of me- 
chanical detritus than formerly: hence the first consequence of the 
change was the deposition of gypseous marl. At this stage orgami¢ 
matter was present, either in the sea or the detritus deposited, im 


: 


DISTRICT OF RICHMOND. _ 395 


ifficient quantity to decompose part of the sulphate of lime, and 
oduce sulphuret of iron; and also to afford the colouring matter of 
the nodules of black limestone found in the marl. Thirdly, The pre- 
lence for a considerable period of acid waters, combining with nearly 
all the caleareous matter presented to them, and without interruption 


by acid vapours, and subsequently scattered over the bed of the sea. 
Fourthly, A return to the deposition of marl, under circumstances 
_ yery similar to those which previously prevailed; and, lastly, The 
_ Testoration of the ordinary arenaceous and argillaceous depositions of 
the Carboniferous seas. | 

Of the gypsum veins found in the marls, those which are white 
and fibrous may have been nearly contemporaneous in their origin 
with the marl itself ; those which are red and lamellar have been 
subsequently introduced. The granular gypsum is in all cases a part 
of the original deposit. The comparatively small quantity of red oxide 
of iron in these marls and other associated beds is the most important 
feature of difference between the deposit of Plaister Cove and those 
of most other parts of this province. There is, however, a large 
quantity of reddish and brown sandstone in the beds overlying the 
gypsum, though on the whole these colours are less prevalent than in 
the Carboniferous system of Nova Scotia proper. 

The rocks seen at Plaister Cove and its vicinity appear to be over- 
laid in ascending order by a great thickness of black shales, which, 
near Ship Harbour, contain shells of Natadites. These shales are suc- 
eeeded by true Coal measures, which, at Little River and at Carribou 
Cove, contain seams of coal and a variety of characteristic fossil plants. 
_ One remarkable peculiarity of these Coal measures is, that they have 
been folded up by lateral pressure, so that they are often vertical, and 

that the limestones with marine shells and the gypsum, are often 

brought into immediate contact with masses of these disturbed Coal 
measures. Coal measure beds in a less disturbed condition extend 
up the River Inhabitants nearly, to its sources, and occupy the 
country between that river and the southern part of the Bras d’Or 

Lake. The Lower Carboniferous limestone appears on the north-west 

arm of River Inhabitants, at West Bay, at Lennox Passage, on Isle 

Madame, and at St Peter’s. At Lennox Passage it is associated with 

a great bed of excellent gypsum, and contains an abundance of fossil 

shells. At St Peter’s it is non-fossiliferous, and rests against syenite 

and metamorphic slates, forming the western margin of a large tract 


s 


- 


ze 


“9 - 2 an ee 
a 


aaa 2 


a 


396 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


of metamorphic country, along the edge of which it extends, wit! 
some conglomerate and sandstone, in a very narrow belt, skirting he 
whole eastern side of the Bras d’ Or Lake, and ani this district 
with that of the county of Cape Breton. te 


Useful Minerals of the District of Richmond, ete. 


Coal appears at various places in this district, and at the time when 4 
my first edition was printed, it was the as place in which any “a 2 


any payment from the Government of Nova Scotia. I mention ‘ae j 
circumstance, because it accounts for the fact that so much space is + 
given to this pop helgy in my first edition, while the far more important 


to examine, are treated of more slightly. 
Coal.—The bed at Carribou Cove, or Sea Coal Bay, has all 
some attention, owing to its appearance in the coast section in a very 
accessible situation. It is a seam of mixed coal and bituminous shale 
eleven feet eight inches in thickness, in a vertical position, or rather | 
thrown over on its face; its dip being W. 57° S., at an angle of 807, 
and the bed which was ree its underclay eee its roof. The 
coal from the outcrop of this bed is of a soft and crumbling quality. 
and filled with layers of shale. a 
_ A specimen of the best coal, selected from different parts of the | 
bed, gave, on analysis,— 


Volatile matter : Re) Dee 

Fixed carbon . F eT 

Ash A J ; i ee 
100: 


The shale associated with the coal contains a sufficient quantity of 
bituminous and coaly matter to render it combustible, but it differs 
from coal in leaving a stony residue instead of a pulypnaleae ashe 

It appears from the above analysis that the best coal of this bed is 
very impure, its percentage of ash being double that of Pictou coal; 
and when this is taken in connexion with its intimate intermixture 
with shale, it must be evident that the produce of this seam could — 
scarcely be exported with profit. It might possibly be worked to ? 


. 2  /~, 


DISTRICT OF RICHMOND. ; 397 


upply fuel of an inferior description for use in the neighbouring 
puntry. In the deeper parts of the bed, the coal is probably harder 
and of much better appearance than at the outcrop, but in its mixture 
_ with shale and high percentage of ash no material improvement can 
be expected. It will also be found to contain a large proportion of 
the bi-sulphuret of iron, much of which has been removed from the 
outcrop by weathering. 
_ The other strata seen in the vicinity of the coal are gray shales 
a nd hard sandstones, with a small seam of bituminous shale. No 
other bed of coal appears in the vicinity, though, as the coast section 
for about half a mile on either side shows little except boulder-clay, 
__ it cannot be affirmed that others are not present. If other beds oceur, 
they can be found only by expensive works of discovery, unless acci- 
dentally uncovered by excavations made for other purposes. Since 
the above description was written, these beds have been farther ex- 
plored, and a bed of coal four feet thick is stated to have been found, 
but the working of this bed has not been prosecuted.* 
Coal also appears at Little River, a small stream emptying a little 
to the eastward of Carribou Cove. At the mouth of this stream there 
is a bed of gypsum. The coal occurs two and a half miles inland. 
Here, as at Carribou Cove, the measures are vertical, the strike or 
direction of the beds being N. 40° W. Two beds are seen at this place, 
one four feet in thickness, the other ten inches thick. They are sepa- 
rated by five feet of shale. Above the place where they cross the river 
I observed in the bed of the stream fragments of coal and bituminous 
+ shale, which have probably been washed from the outcrop of a third bed. 
The coal of the principal bed is hard, and very little injured by 
exposure. Its fracture is uneven and crystalline, with glistening 
surfaces; and its texture is very uniform, the lamination or “reed” 
being rather indistinct, and almost free from dull coal or mineral 
charcoal. Its specific gravity is 1°38. When burned in a stove or 
grate, it ignites readily, fuses, swells, and cakes, giving a strong flame 
and a lasting fire. It leaves a rather large quantity of brownish ash. 
Tn a smith’s forge it works well, its behaviour being similar to that 
of Pictou coal. On analysis, it is.found to contain,— 


Volatile matter : 5} « BOr25 
Fixed carbon . y . §6°40 
Ash y ‘ : do G85 


100: 
* Rutherford’s Report. 


398 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


and less fixed carbon. It contains about the same quantity of earthy of 
matter with Pictou coal; but in quality and colour the ash resembles 
that of Sydney. Practically it will be found to be a serviceable coal 
© for domestic fires, well adapted for smiths’ use, and, from the large 
quantity and high illuminating power of its gaseous matter, probably 
a good gas-coal. There should be little waste in its extraction, and 
git will suffer little by being “banked” or kept in the open air, It _ 
contains more sulphur than the Pictou coal. é 
The coal of the small bed (No. 2) is somewhat similar to that of 
No. 1; but it is more impure, and contains much bi-sulphuret of iron, 
The fragments found in the river, and supposed to be derived froma _ 
third bed, are very similar to the coal of No. 2. e 
The point at which the coal appears on Little River is distant in a — 
direct line from the main road to Ship Harbour about one mile anda _ zs 
half, and from Ship Harbour four miles; from the shore at Carribou 
Cove two miles and a half; and from ‘thie navigable part of River ] 
Inhabitants two miles and a pier In the direction of the Strait of — 
Canseau, the Coal measures appear to be cut off at the distance of 
about half a mile from the river, by one of the fractures which abound — 
in the district. In the opposite direction, it is possible that they may 
extend to the estuary of the River Inhabitants. 
In the direction of the beds of coal, the ground in the vicinity of 
the river is low, rising to about ee feet only above the stream. 
Only a very small depth of coal could therefore be drained by a level — 
from the river-bed, or without the aid of machinery. The vertical 
position of the bale will also require a method of mining different — 
» from that employed in the other coal-fields of the province, where | 

the seams are only slightly inclined. These circumstances, in addition — 
f to the comparatively small dimensions of the beds, as they tend to 
. = inerease the expense of extracting coal, must operate as objections to — 
the opening of this deposit. On the other hand, the seam No. 1 is 7 
sufficiently large to be conveniently worked, its coal would command 
a fair price in the market, and it is near harbours from which its pro- 
duce could be shipped at any season. There is also a probability 
that the beds might be traced to localities more favourable for the 
extraction of the coal; and that, by works of discovery carried on in 
the adjacent measures, other workable seams might be found. I am 
glad to learn that, since the above remarks were written in my first 
edition, this mine has been opened, and is known as the “ Richmond 
© Mine.” A second bed of coal, 154 feet distant from the first, has been 


ie) 


Sapte Pore - 


Q 


— 


esas yee 


Se ee ae 


DISTRICT OF INVERNESS AND VICTORIA. 399 


discovered. The mine is worked on the long-wall system, somewhat 

oo manner of a mineral vein. A railway has been formed to the 

ore; and in 1866, 1016 tons of coal were extracted. 

Bt Coal also appears at the basin of Inhabitants, and in two places on 
the river of the same name; but I am not aware whether it is of any 
practical importance. I would suggest, however, to explorers the 
valley of the River Inhabitants as a promising field of investigation. 

The only other useful minerals found in the district are limestone 

' and gypsum. The most accessible deposit of the former is that of 
Plaister Cove, which is large and of fair quality. Large beds of good 
limestone also occur at Little River and the north-west arm of River 
Inhabitants. The bed of gypsum from which Plaister Cove derives 

_ its name is of enormous thickness, and contains some good gypsum, 
though about two-thirds of its thickness consist of anhydrous gypsum 
or “hard plaster.’’ The bed which occurs near Carribou Cove is of 
good quality ; but where it appears on the shore it is deeply covered 
with boulder-clay. A little farther inland, however, it is nearer the 
surface. The marls associated with these beds, as they contain large 
quantities of carbonate and sulphate of lime in a finely divided state, 
might be usefully applied as a dressing to land. 

Gypsum has been exported from the bed already mentioned at 
Little River, and to a considerable extent from Lennox Passage, where, 
as well as at Arichat and St Peter’s, there is good limestone. 


Carboniferous District of Northern Inverness and Victoria. 


In following the coast sections to the northward and westward of 
Plaister Cove, we find the Carboniferous rocks reduced to a narrow 
belt, by the projection of a mass of igneous and altered rocks toward 
the coast. The conglomerate appears in several places, and also the 
Lower Carboniferous limestone, which has been altered into a varie- 
gated marble, capable of heing applied to ornamental purposes. At 
Long Point the metamorphic hills begin to recede from the coast, and 
from Port Hood the Carboniferous rocks extend quite across the 
island to St Ann’s Harbour, and northward to Margarie, beyond which 
place a narrow belt continues to line the coast as far as Cheticamp. 

At Port Hood, the Coal measures appear with characters very similar 
to those of the Joggins section. Their dip is W. 20°, in some places « 
varying to W. by N. 25°; so that their strike nearly coincides with 
that of the shore, and only a small thickness of beds can be seen in 
the coast section. The beds seen consist of gray sandstones and gray 
and brown shales, with black and calcareous shales, and thin seams of 
eoal. Calamites, Sternbergia, Stigmaria, and coniferous wood abound ; 


— either very seoeritly levated from the sea-bed, or must have been = 


400 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. : , “a 


and, in a bed of sandstone a little to the northward of the village, mag- { 
nificent examples of Sigillaria stumps, with their roots and rootlets at- 
tached, are seen in situ. The beds dipping seaward at a small angle, and _ 
dadereéine rapid waste, expose these stumps on a horizontal surface, 
and not in a vertical cliff as at the Joggins; and this affords great 
facilities for studying the arrangement of their singular roots. Some 
of the stumps are two feet and a half in diameter, and may be seen it 
give off their pitted Stigmaria roots in four main divisions, exactly at 
right angles to each other, each main root subdividing regularly into i 
two, four, and so on. They are in the state of casts in hard caleareous 
Sratleecue? and they have grown on a soil consisting of loose sand, _ o 
now sandstone, and stiff clay, now represented by beds of shale. Some : 
of the layers of sandstone immediately under the roots are distinctly _ 
ripple-marked, and must, when the trees grew on them, have been — 4 


layers of blown sand. If it were not for the weap uniform bedding 
of the Coal formation sandstones embedding these plants, an observer 
would be strongly inclined to refer them to the latter cause; and I 
think it by no means impossible that some of them may have had such — 
an origin, and may have been afterwards smoothed and levelled by 
water, before the overlying beds were deposited on them. 

More than one generation of these trees have grown on this spot, — 
for I observed one of the stony trees to be penetrated by a cast of a 
Stigmaria with rootlets attached, which passed quite through it. This — 
had manifestly belonged to a new generation of trees, growing above © 
the remains of others already in the state of casts in sand, but not 
consolidated into stone. 

One of the beds of shale in the vicinity of a small coal seam at thi 
place, contains abundance of Watadites, Cythere, fish-scales and teeth, 
and Coprolites, or the fossil excrement of fishes. A fragment ofalarge 
Eurypterus, previously figured (Fig. 50) was also found here. a 

Four miles to the north-east of Port Hood, the Lower Carboniferous 
limestone and gypsum appear; and this part of the system continues 
to Mabou River, where it is very extensively developed. The lime- 
stone near this river has shells of Productus semireticulatus and abun- 
dance of fragments of Encrinites ; and one of the beds has an Oolitic 
structure,—that is, it is made up of small round grains, precisely like 
small shot cemented together, or the roe of a fish. This peculiar 
structure is supposed to have been produced by the calcareous matter 
collecting itself around minute grains of sand or other bodies, and thus 
taking the form of little concretionary balls, which were finally ce- 
mented into rock. It was at one time supposed to be confined to a 


DISTRICT OF INVERNESS AND VICTORIA. 401 


ular part of the geological series, still named in England the 
litic formation, but it has been found in rocks of very different ages. 
Pxamples of it occur in the limestones of Windsor and Pictou; but 
Fein of Mabou is much more perfect. Its little rounded axsind are 
~ nearly quite uniform in size, smooth and black, and cemented together 
_ by gray calcareous matter. 
_ Near the mouth of Mabou River there is an enormous bed of gypsum, 
hich was being quarried when I last visited it for the purpose of 
or road-embankments, this rock being the only available material 
at hand. Enormous plaster-pits have been excavated in the outcrop 
of this great gypseous mass. One of them forms a circular grassy 
amphitheatre, capable of containing hundreds of persons, and I was 
 jnformed that there is a spring of water in its centre. 

Immediately to the northward of Mabou River the lower conglo- 
merates crop out from under the limestones and gypsum, and rise on 
the flanks of Cape Mabou, a lofty headland, the nucleus of which is 
syenite, of greater antiquity than the Carboniferous system, and which 
is connected with an isolated chain of igneous and metamorphic hills 
extending for some distance to the northward. 

At Margarie, the Coal formation again appears, with its character- 
istie fossil plants; but it occupies only a very limited area, and the 
whole of the remainder of this district seems to consist of beds of the 
Lower Carboniferous series. Mr Poole, of Glace Bay, informs me that 
he has received from Margarie specimens of coal somewhat resembling 
eannel, and affording 41:10 per cent. of volatile combustible matter ; 
but I have no information as to its quantity, or whether it was ob- 
tained from the Coal formation or the Lower Carboniferons series. 
The Coal formation rocks of Port Hood and Margarie are evidently 
only the margin of a coal-field extending under the sea, and perhaps 
as far as its appearance above the sea-level is concerned, in great part 
Swept away by the waves. This coast is now rapidly wasting, in con- 
sequence of its exposure to the prevailing westerly winds blowing 
across the whole width of the Gulf of St Lawrence; and its rivers 
and harbours are from this cause choked with shifting sands. Owing 
to this waste of the coast, a sand-beach which connected Port Hood 
Island with the mainland has been swept away, and a safe harbour 
has thus been converted into an open roadstead, exposed to the nor- 
therly winds and encumbered with shoals. This will prove a serious 
drawback to any attempt to work the coal-beds of this locality. 

The Lower Carboniferous limestone and gypsum appear at Cheti- 
camp, in a number of places on Margarie River, and at Ainslie Lake, 
which is a fine sheet of water, more than ten miles in length, and the 


il 


402 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. : A 


largest lake, properly so called, in Cape Breton. To the eastward of 
this lake, a spur from the metamorphic country to the northward 
separates this part of the district from the Lower Carboniferous country 
of the county of Victoria. At the extremity of this spur, on the 
border of Whykokomagh Basin, the Lower Carboniferous conglomer a 
ate with syenitic pebbles forms a hill named the Salt Mountain. On. 
this conglomerate rest thick beds of laminated limestone, from which — 
rise unusually copious springs, some of them of pure water, others se aid 
to be salt or brackish. At Middle River, we again find the Lowe 
Carboniferous limestone with several of its characteristic fossil shells; 
and from this place, as far as St Ann’s Harbour and the Big Bras d’Or, 
the whole of the low country consists of sandstone, shale, and conglom- 
erate, with limestone and gypsum appearing in several places. A 
lofty ridge of syenitic rocks separates St Ann’s from the Bras d’Or, © 
~ and at its extremity, Cape Dauphin, there is a patch of Carboniferous 
rocks which have been described in detail by Mr Brown in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Geological Society. Mr Brown gives the following 
section, which is interesting as illustrating the arrangement of the 
several members of the series in this part of Cape Breton. The order — 
is descending, and the beds dip 8. 80° E. at an angle of 58°. = 


Lower Coal measures, seen about half a mile from Cape Dauphin—a 
few fossil plants—thickness not stated. 

Fine grained and pebbly sandstones (millstone-grit)—fossil : 
plants. ; ; . 200 ft. - 

Finely laminated gray ices sis thin hands; of limestone 110 | 

Slaty sandstones with traces of plants . ; . : 10 

Blue and gray shales with thin beds of nodular limestone 120 

Strong sparry limestone : : : - 

Soft crumbling marls . : : F ‘ ‘ ; 90 

Strong limestone : , ; : . : { 18 

Brown sandstone : : : ‘ : , : 12 

Red shales ‘ ; . : ; : . : 33 

Blue shales : 

Strong limestone—lower beds RRR eS shells 


Productus cora, Encrinus . , : : : 5 1% 

~ Mottled red and green marls : : , «(eee 24 

Intermingled sandstones and limestone ; : 4 22 
Blue shale 


Read’ shale... on /esiaes tiga: o/h oaogenncea 


Carry forward 684 ft. 


; 
oe | 
oy ri 


DISTRICT OF INVERNESS AND VICTORIA. 403 


; Brought forward, 654 ft. 
rong limestone ; ; . ° . . 5 

fixed gray and brown shales : ° : ‘ ‘ 12 

Coneretionary limestone .. ° ° . : 4 


Soft blue clay. ‘ : , : 3 
Slaty limestone in layers, one or hi site thick : 47 
Soft blue marl, with gypsum near the bottom : 32 


Gy psum . . . . . . . . . 8 
green marl . ‘ ’ . . ‘ F 3 


Marl, with layers of limestone . : ‘ ‘ ‘ 28 
Coarse limestone and shales . : é : é 44 
_ Crumbling porous limestone . 50 


aleareous breccia, ee ssniilby worn m fingments of 


red syenite 24 
le showing no aids of edGhiies Toned sac- 


~ culus, Productus cora, fragment of Avicula : ' 60 

+4 Compact slaty limestone. : ; ‘ : : 6 

Soft brown shale F : : : : : ; 6 

Brownand purple marls «tt. Serta! ; 40 
1056 ft. 


In this section the Lower Carboniferous rocks are of much less ag- 
gregate thickness than usual; yet they display the several dissimilar 
members of the series pretty fully. The “ millstone-grit” corresponds 
With the deposit of the same name overlying the Carboniferous lime- 
stone of England. It also corresponds with the thick succession of 
‘sandstones between Plaister Cove and Ship Harbour, with those over- 

_ lying the gypsiferous rocks in Pictou county, with the sandstones of 
the Eagle’s Nest, on the Shubenacadie, and with the lower groups of 
Mr Logan’s Joggins section. The limestone, marls, and gypsum are 
well developed, except that the latter is of smaller thickness than is 
usual. The lower conglomerate is wanting; but this is always an 
irregular deposit, and it appears in its proper place in most other sec- 
tions in this part of Cape Breton, as, for instance, at St Ann’s Harbour, 
where the gypsum also is very largely developed. This section, as 
described by Mr Brown, did good service in confirming the new and 
more accurate views of the structure of the Carboniferous rocks in this 
province promulgated by Sir C. Lyell in 1842. 


Useful Minerals of N. Inverness and Victoria. 


Gypsum and limestone are very abundant in this district. The 
former may be obtained in any quantity at Mabou, Margarie River, 


404 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


St Ann’s, Big Harbour on the Great Bras d’Or, etc. The latte ty 


abounds in the same localities, as well as in several others where the 


marble. :) 
Coal occurs at Port Hood, at since whe publication of the first. 

edition of this work, in which I directed attention to this coal-field 

as one of promise, it has been reported upon by. Professor C. H. 
Hitchcock, and opened on a small scale. The principal bed is stated 

by Hitherto to be about 6 feet in thickness, with 4 feet 2 inchesto 

4 feet 44 inches of good coal. Other valuable beds are said to have 

been found at Mabou, Broad Cove, and Chimney Corner; but they 
have not yet been opened. ¥ 

In Victoria county the only mine now worked is that of New Camp- 7. 

= ~ pelltown, on the Great Bras d’Or. At this place the Coal measures 
are stated to rest against the mass of syenitic or gneissose rock of 

© Cape Dauphin, and to be in part in a nearly vertical position. In the Z 
i> Principal workings of the mine two beds of coal have been opened up. a 
They are separated from each other by a thickness of 36 yards. The 
upper is 4 feet thick, the lower 6 feet. In another part of the area,a 
bed 4 feet 5 inches thick has been found. Its identity with either ei § 

») the above mentioned has not = been epee e  . 


> 


a that of the New Complellicinn Mine 8142 tons. ve 
MN Freestone for building is obtained, of good quality, at Port Hood 
9 Island and Margarie, and also at Whykokomagh; but it is not yet — 
“iy worked on a large scale. 4 
* The soils of this district being based principally on the calcareous — 
rocks of the Lower Carboniferous series, are in general of excellent — 
quality. 


Carboniferous District of Cape Breton County. 


This, though the last, is one of the principal Carboniferous districts _ 
of the province, as it ciaigdee the important and productive Coal-fields- 
of Sydney, Lingan, Glace Bay, Cow Bay, and Miré, and exceeds all 
the others in its export of coal, while it scarcely yields to the Joggins 

~ in its excellent exposures of the Coal formation rocks and fossils. As- 
we owe most that is known of this district to the labours of R. Brown, 
Esq. of Sydney, I shall avail myself, in the first instance, in describing 
it, of the information contained in his papers ;+ adding such other items — 
+ information as I have collected in short visits to this ni 


* Rutherford. + See List in Chapter I. 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUN'TY. 405 


listrict, and the results of the important explorations for coal recently 
earried on, more especially in its eastern part. 
The island of Boulardarie, the whole of which I include in this dis- 
‘trict, though politically a part of it belongs to Victoria county, consists 
its western part of the Lower Carboniferous limestone, and overlying 
hard sandstones, having apparently an undulating arrangement, as 
represented by Mr Brown in his section of the island. The limestone, 
as I have observed it on the north side of Boulardarie, is hard and 
 eompact, and contains the Productus semireticulatus. At the eastern 
end of the island, the limestone and millstone-grit dip to the N.E. and 
underlie the Coal measures which appear near Point Aconi. The Coal 
__ ‘measures, extending from Point Aconi to the outcrop of the millstone- 
grit, are stated by Mr Brown at 5400 feet in vertical thickness. 
Crossing the Little Bras d’Or, the Coal measures continue with 
north-easterly dip across the peninsula separating this strait from 
Sydney Harbour, and thence with various faults and disturbances to 
Miré Bay. As the general dip is seaward, Mr Brown remarks, “ this 
great area of Coal measures is probably the segment only of an 
immense basin, extending toward the coast of Newfoundland; a 
supposition which is confirmed by the existence of Coal measures at 
Neil’s Harbour, 30 miles north of Cape Dauphin.” Inland of this 
broad band of Coal measures, the whole country northward of a line 
drawn west from Miré Bay to the east arm of the Bras d’Or Lake, 
is occupied by the older members of the series, with the exception 
of a tract of syenitic, porphyritic, and altered rocks, which appears 
at and near George’s River on the south-east side of Little Bras 
d'Or. These igneous rocks have altered the Lower Carboniferous 
limestone, as well as perhaps some underlying beds of the same system, 
showing that igneous action had not terminated in these ancient meta- 
morphic districts at the commencement of the Carboniferous period ; 
and this appears to have been the case along the boundary of the 
metamorphic and igneous rocks in many parts of Cape Breton. 

This extensive Carboniferous district is connected with that of Rich- 
mond county on the south, by a very narrow stripe of limestone, red 
conglomerate, and sandstone, skirting the base of the hills of porphyry, 
syenite, and slate, rising steeply from the side of the Bras d’Or Lake, 
which here is a broad and beautiful inland sea, presenting fine scenery 
in almost every direction. The limestone and conglomerate may be 
seen in several places to rest on the edges of the older slates, and in 
some places, especially at Irish Cove, the former rock is filled with 
well-preserved fossil shells, including immense quantities of the Conu- 
laria, which in most other localities is rather rare; as well as Produc- 


406 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


tus cora, Terebratula sacculus, Spirifer glaber, and a species of Euom- 
phalus. The limestone is sufficiently soft to allow fine specimens of 
these shells to be detached by weathering. 
The Coal measures are by far the most interesting part of this area, 
and are well exposed on the north side of Sydney Harbour, and on the 
south end of Boulardarie. Mr Brown has published an elaborate. 
section and description of them as they occur at the former place, — 
from which the following facts are gleaned :— a 
“The productive Coal measures cover an area of 250 square miles; 
but, owing to several extensive dislocations, it is impossible to 
ever their total thickness with any degree if accuracy; from the 
best information in my possession, I conclude that it exceeds 10,000 
feet. We have one continuous section on the north shore of Boulardarie 
Island, 5400 feet in thickness, and in the middle portion of the field 
"several detached sections, varying from 1000 to 2000 feet in thickness, 
whose exact relative positions have not yet been determined; although 
it is quite clear that they are higher ” in the formation than 4 
highest beds of the Boulardarie section.” 4 
Mr Brown then proceeds to describe the section on the north-wes 
side of Sydney Harbour, from Stubbard’s Point to Cranberry Head, 
distance of 5000 yards, and exhibiting a vertical thickness of 1860 
feet of beds. The dip is N. 60° E. 7°. Of these beds he gives a de- 
tailed section, including 34 seams of coal, and 41 underclays with 
Stigmaria or fossil soils. The whole of the boils composing the section — 
are summed up as follows :— ¥ 


Arenaceous and argillaceous shales : 1127 ft. 3 in. 


Underclays ° ‘ : : - oF @ 
Sandstones . 4 : : : : 562. oR 
Coat’. : : , * : : Ste 
Bituminous shales A A A 26° 5 
Carbonaceous shales. A - A a =o 
Limestones . ; 3 A : : a: 
Conglomerate . : : : : 0 8 


1860 ft. 0 in. 


4 


Erect trees and calamites occur at eighteen distinct levels. The 4 
greater number are Sigillariea, many of them with distinct Stigmaria 
roots, and a few are Lepidodendra. They occur in circumstances very ; 
similar to those of the erect trees at the Joggins already described. 
Mr Brown’s various papers on these fossils gave to the geological — 


Pig. 1. Sigitlaria in situ, with Stigmaria Roots and Rootlets—Sydney. 
» 2. Roots of the same, as seen in a horizontal Section—Sydney. 
» 3. Stump of Sigillaria Sydnensis, showing the stem compressed into a dome—1-12th 


nat. size—Sydney. 
» 4. Stump of Sigillaria, with very regular Stigmarian Roots spreading in Sandstone 


—Port Hood. 
Pigs. 1, 2, 8, are from papers by Mr Brown, quoted in the text. See also pp. 180, 482. 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 407 


world the first really satisfactory information* respecting the true 
nature and mode of growth of Stigmaria; and to these I may refer the 
reader, more especially to that in volume fifth of the “ Geological 
_ Journal,” page 355, from which I quote the following account of a fine 
_ specimen of Sigillaria alternans with Stigmaria roots, regularly rami- 
fying, and having attached to them conical tap roots, which penetrated 
directly downwards into a thin bed of shale overlying the main coal. 
This seam, like the main seam at the Joggins, has, when it was a bed 
' of soft peat, supported a forest of Sigillaria and Lepidodendra, many 
of which still remain erect in the overlying shale, with all their roots 
and long spreading rootlets attached. 
“Immediately over the coal there is a bed of hard shale, six inches 
‘in depth, in which no fossils are found; this is overlaid by a softer 
shale abounding in coal-plants; all the upright trees that I have ex- 
amined are rooted in the six-inch shale; the crown of the base of that 
which I am now describing is just four inches above the coal; its 
roots dip gradually downwards until they come in contact with the 


coal, at about eighteen inches from the centre of the tree, and then : 
spread out over its surface. When this fossil was brought out of the Hi 
mine the under side was covered up with hard shale, to which about I: f 
one inch of coal adhered; in cutting away this layer of coal, I met 

with the termination of a perpendicular root immediately in contact 


with the coal, which I carefully developed; proceeding in this manner, 
my patience was amply rewarded by the discovery of a complete set . 
of conical tap roots. The horizontal roots branch off in a remarkably ; 
regular manner, the base being first divided into four equal parts by 
deep channels running from near the centre; an inch or two farther 
on, each of these quarters is divided into two roots, which, as they 


recede from the centre, bifurecate twice within a distance of eighteen 13 
inches from the centre of the stump. 

“There are four large tap roots in each quarter of the stump, and, ty 
about five inches beyond these, a set of smaller tap roots, striking i} 
perpendicularly downwards from the horizontal roots, making forty- i 
eight in all: namely, sixteen in the inner, and thirty-two in the outer ty 


set; and what is a still more remarkable feature in this singular 
fossil, there are exactly thirty-two double rows of leaf-scars on the 
circumference of the trunk. This curious correspondence in the 
numbers of the roots and vertical rows of leaf-scars, surely cannot 
be accidental. I am not aware that any similar correspondence has 

* Mr Binney can claim priority in date of publication ; but his specimens were much 


less perfect in details of structure, and therefore less satisfactory than those described 
by Mr Brown. 


407 


reader, more especially to that in volume fifth of the “ Geological 
Journal,” page 355, from which I quote the following account of a fine 
specimen of Sigillaria alternans with Stigmaria roots, regularly rami- 
fying, and having attached to them conical tap roots, which penetrated 
directly downwards into a thin bed of shale overlying the main coal. 
This seam, like the main seam at the Joggins, has, when it was a bed 
of soft peat, supported a forest of Sigillarie and Lepidodendra, many 
of which still remain erect in the overlying shale, with all their roots 
and long spreading rootlets attached. 
_ “TImmediately over the coal there is a bed of hard shale, six inches 
‘in depth, in which no fossils are found; this is overlaid by a softer 
_ shale abounding in coal-plants; all the upright trees that I have ex- 
_ amined are rooted in the six-inch shale; the crown of the base of that 
which I am now describing is just four inches above the coal; its 
roots dip gradually downwards until they come in contact with the 
coal, at about eighteen inches from the centre of the tree, and then 
spread out over its surface. When this fossil was brought out of the 
‘mine the under side was covered up with hard shale, to which about 
one inch of coal adhered; in cutting away this layer of coal, I met 
_ with the termination of a perpendicular root immediately in contact 
with the coal, which I carefully developed; proceeding in this manner, 
my patience was amply rewarded by the discovery of a complete set 
of conical tap roots. The horizontal roots branch off in a remarkably 


on, each of these quarters is divided into two roots, which, as they 
recede from the centre, bifureate twice within a distance of eighteen 
inches from the centre of the stump. 
“There are four large tap roots in each quarter of the stump, and, 
about five inches beyond these, a set of smaller tap roots, striking 
perpendicularly downwards from .the horizontal roots, making forty- 
eight i in all: namely, sixteen in the inner, and thirty-two in the outer 
set; and what is a still more remarkable feature in this singular 
fossil, there are exactly thirty-two double rows of leaf-scars on the 
circumference of the trunk. This curious correspondence in the 
numbers of the roots and vertical rows of leaf-scars, surely cannot 
be accidental. I am not aware that any similar correspondence has 


» illeg Mr Binney can claim priority in date of publication ; but his specimens were much 
Tess perfect in details of structure, and therefore less satisfactory than those described 
by Mr Brown. 


408 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


ever been observed either in recent or fossil plants. The inner set of — 
tap roots vary from two to two and a half inches in length; the dia- _ 
meter at their junction with the base of the trunk being about two 
inches. The outer set are much smaller, being about one inch in dia- - 
meter at their junction with the horizontal roots, and from one to one 
and a half inch in length. Very few of either set are strictly conical, 
although they probably were originally of that shape; some are 
squeezed into an elliptical, others into a triangular form; all have been 
wrinkled horizontally by the shrinkage due to vertical compression. 
A thick tuft of broad flattened rootlets radiates from the terminations 
of the tap roots, and a few indistinct areole are visible on their sides; 
the length of these rootlets does not appear to exceed three or four 
inches, their width being one-fourth of an inch; a raised black line 
runs down the middle of each, similar to that observed in the rootlets 
of Stigmarie. These short thick tap roots were evidently adapted 
only to a soft wet soil, such as we may easily conceive was the nature 
| of the first layer of mud deposited upon a bed of peat, which had 
settled down slightly below the level of the water. 
} “We may infer also, from the existence of a layer of shale without 
' fossil plants, immediately over the coal, that the prostrate stems and 
leaves which occur in such large quantities in the next superincumbent 
4 bed, fell from trees growing upon the spot, and were entombed in 
layers of mud held in suspension in water, which at short intervals 
inundated the low marshy ground on which they grew; for had the 
plants been drifted from a distance, we should find them in the first 
H layer of shale as well as in those higher up. 
“Although the main coal is generally overlaid by shale, yet occa- — 
sionally the shale thins out, and the thick sandstone, which is the next _ 
stratum in the ascending order, forms the roof of the coal. In such © 
j cases the surface of the peat-bog could not have been level when the 
shale was deposited upon it, some small patches having been still 
! above water; and as no upright trees are found in the sandstone roof, 
it may reasonably be inferred that plants would not vegetate upon 
the bog itself, a layer of soft mud being necessary in the first instance 
for germinating the seeds; but when a plant had once taken root in 
= this mud, its rootlets penetrated downwards into the peat, and furnished — 
4 an abundant supply of nutriment for the rapid growth of the tree, from 
ie the rich mass of decaying vegetable matter beneath.” 

The Sydney Coal measures contain not only erect trees, but also nu- 
merous beds with Natadites, Cythere, Spirorbis, Fish-scales, ete.; though 
these do not so frequently overlie coal-seams as at the Joggins, The 
shales at Sydney are also much more rich than those at the Joggins in 


ee 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 409 


the leaves and other more delicate parts of plants; and on this account 
I give here sketches of a few examples of the foliage of the Coal forma- 
tion period, as displayed in the rocks of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton 
(Fig. 156). On the mode of occurrence of such leaves, Mr Brown 
remarks :— 

“The shales are the most prolific in plants, especially those which 
form the roofs of the coal-seams. It is singular that not even a trace 


Fig. 156.—Foliage from the Coal formation. 


ip a@abedef yg. 
-_ (a) Alethopteris heterophylla (fern)—Moose River. (b) Sphenophyllum Schlotheimii—Pictou 
(ce) Lepidodendron binerve—Sydney. (d) Asterophyllites foliosa—Sydney. (e) Cordaites 
' _ borassifolia—Joggins. (/) Neuropteris rarinervis (fern)—Sydney. (g) Odontopteris sub- 
Beeneata (fern)—Sydney. 
q os a fossil plant nor any organic substance has been found in any of 
the red shales, although they have been carefully examined for that 
_ purpose.* a erect trees occur, ferns, Asterophyllites, Spheno- 
phylla, and other delicate leaves, are found in the greatest abundance ; 
from which I infer that they fell from growing trees and shrubs, 
having been covered up by successive layers of fine mud, deposited 
at frequent intervals over a low marshy district. In these localities 
_ single fronds of ferns are sometimes found covering a slab of shale 
_ two feet square, as sharp and distinct in their outline as if they had 
been gathered only yesterday from a recent fern, and spread out with 
__ the greatest possible care, not a single leaflet being wanting or even 


* This does not apply to the Coal formation of Pictou, where ferns, Cordaites, and 
Sphenophyllum are found in red shales, though rarely. 
Q : 2D 


— 


410 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


doubled up. Some beds also seem to contain one species of plant — 
only, all others being excluded; of this we have a striking example — 
in the argillaceous shale (No. 60): in the top of this bed, througha — 
thickness of three inches, we find Asterophyllites foliosa, piled up 
layer above layer, from the base of the cliff to the crop of the bed— 
a distance of 200 feet—clearly proving that these plants grew on the 
spot.” This description may give the reader some idea of the abun- — 
dance and perfection of the fossil vegetation preserved in the Sydney | 
Coal measures. As already stated also, a bed of shale in the Sydney — 
section has afforded the finest example yet known of carboniferous rain- 
marks. These occur ina bed at the top of one of those bands in which 
the sandstones are rippled and fossils rare. At some distance below it 
_there are mussel shales, and ten feet above a stigmaria underclay and 
coal. These marks then were preserved in beds formed during the — 
transition from aquatic to terrestrial conditions, by the silting up of a 
lagoon or creek, and most probably on a bed daily left dry at low tide. — 


In a previous chapter mention was made of the curious footprints 
called Rusichnites, as occurring in the Lower Carboniferous. In the — 
Cape Breton Coal-field an interesting species occurs in the Coal meas- 
ures (Fig. 157). The specimen from which the figure was taken 
was kindly presented to me by R. Brown, Esq. 


aos = Soe 


Fig. 157.—Rusichnites Acadicus—Dawson. 


< j 

IAG, 

Nee 

7 lacwoitd 
y wae” 


ai} 
TK. 
yj 

Yy 


‘ 


Ai 
I; / 
/; 


My} 
My) 
4 


eS / UYU 


Each impression consists of the casts of contiguous rounded furrows, 4 
each about one-eighth of an inch in breadth, and crossed by curved 4 ; 


OF ode 


undulations and striz, in such a manner as to give the appearance of 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 411 


_ apinnate leaf carved in high relief. At each side of these impressions, 


a ow 


ee 


and about a tenth of an inch distant from them, are interrupted lines, 
in relief in the casts, and running parallel with the casts of the furrows. 
The whole has exactly the appearance of the track of the swimming 


feet and edges of the carapace of a small Limulus, or King-crab. 
The tracks have also the same tortuous character with those of 


_ the modern Limulus. Limuli have not yet oceurred in the Coal 
formation of Nova Scotia, though they occur in rocks of this age else- 


P) 


where; but from these tracks I infer that animals of this kind lived 
in the Sydney Coal-field, where their remains will probably hereafter 


be found. I have proposed for these impressions the name &. Aca- 


dicus, in a paper on footprints of this class in the “Canadian Naturalist.” 


Useful Minerals of the Carboniferous District of Cape Breton County. 
Coal ranks at the head of these, about 421,000 tons being raised 


annually from the coal beds of this district. The oldest colliery in ~ 


the district is that of North Sydney, which is worked by the General 
Mining Association, on the north side of Sydney Harbour. The coal 
is shipped at the bar at North Sydney, to which place a railway has 
been laid. The coal from this mine is used principally for domestic 
fires, and for the production of steam, for which it is admirably 
suited. 

Of the thirty-four seams included in Mr Brown’s Sydney section, 
only four are of workable thickness; they are,— 


1. The Indian Cove seam, about 450 feet of vertical thickness 


below the main seam . ‘ : , : 4 ft..8 in. 
2. The main seam . 6 9 
3. The Lloyd’s Cove seam, ae 730 foe of peieal 

thickness above the main seam - 5 0 
4. The Cranberry Head top seam, about 280 feet ye 

Lloyd’s Cove seam sabia , ‘ (8 in8 


Of these only the main seam is worked at present, at the North 
Sydney mines. It yields a bright, free-burning coal, giving out its 
heat very rapidly, and leaving a very small quantity of heavy reddish 
ashes. According to Professor Johnston, it yields,— 

Volatile matter. : . 26°93 
Fixed carbon A . i ee eee 
Ashes . : : . ‘ 5°50 


100-000 


0 


c 


8 


» lines, the synclinals running out at the surface as they approach the 


_ of the extension of the Coal measures along the coast of Cape Breton . 
' from Sydney to Miré, except the mere fact of the extension of the — 


412 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Its steam-producing power is rather less than that of Pictou coal, 
being, according to the same authority, 7-01 to 1 1b., or from the 
temperature of 212°, 7:99 to 1 lb. It also yields less illuminating 


gas; and, from the presence of a little bisulphuret of iron, is more | : 


destructive to furnace bars than Pictou coal. For domestic use, 
however, its comparative freedom from dusty ashes more than com- 
pensates for these defects. 


North-westward of Sydney, the Coal measures extend to the Little 


Bras d’Or, and across the east end of Boulardarie Island; but this part — 
of the district does not appear to be productive at present, though 
without doubt rich in coal. To the south-east of Sydney the Coal — 
measures extend in a series of anticlinal and synclinal bends to Miré — 
Bay and Catalogne, and are extensively worked, though, from facts to — 
be noted in the sequel, it will appear that their maximum produc- 
tiveness is still very far from being reached. The sketch map (Fig. 
158) will show the general arrangement of the measures, as far as 
ascertained, and the localities of the principal mines. 
When the first edition of this work was published, little was known 


Coal formation rocks, and the occurrence in them of some workable — 
beds, to which, however, little attention had been given; partly — 
in consequence of the monopoly of the General Mining Association, — 
and partly in consequence of the absence of facilities for the shipment 
of coal. Within the last few years, however, the whole coast has 
been explored by mining surveyors, and fourteen important mines 
have been opened or are in progress. q 

As in many other parts of the Carboniferous area of Acadia, the Coal — 
formation beds are undulated along a series of anticlinal and synclinal 


older rocks, an arrangement which has been well worked out in detail — 


by Professor Lesley, in his reports on the district. In this way a | 


the coal rocks of Eastern Cape Breton appear as the ends of three 


troughs. The most eastern and narrowest is that of Cow Bay. It — f 


is separated from the second, that of Glace Bay, by an east and west 
anticlinal running out to the shore at North Head or Cape Granby. 


The Glace Bay trough is wider and flatter, and is separated fromthe _ 
still broader trough of Sydney by a second anticlinal running out at 


Lingan. In consequence of this arrangement and the inequalities of 
the coast line, the beds are repeated a number of times, and only a — 
limited portion of the whole thickness of the Carboniferous system is 


ey ie: kin 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 413 


Fig. 158.— Map of Cape Breton Coal-jield. 


SS 


10 Mites 


A, Upper Coal beds. 4, Lingan “ Mine. 
B, Middle Coal beds. 5. International 9 
C, Lowest Coal beds. 6. Caledonia r 
D, Millstone-grit. 7. Little Glace Bay se 
E, Lower Carboniferous. < 8. Clyde ” 
F, Metamorphic Silurian. 9. Schoner Point yw 

‘ : 10. Block House ” 
1. New Campbellton Mine. 11. Gowrie as 
2. Little Bras d’Or > 12, South Head ” 
8. Sydney | < 13. Miré P 


Note.—It should be observed that there are probably several beds of coal between series A and 
series B, and that the lines of outcrop of series B, C, D, and E, are not known in detail. 


414 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


exposed in the coast sections, but great facilities are afforded for ex- 
ploring and working the beds of coal. 

Professor Lesley has published (Proc. Am. Acad., Phila. 1862), a 
detailed section of that part of the series exposed in the vicinity of 
Little Glace Bay, amounting to a thickness of 907 feet. Unfortunately 
he gives no information as to the fossils, and appears to have been 
under the impression that his section includes nearly the whole of the 
productive Coal measures of Cape Breton, so that it is not possible to 
form any definite idea of the place in the series to which these beds 
belong. From specimens and information obtained from Mr Poole, 
Mr Barnes, Mr Mosely, and others, I am inclined to regard them as 
- being in the upper part of the Middle Coal formation, the Upper 
Coal formation being apparently wanting or concealed under the 
ocean, and the Millstone-grit series appearing farther inland. 

Professor Lesley’s section may be condensed as follows. It com- 
mences at the headland between Burnt Head and Little Glace Bay, 
where the newest rocks seen on this part of the coast appear. 


oro ARBORS Hor kor) 


Et.. als 
Shales red and gray, the latter with nodules of iron 
ore . P 3 : 85 6 
Sandstone and arenaceous shale : : 14 0 
Coal, good 3 i : a 
Untteeatny and sandstone. > é : . 6 30m 
Coal-group 1....... Carbonaceous shale . % 5 : ‘ » 2508 
Underclay . A A F ‘ : 5 25 (8-8 
Shale . 2 5 5 “ 2 - F seen? | 
Coal, soft . é A é F ta)! 
Coal-group 2....... Coal, solid—* Hub Vein” 3 «J 
Coal, hard . A s ; " 5 Peat! | 
Sandstone with fossil et Piha bo netlenie nae 
Cannel Coal, : - : a hell 
’ Underclay . - : - : . . cp HO 
Coal-group 3....... Cannel Coal ; : , 2 =, (uO 
( Underelay . : . . - A oe 
Sandstones and shales . ‘ ; . S Ap eae 
yee Cannel Coal 2 - 4 5 ‘i c epi |) 
Coal roy 2-2: Underclay . : . = Es «Salty gee 
Shale, arenaceous shale and sandstone . 3 « doar 
| Coal 4 3 : 3 : eed, 
Shale 3 - A rub 
Coal-group 5....... Coal and car bonaceous shale é : ; 21 90) 
\ Underdlay. 3 oo ise ep val oe 
Shale and at Gs : F ‘ ‘ - 69 
Clay . ; : . : ae 
Coal-group 6....... Gana Coal, : : 2 : e ee 
( Underclay - ‘ oi 


or Ww oD oma Ss 


rm DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 415 


= 


-_ 
=m Ooocor: 
a 


Shales and arenaceous shales 
Dark shale : . 
Coal slate “Cannel” 

Hard sandy shale 

Coaly matter 


Hard sandy shales and fireiolay 
(A slight break in the section occurs here in Little 
Glace Bay). 
Soft measures 
Coaly shale . 
4 Coal-group 8 feeeeee Coal % . 
Sandstones and shales . 
Black bituminous shale 
Cannel Coal . . 
Black bituminous shale 
| Underclay ‘ 


Sandstone and fire-clay . 
Coal, “ Harbour Vein.” 


Shales foliated 
Coal-group 10......4 Tron ore F 


Coal: “TK ; 


Shale and sandstone 
Coal-group 11 eeeeeee Coal Z 


Sandstones, shales, and Belay : 
Goal-group 12d Bickle) 1 1 of lll 


Sandstones, shales, and Shei with nodules of 
ae : : : : : 0 

oal “Brutether’s Vein”* .  . . Ke kek 
Coal-group 13..... Underclay . . ee eee 


Shales, sandstones, ar Ana the latter with 
nodules of ironstone . E - . ie Daa 


In all, 907 feet. 


The above section is thus continued in descending order by the 
following, kindly furnished by H. Poole, Esq., from the Engine Pit at 
the Caledonia Mine :— 


Gray sandstone underlaid by seven inches of gray ft. in. 
shale with fossil oe ; : 9 


— 


— 


oO 


—S 
COcCcN WOR COMOMNO FOOCCwW OCS 


— 


. “ « 
es 
mo 


Ase COM MWOSCS COASKUIS SKS 


n 
4 
BY eee Crimi Ast aay 
Coal-group 14... wn Block shale with fossils. . . vrvith << fee 
Gray sandstones with Stigmaria, underlaid by dark 
gray shale ten inches 19 
Coal with partings of shale and fire- e-clay “Back Pit 


0 
Coal-group 15......< Seam.” é 9 
s gray sandstone. : . A ‘ ee 

af 

5 

6 


Gray sandstone with beds of Se APY Bi 64 
Coal two to nine inches 0 
Coal-group 16.4 Hark gray sandstone—Stigmaria kid Ree OT 


Sandstone and shale—Stigmaria, eon deal Cor- 
daites . ‘ ° . . : - (27 8 


* According to Mr Poole, the perpendicular distance between Coal-groups 12 and 
13 is 135 feet, and there are two coals, each one foot thick, in the interval. 


i‘ eee RS a Ve RED BOOS nates ty a ee nes 


416 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
ft. in. 
{ Coal : - : : : . 032m 
Black shale, fossils 2 - - : : - 
Coal : . : eee 
Coal-group 17......4 Black shale—Sigillaria : : : : . 0 tae 
Coal, pyritous - . 0 
Black shale, fossils . ‘ : z - 0 
Soft shale—Stigmaria . "4 4 ; , . Oe 
Sandstone, shale and calcareo-bituminous shale, 
with JZepidodendra, Cordaites, Sigillaria, and 
Stigmaria—also shells of Naiadites, 
and Cyprids - 14 7 
Coal * Piola Seam”? ; = : . Sits 
Coal-group 18.....4 Dark gray sandstone—Stigmaria J ta Sn 


In all, 178 feet. 


The Phelan bed is, on the best evidence, identified with the Bridg- 
port or Lingan bed on the west, and the M‘Aulay bed at Cow Bay 
on the east. Assuming this to be correct, the following table gives 
the continuation of the section, as shown in a MS. report of Mr Mosely 
of Halifax, kindly communicated to me by Mr Joseph B. Moore :— 


ft. in. 
Sandstones and shales . p < : é - 100 0 
Coal-group 19.........Coal . ae : : 0F 
Measures not described . : ‘ 42 04 
Coal-group 20......++. Coal . - . - 2 . 0 Ta 
Measures not described " . E . . 63 aa 
Coal-group 21......... Coal . : ‘ : : : * . ab ee 
Sandstones, shales, andironstone . i . 5 Oe 
Coal-group 22.........Coal “M‘Phail or M‘RurySeam”*  .  .  . 5 6 
Sandstone and shale : : . : . 100 Om 
Coal-group 23.........Coal . . : : 6 ; .- + oe 
Shales and freay JL ROSS 
Coal-group 24.........Coal : - : ; - » 4 ie 
Measures undescribed . < : E : i) SOs 
Coal-group 25.........Coal  . - ; - . : - » 44 


* In Mr Lyman’s Report, the latter part of this section is given somewhat differ- 
ently, as follows :— 


M‘Rury coal» a0 02. le wei ee 
Measures undescribed : : = : = « 150 0 
Coal (two feet bed) . 2 : é - 1 ft.9in. to 2 38 


Measures undescribed, about . : . : . - 100 0 
Coal (eighteen-inch bed) . : - : s 1 6 
Measures undescribed, about . - : 2 « 100- »@S 
Coal (‘‘ Long Beach Bed”) . - - : 5 rs 2 10 
Measures undescribed : 5 - - “ - 2400 0 
Coal \‘‘ Tracey Bed”) . . : E : - oe 


The bed three feet thick about 100 feet below the M‘Rury Seam appears to have 
been discovered after the publication of Lyman’s Report; and Mr Poole mentions a 
bed one foot thick as occurring between the former and the “‘M‘Rury.” ° 


omy 
“ty 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 4\7 

« tim. 

‘ Sandstone and shale * r : : , . 100 O 

— Coal-group 26.........Coal “Long Beach Seam” . : i : sf FOS 
: Measures not described . 5 : * ‘ . 60-9 
Muemomi-proup 27.,.....,0oah 2 - «+ «© sie + « «6 2 8 
‘ Sandstone and shale 7 ‘ ; ; 2 . 105 O 
Coal-group 28.........Coal x . ae , : Sr aes 
tg Measures not described . ; . ; - (?)103 0 
Coal-group 29......... Coal Deki ch olen as ae Mines: cages. > 


Below this last bed, the Coal measures continue to occupy the 
country for some distance, and a bed 4 feet thick, the “ Gardener 
Coal,’ occurs 330 feet lower. At a distance estimated by Mr 
Lyman at 2400 feet below the Long Beach Seam, or about 2130 feet 
below coal No. 29, mentioned above, occurs a bed of good coal, three 
feet eight inches and a quarter in thickness, or, including a clay part-. 
ing, which appears in some portions, but not in others, four feet one 
inch and a half. It is called the “ Tracey Seam.’ Another seam is 
indicated in Mr Poole’s and Mr Mosely’s plans, between the “ Tracey ” 
and seam 29 above, and 435 to 460 feet above the former; but I have 
no information in respect to it. The Tracey bed is now worked on the 
peninsula between Cow and Miré Bays, and is the most eastern coal 
worked in this coal-field. To the southward of it, however, and at a 
distance representing at least a thousand feet of beds, there is said to 
be still another coal known as the ‘‘ Spencer Seam,” before we reach 
the beginning of the Millstone-grit series, which would thus seem to 
be at least 4500 feet below the newest beds seen near Glace Bay. 

An important question arises here as to the equivalency of any of 
these beds with the Coal measures of North Sydney. Mr R. Brown, 
in the remarks prefixed to his section of the Sydney Coal-field in 1849, 
states his belief that the beds at Glace Bay are newer than those of 
North Sydney. Mr Lesley, on the other hand, regards them as equi- 
valent. After a careful comparison of the several sections, I confess 
that I think the view of Mr Brown the more probable; more espe- 
cially as it places these beds more intelligibly in relation with the 
members of the Lower Carboniferous seen farther inland, and with the 
other coal-fields of Nova Scotia. From Mr Brown’s section, it would 
appear that the Sydney main coal is only about 800 feet above the 
beginning of the Millstone-grit formation; and one considerable bed, the 
Indian Cove seam, of 4 feet 8 inches in thickness, occurs in this interval 
with a thickness of 350 feet between it and the Millstone-grit. Now, 
as the latter formation is not brought to the surface by either of the 
anticlinals between Sydney and Miré, and does not appear for some 
distance up Miré Bay, it seems plain that the only beds in our sections 


7 
—™ 


418 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


which can represent the Sydney main coal and the Indian Cove seam, 
must be the Tracey and Spencer beds, or beds associated with them, 
and not yet well known.* In this case the whole of the upper beds at 
Cow Bay and Glace Bay beds must actually overlie the Cranberry 
Head seam at Sydney, which may be about the horizon of the Phelan 
bed. The only supposition which would enable us to arrive at any 
other conclusion is, that the 2000 feet of thickness between the six- 
feet bed and Tracey bed represent the Millstone-grit of Mr Brown; 
but as that careful observer mentions no beds of coal under the Mill- 
stone-grit, and states that a continuous section of 5400 feet of Coal 
measures exists on the north side of Boulardarie Island, this is scarcely 


. possible. 


In this view of the case, then, the total thickness of Coal measures 


from the Millstone-grit to the newest beds between Glace Bay and 


Lingan cannot be less than 4500 to 5000 feet, and may be more; and 
it is probable that several important coals not yet known exist in the 
lower part of these measures. 

In comparison with the Joggins section, it would appear that we 


have in these Coal measures of Cape Breton a complete equivalent of 


Divisions 3 and 4 of the former section, with a greater aggregate 
thickness of coal; and if we make allowance for the probability that 
many of the smaller beds in Cape Breton have not been noticed by. 
explorers, probably quite as many beds of coal. 

It is a matter of some practical importance that the question raised 
by the discrepancy of the views of Mr Brown.and Mr Lesley above 
stated should be definitely settled by the actual tracing of some of the 
beds above referred to into connexion with the Sydney area. If Mr 
Brown’s view should prove correct, the available coal of the district 
will be double that represented by Lesley, and other and very valuable 


discoveries may be anticipated in the country between Miré Bay and 


Sydney Harbour. 

From the Report of the Commissioner of Mines for 1866, it appears 
that there are fourteen distinct mining establishments now operating 
in the Coal-field of Eastern Cape Breton, and producing an aggregate of 


more than 400,000 tons of coal annually, or nearly two-thirds of the 


whole quantity raised in the province of Nova Scotia, so that this is 
now the most important coal-mining district in the Acadian provinces. 
Some of the coals of this district are of remarkable purity, in so far 

* Mr Mosely, in a letter to the author, mentions some strong reasons for believing 
that the Tracey bed is the equivalent of Mr Brown’s third seam, or Indian Cove seam at 
Sydney, and that a bed seen at Black Brook, head of Cow Bay, is the Sydney main seam, 


being at the same vertical distance above the Tracey that the Sydney main is above 
the Indian Cove seam. 


DISTRICT OF CAPE BRETON COUNTY. 419 


as freedom from ash is concerned; and that of Lingan is remarkable 
for its large yield of illuminating gas. I am indebted to Mr Poole 
for the following table of results of assays of the coal of the Cale- 
~ donia Mine :— 


Wayland Seam, Caledonia Coal Mine, Glace Bay, Cape Breton, 
November 1866. 


Number Depth ) 
f in ||Specific] Vol. | Coke. || Carbon.| Ash. || Colour of Ash. 


Raekyiie. Seats '|Gravity.|| Matter. 
Ft. in. 

1/0 6 | 1°365 || 33°412 | 66°588 | 60°880} 5°708 |! Pale brown. 
2/1 6 1:483 || 30°408 | 69°592 | 51°771| 17-821], Pale brown. 
3/2 6 | 1:287 || 27:098 | 72°902 | 57°358 | 15°544 || Gray. 
41/3 6) 1:321 || 30°792 69°208 | 55°625 | 13°583 || Brown. 
5|/4 6 | 1298 || 33°826| 66°174 | 61°174| 5-0C0 || White. 

sin.parting,6 5 8 1°452 | 30°709 | 69°291 | 45°705 | 23°586 || White. 
7\5 6) 1:296)| 36°728| 63°272 | 58°494| 4°778 || Light brown. 
8/6 6 | 1:°324 | 37°567| 62°433 | 55°868| 6°565 || Reddish brown. 
9|7 6] 1:311)) 34°225| 65°775 | 57:772| 8-003 || Brown. 


| 


Total...|8 0 |12°087 |294-765 |605:235 


Less parting,| No.6 Jal 30°709 | 69°291 | 45°705 | 23°586 


504°647 |100°588 


Parting ded. ; 
not shipped. 


pes > ||10° 635 | | 264:056 |535°944 | |a58-942 77-002 


Average... 1329 || 33-007 | 66-993 | 57-368] 9-625 || 


Clay Ironstone, in nodules, occurs in several of the shales of the 
Sydney section, and is also present in large quantity in the Coal mea- 
sures of Glace Bay, but I have no information respecting its probable 
industrial value. 

Limestone and Gypsum, as already mentioned, abound in a number 
of places, but are not extensively worked. ne altered limestone, 
which extends from the neighbourhood of Long Island, on the Little 
Bras d’Or, toward the East Arm, affords a gray and white Marble. 
Freestone and Grindstone are also quarried, though in small quantity. 


Plants from Glace Bay. 


Since writing the chapter on the Cape Breton Coal-field, I have 
received from Hy. Poole, Esq., a collection of plants from the Coal 
measures of Glace Bay; among which I recognise the following 
forms :— 

Cyperites. Alethopteris Serlii. 

Trigonocarpum. Alethopteris allied to Grandini. 
Alethopteris nervosa. Alethopteris lonchitica. — 


~~. 


ew te ey eee Fe te, ee ee iT eee Z “ 


420 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


-Pecopteris oreopteroides (?) Neuropteris auriculata. 

-Peccpteris Dournaisii, or allied. Sphenopteris decipiens (?) 
Neuropteris flexuosa. _ Cyclopteris fimbriata. 
Neuropteris rarinervis. . . 


Asterophyllites equisetiformis. 

Sphenophyllum—a species with seven or eight long narrow leaflets, 
each with about eight nerves. I have fragments of the same 
from Sydney. It is probably new, and is certainly different 
from the other species referred to in the text. It may be 
named S. Poolt. 

Cordaites borassifolia. Lepidodendron like tetragonum. 

Lepidodendron elegans. Lepidophyllum lanceolatum. 


ee 


yn F _s sala “i 
— owe {oe (iat es 
i et el i — a — ee ee 5 ats 23a Mian — an ee anni “ fea, 


Associated with these plants are abundant valves of Naiadites 
elongatus, and also scales of small ganoid fishes and cyprids. 

The flora represented by this collection is very like that of Sydney, 
more especially in the number of ferns and the species of those present; 
and it is probable that this resemblance will be found to extend 
throughout the Coal-field of Eastern Cape Breton. It is a strictly 
Middle Coal formation assemblage, though having the facies of the 
upper part of that series, to which the Glace Bay beds would, on 
stratigraphical grounds, be referred. 


421 


CHAPTER XX. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM— Continued. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 


I nave already endeavoured to introduce the reader into the jungles 
and forests of Carboniferous Acadia; but in order that he may fully 
appreciate the nature of the wondrous vegetation of that ancient time, 
the producer of all our stores of mineral fuel, it will be necessary that 
we shall pass in review the several genera of Coal formation plants, and 
endeavour so to restore them that, in imagination, we may see them 
growing before us, and fancy ourselves walking beneath their shade. 
While thus endeavouring to introduce the ordinary reader and the 
student of Geology and Paleontology to an acquaintance with the 
Coal Flora, I shall take advantage of the abundant material within my 
reach to restore some of the species more completely than has hitherto 
been possible, and thus to present to geologists what I trust may 
prove a more full and accurate synopsis of the leading features of the 
Carboniferous Flora than any at present accessible. 

The modern flora of the earth admits of a grand twofold division 
into the Phenogamous, or flowering and seed-bearing plants, and the 
Cryptogamous, or flowerless and spore-bearing plants. In the former 
series, we have, first, those higher plants which start in life with two 
seed-leaves, and have stems with distinct bark, wood, and pith—the 
Exogens ; secondly, those simpler plants which begin life with one seed- 
leaf only, and have no distinction of bark, wood, and pith, in the 
stem—the Endogens ; and, thirdly, a peculiar group starting with two 
or several seed-leaves, and having a stem with bark, wood, and pith, 
but with very imperfect flowers, and wood of much simpler structure than 
either of the others—the Gymnosperms. To the first of these groups or 
classes belong most of the ordinary trees of temperate climates. To the 
second belong the Palms and other trees found in tropical climates. 
To the third belong the Pines and Cyeads. In the second or Crypto- 
gamous series we have also three classes,—(1.) The Acrogens, or ferns 
and club-mosses, with stems having true vessels marked on the sides 


i. 


422 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


with cross bars—the scalariform vessels. (2.) The Anophytes, or 
mosses and their allies, with stems and leaves, but no vessels. (3.) The 


Thallophytes, or lichens, fungi, sea-weeds, etc., without true stems and % 


leaves. 

In the existing climates of the earth we find these classes of plants 
variously distributed as to relative numbers. In some, pines predo- 
minate. In others, palms and tree-ferns form a considerable part of 
the forest vegetation. In others, the ordinary exogenous trees predo- 
minate, almost to the exclusion of others. In some Arctic and Alpine 
regions mosses and lichens prevail. In the Coal period we have found 
none of the higher Exogens, and only a few obscure indications of the 
presence of Endogens ; but Gymnosperms abound, and are highly char- 
acteristic. On the other hand, we have no mosses or lichens, and 
very few alge, but a great number of ferns and Lycopodiacee or 
club-mosses. Thus the Coal formation period is botanically a meet- 
ing place of the lower Phenogams and the higher Cryptogams, and 
presents many forms which, when imperfectly known, have puzzled 
botanists in regard to their position in one or other series. In the 
present world, the flora most akin to that of the Coal period is that of 
moist and warm islands in the southern hemisphere. It is not pro- 
perly a tropical flora, nor is it the flora of a cold region, but rather 


indicative of a moist and equable climate. Still we must bearin mind 


that we may often be mistaken in reasoning as to the temperature 
required by extinct species of plants differing from those now in exist- 
ence. Farther, we must not assume that the climatal conditions of the 
northern hemisphere were in the Coal period at all similar to those 
which now prevail. As Sir Charles Lyell has shown, a less amount 
of land in the higher latitudes would greatly modify climates, and there 
is every reason to believe that in the Coal period there was less land 
than now. Farther, it has been shown by Tyndall that a very small 
additional amount of carbonic acid in the atmosphere would, by 
obstructing the radiation of heat from the earth, produce almost the 
effect of a glass roof or conservatory, extending over the whole world. 
Again, there is much in the structure of the leaves of the Coal plants, 
as well as in the vast amount of carbon which they accumulated in 
the form of coal, and the characteristics of the animal life of the period, 
to indicate, on independent grounds, that the carboniferous atmosphere 
differed from that of the present world in this way, or in the presence 
of more carbonic acid,—a substance now existing in the very minute 
proportion of less than one-thousandth of the whole, a quantity adapted 
to the present requirements of vegetable and animal life, but probably 
not to those of the Coal period. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 423 


We shall commence our survey of the Coal flora with the higher 
forms of plant-life, which are also those most akin to the plants of the 
present world. 
Cass or GYMNOSPERMS. 

1. Conifere or Pines. 
Four species of pines have been recognised in the Coal formation of 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They are known principally as 
drift trunks imbedded in the sandstones, and these are so abundant as 
to indicate that extensive pine forests existed, perhaps principally in 
the uplands, higher than the Coal swamps. The trunks are also fre- 
quently so well preserved, owing to the infiltration of carbonate of 
lime or silica into their cells, that their most minute structures can be 
observed as readily as in the case of recent wood. They may all be 
included in the genus Dadoxylon, a name which means simply pine- 
wood. The wood of these trees, however, more resembles that of the 
Araucarian pines of the southern hemisphere than that of our ordinary 
pines. 
One of the species, D. antiquius, is closely allied to D. Withami of 
Great Britain, and, like that species, belongs to the Lower Carbon- 
iferous Coal measures. Its structure is of that character for which 
Brongniart proposed the generic name “ Palavxylon.”’* Another 
species, D. Acadianum, is found abundantly at the Joggins and else- 
where in the condition of drifted trunks imbedded in the sandstone of 
the lower part of the Coal formation and the upper part of the Mill- 
stone-grit series. The third species, D. materiarium, is very near to 
D. Brandlingii of Great Britain, and may possibly be only a variety. 
It is especially abundant in the sandstone of the Upper Coal formation, 
in which vast numbers of drifted trunks of this species occur in some 
places. The fourth species, D. annulatum, presents a very peculiar 
structure, probably of generic value. It has alternate concentric rings 
of discigerous woody tissue, of the character of that of Dadoxylon, and 
of compact structureless coal, which either represents layers of very 
dense wood or, more likely, of corky cellular tissue. In the latter case, 
the structure would have affinities with that of certain Gnetacee or 
jointed pines, and of Cycads. 
Though coniferous trees usually occur as decorticated and prostrate 
trunks, I have recorded the occurrence of one erect specimen, in a sand- 
stone a little above the “Main Coal,” at the Joggins. It probably 
belonged to the species last named. ‘Tissues of coniferous trees are 
very rare in the coal itself. Most of the tissues marked with discs on 
the cells like those of pines, found in the coal, belong to Sigillaria and 


* Ancient wood. 


tate en ti, es i i nm 


424 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Calamodendron. From the abundance of coniferous trees in sandstones 
above and below the coal, and their comparative absence in the coal 
and coal-shales, it may be inferred that these trees belonged rather to 
the uplands than to the coal-swamps; and the great durability and — 
small specific gravity of coniferous wood would allow it to be drifted, 
either by rivers or ocean-currents, to very great distances. I am not 
aware that the fruits of pine-trees occur, unless some of those called 
Trigonocarpa are of this character. Nor has any foliage of these trees 
been found, except at Tatamagouche, in the continuation of the Upper 
Coal formation, where I have found leafy branchlets which I have 
named Araucarites gracilis, and which may possibly have belonged 
to Dadoxylon materiarium. 

The casts or pith-cylinders known as Sternbergie are abundant in 
some of the sandstones, especially in the Upper Coal formation. I 
have shown that in Nova Scotia, as in England, some of these singular 
casts belong to Dadoxylon ;* but as the pith-cylinder of Sigillaria and of 
Lepidophloios was of a similar character, those which are destitute of 
woody investment cannot be determined with certainty, though in 
general the transverse markings are more distant in the Sternbergie 
of Sigillaria and Lepidophloios than in those of Dadoxylon. 

In a paper communicated to the Geological Society of London in — 
1846, to which Professor Williamson, in his able Memoir in the Man- 
chester Transactions (vol. ix., 1851), assigns the credit of first sug- 
gesting that connexion between these curious fossils and the conifers 
which he has so successfully worked out, I stated my belief that those 
specimens of Sternbergize which occur with only thin smooth coatings 
of coal might have belonged to rush-like endogens; while those to 
which fragments of fossil wood were attached presented structures 
resembling those of conifers. These last were not, however, so well — 
preserved as to justify me in speaking very positively as to their 
coniferous affinities. They were also comparatively rare; and I was 
unable to understand how casts of the pith of conifers could assume 
the appearance of the naked or thinly coated Sternbergie. Additional 
specimens, affording well-preserved coniferous tissue, have removed 
these doubts, and, in connexion with others in a less perfect state of 


preservation, have enabled me more fully to comprehend the homologies _ 


of this curious structure, and the manner in which specimens of it-have 
been preserved independently of the wood. 
My most perfect specimen is one from the coal-field of Pictou} 


* Proceedings of the American Association, 1837, Canadian Naturalist, vol. ii. Paper 
on Structures of Coal, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1860. ; 
+ Presented to me by Mr Hogg of Pictou Island. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 425 


Fig. 159.—Araucarites and Dadoxylon. 


S TUTTTTT 
4 a , 
ry vy 1 LI | H 
a ab N18 
LY ap HR I A 
A lel nh ny 
oy aa ‘al N f Ah 
aa ap HLH i Aa 

ae NW! | a an 
Re @ 6 10 Fe laa 
eR & Ri IR 4 

ry) r ) ry | 
ns i AIR H ne 
mt y |B u ae 
AY aa i Ny 1} sa 
| ia RIB » ap 
oa ian i ta 
2a W, Ny 1} " 
wi a | ; 
¥ r ! ' 


A, Araucarites gracilis; reduced. 
B, Dadoxylon Acadianum (radial), 90 diams. 


BI, Do. do. (tangential), 90 diams. 
B?, Do. do. cell showing areolation, 250 diams. 
C, Dadoxylon materiarium (radial), 90 diams. 
Cc}, Do. do. (tangential), 90 diams. 
52, Do. do. cell showing areolation, 250 diams. 
D, Dadoxylon antiquius (radial), 90 diams. 
Dp}, Do. do. (tangential), 90 diams. 
D2, Do. do, cell showing areolation, 250 diams. 


2B 


Lk _t, —- ¥ So SS bg | ee 


426 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


- 


(Fig. 160). It is cylindrical, but somewhat flattened, being one inch 
and two-tenths in its least diameter, and one inch and seven-tenths 
in its greatest. The diaphragms, or transverse partitions, appear to 
have been continuous, though now somewhat broken. They are rather 
less than one-tenth of an inch apart, and are more regular thanis usual 
in these fossils. The outer surface of the pith, except where covered 
by the remains of the wood, is marked by strong wrinkles, correspond- 
ing to the diaphragms. ‘The little transverse ridges are in part coated 
with a smooth tissue similar to that of the diaphragms, and of nearly 


the same thickness. 
Fig. 160.—Sternbergia Pith of Dadoxylon. 


A, Specimen; nat. size, showing remains D, Longitudinal section of another speci- 


of wood at (a) (a). men with thick coaly envelope repre- 
B, Junction of wood and pith; magnified. senting the wood. 
C, Cells of the wood of do. (aa); (b) Me- _—_—E, Flattened trunk, with Sternbergia pith 
dullary ray; (c) Areolation. at (a); reduced. 


F, Cellular tissue of pith. ! 


When traced around the circumference or toward the centre, the 
partitions sometimes coalesce and become double, and there is a ten- 
dency to the alternation of wider and narrower wrinkles on the surface. 
In these characters and in its general external aspect, the specimen 
perfectly resembles many of the ordinary naked Sternbergiz. 

On microscopic examination, the partitions are found to consist of 
condensed pith, which, from the compression of the cells, must have 
been of a firm bark-like texture in the recent plant (Fig. 160, F). The 
wood attached to the surface, which consists of merely a few small 
splinters, is distinctly coniferous, with two and three rows of dises on 


rT. = =" "oe. 7 2 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 427 


the cell walls (C, c). It is not distinguishable from that of Pinites 
— (Dadoxylon) Brandlingii of Witham, or from that of the specimens 
figured by Professor Williamson. The wood and transverse partitions 
are perfectly silicified, and of a dark-brown colour. The partitions are 
coated with small colourless crystals of quartz and a little iron pyrites, 
__ and the remaining spaces are filled with crystalline lamine of sulphate 

of barytes. 
_ Unfortunately this fine specimen does not possess enough of its 

woody tissue to show the dimensions or age of the trunk or branch 
_ which contained this enormous pith. It proves, however, that the pith 
itself has not been merely dried and cracked transversely by the elon- 
gation of the stem, as appears to be the case in the Butternut (Juglans 
cinerea), and some other modern trees, but that it has been condensed 
into a firm epidermis-like coating and partitions, apparently less de- 
structible than the woody tissue which invested them. In this speci- 
men the process of condensation has been carried much farther than in 
that described by Professor Williamson, in which a portion of the un- 
altered pith remained between the Sternbergia cast and the wood. It 
thus more fully explains the possibility of the preservation of such 
hollow-chambered piths after the disappearance of the wood. It also 
shows that the coaly coating investing such detached pith-casts is not 
the medullary sheath, properly so called, but the outer part of the con- 

densed pith itself. 

iq The examination of this specimen having convinced me that the 
structure of Sternbergise implies something more than the transverse 
- eracking observed in Juglandacez, I proceeded to compare it with 
other piths, and especially with that of Cecropia peltata, a West Indian 
tree, of the natural family Artocarpacex, a specimen of which was 
kindly presented to me by Professor Balfour of Edinburgh, and which 
I believe has been noticed by Dr Fleming, in a paper to which I have 
not had access. This recent stem is two inches in diameter. Its 
medullary cylinder is three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and is lined 
throughout with a coating of dense whitish pith tissue, one-twentieth of 
an inch in thickness. This condensed pith is of a firm corky texture, 
and forms a sort of internal bark lining the medullary cavity. Within 
this the stem is hollow, but is crossed by arched partitions, convex 
upward, and distant from each other from three-quarters to one and a 
quarter inch. These partitions are of the same white corky tissue 
with the pith lining the cavity; and on their surfaces, as well as on 
that of the latter, are small patches of brownish large-celled pith, being 
the remains of that which has disappeared from the intervening spaces. 
Each partition corresponds with the upper margin of one of the large 


a, 
f 


tie ee 


428 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


triangular leaf-scars, arranged in quincuncial order on the surface of 
the stem. 

Inferring from these appearances that this plant contains two distinet 
kinds of pith tissue, differing in duration and probably in function, I” 
obtained, for comparison, specimens of living plants of this and allied 
families. In some of these, and especially in a species labelled “ Ficus 
imperialis,’ from Jamaica, I found the same structure; and in the 
young branches, before the central part of the pith was broken up, it 
was evident that the tissue was of two distinct kinds: one forming the 
outer coating and transverse partitions opposite the insertions of the 
leaves, and retaining its vitality for several years at least; the other, 


-occupying the intervening spaces or internodes, of looser texture, 


speedily drying up, and ultimately disappearing. 

The trunks above noticed are of rapid growth, and have large leaves; 
and it is probable that the more permanent pith tissue of the medullary 
lining and partitions serves to equalize the distribution of the juices 
of the stem, which might otherwise be endangered by the tearing of 
the ordinary pith in the rapid elongation of the internodes. A similar 
structure has evidently existed in the Coal formation conifers of the 
genus Dadoxylon, and possibly they also were of rapid growth and 
furnished with very large or abundant leaves. 

Applying the facts above stated to the different varieties or species _ 
of Sternbergia, we must, in the first place, connect with these fossils 
such plants as the Pinites medullaris of Witham. I have not seen a 
longitudinal section of this fossil, but should expect it to present a 
transverse structure of the Sternbergia type. The first specimen de- 
scribed by Professor Williamson represents a second variety, in which 
the transverse structure is developed in the central part of the pith, 
but not at the sides. In my Pictou specimen the pith has wholly dis- 
appeared, with the exception of the denser outer coating and transverse 
plates. All these are distinctly coniferous, and the differences that 
appear may be due merely to age, or more or less rapid growth. — 

Other specimens of Sternbergia want the internal partitions, which 
may, however, have been removed by decay; and these often retain 
very imperfect traces, or none, of the investing wood. In the case of 
those which retain any portion of the wood sufficient to render prob- 
able their coniferous character, the surface markings are similar in 
character to those of my Pictou specimen, but often vary greatly in 
their dimensions, some having fine transverse wrinkles, others having 
these wide and coarse. Of those specimens which retain no wood, 
but only a thin coaly investment representing the outer pith, many 
cannot be distinguished by their superficial markings from those that 


ee. .. — 4 - 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 429 


, are known to be coniferous, and they occasionally afford evidence that 
we must not attach too much importance to the character of their 
markings. A very instructive specimen of this kind from Ohio, with 
_ which I have been favoured by Professor Newberry, has in a portion 
_ of its thicker end very fine transverse wrinkles, and in the remainder 
of the specimen much coarser wrinkles. This difference marks, 
perhaps, the various rates of growth in successive seasons, or the 
change of the character of the pith in older portions of the stem. 

The state of preservation of the Sternbergia casts, in reference to 
the woody matter which surrounded them, presents, in a geological 
point of view, many interesting features. Professor Williamson’s 
specimen I suppose to be unique, in its showing all the tissues of the 
branch or trunk in a good state of preservation. More frequently, 
only fragments of the wood remain, in such a condition as to evidence 
an advanced state of deeay, while the bark-like medullary lining 
remains. In other specimens, the coaly coating investing the cast 
sends forth flat expansions on either side, as if the Sternbergia had 
been the midrib of a long thick leaf. This appearance, at one time 
very perplexing to me, I suppose to result from the entire removal of 
the wood by decay, and the flattening of the bark, so that a perfectly 
flattened specimen may be all that remains of a coniferous branch 
nearly two inches in diameter. A still greater amount of decay of 
woody tissue is evidenced by those Sternbergia casts which are thinly 
coated with structureless coal. These must, in many cases, represent 
trunks and branches which have lost their bark and wood by decay ; 
while the tough cork-like chambered pith drifted away to be imbedded 
in a separate state. This might readily happen with the pith of 
Cecropia; and perhaps that of these coniferous trees may have been 
more durable; while the wood, like the sap-wood of many modern 
pines, may have been susceptible of rapid decay, and liable, when 
exposed to alternate moisture and dryness, to break up into those 
rectangular blocks which are seen in the decaying trunks of modern 
conifers, and are so abundantly scattered over the surfaces of coal and 
its associated beds in the form of mineral charcoal. 

Some specimens of Sternbergia appear to show that they have 
existed in the interior of trunks of considerable size. I have observed 
one at the South Joggins, which appears to show the remains of a tree 
a foot in diameter, now flattened and converted into coal, but retain- 
ing a distinct cast of a wrinkled Sternbergia pith. (Fig. 160, E.) 
Are we to infer from these facts that the wood of the trees of the 
genus Dadoxylon was necessarily of a lax and perishable texture ? Its 
structure, and the occurrence of the heart-wood of huge trunks of 


430 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


similar character in a perfectly mineralized condition, would lead to 
a different conclusion ; and I suspect that we should rather regard the 
mode of occurrence of Sternbergia as a caution against the too general 
inference, from the state of preservation of trees of the Coal formation, — 
that their tissues were very destructible, and that the beds of coal must 
consist of such perishable materials. The coniferous character of the 
Sternbergix, in connexion with their state of preservation, seems to 
strengthen a conclusion at which I have been arriving from micros- 
copie and field examinations of the coal and carbonaceous shales, that 
the thickest beds of coal, at least in Eastern America, consist in great 
part of the flattened bark of coniferous, sigillarioid, and lepidodendroid 
trees, the wood of which has perished by slow decay, or appears only 
in the state of fragments and films of mineral charcoal. This subject, 
however, will be introduced in the next section of this chapter. In 
my researches in microscopic coal structures, I have also ascertained 
that some Sternbergie are pith cylinders of Sigillarie. (Fig. 
161, M). 

The most abundant locality of Sternbergia with which I am 
acquainted occurs in the neighbourhood of the town of Pictou, im- 
mediately below the bed of erect calamites described in the Journal of 
the Geological Society (vol. vii., p. 194). The fossils are found in 


interrupted beds of very coarse sandstone, with calcareous concretions, _ 


imbedded in a thick reddish brown sandstone. These gray patches 
are full of well-preserved Calamites, which have either grown upon 
them, or have been drifted in clumps with their roots entire. The 
appearances suggest the idea of patches of gray sand rising from a 
bottom of red mud, with clumps of growing Calamites which arrested 
quantities of drift plants, consisting principally of Sternbergia and 
fragments of much decayed wood and bark, now in the state of coaly 
matter, too much penetrated by iron pyrites to show its structure dis- 
tinctly. We thus probably have the fresh growing Calamites entombed 
along with the debris of the old decaying conifers of some neighbour- 
ing shore; furnishing an illustration of the truth, that the most 
ephemeral and perishable forms may be fossilized and preserved con- 
temporaneously with the decay of the most durable tissues. The rush 
of a single summer may be preserved with its minutest strie unharmed, 
when the giant pine of centuries has crumbled into dust or disappeared. 


2. Sigillariacee or Stgillarioid Trees. 
1. Genus Sigillaria.—The Sigillariz, so named from the seal-like 
scars of fallen leaves stamped on their bark, were the most important — 
of all the trees of the coal-swamps, and those which contributed most 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION, 431 


- largely to the production of coal. Let us take as an example of them 
a species very common at the Joggins, and which I have named S. 
_ Brownii, in honour of my friend, Mr R. Brown of Sydney. Imagine 
a tall cylindrical trunk spreading at the base, and marked by perpen- 
dicular rounded ribs giving it the appearance of a clustered or fluted 
column. ‘These ribs are marked by rows of spots or pits left by fallen 
leaves, and toward the base they disappear, and the bark becomes 
rough and uneven, but still retains obscure indications of the leaf-scars, 
widened transversely by the expansion of the stem. At the base the 
trunk spreads into roots, but with a regular bifurcation quite un- 
exampled in modern trees, and the thick cylindrical roots are marked 
with round sunken pits or areoles, from which spread long cylindrical 
rootlets. These roots are the so-called Stigmaria, at one time regarded 
as independent plants, and, as the reader may have already observed, 
remarkable for their constant presence in the underclays of the coal- 
beds. Casting our eyes upward, we find the pillar-like trunk, either 
quite simple or spreading by regular bifurcation into a few thick 
branches, covered with long narrow leaves looking like grass, or, more 
exactly, like pine leaves greatly increased in size, or, more exactly still, 
like single leaflets of the leaves of Cycads. Near the top, if the plant 
were in fruit, we might observe long catkins of obscure flowers or strings 
of large nut-like seeds, borne in rings or whorls encircling the stem. 
If we could apply the woodman’s axe to a Sigillaria, we should find 
it very different in structure from that of our ordinary trees, but not 
unlike that of the Cycads, or false sago-plants of the tropics. A 
lumber-man would probably regard it as a tree nearly all bark, with 
only a slender core of wood in the middle; and, botanically, he would 
be very near the truth. The outer rind or bark of the tree was very 
hard. Within this was a very thick inner bark, partly composed of a 
soft corky cellular tissue, and partly of long tough fibrous cells like 
those of the bark of the cedar. This occupied the greater part of the 
stem even in old trees four or five feet in diameter. Within this we 
would find a comparatively small cylinder of wood, not unlike pine in 
appearance, and even in its microscopic structure ; and in the centre a 
large pith, often divided, by the tension caused in the growth of the 
stem, into a series of horizontal tables or partitions. Such a stem 
would have been of little use for timber, and of comparatively small 
strength. Still the central axis of wood gave it rigidity, the surround- 
ing fibres, like cordage, gave the axis support, and the outer shell 
of hard bark must have contributed very materially to the strength 
of the whole. Growing as these trees did in swampy flats close 
together, and the bark of which they were chiefly composed being less 


432 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Wei | 
VA / 


| 
MZ 


Sia 
nas 
eg 


ae 

a0 A 
=e 
eerie WS a 


C= 


eos 
BTR 


A, Sigillaria Brownii, restored. For other illustrations of this species, see Fig. 30. 

b, SS. elegans, restored. 

Bl, Leaf of S. elegans. 

B2, Portion of decorticated stem, showing one of the transverse bands of fruit-scars. 

B3, Portion of stem and branch reduced, and scars nat. size. 

C, Cross section of Sigillaria Brownii (?), reduced, and portion at (M) natural size. (a) Stern- 
bergia pith, (1) Inner cylinder of scalariform vessels. (62) Outer cylinder of discigerous 
cells, with medullary rays and bundles of scalariform vessels going to the leaves 
at (03). (c) Inner bark. (d) Outer bark. 


D, Scalariform vessel magnified. H, S.eminens, reduced. (H!) areole, halfn. size. 


E, Discigerous woody fibre, magnified. I, S. catenoides, half nat. size. 
F, Sigillaria Bretonensis, 4. (f1) Areole,n.size. K, S. planicosta, half nat. size. 
G, S. striata, nat. size, LL, Portion of leaf of S. scutellata. 


= 
rf 
. 
4 
a 
i- 


psa me 
- beak / 
a cee = 


ee. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 433 


susceptible of rapid decay than most kinds of wood, and too impervious 
- to fluids to be readily penetrated by mineral matter, they were admir- 
ably fitted for the production of the raw material of coal. 

_ Ihave endeavoured to represent the structures above referred to in 

Fig. 161. 

The species to which I have referred was only one of many more 
or less resembling it, but differing in details; and according to these 
special differences, they may be arranged in the following genera, which 
may, however, be much modified by the progress of discovery. Op- 
posite each genus I have given the species representing it in Nova 
Scotia. 


(1.) Favunarta, Sternberg . .. Sigillaria elegans, Brongn. 
— tessellata, Brongn. 
—— Bretonensis, Dawson. 
(2.) Ruytipoueris, Sternberg . . —— scutellata, Brongn. 
—— Schlotheimiana, Brongn. 
—— Saullii, Brongn. 
— Dournaisii, Brongn. 
—— Konorrii, Brongn. 
—— pachyderma, Brongn. 
— flexuosa, L. § H.? 
—— elongata, Brongn. 
(3.) Stamnaria, Brongn. ... . —— reniformis, Brongn. 
—— Brownii, Dawson. 
— levigata, Brongn. 
—— planicosta, Dawson. 
— catenoides, Dawson. 
— striata, Dawson. 
— eminens, Dawson. 
(4.) Crarnrarta, Brongn... . . —— Menardi, Brongn. 


(5.) Leroperma, Groldenb. . . . . —— Sydnensis, Dawson. 
(Asolanus, Wood). _ 
(6.) Syrmncopenpron, Sternbd.. . —— organum, L. § H. 


_ Of these, seven are probably new species, and the remainder can 
be identified with reasonable certainty with European species. The 
differences in the markings in different parts of the same tree are, 
however, so great, that I regard the greater part of the recognised 
species of Sigillarie as merely provisional. Even the generic limits 
may be overpassed when species are determined from hand specimens. 
A fragment of the base of an old trunk of Sigillaria proper would 
necessarily be placed in the genus Leioderma, and a young branch of 


Ft eS 


wee eee TK ee. 


434 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Favularia has all the characters of the genus Clathraria. It is, 
however, absolutely necessary to make some attempt at generic dis- 
tinction among the diverse forms included in the genus Srgillaria ; 


otherwise it will be impossible to reconcile the conflicting statements . 3 
of authors as to the dimensions, habit of growth, foliage, roots, and 


fructification of these singular plants ;—such statements usually ap- 


plying to one or more of the subordinate generic types. I shall 


therefore notice separately, and with especial reference to their function 
in the production of coal, the several generic or subgeneric forms, 
beginning with that which I regard as the most important—namely, 


Sigillaria proper, of which, in Nova Scotia, I regard the species which _ 
Ihave named S. Brownii as the type. Other species are represented 


in Figs. 161, B to K. 

In the restricted genus Sigillaria the ribs are strongly developed, 
except at the base of the stem; they are usually much broader than 
the oval or elliptical tripunctate areoles, and are striated longitudinally. 
The woody axis has both discigerous and scalariform tissues, arranged 


in wedges, with medullary rays as in exogens;* the pith is trans- — 


versely partitioned in the manner of Sternbergia ; and the inner bark 
contains great quantities of long and apparently very durable fibres, 
which I have, in my descriptions of the structures in the coal, named 


‘bast tissue.”’ The outer bark was usually thick, of dense and almost _ 


indestructible cellular tissue. The trunk when old lost its regular ribs 
and scars, owing to expansion, and became furrowed like that of an old 
exogenous tree. The roots were Stzgmarie of the type of S. ficotdes. 
(Fig. 30, d, p. 180.) I have not seen the leaves or fruits attached ; 
but, from the association observed, I believe that the former were long, 


narrow, rigid, and two-or-three-nerved (Cyperites), and that the latter — 
were Trigonocarpa, borne in racemes on the upper part of the stem. — 
These trees attained to a great size. I have seen one trunk four feet — 


in diameter, and specimens of two feet or more in diameter are com- 
mon: some of these trunks have been traced for thirty or forty feet 


without branching. The greater number of the erect stumps preserved — 


at the Joggins appear to belong to this genus, which also seems to 
have contributed very largely to the formation of coal. Judging from 


the paucity of their foliage, the density of their tissues, and the strong 


structural resemblance of their stems and roots to those of Cycads, I 
believe that their rate of growth must have been very slow. 


The genus Rhytidolepis, in which the areoles are large, hexose ; 


and tripunctate, and the ribs narrow and often transversely striate, 
ranks as a coal-producer next to Sigillaria proper, and is equally 


* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., paper on Structures of Coal. 


Rr te sce 


rm 


= 


ay Phe 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION, 435 


abundant in the Coal measures. These trees seem to have been of 
smaller size and feebler structure than the last mentioned, and are 
less frequently found in the erect position; but they are very abun- 
dant on the roofs of the coal beds. Judging from such specimens as 
I have seen, their roots were less distinctly stigmarioid than in the 
last genus, though this appearance may arise from difference of pre- 
servation. ‘Their leaves were of the same type as in the last genus; 
and their stems bear rings of irregular scars, which may mark stages 
of growth, or the production of slender racemes of fruit in a verticillate 
manner. The woody axis of the stems of this genus was composed 
_ of scalariform and coarsely porous tissues, much like those of modern 
Cycads. I figure, as an illustration of the genus, a fragment of S. 
Bretonensis (Fig. 161, F). 
The genus Favularia is represented in Nova Scotia principally by 
the typical species S. elegans of Brongniart. The admirable investi- 
gations of the structure of the stem of this species by Brongniart, with 
the further illustrations given by Corda, Hooker, and. Goldenberg, 
still afford the best general views of the structure of Sigdlarie which 
we possess. It is to be observed, however, that Brongniart’s speci- 
men was a young stem or a branch, and that it affords a very imper- 
fect idea of the development of discigerous and bast tissues in the 
full-grown stems of Stgillaria proper. The trees of this genus appear 
to have been of small growth; and they branched in the manner of 
Lepidodendron, the smaller branches being quite destitute of ribs, and 
with the areoles elliptical and spirally disposed. The stems show 
_ joints or rings of peculiar scars at intervals, as in the last genus. The 
_ leaves differ from those of the other genera, being broad and with 
numerous slender parallel veins, almost in the manner of Cordaites 
(Fig. 161, B?). 
The genus Clathraria is evidently closely allied to the above, and 
is possibly founded on branches of trees of the genus Favularia. It 
is a rare form in Nova Scotia. 
Of the genus Leioderma or Asolanus I know but one species, inde- 
pendently of those specimens of old trunks of the ordinary Sigillaria 
‘in which the ribs have disappeared. My species, S. Sydenensis, is 
founded on specimens collected by Mr Brown at Sydney, Cape Breton, 
which are especially remarkable for the curious modification which 
they present of the Stigmarian root. The specimens described by Mr 
Brown under the name of S. alternans,* and which have been copied by 
Geinitz and Goldenberg, belong, I believe, to this species. 
_ * Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. v. p. 354. et seg. See also my paper on'“ Conditions 


of Accumulation of Coal,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxii. p. 147, and Pl. vii, 
Figs. 28, a, b,c. 


rey. 


~e 


436 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


On the genus Syringodendron of Sternberg I have no observations — ; 
to make. I have seen only fragments of stems; and these seem to 


be very rare. 
I include under Sigillarie the remarkable fossils aa as Stig- 
maria, being fully convinced that all the varieties of these plants — 


known to me are merely roots of Sigillaria ; I have verified this fact — 


in a great many instances, in addition to those so well described by 
Mr Binney and Mr Brown. The different varieties or species of 


Stigmaria are no doubt characteristic of different species of Sigillaria, . a 


though in very few cases has it proved possible to ascertain the va- 


rieties proper to the particular species of stem. The old view, that — 
the Stigmarie were independent aquatic plants, still apparently main- 
tained by Goldenberg and some other palzobotanists, evidently proceeds _ 


from imperfect information. Independently of their ascertained con- 
nexion with Stgillaria, the organs attached to the branches are not 
leaves, but rootlets. This was made evident long ago by the micro- 
scopic sections published by Goeppert, and I have ascertained that 
the structure is quite similar to that of the thick fleshy rootlets of 


Cycas. The lumps or tubercles on these roots have been mistaken — 


for fructification; and the rounded tops of stumps, truncated by the 


falling in of the bark or the compression of the empty shell left by 
the decay of the wood, have been mistaken for the natural termination — 
of the stem.* The only question remaining in regard to these organs __ 


is that of their precise morphological place. Their large pith and — 
regular areoles render them unlike true roots; and hence Lesquereux 


has proposed to regard them as rhizomes. But they certainly radiate _ 


from a central stem, and are not known to produce any true buds or 
secondary stems. In short, while their function is that of roots, they — 
may be regarded, in a morpholomeal point of view, as a peculiar sort — 
of underground branches. They all ramify very regularly in a 


dichotomous manner, and, as Mr Brown has shown, in some species _ 


at least, give off conical tap-roots from their underside. 


In all the Stigmarie exhibiting structure which I have examined, 
the axis shows only scalariform vessels. Corda, however, figures a _ 


species with wood-cells, or vessels with numerous pores, quite like 


those found in the stems of Sigillaria proper; and, as Hooker has — 


pointed out, the arrangement of the tissues in St7gmaria is similar to 
that in Sigillaria. After making due allowance for differences of 


preservation, I have been able to recognise eleven species or forms — 


* For examples of the manner in which a natural termination may be simulated by 


the collapse of bark or by constriction owing to lateral pressure, see my papers, Quart. 


Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. x. p, 35, and vol. vii. p. 194, 


: 


: 


| 
q 


i es ol 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 437 


of Stigmaria in Nova Scotia, corresponding, as I believe, to as many 
species of Sigillaria.* At the Joggins, Stigmarie are more abundant 
than any other fossil plants. This arises from their preservation in 
the numerous fossil soils or Stigmaria underclays. Their bark, and 
mineral charcoal derived from their axes, also abound throughout the 
thickness of the coal beds, indicating the continued growth of Sigil- 
laria in the accumulation of the coal. 
Our knowledge of the fructification of Sigillaria is as yet of a very 
uncertain character. I am aware that Goldenberg has assigned to 
these plants leafy strobiles containing spore-capsules: but I do not 
think the evidence which he adduces conclusive as to their connexion 
with Sigillaria; and the organs themselves are so precisely similar 
to the strobiles of Lepidophioios, that I suspect they must belong to 
that or some allied genus. The leaves, also, with which they are 
associated in one of Goldenberg’s figures seem more like those of 
Lepidophioios than those of Sigillaria. If, however, these are really 
the organs of fructification of any species of Sigillaria, I think it will 
be found that we have included in this genus, as in the old genus 
Calamites, two distinct groups of plants, one eryptogamous, and the 
other phenogamous, or else that male strobiles bearing pollen have 
been mistaken for spore-bearing organs. 
I cannot pretend that I have found the fruit of Sigillaria attached 
to the parent stem; but I think that a reasonable probability can be 
established that some at least of the fruits included, somewhat vaguely, 
by authors under the names of Trigonocarpum and Rhabdocarpus, 
were really fruits of Sigdllaria. These fruits are excessively abundant 
and of many species, and they occur not only in the sandstones, but 
in the fine shales and coals and in the interior of erect trees, showing 
that they were produced in the coal-swamps. The structures of these 
fruits show that they are phenogamous and probably gymnospermous. 
Now the only plants known to us in the Coal formation, whose struc- 
tures entitle them to this rank, are the Conifers, Sigillaria, and Cala- 
modendra. All the others were in structure allied to eryptogams, 
and the fructification of most of them is known. But the Conifers 
were too infrequent in the Carboniferous swamps to have afforded 
numerous species of Carpolites ; and, as I shall presently show, the 
Calamodendra were very closely allied to Sigillaria, if not members 
of that family. Unless, therefore, these fruits belonged to Sigillaria, 
they must have been produced by some other trees of the coal-swamps, 
which, though very abundant and of numerous species, are as yet 
quite unknown to us. Some of the Zrigonocarpa have been claimed 


* See Paper on Accumulation of Coal, Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xxii. 


ie 


oe eee er eee 


‘broad rhachis and subtended by a few scales. Such spikes may be — 


438 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


for Conifers, and their resemblance to the fruits of Salisburya gives 
countenance to this claim; but the Conifers of the Coal period are 
much too few to afford more than a fraction of the species. One 
species of Rhabdocarpus has been attributed by Geinitz to the genus é 
Neggerathia ; but the leaves which he assigns to it are very like those 
of Sigillaria elegans, and may belong to some allied species. With 
regard to the mode of attachment of these fruits, I have shown that — 

one species, Trigonocarpum racemosum of the Devonian strata,* was 
borne on a rhachis in the manner of a loose spike, and I am convinced _ 
that some of the groups of inflorescence named Antholithes are simply 
young Rhabdocarpi or Trigonocarpa borne in a pinnate manner on a 


regarded as corresponding to a leaf with fruits borne on the edges, m 
the manner of the female flower of Cycas ; and I believe with Golden- 
berg that these were borne in verticils at intervals on the stem. In 
this case it is possible that the strobiles described by that author may 
be male organs of fructification containing, not spores, but pollen. 
In conclusion, I would observe that I would not doubt the possibility 
that some of the fruits known as Cardiocarpa may have belonged to 


ES ie LNCAP TTL 


rere 


sigillarioid trees. I am aware that some so-called Cardiocarpa are 
spore-cases of Lepidodendron; but there are others which are mani- 
festly winged nutlets allied to Trigonocarpum, and which must have — 
belonged to phenogams. It would perhaps be unwise to insist very 
strongly on deductions from what may be called circumstantial evi- 
dence as to the nature of the fruit of Stgidlaria ; but the indications 
pointing to the conclusions above stated are so numerous that I have 4 
much confidence that they will be vindicated by complete specimens, __ 
should these be obtained. > 

All of the Joggins coals, except a few shaly beds, afford unequivo- _ 
eal evidence of Stigmaria in their underclays; and it was obviously 
the normal mode of growth of a coal-bed, that, a more or lessdamp __ 
soil being provided, a forest of Sigillaria should overspread this, and 
that the Stigmarian roots, the trunks of fallen Sigillarie, their leaves 
and fruits, and the smaller plants which grew in their. shade, should — 
accumulate in a bed of vegetable matter to be subsequently converted 
into coal—the bark of Sigillaria and allied plants affording “ bright 
coal,” the wood and bast tissues mineral charcoal, and the herba¢eous — 
matter and mould dull coal. The evidence of this afforded by micro- 
scopic structure I have endeavoured to illustrate in a former paper.+ 

The process did not commence, as some have supposed, by the 


* “Flora of the Devonian Period,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. viii. p. 324. 
+ “On the Structures in Coal,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe. 1859. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION 439 


growth of Stigmaria in ponds or lakes. It was indeed precisely the 
reverse of this, the Sigillaria growing in a soil more or less swampy 
but not submerged, and the formation of coal being at last arrested 
by submergence. I infer this from the circumstance that remains 
_of Cyprids, Fishes, and other aquatic animals, are rarely found in the 
underclays and lower parts of the coal-beds, but very frequently in 
the roofs, while it is not unusual to find mineral charcoal more 
abundant in the lower layers of the coal. For the formation of a 
_ bed of coal, the sinking and subsequent burial of an area previously 
dry seems to have been required. There are a few cases at the 
_ Joggins where Calamites and even Sigillarie seem to have grown on 
areas liable to frequent inundation; but in these cases coal did not 
accumulate. The non-laminated, slicken-sided and bleached condition 
of most of the underclays indicates soils of considerable permanence. 
In regard to beds destitute of Stigmarian underclays, the very 
few cases of this kind apply only to shaly coals filled with drifted 
leaves, or to accumulations of vegetable mud capable of conversion 
into impure coal. The origin of these beds is the same with that of 
the carbonaceous shales and bituminous limestones already referred 
to. It will be observed in the section that in a few cases such beds 
have become sufficiently dry to constitute underclays, and that con- 
ditions of this kind have sometimes alternated with those favourable 
to the formation of true coal. 
There are some beds at the Joggins, holding erect trees in situ, 
which show that Stgillarie sometimes grew singly or in scattered 
elumps, either alone or amidst brakes of Calamites. In other in- 
stances they must have grown close together, and with a dense un- 
dergrowth of ferns and Cordaites, forming an almost impenetrable 
mass of vegetation. 
From the structure of Sigillarie I infer that, like Cycads, they 
accumulated large quantities of starch, to be expended at intervals in 
more rapid growth, or in the production of abundant fructification. 
I adhere to the belief expressed in previous papers that Brongniart 
is correct in regarding the Sigillarie as botanically allied to the 
_ Cycadacee, and I have recently more fully satisfied myself on this 
point by comparisons of their tissues with those of Cycas revoluta. 
It is probable, however, that when better known they will be 
found to have a wider range of structure and affinities than we now 
suppose. 
There are some reasons for believing that the trees described by 
Corda under the names of Diploxylon, Myelopithys, and Heterangium, 
~ and also the Anabathra of Witham, are Sigillarie. Much of the tissue 


440 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


described by Goeppert as Araucarites carbonarius is probably also E 


Sigillarian. 
2. Calamodendron or Calamitea.—These plants are much less known 


than the proper Sigillarias, and it is perhaps doubtful if they should . 


not. form a separate family. In the meantime I place them here, 
simply because they seem to approach more nearly to Sigillarie than 
any other plants in their structure. They were of less massive growth 
than Stgillariew, being rarely more than a few inches in diameter; they 
had stems fluted lengthwise like Sigillaria, but more distinctly 
divided into nodes or joints by the scars of branches which were borne 
in whorls, and carried their narrow, slender leaves. In their habit of 


Fig. 162.— Calamodendron. 


: 
E 


HOD 00000000000 


OUGHT 
OA 


(a, b) Casts of axis in sandstone, with woody envelope, reduced. 
(c,d) Woody tissue, highly magnified. 


growth they thus resembled the pine tribe, and they seem to have had ; 
a larger amount of true wood in their stems than was.the case with — 


Sigillaria. This cylinder of wood contained a thick pith, which was 
constricted at intervals into joints, and had also a longitudinal striation 
on the outside; and as this pith from its ready decay admitted sand 
into the interior of the stem, while the wood was entire or in process of 


‘ 


ke ae Mra et Fy V Pt gs an 


conversion into coal, we often have a stem of Calamodendron repre-— 


sented merely by a cast of the pith in stone. In this case the pith 
cylinder may be easily mistaken for a plant of the genus Calamites, 
which, as we shall immediately find, was quite a different thing. I 


PPE CMAAS the 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 441 


believe that the statements often found in geological books to the 
effect that the Calamites were smooth externally, and that the sup- 
_ posed jointed stems are only casts of the pith, are true of Calamodendron 
only, and proceed from confounding that genus with Calamites. 
A Calamodendron as usually seen is a striated cast with frequent 
cross lines or joints; but when the whole stem is preserved, it is seen 
that this cast represents merely an internal pith-cylinder, surrounded 
by a woody cylinder composed in part of scalariform or reticulated 
vessels, and in part of wood-cells with one row of large pores on each 
side. External to the wood was a cellular bark, and the outer surface 
seems to have been simply ribbed in the manner of Sigillaria. It so 
happens that the internal cast of the pith of Calamodendron, which is 
really of the nature of a Sternbergia, so closely resembles the external 
appearance of the true Calamites as to be constantly mistaken for them. 
Most of these pith-cylinders of Calamodendron have been grouped in 
the species Calamites approximatus ; but that species, as understood 
by some authors, appears also to include true Calamites,* which, how- 
ever, when well preserved, can always be distinguished by the scars 
of the leaves or branchlets which were attached to the nodes. 
Calamodendron would seem, from its structure, to have been closely 
allied to Sigillaria, though, according to Unger, the tissues were 
differently arranged, and the woody cylinder must have been much 
thicker in proportion. 
The tissues of Calamodendron are by no means infrequent in the 
coal, and casts of the pith are common in the sandstones; but its 
foliage and fruit are unknown. They probably resembled those of 
- Sigillaria. 
Ciass oF CrypToGamMs. 

1. Equisetacee. 


1. Calamites.—These curious plants are by no means to be confounded 
with those last noticed. Their stems were slender, ribbed and jointed 
externally, and from the joints thére proceeded, in some of the species, 
long, narrow, simple branchlets; and, in others, branches bearing 
whorls of small branchlets or rudimentary leaves. The stem was 
hollow, with thin transverse floors or diaphragms at the joints, and 
it had no true wood and bark, but only a thin external shell of fibres 
and scalariform vessels. The Calamites grew in dense brakes on the 
sandy and muddy flats, subject to inundation, or perhaps even in the 
water, and they had the power of budding out from the base of the 
stem, so as to form clumps of plants, and also of securing their foot- 
* See Geinitz, ‘‘ Steinkohlen formation in Sachsen.” 
2F 


442 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Fig. 163.— Calamites. 


( 
ki 
WW 


A, Calamites Suckovii, restored. B}, Leaves. 

Al, Foliage. B?, Leaf enlarged. 

A?, Ribs and scars. C, Leaves of C. nodosus. 
A3, Roots. Cl, Whorl enlarged. 

A‘, Base of stem. D, Structure of stem. 


B, Calamites Cistii, restored. E, Vessels magnified. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 443 


hold by numerous cord-like roots, proceeding from various heights on 
___ the lower part of the stem.* The fruit was a long cone or spike, bearing 
spore cases under scales. The Calamites were evidently close relations 
of the modern horse-tails or scouring-rushes, differing principally in 
their great size, the want of sheaths at the joints, and the details of 
the fructification (Fig. 163). 

Most of the points above stated, as well as the conical form of the 
lower end of these Calamites, which budded out from others, were ex- 
plained by me in the “ Journal of the Geological Society” as far back 
as 1849, yet the most ridiculous errors are still current in elementary 
books. 

Nine species of true Calamites have been recognised in Nova Scotia, 
of which seven occur at the Joggins, the most abundant being C. 
Suckovit and C. Cistii. As just observed, the Calamites grew in 
dense brakes on sandy and muddy flats, in the manner of modern 
Equisetacee, and produced at their nodes either verticillate simple 
linear leaves, as in C. Ci%stiz, or verticillate branchlets with pinnate 
or verticillate leaflets, as in C. Suckovii and C. nodosus. The Calamites 
do not seem to have contributed much to the growth of coal, though 
their remains are not infrequent in it. The soils in which they 
most frequently grew were apparently too wet and liable to inunda- 
tion and silting up to be favourable to coal-accumulation. 


Fig. 164.—Hguisetites Curta. 


(a,b) Portions of stem. (c) Sheaths. 


2. Equisetites—This genus includes a few plants which, like the 
modern horse-tails, had sheaths at the joints. One species only has 
been found in Nova Scotia, and little is known of this except the 
form of the lower part of the stem (Fig. 164). 

3. Asterophyllites—These beautiful plants do not appear to have 
been of large size, and, like the other members of this family, probably 


* Quart. Journ. of Geol. Soc., vol. x. p. 34. 


a. 


444 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


grew in wet or inundated ground. They had ribbed and jointed stems 
like the Calamites, but with a stout internal woody cylinder, in which 
respect they resembled miniature Calamodendra. From the joints pro- _ 
ceeded whorls of leaves, or of branchlets, bearing leaves which differed 
from those of Calamites in their having a distinct middle rib or vein. 
The fructification consisted of long slender cones or spikes, having 
whorls of scales among the spore cases. Some authors speak of 
Asterophyllites as only branches and leaves of Calamites ; but though 
at first sight the resemblance is great, a close inspection shows that 
the leaves of Asterophyllites have a true midrib, which is wanting in 
Calamites. Five species of Asterophyllites have been found in Nova 


‘Scotia and New Brunswick (Fig. 165, A). 


4, Annularia.—It is questionable whether these plants should be 
separated from Asterophyllites. ‘The distinction is that they produce 
branches in pairs, and that their whorls of leaves are one-sided, and 
usually broader than those of Asterophyllites, and united into a ring 
at their insertion on the stem. One little species is very common in 
Nova Scotia, and a larger one hitherto included in Asterophyllites is 
also abundant (Fig. 165, B). 


Fig. 165.—Asterophyllites, etc. 


A, Asterophyllites trinerne. 

B, Annularia sphenophylloides. (B!) Leaf enlarged. 

C, Sphenophyllum erosum. (C1) Leaflet enlarged. (C2) Scalariform vessel. 
D, Pinnularia ramosissima. 


5. Sphenophyllum.—tThis is one of the prettiest plants of the coal ; 
its little whorls of wedge-shaped leaves, often scattered thickly over 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 445 


the surfaces of the shales, resembling flowers. Its stems were very 
slender, but branching copiously, and bearing wedge-shaped leaves 
often toothed at the edges, and veined in the manner of fern leaves. 
_ The spores were borne on small spikes like those of Asterophy/llites. 
_ Five species have been recognised in the Acadian Coal-fields. I am 
not aware that this and the two preceding genera contributed to any 
great extent to the accumulation of coal; but as their tissues were 
 scalariform, similar to those of ferns, it would not be easy to recognise 
them. A beautiful specimen of Sphenophyllum emarginatum from 
New Brunswick, in the collection of Sir W. E. Logan, has enabled 
me to ascertain that its stem had a simple axis of one bundle of 
reticulato-scalariform vessels, like those of Tmestpteris as figured by 
Brongniart. These curious plants were no doubt cryptogamous, 
having a habit of growth like that of Hquisetacea, leaves like those 
of ferns or Marsiliacee, and fructification and structure like those of 
Lycopodiacee (Fig. 165, C). 
6. Pinnularia.—These are slender roots, or stems branching in a pin- 
nate manner, and somewhat irregularly. They are very abundant in 
the coal shales, and were probably not independent plants, but aquatic 
roots belonging to some of the plants last mentioned. The probability 
of this is farther increased by their resemblance in miniature to the 
roots of Calamites. They are always flattened, but seem originally 
to have been round, with a slender thread-like axis of scalariform 
vessels, enclosed in a soft smooth cellular bark (Fig. 165, D). 


2. Filices or Ferns. 


The ferns or brackens are still very abundant in the forests of 
Acadia, but do not constitute nearly so prominent a part of the flora 
asin the days of the Coal formation, when the species’ were vastly 

_ more numerous in proportion to other plants, and when there were 
tree ferns similar to those of the present tropics and southern hemi- 
sphere, as well as the smaller herbaceous species. The fronds of fossil 
ferns are often well preserved, but we usually obtain them only in 
fragments and destitute of the fructification, which is the most distinc- 
tive character in living ferns. Hence we are obliged to arrange the 
fossil ferns in an arbitrary manner; the stems, when found, by them- 
selves and the fronds by themselves, and the latter in groups based 
on venation and other comparatively unimportant characters, rather 
than on fructification. The classification thus formed is altogether 
provisional, and when our knowledge of the subject shall become more 
complete, must give way to one of a more natural character. In the 


LE i v 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 
Fig 166.—Ferns of the Middle Coal Formation. 


NE A 
SL 


LAK 


446 


eS x 


A, Odontopteris subcuneata (after Bunbury) 


B, Neuropteris cordata 


do. 


E, Phyllopteris antiqua, mag. (E!) Nat. size. 
(For other species see Figs. 69 to 72.) 


D, Dictyopteris obliqua (after Bunbury). 
F, Neuropteris cyclopteroides. 


C, Alethopteris lonchitica. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION, 447 


meantime the principal genera, of which representatives have been 
found in Acadia, are the following (Figs. 166, 167, and Figs. 69 to 
72) :— 

1. Cyclopteris, Brongn.—Leaflets more or less rounded, or wedge- 
shaped, without midrib, the nerves spreading from the point of at- 
tachment. This group includes a great variety of fronds evidently of 
different genera, were their fructification known; and some of them 
probably portions of fronds, the other parts of which may be in the 
next genus. 

2. Neuropteris, Brongn.—Fronds pinnated, and with the leaflets 
narrowed at the base; midrib often not distinct, and disappearing 
toward the apex. Nervures equal, and rising at an acute angle. 
Ferns of this type are among the most abundant in the Coal formation. 
3. Odontopteris, Brongn.—In these the frond is pinnate, and the 
leaflets are attached by their whole base, with the nerves either pro- 
ceeding wholly from the base, or in part from an indistinct midrib, 
which soon divides into nervures. 

4. Dictyopteris, Gutbier.—This is a beautiful style of fern, withleaflets 
resembling those of Neuropteris, but the veins arranged in a network 
of oval spaces. Only one species is known in our Coal formation. 

5. Lonchopteris, Brongn.—Ferns with netted veins like the above, 
‘but with a distinct midrib, and the leaflets attached by the whole base. 
Of this also we can boast but a single species. 

6. Sphenopteris, Brongn.—These are elegant ferns, very numerous 
in species, and most difficult to discriminate, Their most distinctive 
characters are leaflets narrowed at the base, often lobed, and with 
nervures dividing in a pinnate manner from the base. 

7. Phyllopteris, Brongn.—These are pinnate, with long lanceolate 
pinnules, having a strong and well defined midrib, and nerves pro- 
ceeding from it very obliquely, and dividing as they proceed toward 
the margin. The ferns of this genus are for the most part found in 
formations more recent than the Carboniferous; but I have referred to 
it, with some doubt, one of our*species. 

8. Alethopteris, Brongn.—This genus includes many of the most 
common Coal formation ferns, especially the ubiquitous A. lonchitica, 
which seems to have been the common brake of the Coal formation, 
corresponding to Pteris aquilina in modern Europe and America. 
These are brake-like ferns, pinnate, with leaflets often long and narrow, 
decurrent on the petiole, adherent by their whole base, and united at 
base to each other. The midrib is continuous to the point, and the 
nervures run off from it nearly at right angles. In some of these ferns 
the fructification is known to have been marginal, as in Pteris. 


448 THE CARBGNIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Fig. 167.— Tree Ferns. 


Lr (aes 


ug 


A, Megaphyton magnificum, restored. B!, Row of Leaf-scars, reduced. 
B, Leaf-scar of the same, % nat. size. C, Paleopteris Harttii, scars half nat. size. 
D, Paleopteris Acadica, scars half nat. size. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 449 


_. 9, Pecopteris, Brongn.—This genus is intermediate between the last 
and Neuropteris. The leaflets are attached by the whole base, but 
not usually attached to each other; the midrib, though slender, attains 
to the summit; the nervures are given off less obliquely than in Neu- 
_ropteris. This genus includes a large number of our most common 
_ fossil ferns. 

10. Beinertia, Goeppert.—A genus established by Goeppert for a 
curious Pecopteris-like fern, with flexuous branching oblique nervures 
_ becoming parallel to the edge of the frond. I have placed in it, with 
some uncertainty, one of our species. 

11. Hymenophyllites, Goeppert.—These are ferns similar to Sphen- 
opteris, but divided at the margin into one-nerved lobes, in the manner 
of the modern genus Hymenophyllum. 

12. Paleopteris, Geinitz.—This is a genus formed to include certain 
trunks of tree ferns with oval transverse scars of leaves. 

13. Caulopteris, Lindley and Hutton,—is another genus of fossil 
trunks of tree ferns, but with elongate scars of leaves. 

14. Psaronius, Cotta.n—Includes other trunks of tree ferns with 
alternate scars or thick scales, and ordinarily with many aérial roots 
grouped round them, as in some modern tree ferns. 

15. Megaphyton, Artis.—Includes trunks of tree ferns which bore 
their fronds, which were of great size, in two rows, one on each side 
of the stem. These were very peculiar trees, less like modern ferns 
than any of the others (Fig. 167). My reasons for regarding them 
as ferns are stated in the following extract from a recent paper :— 
“Their thick stems, marked with linear scars and having two rows of 
large depressed areoles on the sides, suggest no affinities to any known 
plants. They are usually ranked with Lepidodendron and Ulodendron, 
but sometimes, and probably with greater reason, are regarded as allied 
to tree ferns. At the Joggins a very fine species (1. magnificum) 
has been found, and at Sydney a smaller species (JZ. humile) ; but 
both are rare and not well preserved. If the large scars bore cones 
and the smaller bore leaves, then, as Brongniart remarks, the plant 
would much resemble Lepidophloios, in which the cone-scars are thus 
sometimes distichous. But the scars are not round and marked with 
radiating scales as in Lepidophloios ; they are reniform or oval, and 
resemble those of tree ferns, for which reason they may be regarded 
as more probably leaf-scars; and in that case the smaller linear scars 
would indicate ramenta, or small aérial roots. Further, the plant 
described by Corda as Zippea disticha is evidently a Megaphyton, and 
the structure of that species is plainly that of a tree fern of somewhat 
peculiar type. On these grounds I incline to the opinion of Geinitz, 


74. = | oe 


450 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


that these curious trees were allied to ferns, and bore two rows of large 
fronds, the trunks being covered with coarse hairs or small aérial roots. 
At one time I was disposed to suspect that they may have crept along _ 
the ground; but a specimen from Sydney shows the leaf-stalks pro- 
ceeding from the stem at an angle so acute that the stem must, I think, 
have been erect. From the appearance of the scars it is probable that 
only a pair of fronds were borne at one time at the top of the stem; 
and if these were broad and spreading, it would be a very graceful 
plant. To what extent plants of this type contributed to the aceu- 


mulation of coal I have no means of ascertaining, their tissues in the — 


state of coal not being distinguishable from those of ferns and Lyco- 


 podiaceze.” 


3. Lycopodiacee. 


1. Lepidodendron, Sternberg.—This genus is one of the most common 
in the Coal formation, and especially in its lower part. Any one who 
has seen the common Ground-pine or Club-moss of our woods, and who 
can imagine such a plant enlarged to the dimensions of a great forest 
tree, presenting a bark marked with rhombic or oval scars of fallen 


leaves, having its branches bifureating regularly, and covered with 


slender pointed leaves, and the extremities of the branches laden with 
cones or spikes of fructification, has before him this characteristic tree _ 
of the coal forests,—a tree remarkable as presenting a gigantic form of — 
a tribe of plants existing in the present world only in low and humble 
species. Had we seen it growing, we might have at first mistaken it 
for a pine, but the spores contained in its cones, instead of seeds, and 
its dichotomous ramification, would undeceive us; and if we cut into its 


trunk, we should find structures quite unlike those of pes. Asin 


Sigillaria, we should perceive a large central pith, and surrounding this — 
a ring of woody matter; but instead of finding this partly of dise- 
bearing wood cells, as in Sigillaria, and divided into regular wedges 


by medullary rays, we should find it a continuous cylinder of coarser 


and finer scalariform vessels. Outside of this, as in Sigillaria, we 
should have a thick bark, including many tough elongated bast. fibres, 
and protected externally by a hard and durable outer rind. The 
Lepidodendra were large and graceful trees, and contributed not a 
little to the accumulation of coal. Several attempts have been-made 
to divide this genus. My own views on the subject are given below. 

Of this genus nineteen species have been recorded as occurring in 
the Carboniferous rocks of Nova Scotia. Of these, six occur at the 
Joggins, where specimens of this genus are very much less abundant 
than those of Srgillaria. In the newer Coal formation, Lepidodendra 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 451 


Fig. 168.—Lepidodendron corrugatum. 


H 
{ 


any 
yin 
Hh 
ill 


i} Hp) HT | | 
i \\\\ 4 
Va | 
TW) GL 
! Mh ! 
AW ji ie | 
, 


—=} 


A, Restoration. F, Sproangium. 

B, Leaf, nat. size. G, Scalariform vessel, magnified. 
C, Cone and branch. H, 1, K, L,M, Bark with leaf-scars. 
D, Branch and leaves. N, Do. of old stem. 


E, Various forms of leaf areoles. O, Decorticated stem (Knotria). 


452 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


are particularly rare, and L. undulatum is the most common species. 
In the Middle Coal formation, L. rimosum, L. dichotomum, L. elegans, 
and L. Pictoense are probably the most common species; and L. cor- 


rugatum is the characteristic Lepidodendron of the Lower Carbonifer- * 


ous, in which plants of this species seem to be more abundant than 
any other vegetable remains whatever. 

To the natural history of this well-known genus I have little to add, 
except in relation to the changes which take place in its trunk in the 
process of growth, and the study of which is important in order to 
prevent the undue multiplication of species. These are of three kinds. 
In some species the areoles, at first close together, become, in the pro- 


‘cess of the expansion of the stem, separated by intervening spaces of 


bark in a perfectly regular manner; so that in old stems, while widely 
separated, they still retain their arrangement, while in young stems 
they are quite close to one another. ‘This is the casein L. corrugatum. 
In other species the leaf-scars or areoles increase in size in the old 
stems, still retaining their forms and their contiguity to each other. 
This is the case in L. undulatum, and generally in those Lepidodendra 
which have very large areoles. In these species the continued vitality 


of the bark is shown by the occasional production of lateral strobiles 
on large branches, in the manner of the modern Red Pine of America. 
In other species the areoles neither increase in size nor become regu- —— 


larly separated by growth of the intervening bark ; but in old stems 
the bark splits into deep furrows, between which may be seen portions 
of bark still retaining the areoles in their original dimensions and 
arrangement. This is the case with Z. Pictoense. This cracking of 
the bark no doubt occurs in very old trunks of the first two types, but 
not at all to the same extent. I figure three examples of these pecu- 
liarities in mode of growth :— 

Lepidodendron corrugatum, Dawson.—I give below a description 
of this species, and may refer to the figures in Fig. 168 for further 
illustration. I do not know any other species in Nova Scotia 
which has precisely the same habit of growth; but ZL. plicatum 
and ZL. rimosum show a tendency to it. The present species is 


exclusively Lower Carboniferous, and occurs on that horizon in New — 


Brunswick, in Pennsylvania, and, I believe, also in Ohio; though the 
beds holding it in the latter State have been by some regarded as 
Devonian. 

L. undulatum, Sternberg.—I think it not improbable that several 
closely allied species are included under this name. On the other 
hand, all the large areoled Lepidodendra figured in the books must 
have branches with small scars, which in the present state of know- 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 


Fig. 169.—Lepidodendra of Middle Coal Formation. 


\ ‘ ACY 
SNS 


AN AN 
SX&s 


VUTIIE 
\ SS 


453 


WS 


\ W : 


\ 


NS 


RAN AC 


SS 


A, Branch and leaves of L. Pictoense, 4 nat. size. A?, Leaf. 
A‘, Portion of bark, 4. A5, Leaf-scar. 
A’, Cone, #. 

B, L. personatum, leafy branch, 4. B?, Portion of bark, #. 

C, L. plicatum, bark of old stem. 

D, L. rimosum, old stem with furrows, 4. 

E, L. Undulatum, showing furrows and scars of cones, 4. 


B3, Areole enlarged. 


A’, Twig and leaves, 3. 
A$, Bark of old stem furrowed by growth, #. 


B‘, Leaf. 


454 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


ledge, it is impossible to identify with this species. I suppose that L. 
elegans resembles the present species in its mode of growth, at least. 
if the large-scarred specimens attributed to it are really of the same 


species. L. dichotomum ( = L. Sternbergii) also resembles it to some * a 


extent (Fig. 169, E). 

L. Pictoense, Dawson.—This species I described as follows, from 
young stems, in my “ Synopsis of the Coal-plants of Nova Scotia: ”— 
“ Areoles contiguous, prominent, separated in young stems by a nar- 
row line, long-oval, acuminate; breadth to length as 1 to 3, or less; 
lower half obliquely wrinkled, especially at one side. Middle line 
indistinct. Leaf-scar at upper end of areole, snfall, triangular, with 


.traces of three vascular points, nearly confluent. Length of areole 


about 0°5 inch.” 

Additional specimens from Sydney show that in old trunks of this 
species the areoles do not enlarge, but the bark becomes split into 
strips. I have reason to think that a new species from Nova Scotia, 
which I shall describe in the sequel, Z. personatum, agrees with it in 
this respect (Fig. 169, A, B). 

The Lepidodendra resemble each other too closely to admit of good 
sub-generic distinction. The grounds on which the distinction of 
Sagenaria and Aspidiaria is founded are quite worthless, the apparent 
position of the vascular scars in the areoles depending on accidents of 
preservation much more than on original differences. The genus Knor- 
ria includes many peculiar conditions of decorticated Lepidodendra. 

In regard to the accumulation of coal, Lepidodendra, when present, — 
appear under the same conditions with Stgillaric, the outer bark being 


converted into shining coal, and the scalariform axis appearing as | 


mineral charcoal of a more loose and powdery quality than that — 


derived from Srgillaria. On the planes of lamination of the coal the | 
furrowed bark of old trunks can scarcely be distinguished from that | 


of old Sigillarie (Fig. 170, B, C). 
2. Lepidophloios—Under this generic name, established by Stern- 


berg, I propose to include those Lycopodiaceous trees of the Coal | 


measures which have thick branches, transversely elongated leaf- 
sears, each with three vascular points and placed on elevated or 
scale-like protuberances, long one-nerved leaves, and large lateral 
strobiles in vertical rows or spirally disposed. Their strneture 
resembles that of Lepidodendron, consisting of a Sternbergia pith, a 
slender axis of large scalariform vessels, giving off from its surface 
bundles of smaller vessels to the leaves, a very thick cellular bark, 


and a thin dense outer bark, having some elongated cells or bast 
tissue on its inner side. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 455 


Fig. 170.— Lepidodendron and Lepidophloios. 


‘ees 
« 


se 


Fig 
i ie ff 
il Wy; 


A, Lepidodendron decurtatum; A!, areole enlarged. 

B, Lepidodendron, old bark. 

C, Lepidodendron, old bark, of another species. 

D, Lepidophloios tetragonus, %. D!, Areole. 

E, Lepidophloios platystigma, #. E!, Areole. 

F, Lepidophloios platystigma, %, differently preserved. F', Areole. 

G, Lepidophloios parvus, §. G1, Leaves, 3. G%, Part of leaf. G5, Areole, natural size. 


456 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Regarding L. larictnum of Sternberg as the type of the genus, and 
taking in connexion with this the species described by Goldenberg, 
and my own observations on numerous specimens found in Nova 
Scotia, I have no doubt that Lomatophlotos crassicaulis of Corda, and 
other species of that genus described by Goldenberg, Ulodendron and 
Bothrodendron of Lindley, Lepidodendron ornatissimum of Brong- 
niart, and Halonia punctata of Geinitz, all belong to this genus, and 
differ from each other only in conditions of growth and preservation. 
, 
| 


Several of the species of Lepidostrobus and Lepidophyllum also 

belong to Lepzdophloios. 
The species of Lepidophloios are readily distinguished from Lepi- 
- dodendron by the form of the areoles, and by the round sears on the 
stem, which usually mark the insertion of the strobiles, though in 
barren stems they may also have produced branches; still the fact of 
. my finding the strobiles zn sitz in one instance, the accurate resem- 
blance which the scars bear to those left by the cones of the Red Pine 
Fi when borne on thick branches, and the actual impressions of the 
| | radiating scales in some specimens, leave no doubt in my mind that 
“they are usually the marks of cones; and the great size of the cones 

of Lepidophloios accords with this conclusion. 

The species of Lepidophloios are numerous, and individuals are 
quite abundant in the Coal formation, especially toward its upper. 
part. Their flattened bark is frequent in the coal-beds and their 
roofs, affording a thin layer of pure coal, which sometimes shows the 
peculiar laminated or scaly character of the bark when other charac- 
ters are almost entirely obliterated. The leaves also are nearly as 
abundant as those of Sigillaria in the coal-shales. They ean readily 
be distinguished by their strong angular midrib. 

I figure, in illustration of the genus, all the parts known to me of 
L. Acadianus, and characteristic specimens of other species. One of — 
these, L. parvus, is characteristic of the Upper Coal formation. (Vide 
Figs. 170, 171.) 

3. Cordaites or Pychnophyllum.—This plant is represented in the 

Coal formation chiefly by its broad striated leaves, which are 
ne extremely abundant in the coal and its associated shales. Some thin — 
coals are indeed almost entirely composed of them. The most com- 
mon species is C. borassifolia, a plant which Corda has shewn to 
ti have a simple stem with a slender axis of scalariform vessels resem- 
bling that of Lepidophioios; for this reason, notwithstanding the 
broad and parallel-veined leaves, I regard this genus as belonging 
y to Lycopodiacee, or some allied family. It must have been extremely 
H abundant in the Carboniferous swamps; and, from the frequency of 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 457 


Fig. 171.—Lepidophloios Acadianus. 


Aa 
hy} 


A, Restoration. I, Portion of the same, nat. size, showing (a) 


B, Portion of bark, natural size. pith, (+) cylinder of scalariform vessels, 
C, Ligneous surface of the same. (c) inner bark. 

D, Lower side of a branch, with scars of cones. K, Portion of woody cylinder, showing outer 
E, Upper side of the same. and inner series of vessels magnified. 

F, Cone, 4. L, Scalariform vessels, highly magnified. 

G, Leaf, natural size. M, Various forms of leaf scars, natural size. 


H, Cross section of stem, reduced. 


2G 


458 


THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Fig. 172.—Cordaites and Diplotegium. 


A, Cordaites borassifolia restored. 

Al. Portion of stem. 

A2, Portion of leaf, enlarged. 

A3, Base of leaf. 

A‘, Point of leaf. 

A5, Transverse section of stem, showing axis. 
B, Fragment of stem of Diplotegium retusum. 
B!, Scar of do. enlarged. 


a, ae abaya” od) ne a 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 459 


5 its being covered with Spirorbis, I think it must either have been of 
more aquatic habit than most of the other plants of the Coal forma- 
tion, or that its leaves must have been very durable. While the 
_ leaves are abundant, the stems are very rare. I infer that they were 
- usually low and succulent. Much of the tissue found in the coal, 
which I have called “epidermal,” probably belongs to leaves of 
 Cordaites (Fig. 172). 

In the Upper Coal formation there is a second species, distinguished 
by its simple and uniform venation. This I have named C. simplex. 

4, Sporangites—To avoid the confusion which envelopes the clas- 
sification of Carpolites, I have used the above name for rounded spore- 
eases of Lepidodendron and allied plants, which are very frequent 
in the coal. A smooth round species like a mustard-seed is exces- 
_ sively abundant in the Lower Carboniferous at Horton, and probably 
belongs to Lepidodendron corrugatum, with which it is associated. 
A species covered with papilla, S. papillata, constitutes nearly the 
whole of some layers in coal 12, group xix. of the Joggins section. 
I have no indication as to the plant to which it may belong, except 
that it is associated with Cordaites (Fig. 173, L). 


Fruits, FLOweERs, ETC. 


1. Antholithes, Brongn.—Spikes of fruits protected by bracts, and 
which I believe to have been produced by Sigillarioid trees (Fig. 
173, A, B, C). 

2. Trigonocarpum, Brongn.—Nut-like fruits, often three or six 
angled; with a structure akin to those of Pines and Cycads. I 
believe most of them to have belonged to Sigillaria, some possibly to 

conifers (Fig. 173, D, E, F, and Fig. 174). 

3. Rhabdocarpus, Goeppert and Brongn.—Oval fruits with striated 
sides, often of large size, but of uncertain affinities (Fig. 173, G). 

4. Cardiocarpum, Brongn.—Fringed or margined fruits resembling 
Samaras of elms. Their precise origin is unknown. They may have 
belonged to upland trees, of which we have no other evidence in the coal 
swamps. Itis to be observed, however, that in books of fossil botany, 
‘many organisms, which are probably spore-cases of Lepidodendra or 
allied plants, are confounded with true Cardiocarpa (Fig. 173, I, K). 


With the exception of a few other genera based on parts of plants, 
like Cyperites and Stigmaria, and two specimens referred to Neg- 
gerathia (Fig. 73), and Diplotegium (Fig. 172, B), genera of uncer- 
tain affinities, the above will include all the plants that have as yet 
been found in our Coal formation; and they are the characteristic 
genera of the Carboniferous period throughout the world. 


460 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM, 
Fig. 173.—Flowers and Fruits—Coal Formation. _ 


ry 
ce 
7 
A, Antholithes squamosus, §. 
ay B, A. rhabdocarpi, 3. B!, Carpel restored. 
us C, A. spinosus, natural size. 


D, Trigonocarpum intermedium. 
E, T. Neeggerathii. 
F, T. avellanum. 
G, Rhabdocarpus insignis, reduced. 
j H, Antholithes pygmeus, 
I, Cardiocarpum fluitans. 
7 K, Cardiocarpum bisectum. 
L, Sporangites papillata, nat. size and mag. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 461 


Fig. 174.—Trigonocarpum Hookeri, Dawson; from the Coal measures of Cape Breton. 


ihe 


il 
i | 
NBL 


A, Broken specimen magnified twice natural size. 
B, Section magnified: a, the testa; b, the tegmen; c, the nucleus; and d, the embryo. 
C, Portion of the surface of the inner coat more highly magnified. 


Tissues OF PLANTS PRESERVED IN THE COAL. 


This subject has occupied much of my leisure time for some years, 
and I have published the results of an extensive series of experiments 
and observations on the Coals of Pictou and Sydney, in a paper on 
the “ Vegetable Structures in Coal,” in the Journal of the Geological 
Society of London, February 1860; and a still more extended series 
on the numerous coals of the South Joggins, in my memoir on the 
“Conditions of Deposition of Coal,’ December 1865. I give here a 
summary of results of these inquiries. 

The direct investigation of the tissues preserved in coal has been 
pursued to some extent by Witham, Hutton, Goeppert, Brongniart, 
Bailey, Hooker, Quekett, Harkness, and others. Two difficulties, 
however, have impeded this investigation, and have in some degree 
prevented the attainment of reliable results. One of these is the 
intractable character of the material as a microscopic object; the 


ee ee 


— mee 


462 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


other, the want of sufficient information in regard to the structures of 
the plants known by impressions of their external forms in the beds 
of the Coal formation. Perplexed by the uncertain and contradictory . 
statements arising from these difficulties, and impressed with the 
conviction that the coal itself might be made more fully to reveal its 
own origin, I have for a long time been engaged in experiments 
and observations with this object, and believe that I can offer definite 
and certain results in so far as relates to the particular coals examined, 
and, I have no doubt, with some slight modifications, to all the 
ordinary coals of the true Coal measures. 

In ordinary bituminous coal, we recognise by the unassisted eye 


‘lamin of a compact and more or less lustrous appearance, separated 


by uneven films and layers of fibrous anthracite or of mineral charcoal, 
and these two kinds of coal demand a separate consideration. 

The substance known by the very appropriate name of “ mineral 
charcoal,” consists of fragments of prosenchymatous and vasiform 
tissues in a carbonized state, somewhat flattened by pressure, and 
more or less impregnated with bituminous and mineral matters 
derived from the surrounding mass. We cannot suppose that this 
substance has escaped complete bituminization on account of its 
original constitution; for we have abundant evidence that this change 
has passed upon similar material in various geological periods. A 
substance so intimately intermixed with the ordinary coal cannot be 
accounted for by the supposition of forest conflagrations or the action 
of subterranean heat. The only satisfactory explanation of its occur- 
rence is that afforded by the chemical changes experienced by woody 
matter decaying in the presence of air, in the manner so well illus- 
trated by Liebig. In such circumstances, wood parts with its hydro- 
gen and oxygen and a portion of its carbon, in the forms of water and 


carbonic acid; and, as the ultimate result, a skeleton of nearly pure | 


charcoal, retaining the form and structure of the wood, remains. In 
the putrefaction of wood under water, or imbedded in aqueous 
deposits, a very different change occurs, in which the principal loss 
consists of carbon and oxygen; and the resulting coaly product con- 
tains proportionally more hydrogen than the original wood. This is 
the condition of the compact bituminous coal. This last may, by the 
action of heat, or by long exposure to air and water, lose its hydrogen 
in the form of hydro-carbons, and be converted into anthracite. In 
all the ordinary coals we have the products, more or Jess, of all these 
processes. The mineral charcoal results from subaérial decay, the 
compact coal from subaqueous putrefaction, more or less modified by 
heat and exposure to air. As Dr Newberry has very well shown, in 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 463 


coals like cannel-coals, which have been formed wholly under sub- 
“aqueous conditions, the mineral charcoal is deficient.* 

A consideration of the decay of vegetable matter in modern swamps 
and forests shows that all kinds of tissues are not, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, susceptible of the sort of carbonization which we find in 
the mineral charcoal. Succulent and lax parenchymatous tissues 
decay too rapidly and completely. The bark of trees very long resists 
decay, and, where any deposition is proceeding, is likely to be im- 
bedded unchanged. It is the woody structure, and especially the 
harder and more durable wood, that, becoming carbonized and split- 
ting along the medullary rays and lines of growth, affords such frag- 
ments as those which we find scattered over the surfaces of the coal.+ 
These facts would lead us to infer that mineral charcoal represents 
the woody debris of trees subjected to subaérial decay, and that the 
bark of these trees should appear as compact coal along with such 
woody or herbaceous matters as might be imbedded or submerged 
before decay had time to take place. 

My method of preparing the mineral charcoal for examination was 
an improvement on the ‘“‘nitric-acid’”’ process of previous observers, 
and the results gave very perfect examples of the disc-bearing tissue 
restricted in the modern world to conifers and eycads, but which 
existed also in the Sigillariw of the Coal period. With this were 
scalariform vessels, like those of ferns and club mosses, and several 
other kinds of woody tissue. On careful comparison, it was found 
that all these tissues might be referred to the following genera of 
plants common in the Coal measures: Sigillaria, including Stigmaria, 
Calamites, Dadoxylon, and other conifers, Lepidodendron, Uloden- 
dron, ferns, and possibly some other less known plants. Another 
form of tissue observed was a large spiral vessel, possibly belonging 
to some endogenous plant. The perfect state of preservation of these 
tissues may be inferred from the following figures, selected from 
those prepared for my paper (Fig. 175). 

I shall first notice in detail “the structures preserved in the layers 
of shining compact coal, and afterwards those found in the mineral 
charcoal. 

I. The compact coal, constituting a far larger proportion of the 
mass than the “mineral charcoal,” consists either of lustrous con- 
choidal cherry or pitch coal,—of less lustrous slate coal, with flat 


* American Journal of Science. See also Goeppert, ‘‘ Abhandlung uber Stein- 
kohlen;” also a paper by the author, ‘‘ Ou Fossils from Nova Scotia,” Quart. Journ. 
Geol. Soc. 1846. 

+ See paper of 1846, previously cited. 


0 a ro ae 


Ate 


464 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


fracture,—or of coarse coal, containing much earthy matter. All 
of these are arranged in thin interrupted lamine. They consist of 


Fig. 175.— Tissues from Coal. 


(a) Tissues of axis of Sigillaria. (b) Tissues of Calamites? 

(c) Tissues of Ferns. (d) Scalariform vessel of Lepidodendron. 
vegetable matter which has not been altered by subaérial decay, but 
which has undergone the bituminous putrefaction, and has thereby 
been resolved into a nearly homogeneous mass, which still, however, . 
retains traces of structure and of the forms of the individual flattened 
plants composing it. As these last are sometimes more distinct than — 
the minute structures, and are necessary for their comprehension, I 
shall, under the following heads, notice both as I have observed them 
in the coals in question :-— 

1. The lamine of pitch or cherry coal, when carefully traced over 
the surfaces of accumulation, are found to present the outlines of 
flattened trunks. This is also true, to a certain extent, of the finer 
varieties of slate coal; but the coarse coal appears to consist of exten- 
sive lamine of disintegrated vegetable matter mixed with mud. 

2. When the coal (especially the more shaly varieties) is held 
obliquely under a strong light, in the manner recommended by 
Goeppert, the surfaces of the lamine present the forms of many 
well-known coal-plants, as Stgillaria, Stigmaria, Cordaites, Lepido- 
dendron, Lepidophloios, and rough bark, perhaps of conifers. - 

3. When the coal is traced upward into the roof-shales, we often 
find the laminze of compact coal represented by flattened coaly trunks 
and leaves, now rendered distinct by being separated by clay. 

4, In these flattened trunks it is the outer cortical layer that alone 
constitutes the coal. This is very manifest when the upper and under 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 465 


bark are separated by a film of clay or of mineral charcoal, occupying 
_ the place of the wood. In this condition the bark of a large Sigillaria 
_ gives only one or two lines in thickness of coal; Stigmaria, Lepido- 
dendron, and Ulodendron give still less. In the shales these flattened 
trunks are often so crushed together that it is difficult to separate them. 
In the coal they are, so to speak, fused into a homogeneous mass. 

5. The phenomena of erect forests explain to some extent the 
manner in which layers of compact coal and mineral charcoal may 
result from the accumulation of trunks of trees in situ. In the 
sections at the South Joggins, the usual state of preservation of 
erect Sigillarie is that of casts in sandstone, enclosed by a thin 
layer of bark converted into compact, caking, bituminous coal, while 
the remains of the woody matter may be found in the bottom of the 
cast in the state of mineral charcoal. In other cases the bark has 
fallen in, and all that remains to indicate the place of a tree is a little 
pile of mineral charcoal, with strips of bark converted into compact 
coal. Lastly, a series of such remains of stumps, with flattened bark 
of prostrate trunks, may constitute a rudimentary bed of coal, many 
of which exist in the Joggins section. In short, a single trunk of 
Sigillaria in an erect forest presents an epitome of a coal-seam. Its 
roots represent the Stigmaria underclay; its bark the compact coal ; 
its woody axis the mineral charcoal; its fallen leaves, with remains 
of herbaceous plants growing in its shade, mixed with a little earthy 
matter, the layers of coarse coal. The condition of the durable outer 
bark of erect trees concurs with the chemical theory of coal, in show- 
ing the especial suitableness of this kind of tissue for the production 
of the purer compact coals. It is also probable that the comparative 
impermeability of bark to mineral infiltration is of importance in this 
respect, enabling this material to remain unaffected by causes which 
have filled those layers consisting of herbaceous materials and decayed 
wood, with earthy matter, pyrites, etc. 

6. The microscopic structure of the purer varieties of compact coal 
accords with that of the bark of Sigillaria. The compact coals are 
capable of affording very little true structure. Their cell-walls have 
been pressed close together; and pseudo-cellular structures have 
arisen from molecular action and the segregation of bituminous 
matter. Most of the structures which have been figured by micro- 
seopists are of this last character, or at the utmost are cell-structures 
masked by concretionary action, pressure, and decay. Hutton, how- 
ever, appears to have ascertained a truly cellular tissue in this kind of 
coal. Goeppert also has figured parenchymatous and perhaps bast- 
tissues obtained from its incineration. By acting on it with nitric 


’ 


466 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


acid, I have found that the structures remaining both in the lustrous _ 
compact coals and in the bark of Sigillarie are parenchymatous cells _ 
and fibrous cells, probably bast-fibres. sa 

7. I by no means desire to maintain that all portions of the coal- 
seams not in the state of mineral charcoal consist of cortical tissues. 
Quantities of herbaceous plants, leaves, etc., are also present, especially 
in the coarser coals; and some small seams appear to consist entirely of _ 
such material,—for instance, of the leaves of Cordattes or Poacites. I 
would also observe that, though in the roof-shales and other associated 
beds it is usually only the cortical layer of trees that appears as compact 
bituminous coal, yet I have found specimens which show that in the 


‘ coal-seams themselves true woody tissues have sometimes been im- 


bedded unchanged, and converted into structureless coal, forming, 
like the coniferous trees converted into jet in more modern for- 
mations, thin bands of very pure bituminous material. The pro- 
portion of woody matter in this state differs in different coals, and 
is probably greatest in those which show the least mineral char- — 
coal; but the alteration which it has undergone renders it almost — 
impossible to distinguish it from the flattened bark, which in all _ 
ordinary cases is much more abundant. a 


II. In the mineral charcoal, which affords the greater part of the 
material showing distinct vegetable structures, the following kinds © 
of tissue are those ordinarily observed :— ; 

a. Bast tissue, or elongated cells from the liber or inner bark of — 
Sigillarie and Lepidodendron, but especially of the former.—This 


kind of tissue is abundant in a calcified state in the shales associated _ 


with the coals, and also as mineral charcoal in the coals themselves, 
and in the interior of erect Sigillarie. It is the kind of tissue figured — 


by Brongniart as the inner layer of bark in Stgillaria elegans, and very __ 
well described by Binney (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xviii.) as | 
“elongated tissue or utricles.”” Under the microscope many specimens | 


of it closely resemble the imperfect bast tissue of the inner bark of 


Pinus strobus and Thuja occidentalis ; and like this it seems to have 


been at once tough and durable, remaining in fibrous strips after 

the woody tissues had decayed. It is extremely abundant at the 

Joggins in the mineral charcoal of the smaller coal-seams. ~ It is 

often associated with films of structureless coal, which represent 

the dense cellular outer bark which, in the trunk of Stgillaria, not 
only surrounded this tissue, but was intermixed with it. 

b. Vascular bundles of Ferns.—These may be noticed by all close 
observers of the surfaces of coal, as slender hair-like fibres, sometimes 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION, A467 


_ lying separately, in other cases grouped in bands half an inch or more 
in diameter, and embedded in a loose sort of mineral charcoal. When 
treated with nitric acid, each bundle resolves itself into a few scalari- 
_ form vessels surrounded with a sheath of woody fibres, often minutely 
porous. This structure is precisely that of macerated fern-stipes ; but, 
as already stated, there may have been some other coal-plants whose 
_ leaves presented similar bundles. As stated in my former paper “ On 
the Vegetable Structures in Coal,” this kind of tissue is especially 
abundant in the coarse and laminated portions of the coal, which we 
_ know on other evidence to have been made up, not of trunks of trees, 
_ but of mixed herbaceous matters (Fig. 175, C). 

ec. Scalariform vessels—These are very abundant in the mineral 
charcoal, though the coarser kinds have been crushed and broken in 
such a manner that they usually appear as mere debris. The sca- 
lariform vessels of Lepidodendron, Lepidophloios, and Stigmaria are 
very coarse, and much resemble each other. Those of ferns are finer, 
and sometimes have a reticulated structure. Those of Sigillaria 
are much finer, and often have the aspect of wood-cells with trans- 
versely elongated pores like those of Cycas. Good examples of 
these are figured in the paper already referred to (see also Fig. 175, 
A and D). 

d. Discigerous wood-cells—These are the true bordered pores 
characteristic of Sigillaria, Calamodendron, and Dadoxylon. In the 
_ two former genera the discs or pores are large and irregularly ar- 
ranged, either in one row or several rows; but in the latter case they 
are sometimes regularly alternate and contiguous. In the genus 
Dadozxylon they are of smaller size, and always regularly contiguous 
in two or more rows, so as to present an hexagonal areolation. Dis- 
cigerous structures of Sigillaria and Calamodendron are very abun- 
dant in the coal, and numerous examples were figured in my paper 
above cited. I have indicated by the name Reticulated Tissue certain 
cells or vessels which may either be reticulated scalariform vessels, 
or an imperfect form of discigerous tissue. I believe them to belong 
to Stigmaria or Calamodendron (Figs. 162 and 175, A.) 

e. Epidermal tissue—This is a dense cellular tissue representing 
the outer integuments of various leaves, herbaceous stems, and fruits. 
I have ascertained that the structures in question occur in the leaves 
and stipes of Cordaites and ferns, and in the outer coat of Carpolites 
and Sporangites. With this I may include the obscure and thick- 
walled cellular tissue of the outer bark of Sigillaria and Lepidoden- 
dron and other trees, which, though usually consolidated. into com- 
pact coal, sometimes exhibits its structure. 


ie 


468 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


I would here emphatically state that all my observations at the — 
Joggins confirm the conclusion, which I arrived at many years ago 
from the study of the coals of Pictou and Sydney, that the layers of — 
clear shining coal (pitch or cherry coal) are composed of flattened — 
trunks of trees, and that of these usually the bark alone remains; 
further, that the lamination of the coal is due to the superposition of 
layers of such flattened trunks alternating with the accumulations of 
vegetable matter of successive years, and occasionally with fine vege- 
table muck or mud spread over the surface by rains or by inundations. 
In connexion with this, it is to be observed that the density and zm- 
permeability of cortical tissues not only enable them to endure after 

‘ wood has perished or been resolved into bits of charcoal, but render _ 
them less liable than the wood to mineral infiltration. 

Rate of Growth of Carboniferous Plants —Very vague statements 
are often made as to the supposed rapid rate of growth of plants in — 
the Carboniferous period. Perhaps the most trustworthy facts in 
relation to this subject are those which may be obtained from the 
coniferous trees: In some of these (for instance, Dadoxylon materi- ; 
arium, D. annulatum, and D. antiquius) the rings of growth, which 
were no doubt annual, are distinctly marked. On measuring these — 
in a number of specimens, and comparing them with modern species, 
I find that they are about equal in dimensions to those of the Balsam: 
Fir or the Yellow Pine of America. Assuming, therefore, similarity 
in habit of growth and extent of foliage to these species, we may infer 
that, in regard to coniferous trees, the ordinary conditions of growth — 
were not dissimilar from those of Eastern America in its temperate | 
regions at present. When, however, we compare the ferns and | 
Lycopodiacee of the Coal formation with those now growing in~ 
Eastern America, we see, in the much greater dimensions and — 
luxuriance of the former, evidence of a much more moist and — 
equable climate than that which now subsists; so that we may | 
suppose the growth of such plants to have been more rapid than | 
it is at present. These plants would thus lead us to infer a warm — 
and insular climate, perhaps influenced by that supposed excess of 
carbonic acid in the atmosphere which, as Tyndall and Hunt inform | 
us, would promote warmth and moisture by impeding terrestrial | 
radiation. With this would also agree the fact that the conifers 
have woody tissues resembling those of the pine trees of the milder 
climates of the southern hemisphere at present. ; 

If we apply these considerations to Sigillaria, we may infer that 
the conditions of moisture and uniformity of temperature favourable 
to ferns and Lycopodiacee were also favourable to these curious 


8 
on 


ee ee ee Y 


eR EE 
4 
> 


——— 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 469 


plants. They must have been perennial; and the resemblance of 
their trunks to those of Cycads, together with their hard and narrow 
leaves, would lead us to infer that their growth must have been very 
slow. A similar inference may be drawn from the evidences of very 
slow and regular expansion presented by the lower parts of their 
stems. On the other hand, the distance, of a foot or more, which 
often intervenes between the transverse rows of scars, marking pos- 
sibly annual fructification, would indicate a more rapid rate of 
growth. Further, it may be inferred, from the structure of their 
roots and of their thick inner bark, that these, as in Cycads, were 
receptacles for great quantities of starch, and that the lives of these 
plants presented alternations of starch-accumulation and of expen- 
diture of this in the production of leaves, wood, and abundant inflo- 
rescence. They would thus, perhaps for several years, grow very 
slowly, and then put forth a great mass of fructification, after which 
perhaps many of the individuals would die, or again remain for a 
long time in an inactive state. This view would, I think, very well 
_ harmonize with the structure of these plants, and also with the mode 
of their entombment in the coal. 
/ From the manner of the association of Calamites with erect Szgil- 
__ larie, I infer that the former were, of all the plants of the Coal for- 
4 mation, those of most rapid dissemination and growth. They appear 
to have first taken possession of emerging banks of sand and mud, to 
have promoted the accumulation of sediment on inundated areas, and 
_ to have protected the exposed margins of the forests of Sigdllaria. 
In applying any conclusions as to the rate of growth of Carbon- 
iferous plants to the accumulation of coal, we must take into account 
q the probable rate of decay of vegetable matter. When we consider 
the probable wetness of the soils on which the plants which produced 
4 the coal grew, the density of the forests, and the possible excess of 
_ earbonic acid in the atmosphere of these swamps, we must be prepared 
to admit that, notwithstanding the warmth and humidity, the condi- 
tions must have been favourable to the preservation of vegetable 
matter. Still the hollow cylinders of bark, the little fragments of 
_ decayed wood in the form of mineral charcoal, and the detached 
_ vascular bundles of ferns, testify to an enormous amount of decay, 
_ and show that, however: great the accumulation of coal, it represents 
a only a fraction of the vegetable matter which was actually produced. 
It has been estimated that it would require eight feet of compact 
vegetable matter to produce one foot of coal; but if we reckon 
the whole vegetable matter actually produced in the process, I should 
suppose that five times that amount would be far below the truth, 


Al 


470 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


even in the most favourable cases; while there is evidence that in the | 
Carboniferous period many forests may have flourished for centuries 
without producing an inch of coaly matter. = te 

Summary of Conclusions.—In illustration of the bearing of these 
facts on the questions relating to the materials of the coal, I give the — 
following table, representing in a condensed form the results of my 
observations on the coals of the South Joggins :— 


; 
A 
4 


Table showing the Relative Frequency of Occurrence of Genera of 
Plants and Animals in the Coals of the South Joggins. 


Division 3.) Division 4.| Division 6.| Total. , 
Name OF Fossiis. 23 coals. | 49 coals. | Qcoals. |Sicoals.} 


Plants. 
PMP AMATIS S02 cece une saeeteeeere occurs in} 13 34 2 49 
Wordaites:.3..35..vives eee 3 15 26 bs 41 
Filices {mostly Alethopteris 4 17 2 23 
LONCHULCE) on ied iv icdaazanans = 
Lepidodendron and Lepido- \ 1 15 16 
DHIGIOS <0 ss. 2c <haew eee nee - 
RLATAIEDS e.icneess sexes eoseeeee dae pe 4 12 16 
Warpolttes, CbGy.- ..2.2,2.0 ee. ete os z 9 11 
Asterophy lites’ ...3235...208 9H 1 2 am 
Calamodendron .............. 5 1 Ly 
Structures. 
Vascular bundles of ferns... _,, 8 22 30 
Bast tissue (Sigillaria) .. ... A 2 16 2 20 
Epidermal tissue (Cordaites, 6 12 
CON) Reena SEIS ~ 
Scalariform (Sigil., Stig., Le- 1 9 1 11 
pidod., ete.)... a 
Discigerous (Se and 
Dadoxylon, etc.)... ss i : 3 : * 
puted Calais, sy 2 1 3 
MPOIDS, CLG.) ". 05 cs<sseteearees) ee 
Animals. 
ee (Paleoniscus, Rhizo- 1 16 1 18 
US, CC.) .. 5c * 
Naiadites(Anthracomya, cre * a 16 is AGS 
Spirorbis carbonarius ....+.... bs es 16 bs 16 79 
Ore i. ee 7 13 1 14 
PRBS CHAP) 45s sljoectt eet Mae 3 =f aA 
Reptiles (Dendrerpeton, etc.) _,, e 1 1 
Pupa vetusta and Xylobius 1 1 
SEM chen Sasicahiensin ds ts 9 rf ; 


ia eee eee 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION, 471 


The number of coals reckoned in this coal-field may vary according 
to the manner in which the several layers are grouped; but as arranged 
in the sectional list given in a previous chapter it amounts to eighty- 
‘one inall. Of these, 23 are found in Division 3 of Logan’s section, 
ing the upper member of the Middle Coal formation; 49 are found 
in Division 4 of Logan’s section, being the lower member of the Middle 
Coal formation; 9 occur in Division 6 of Logan’s section, or in the 
equivalent of the Millstone-grit. In the latter group few of the coals 
were sufficiently well exposed to enable a satisfactory examination to 
be made. I have grouped the remains under three heads—External 
Forms of Plants, Microscopic Structure of Plants, and Animal Re- 
mains—and have arranged the forms under each in the order of their 
relative frequency of occurrence. No mention is made of Stigmaria, 
which occurs in nearly every coal or its underclay. 

The following are the conclusions, based on the above table and on 
examinations of the Coal of Pictou and Sydney :— 

“1, With respect to the plants which have contributed the vegetable 
matter of the coal, these are principally the Srgillarie, with Cor- 
daites, Ferns and Calamites. With these, however, are intermixed 
remains of most of the other plants of the period, contributing, though 
in an inferior degree, to the accumulation of the mass. This conclusion 
is confirmed by facts derived from the associated beds,—as, for instance, 
the prevalence of Stigmaria in the underclays, and of Sigillarie and 

Calamites in the roof-shales and erect forests. 

«2, The woody matter of the axes of Sigillarie and Calamitee and 
of coniferous trunks, as well as the scalariform tissues of the axes of 
the Lepidodendree and Ulodendrew, and the woody and vascular 
bundles of ferns, appear principally in the state of mineral charcoal. 
The outer cortical envelope of these plants, together with such portions 
_ of their wood and of herbaceous plants and foliage as weré submerged 
without subaérial decay, occur as compact coal of various degrees of 
purity ; the cortical matter, owing to its greater resistance to aqueous 
infiltration, affording the purest coal. The relative amounts of all 
these substances found in the states of mineral charcoal and compact 
‘eoal depend principally upon the greater or less prevalence of subaérial 
decay, occasioned by greater or less dryness of the swampy flats on 
_ which the coal accumulated. 

“3. The structure of the coal accords with the view that its ma- 
terials were accumulated by growth, without any driftage of materials. 
The Sigillarie and Calamitee, tall and branchless, and clothed only 
with rigid linear leaves, formed dense groves and jungles, in which 
the stumps and fallen trunks of dead trees became resolved by decay 


2 
——- ee Oo oe syed 


472 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


into shells of bark and loose fragments of rotten wood, which currents 
would necessarily have swept away, but which the most gentle inun- 
dations or even heavy rains could scatter in layers over the surface, : 
where they gradually became imbedded in a mass of roots, fallen 
leaves, and herbaceous plants. 

“4. The rate of accumulation of coal was very slow. The climate 
of the period, in the northern temperate zone, was of such a character 
that the true conifers show rings of growth not larger or much less 
distinct than those of many of their modern congeners.* The Sigil- 
larie and Calamites were not, as often supposed, composed wholly, 
or even principally, of lax and soft tissues, or necessarily short-lived. 

. The former had, it is true, a very thick inner bark; but their dense 
woody axes, their thick and nearly imperishable outer bark, and their 
scanty and rigid foliage, would indicate no very rapid growth or decay. 
In the case of Sigillarie, the variations in the leaf-scars in different 
parts of the trunk, the intercalation of new ridges at the surface 
representing that of new woody wedges in the axis, the transverse 
marks left by the stages of upward growth—all indicate that several 
years must have been required for the growth of stems of mod- 

erate size. The enormous roots of these trees, and the conditions 
of the coal-swamps, must have exempted them from the danger of 
being overthrown by violence. They probably fell, in successive. 
generations, from natural decay; and, making every allowance for 
other materials, we may safely assert that every foot of thickness of 
pure bituminous coal implies the quiet growth and fall of at least fifty 
generations of Sigillaria, and therefore an undisturbed condition of 
forest-growth enduring through many centuries. Further, there is 
evidence that an immense amount of loose parenchymatous tissue, and 
even of wood, perished by decay; and we do not know to what extent 

{ even the most durable tissues may have disappeared in this way; so — 

that in many coal-seams we may have only a very small part of the 
vegetable matter produced. 

“ Lastly, the results stated in this paper refer to coal-beds of the 
Middle Coal measures. A few facts which I have observed lead me 
to believe that, in the thin seams of the Lower Coal measures, remains — 
of Cordaites and Lepidodendron are more abundant than in those of 
the Middle Coal measures. In the upper Coal measures similar 
modifications may be expected.” 


i leo 


* Paper on Fossils from Nova Scotia, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1847. 


CETL ee ae 


— ee eee 
ee ET 
is 


ss 
> 
“% 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 473 


Descriptive List of Carboniferous Plants found in Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick. 

This list is, with a few additional species and localities, the same 
with that published in my “Synopsis of the Carboniferous Flora 
of Nova Scotia,” Can. Nat., vol. viii. 1863. It is given here to aid 
those who may desire to make collections of these interesting fossils, 
and for comparison with the coal flora of other regions. 


Davoxyton, Unger. 


1. Dadoxylon Acadianum, spec. nov. (Fig. 159, B). Large trees, 
usually silicified or calcified, with very wide wood-cells, having three 
or more rows of small hexagonal areoles, each enclosing an oval pore ; 
cells of medullary rays one-third of breadth of wood-cells, and con- 
sisting of twenty or more rows of cells superimposed in two series. 
Rings of growth indistinct. M. C.,*Joggins, Port Hood, Dorchester 
(J. W. D.). 
2. D.materiarium, spec. nov. (Fig. 159,C). Wood-cells less wide 
than those of the last; two to rarely four rows of hexagonal dises. 
Medullary rays very numerous, with twenty or more rows of cells super- 
_ imposed in one series. Rings of growth slightly marked. Approaches 
in the character of its woody fibre to D. Brandlingii ; but the medul- 
lary raysare much longer. Some specimens show a large Sternbergian 
pith, with transverse partitions. Vast numbers of trunks of this species 
_ occur in some sandstones of the Upper Coal formation. M. and U. C., 
Joggins, Malagash, Pictou, etc. (J. W. D.); Glace Bay (H. Poole) ; 
Miramichi (G. F. Matthew). 
3. D. antiquius, spec. nov. (Fig. 159, D). Wood-cells narrow, thick- 
walled, two to three rows of pores. Medullary rays of three or four 
_ series of cells with twenty or more superimposed, nearly as wide as 
the wood-cells. Rings of growth visible. This species would belong 
_ tothe genus Paleoxylon of Brongniart, and is closely allied to D. 
Withami, L. and H., which, like it, occurs in the Lower Coal measures. 
_L. C., Horton (Dr Harding). 
4, D. annulatum, spec. nov. Wood-cells with two or three rows 
of hexagonal discs. Medullary rays of twenty or more rows of 
cells superimposed, in two series. Wood divided into distinct 
concentric circles, alternating with layers of structureless coal repre- 
senting cellular tissue or very dense wood. A stem six inches in dia- 
meter has fourteen to sixteen of these rings, and a pyritized pith about 
* U.C., M.C., and L. C., indicate the Upper, Middle, and Lower Coal formations. 


+ Canadian Naturalist, 1857 (Fig. 160, supra). 
2H 


. 


r 
i 
“14 
f: 


A474 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


one inch in diameter. This is probably generically distinct from the 
preceding species. M. C., Joggins (Sir W. E. Logan; J. W. D.). 


Araucarites, Unger. 


Araucarites gracilis, spec. nov. (Fig. 159, A). Branches slender, 0:2 a 


inch in diameter, with scaly, broad leaf-bases. Branchlets pinnate, 
numerous, very slender, with small, acute, spirally disposed leaves. 
U. C., Tatamagouche (J. W. D.). 
SicituariA, Brongn. 
1. Sigillaria (Favularia) elegans, Brongn. (Fig. 161, B). Abundant, 
especially in the roofs of coal seams. S. hexagona includes old trunks 


- of this species. Young branches have scars of an elliptical form like 


those of S. Serlii, M.C., Joggins (J. W. D.); Sydney (R. Brown). 

2. S. (Fav.) tessellata, Brongn. M.C., Joggins and Pictou (J. W. 
D.); Sydney (R. Brown). : 

3. 8. (Rhytidolepis) scutellata, Brongn. (Fig. 161, L, leaf). M. and 
U. C., Joggins (Lyell; J. W. D.). 

4. §S. (Rh.) Schlotheimiana, Brongn. M. C., Joggins (Lyell; 
5 Ps Pee |) 


5. S. (Rh.) ne Brongn. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown) ; Jose } 


(Lyell; J. W. D.). 


6. S. Brownii, Dawson (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. ‘x,). (Figs. : 


30 and 161, A). M.C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

7. S. reniformis, Brae: M. C., Joggins (Lyell; J. W. D.); 
Sydney (R. Brown). 

8. S. Levigata, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins 
(J. W. D.). 

9. S. planicosta, spec. nov. (Fig. 161, K). Scars half hexagonal — 
above, rounded below; lateral vascular impressions elongate; central — 
small, punctiform. Biba 1-1 inch broad, smooth externally, longi- — 


tudinally striated on the ligneous surface. Slight transverse wrinkles — 
between the scars, which are distant from each other about an inch. 
Allied to S. levigata, but with very thin bark. M.., Sydney (R. _ 


Brown). 
10. S. catenoides, spec. nov. (Fig. 161, 1). Cortical surface unknown; 


ligneous surface with puncto-striate ribs 1-1 inch in breadth, and with — 


single oval scars half an inch long, and an inch distant from centre to 
centre. A very large tree. Perhaps, if its cortical surface were 
known, it might prove to be a large Syringodendron. M. C., Joggins 
(J. anne Sydney (R. Brown). 


11. S. striata, spec. nov. (Fig. 161, G). Ribs prominent, coarsely 


ed ae neh Seger 


alitiats 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. ATS 


te, 0°35 inch wide. Scars nearly as wide as the ribs, rounded, hex- 

agonal, one inch distant; lateral vascular marks narrow, central large. 

On the ligneous surface scars single, round, oblong; bark very thin. 

M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

12. 8S. (?) A small erect stem, somewhat like S. flexuosa. 

. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

13. S. (Clathraria) Menardi, Brongn, M. C., Sydney (R. Brown), 

U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

14. S. (Asolanus) Sydnensis, spec. nov. Ribs obsolete; cortical 

and ligneous surfaces striate; vascular scars two, elongate longitu- 

-dinally, and alike on cortical and ligneous surfaces; scars 1-1 inch 

distant, in rows 0°6 inch distant. Stigmarian roots, same with 

_ variety h of Stigmaria, as described below. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

15. S. organum, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

16. S. elongata, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

17. S. flexuosa, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown’s list in 

Acadian Geology’’). 

18. S. pachyderma, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown’s list). 

19. S. (Fav.) Bretonensis, spec. nov. (Fig. 161, F). Like 8, tessel- 

lata, but areoles more hexagonal, bark thin and smooth on both sides, 

and furrow above the scars arcuate and with a central punctiform 

elevation. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

20. S. eminens, spec. nov. (Fig. 161, H). Like S. obovata, Lesqx., 

_ but with narrower ribs, and larger and less distant areoles, each 
with a slight groove above. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

21. S. Dournaisii, Brongn. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

22. S§. Knorrii, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


= 2) ee 
7. a 


a a my: 


SyRINGODENDRON, Brongn. 


Obscure specimens, referable to a narrow-ribbed species of this 
genus, occur in the Lower Carboniferous beds at Horton and Onslow. 


SrigmariA, Brongn. 


Stigmaria ficoides, Brongn. (Fig. 30,d). Under this name I place all 
the roots of Sigillariw oceurring in the Carboniferous rocks of Nova 
Scotia. They belong, without doubt, to the different species of Sigil- 
larioid trees; but it is at present impossible to determine to which ; 
and the specific characters of the Stigmarie themselves are, as might 
be anticipated, evanescent and unsatisfactory. The varieties which 
_ occur in Nova Scotia, discarding mere difference of preservation, may 
be arranged as follows :— 


476 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Var. a. Areoles large, distant; bark more or less smooth. This 
is the most common variety, and extends throughout the Coal for- 


mation. 
Var. b. Areoles large, separated by waving grooves af the bark. 


Var. c. Similar, but ridges as well as furrows between the areoles ; 


var. undulata of Goeppert. 

Var. d. Areoles small, separated by waving grooves. 

Var. e. Areoles moderate, in vertical or diagonal furrows separated 
by ridges; var. Sigillarioides of Goeppert. 

Var. f. Areoles small; bark finely netted with wrinkles or striz. 

Var. g. Areoles surrounded by radiating marks, giving a star-like 
- form; var. Stellata of Goeppert. The only specimen I have seen 


was found by Dr Harding in the Lower Carboniferous Coal measures 


of Horton. 
Var. h. Areoles small, or obscure and infrequent. Surface covered 


with fine uneven striz. My specimens were collected by Mr Brown ~ 


in the Middle Coal measures at Sydney. 
Var. 7. Areoles narrow, elongate, bark smooth or striate. 


Var. k. Alternans, with areoles in double rows on broad ribs sepa- — 


rated by deep furrows. Probably old furrowed roots. 

Var. 1. Knorroides. Prominent bosses or ridges instead of areoles. 
These are imperfectly preserved specimens. 

The varieties a, b, c, e, 7, have been seen attached to trunks of 
Sigillarie of the group hotaeated by broad and prominent ribs— 


Sigillaria proper of the above arrangement. Stigmaria, like Sigillarie, 


are exceedingly abundant in the Middle Coal measures, and are com- 


paratively rare in the Lower Carboniferous and newer Coal formations. — 


CALAMODENDRON, Brongn. 


1. Calamodendron approximatum, Brongn. (Fig. 162). This plantis — 
evidently quite distinct from Calamites proper. The Calamite-like — 
cast is a pith or internal cavity, surrounded by a thick cylinder of — 
woody tissue consisting of scalariform vessels and woody fibres with 
one row of round pores; external to this is a bark of cellular and | 
bast tissue. The structure appears to be allied to that of Sigillaria 


and is one of the most common in the beds of bituminous coal. M. 
C., Sydney (R. Brown); M. C., Joggins, Pictou (J. W. D.); Coal 
Creek (C. B. Matthew). 


2. C. obscurum, spec. nov. This is a Calamite-like fragment 


found in a block of Sydney coal, in the state of mineral charcoal. 
The external markings are obscure, but the structure is well preserved. 
It differs from the last in having large ducts with many rows of pores, 


SRLS Apts} 


~ ee eh 


i cane 


aut 
Se a | 


~ 


rote 
~~. 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 477 


or reticulated instead of scalariform vessels. This is perhaps a Cala- 
mite. M. C., Sydney (J. W. D.). 


Cyperires, L. and H. 


Cyperites (?) These elongate linear leaves have two or three 
ribs, and the central band between the ribs raised above the margin ; 
one species has been seen attached to Sigiilaria scutellata (Fig. 161, 
‘L). The leaves of Sigillaria elegans are different, being as broad as 
the areoles of the stem, and with several parallel veins (Fig. 161, B'). 
Middle and Upper coals, everywhere. 


Antuo.itues, Brongn. 


1. Antholithes Rhabdocarpi, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, B). Stem short, 
interruptedly striate, with two rows of crowded ovate fruits, and traces 
of floral leaves. Fruits half an inch long, striated longitudinally, 
attached by short peduncles. M. C., Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt). 
2. A. pygmeus, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, H). Rhachis one-tenth inch 
thick, rugose; two rows of opposite flowers, each showing four 
lanceolate striate floral leaves, two outer and two inner. M. C., 
Joggins (J. W. D.). 
3. A. spinosus, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, C). Stem one-fourth inch 
wide, delicately striate, slightly wrinkled longitudinally, as if by 
pressure. Flowers opposite, of ovate striate leaves or scales, and at 
base of each a long pointed narrow striate bract or scale. Fruit 
apparently an ovate striate nut—(Rhabdocarpus). Of same type 
with A. rhabdocarpi, but with thicker stem, smaller flowers, and 
much longer bracts. M. C., Pictou (J. Barnes). 
4, A. squamosus, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, A). Rhachis thick, coarsely 
rugose, with two rows of closely placed cones or scaly fruits. U. C., 
Pictou (J. W. D.). 
5. A. (?), spec. nov, Indistinct, but apparently different from 
those above described. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.); Sydney (R. 
Brown). 


TrigonocarPum, Brongn. 


1. Trigonocarpum Hookeri (Fig. 174), Dawson, Quart. Journ. Geol. 
Soe., vol. xvii. M.C., Mabou (J. W. D.). 

2. T. Sigillarie, spec. nov. Ovate, one quarter inch long; testa 
smooth, or rugose longitudinally, acuminate, two edged. Found in 
erect trunks of Sigillarie in large numbers. M. C., Joggins (J. 
ay. D.). 


a 


err > = = 


478 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


3. T. intermedium, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, D). Allied to 7. olive- 
formis, but larger and more elongated. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
4. T. avellanum, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, F). Allied to’ T. ovatum,. — 
L. and H.; three-ribbed, size and form of a filbert. M. C., Joggins . 
(J. W. D.); Sydney (R. Brown). 4 
5. T. minus, spec. nov. Half the size of T. Hookeri, and similar in 
form. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
6. T. rotundum, spec. nov. Small, round-ovate, slightly pointed. 
M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
7. T. Neggerathi, Brongn. (Fig. 173, E). Newer Coal formation, 
_ Pictou (J. W. D.). 
Ruappocarevs, Goepp. and Bergm. 
1. Rhabdocarpus (?), spec. nov. Ovate acuminate, less than 
half an inch long. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
2. R. insignis, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, G). 1:5 inch long, ovate, smooth, 
with about seven ribs on one side, and the intervening surface ob- 
scurely striate. The nature of this fossil is perhaps doubtful; but if 


a fruit, it is the largest I have seen in the Coal formation. U.C., — 
Pictou (J. W. D.). 4 


CaLamites, Suckow. 4 

1, Calamites Suckovii, Brongn. (Figs. 39 and 163, A). This — 
species is one of the most common in an erect position. It has — 
verticillate branchlets, with pinnate linear leaflets. M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown); Joggins (Lyell; J. W. D.); Grand Lake and Springhill — 
(C. F. Hartt); U.C., Pictou (J. W. D.); Coal Creek (C. B. Matthew). 

2. C. Cistii, Brongn. (Fig. 163, B). M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.); 
Sydney (R. Brown); Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt); Bay de Chaleur 
| (Logan) ; Coal Creek (C. B. Matthew). Often found erect. Itsleaves 
: are verticillate, simple linear, striate, apparently one-nerved, and three 
inches long. | 
\ 3. C. canneformis, Brongn. M. C., Joggins (Lyell; J. W. D:); 
Sydney (R. Brown). 

4. C. ramosus, Artis. Possibly a variety of C. Suckovit. M. C., 
Joggins (J. W. D.); Sydney (R. Brown). 

5. C. Voltzii, Brongn. (Fig. 37). (C. irregularis, L. and H.) M. 
C., Joggins (J. W. D). Often erect; has large irregular adventitious 
roots. This species is regarded by Brongniart as probably belonging — 
to Calamodendron. 

6. C. dubius, Artis. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins (J. W. 
D.; Logan); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 


7, 


* 1 is, <p». F a . ae | ~~ 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 479 


_ 1%. C. Nova-Scotica, spec. nov. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). Ribs 
equal, less than a line wide, striated longitudinally. Joints obscurely 
_ marked, and with circular areoles separated by the breadth of three to 
four ribs. Bark of moderate thickness. 

8. C. nodosus, Schloth. (Fig. 163, C). This species has long slender 
branchlets, with close whorls of short rigid leaves. M. C., Sydney 
_(R. Brown); Grand Lake (C. I’. Hartt). 

9. C. arenaceus (?), Jiiger. This species is mentioned with doubt 
in Lyell’s list. 

EquisetiTEs, Sternberg. 

Equisetites curta, spec. nov. (Fig. 164). Short thick stems, enlarging 
upward, and truncate above; joints numerous; sheaths as long as 
the joints, with unequal acuminate keeled points. Lateral branches 
q or fruit with longer leaf-like points. Has the characters of Equisetites ; 
but its affinities are quite uncertain. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


ASTEROPHYLLITES, Brongn. 


1, Asterophyllites foliosa, L. and H.- M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.); 
_ Sydney (R. Brown). Springhill (C. /. Hartt). 

_ 2. A. grandis, Sternberg (?). The specimens resemble this species, 
but are not certainly the same. Logan’s specimens have terminal 
spikes of fructification. M. C., Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt); Bay de 
Chaleur (Logan); Sydney (atkuiy: Springhill (C. F. Hartt). 

' 8. Asterophyllites, sp. A species with tubercles (fruit) in the axils 
is mentioned in Lyell’s list as from Sydney. I have not seen it, but 
_ have a specimen from Mr Brown similar to A. tuberculata, Sternberg, 
which may be the same. 

4, A. trinervis, spec. nov. (Fig. 165, A). Main stem smooth, 
delicately striate, with leaves at the nodes. Branches delicately 
striate, with numerous whorls of linear nearly straight leaves, 0°5 inch 
long, twenty or more in a whorl, and showing two lateral nerves in 
addition to the median nerve. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

5. Asterophyllites (Bechera) curta, spec. nov. Stems thin, coarsely 
‘ribbed. Internodes about a line long. Nodes with whorls of short 
linear leaves, nearly at right angles to the stem, which bifureates at 
very obtuse angles. M. ©., Pictou (J. Barnes, Esq.) This peculiar 
species is of the type of A. grandis, and belongs to the section Bechera 
of Sternberg; plants which, at least in habit of growth, are certainly 
different from ordinary Asterophyllites. 


ANNULARIA, Sternberg. 
1. Annularia sphenophylloides, Zenker (Fig. 165, B). Mm. 'Ga 


. 


se ~ 


480 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.); Bay de 
Chaleur (Logan); Sydney (R. Brown). 


2. A. equisetiformis, L. and H. M. C., Sydney. (R. a 


Pictou (J. W. D.). 


SPHENOPHYLLUM, Brongn. . 

1. Sphenophyllum emarginatum, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown) ; Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt); Bay de Chaleur (Logan) ; Pictou 
Cae Wes). 

2. S. longifolium, Germar. U.C., Pictou (J. W. D.); M.C., Sydney 
(R. Brown). 


3. S. saxifragifolium, Sternberg. Elongate much-forked variety, 


‘closely allied to S. bifurcatum, Lesquereux. Bay de Chaleur 


(Logan). 

4. §. Schlothetmii, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (Bunbury). 

5. S. erosum, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (Bunbury) (Fig. 165, C). 
The last two species are regarded by Geinitz as varieties of S. 
emarginatum. A specimen of the last-named species in Sir William 
Logan’s collection shows a woody jointed stem like that of Asterophyl- 
lites, giving off branches at the joints; these again branch and bear 


whorls of leaves. The stem shows under the microscope a single 
bundle of reticulated or scalariform vessels like those of some ferns, © 


and also like those of Tmestpteris, as figured by Brongniart. This 
settles the affinities of these plants as being with ferns or with Lyco- 
podiacee, rather than with Equisetacee, as at p. 444 above. 


Pinnuvaria, L. and H. 
1. Pinnularia capillacea, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


2. P. Ramosissima, spec. nov. (Fig. 165, D). More slender and 
z. 


ramose than the last. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

3. P. crassa, spec. nov. Branching like P. capillacea, but much 
stronger and coarser. L. C., Horton (C. F. Hartt). All these are 
apparently branching fibrous roots, of soft cellular tissue with a thin 


epidermis and slender vascular axis. Perhaps they are roots of — 


Asterophyllites. 


Genus Naecrratuts, Sternberg. 
1. Neggerathia dispar, spec. nov. (Fig. 73). A remarkable ‘fea 


ment of a leaf, with a petiole nearly three inches long, and a fourth — 


of an inch wide, spreading abruptly into a lamina, one side of which 
is much broader than the other, and with parallel veins running up 
directly from the margin as from a marginal rib. It appears to be 


EI ir IP IESE 9 


cin 
es 


se Oe: a said 


Sie 


ERR Set MWD = wate dy 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 481 


‘doubled in at both edges, and is abruptly broken off. It seems to be 
a new species; but of what affinities, it is impossible to decide. Bay 
de Chaleur (Sir W. E. Logan). 

2. N. flabellata, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


Cyc.opreris, Brongn. 


(including Cyclopteris proper, and subgenera Aneimites, Daws., and 
Neuropteris, Brongn. in part). 


1. Cyclopteris heterophylla, Goeppert. M. C. and U. C., Joggins 
mio. W. D.). 

2. C. (Aneimites) Acadica, Dawson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. 
* xvii. p. 5 (Fig. 75). Stipe large, striate, branching dichotomously 
several times. Pinnz with several broadly obovate pinnules grouped 
at the end of a slender petiolule, and with dichotomous radiating veins. 
Fertile pinne with recurved petiolules, and borne on the divisions of 
the main petiole near their origin. This plant might be placed in the 
genus Adiantites, Brongn., but for the fructification, which allies it 
with such ferns as Aneimia. It has a very large frond, the main 
petiole being sometimes three inches in diameter, and two feet long 
before branching. Flattened petioles have sometimes been mistaken 
for Cordaites and Schizopteris. It is a characteristic plant of the 
Lower Coal measures. L. C., Horton (C. F. Hartt); Norton Creek, 
N.B. (G. F. Matthew). 

3. C. oblongifolia, Goeppert. A little larger and coarser than 
Goeppert’s figure. U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

4. C. (Neuropteris) obliqua, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown) ; 
Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt). 

5. C. (2? Neuropteris) ingens, L. and H. M.C., Sydney (R, Brown); 
Grand Lake and Springhill (C. F. Hartt). ; 

6. C. oblata, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

7. C. fimbriata, Lesquereux. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

8. C. hispida, spec. nov. Pinnate; pinnules obovate, diminish- 
ing in size towards the point, decurrent on the petiole; veins slender, 
distant, forking several times; under surface covered with stiff hairs. 
M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

9. C. antiqua, spec. nov. L. C., (?) Herbert River (J. W. D). 
Tripinnate; petioles slender; pinnules oblong, obtuse, decurrent 
on the petiole, not contiguous. Terminal pinnules much elongated ; 
venation simple, divergent. This plant approaches more nearly to 
the peculiar species of Cyclopteris found in the Devonian, than any 
of the others I have seen in the Carboniferous. 


a 


Ce a er es, ee a 


fra SE, 


482 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Nevrorterts, Brongn. 

1. Neuropteris rarinervis, Bunbury (Fig. 156, f). M. C., Sydney 
(R. Brown); Grand Lake and Springhill (C. F. Hartt); Bay de . 
Chaleur (Logan). 

2. NV. perelegans, spec. nov. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
Resembles NV. elegans, Brongn., but has narrower pinnules, and 
nerves less oblique to the midrib. The pinnules were thick and 
leathery, rough or cellular-netted above, and showing the venation 
only on the underside. 

3. NV. cordata, Brongn. (and var. angustifolia). (Fig. 166, B). 
The ferns referred to this species are identical with NV. hirsuta of © 


‘Lesquereux. They abound in the Middle and Upper Coal formations, 


and have larger pinnules than any of the other ferns. A single 
terminal pinnule in my collection is five inches long. The surface is 
always more or less hairy. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown); U. C., Pictou 
Oe W.°D:). 

4. N. Voltzii, Brongn. A single imperfect specimen like this 
species, but uncertain, M. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 


5. NV. gigantea, Sternb. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Grand Lake 


(C. EK. Hartt): U.C., Pictou (J. W. 17.) 
6. NV. flexuosa, oe M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins (J. . 
We: 2D). 
7. N. heterophylla, Brongn. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown); U. C., 
Pictou (J. W. D.). 
8. WN. Loshii, Brongn. Bay de Chaleur (Logan). 
9. IN. acutifolia, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (Lyell’s list). 
10. WV. conjugata, Goepp. M. C., Sydney (Brown’s list, “ Acad. 
Geol.”’). 
11. N. attenuata, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (1. c.). 
12. WV. dentata, Lesq. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
13. IV. Soret (Brongn.). M.C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
14. NV. auriculata, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
15. NV. cyclopteroides, spec. nov. (Fig. 166, F). Pinnate; pinnules 
contiguous or overlapping, obliquely round-ovate, attached at the 


lower third of the base; nerves numerous, spreading from the point 


of attachment. Allied to NV. Villierst, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown). 


OponTopTERIs, Brongn. 


1. Odontopteris Schlotheimi, Brongn. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown) 5 
Bay de Chaleur (Logan); U. C, Pictou (J. W. D.). 


ee ee en 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 483 


2. O. subcuneata, Bunbury (Fig. 166, A).  M. C., Sydney (R. 
3rown). 


Dicryorreris, Gutb. 

Dictyopteris obliqua, Bunbury (Fig. 166, D). M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown). 

Loncnorterts, Brongn. 


Lonchopteris tenuis, spec. nov. Pinnate or bipinnate; pinnules 
contiguous at the base, nearly at right angles to petiole, oblong 
elongate, obtuse. Network of veins very delicate. Allied to L. 
Bricii, Brongn., but with smaller, more elongate pinnules and 
finer veins. I suspect this to be a thick-leaved Pecopteris, showing 
a coarse cellular reticulation on the upper surface. M. C., Sydney 


4 (R. Brown). 


SpHeNopTeRis, Brongn. 
1. Sphenopteris munda, spec. nov. (Fig. 69). Like S. Dubuis- 
; sonii, Brongn., or S. irregularis, Sternberg, in habit; but the pinnules 
are obovate, decurrent, and few-veined. M. C., Grand Lake and 
Springhill (C. F. Hartt). 
2. ~S. hymenophylloides, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); U. 
a C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
L 3. S. latior, spec. nov. (Fig. 70). Petiole forking at an obtuse 
angle, slender, tortuous; divisions bipinnate; pinne with broad, 
rounded, confluent pinnules; veins twice forked, with sori in the forks 
of the veins. In habit like S. latifolia, Brongn., S. Newberryi, and 8S. 
squamosa, Lesq. M.C., Grand Lake and Springhill (C. F. Hartt) ; 
U.C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 
4, 8. decipiens, Lesquereux. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
5. S. gracilis, Brongn. M. C., Joggins. (J. W. D.); Grand Lake 
(C. F. Hartt). 
6. S. artemisiefolia, Brongn. “M. C. Grand Lake, Springhill (C. 
FP. Hartt); Sydney (R. Brown). 
7. S. Canadensis, spec. nov. (Fig. 71). General aspect like S, 
Heninghausi, but secondary pinnules with a margined petiole, and 
oblong pinnules divided into three to five obtuse points. It is not 
unlike S. marginata, from the Devonian of St. John. Bay de Chaleur 
(Logan); Sydney? (R. Brown). 
8. S. Lesquereuxii, Newberry. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
9. 8. microloba, Guttbier. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). | 
10. S. obtusiloba (?), Brongn. M. C., Bay de Chaleur (Logan). 


id 
r 


ee ee 


‘Sed 


eg er Oe 


a met <tr 4 


'(C. F. Hartt). Very abundant throughout the Middle and Upper — 


484 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


Puy .iopreris, Brongn. ‘ 

Phyllopteris antiqua, spec. nov. (Fig. 166, E). Pinnate; petiole 
thick, woody ; pinnules oblong, pointed, attached by the middle of thé _ 
base; midrib strong, extending to the point, giving off very oblique — 
nerves, which have obliquely pinnate nervules not anastomosing. A 
remarkable frond, which, if not the type of a new genus, must belong — 
to that above named. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


teetcH 


—; 
~ 


ALETHOPTERIS, Sternberg. 


1. Alethopteris lonchitica, Sternberg. (Fig. 166, C). M. and U. 
C., Joggins (J. W. D.); M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Grand Lake 


‘ 
- 


Coal formations, and so variable that several species might easily 

be founded on detached specimens. 4 
2. A. heterophylla, L. and H. (Fig. 156, A). L.C., Parrsborough | 

(A. Gesner). $ 

3. A. Grandini, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

4. A. nervosa, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Bay de 4. 
Chaleur (Logan); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

5. A. muricata, Brongn. M.C., Joggins, Bathurst (Lyell); U.C., 
Pictou (J. W. D.). 

6. A. pteroides, Brongn. (A. Brongnartii, Goeppert). L. or M. C, 
Bathurst (Lyell’s list). 

7. A. Serlii, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Bay de Chaleur 
(Logan); Springhill (C. F. Hartt). 

8. A. grandis, spec. nov. (Fig. 72). Bipinnate; pinnz broad, 
contiguous, united at the base; veins numerous, once forked, ny 
quite at right angles to the midrib. Upper pinne having the pinnail Le 
confluent so as to give crenate edges. Still higher the apex of the 
frond shows distant decurrent long pinnules with waved margins. A } 
very large and fine species of the type of A. Serlii and A. Grandini, 
but much larger and different in details. Its texture seems to have 
been membranaceous; and fragments from that part of the frond 
where the long simple pinnules are passing into the compound ones — 
might be mistaken for an Odontopteris. Bay de Chaleur (Logan). 


Pecorreris, Brongn. 

1. Pecopteris arborescens, Schloth. Seems to have been an her- 

baceous species with a very strong petiole. It occurs in an erect 

position in a sandstone on Wallace River. M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.); Wallace River (Dr Creed). 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 485 


_ 2. P. abbreviata, Brongn. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown); Salmon 
River, U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). Very common both in the Upper 
and Middle Coal formations. 


3. P. rigida, spec. nov. Similar to P. arborescens, but much smaller, 
_ and with finer nerves. U.C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

4, P. unita, Brongn. Certain pinnules of a frond are sometimes 
swollen as if covered with fructification below; and in this state they 
resemble P. arguta, Brongn. The sori are seen in other specimens, 
and are large, round, and covered with an indusium as in Aspidiwm. 
M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

. P. plumosa, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

. P. polymorpha, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

. P. acuta, Brongn. M. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 

. P. longifolia, Brongn. In Bunbury’s list, from Sydney. 

. P. teniopteroides, Bunbury. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

. P. cyathea, Brongn. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

. P. equalis, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

. P. Sillimani, Brongn. In Lyell’s list, from Sydney. 

. P. villosa, Brongn. M. C., Pictou (Lyell’s list). 

. P. Bucklandi, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (Brown’s list). 

. P. oreopteroides, Brongn. M. C., Sydney (Brown’s list). 

. P. Decurrens, Lesq. Has pinnules more crowded, decreasing 
towards the apex, but may be a variety. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
17. P. Pluckenetii, Sternb. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


BernertiA, Goeppert. 


Beinertia Goepperti, spec. nov. Bipinnate; pinnz broad, contiguous, 
obtuse, with thick pinnules. Pinnules rounded above, obovate below. 
Midrib thick, oblique, dividing above into a tuft of irregular hair-like 
veins. M. C., Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt); Bay de Chaleur (Logan) ; 
U. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). : 

HyMeEnopuyLuites, Goeppert. 

Hymenophyllites pentadactyla, spec. nov. In general habit like 
Sphenopteris microloba, Goepp., but with pinnules divided into from 
four to seven obtuse cuneate lobes, each with one vein. M. C., 
Sydney (R. Brown). 

PatmoprTeris, Geinitz. 


1. Palwopteris Harttii, spec. nov. (Fig. 167,C). Stem or leaf-bases 
transversely wrinkled with delicate lines; scars transversely oval, 


486 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


slightly appendaged below; vascular scars confluent. Breadth 1-4 
in.; length 0-6 in. M. C., Grand Lake, Springhill (C. F. Hartt). 

2. P. Acadica, spec. nov. (Fig. 167, D). Stem or leaf-bases _ 
longitudinally striated; scars transverse, flat above, rounded and bluntly — 
appendaged below; vascular scars in a transverse row. Breadth of 
scars 0-7 inch; length 0°5 inch. U.C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 


CauLopreris, L. and H. 


Several small erect stems at the Joggins seem to be trunks of ferns, 
but are too obscure for description. 


Psarontus, Cotta. 

Trunks of this kind must be rare in the Nova Scotian Coal-fields. 
A few obscure stems surrounded by cord-like aérial roots have been 
found, and probably are remains of plants of this genus. 


SP tind ome) = 
dl hi i A St a ois Ol emt 


Mercaruyton, Artis. 

1. Megaphyton magnificum, spec. nov. (Fig. 167, A). Stems large, 
roughly striated longitudinally; scars contiguous, orbicular, deeply 
sunk, nearly 3 inches in diameter, and each with a bilobate vascular im- 
pression 2 inches broad and an inch high. M.C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
2. M. humile, spec. nov. Stem 2°5 inches in diameter; leaf- - 
scars prominent, flattened, and broken at the ends, 1 inch wide. — 
Surface of the stem marked with irregular furrows, and invested with _ 
a carbonaceous coating. An internal axis, nearly 2 inches in diameter, 
with a coaly coating, sends off obliquely thick branches to the leaf- — 
scars. This is a very remarkable specimen, and throws much light 
on the structure of Megaphyton. Unfortunately the minute structures 
are not preserved. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 3 


Genus Lermoprenpron, Sternberg. 


1. Lepidodendron corrugatum, Dawson, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 
vol. xv. (Fig. 168). Areoles elongate ovate, acute at both ends, « 
with a ridge along the middle, terminating in a single elevated vascular 
scar at the upper end. In certain states the vascular mark appears in : 
the middle of the areole. In young branches the areoles are contiguous 
and resemble those of LZ. elegans. In old stems they become separated — , 
by spaces of longitudinally wrinkled bark; in very old stems these 
spaces are much wider than the areoles. Leaves linear, 1 inch or more — 
in length, usually reflected, one-nerved. Cones (Lepidostrobz) terminal, — 
short, rephaieirie) with numerous short, acute-triangular scales. Struc- 
ture of stem :—a central pith with a slender cylinder of scalariform — 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 487 


+ vessels, exterior to which is a thick cylinder of cellular tissue and 
bast fibres, and a dense outer bark. Var. verticillatum has the areoles 
arranged in regular decussate whorls instead of spirally. ‘This dif- 
ference, which might at first sight seem to warrant even a generic 
distinction, is proved by specimens in my possession to be merely a 
1 variety of phyllotaxis. This species is eminently characteristic of the 
Lower Carboniferous Coal measures, and has not yet been found in 
the Middle Coal formation. Fragments of bark, resembling that of 
this species, occur in the Coal formation of Bay de Chaleur, along 
_ with leafy branches of Lepidodendron, which resemble those of this 
_ species, though, I believe, distinct. L. C., Horton, ete. (C. F. Hartt; 
_ J.W.D.); Norton Creek, ete., New Brunswick (G. F. Matthew). 
2. L. Pictoense, spec. nov. (Fig. 169, A). Areoles contiguous, pro- 
minent, long oval, acuminate, separated in young stems by a narrow 
line; breadth to length as 1 to 3, or less; lower half obliquely 
wrinkled, especially at one side. Middle line indistinct. Leaf-scar 
at upper end of areole, small, triangular, with traces of three vascular 
points, nearly confluent. Length of areole about 0°5 inch. Leaves 
contracted at the base, widening slightly, and gradually contracting 
to a point; ribs three, central distinct, lateral obscure; length 1 inch. 
Cones borne at the extremities of the smaller branches, oblong, 
obseurely scaly. In habit of growth this species resembles L. ele- 
gans, for which imperfect specimens might be mistaken. It is also 
near to L. binerve and L. patulum, Bunbury.* It abounds in the 
Middle Coal measures. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Pictou (H. Poole 
and J. W. D.); Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt). 
3. L. rimosum, Sternberg (Fig. 169, D). M. C., Sydney (R. 
Brown) ; Joggins (J. W. D.). 
_ 4, L. dichotomum, Sternberg (ZL. Sternbergii, L. and H.). M. C. 
Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins (J. W. D.); L. C., Horton (J. W. D.). 
5. L. decurtatum, spec. nov. (Fig. 170, A). Areoles approximate 
or separated by a shallow furrow, rhombic ovate, obliquely acuminate 
below, nearly as broad as long, wrinkled transversely, especially on 
the middle line, which appears tuberculated ; vascular scar rhombic, 
twice as broad as long, with three approximate vascular points. In 
some flattened specimens the line separating the areoles is indistinct, 
and the scars appear on a transversely wrinkled surface without dis- 
tinct areoles. M. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 
6. L.undulatum, Sternberg. (Fig. 169, E). Possibly several species 
* In certain states of preservation, the lateral ribs of the leaves become obsolete ; 


and in others the central disappears, in which state the resemblance to L. binerve is 
very close. 


488 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


are included under this name; but they cannot be separated at present. _ 
M. C., Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins and Pictou (J. W. D.); U.C, ~ 
- Joggins (J. W. D.). hs . | 
7. L. dilatatum, Lindley and Hutton. M.C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 
8. L., sp. like tetragonum, Goepp: Obscurely marked, but a dis- 
tinct species, unless an imperfectly preserved variety of L. tetragonum. 
The areoles are square, with a rhombic scar at the upper corner of each. — 
L. C., Horton (J. W. D.). 
9. L. binerve, Bunbury. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 
10. LZ. tumidum, Bunbury. I think it probable that this species 
_ belongs to the genus Lepidophloios ; but I have not seen a specimen. _ 
M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). ; 
11. ZL. gracile, Brongn. In Brown’s list in “ Acadian Geology.” 
Probably a variety of the next. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). ¢ 
12. L. elegans, Brongn. In Bunbury and Brown’s lists. M. C. 5 
Sydney (R. Brown). 4 
H 13. L. plumarium, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (in Brown’s list), 
14. L. selaginoides, Stenb. M.C., Sydney (in Brown’s list). 
15. L. Harcourtii (Witham). M.C., Sydney (in Brown’s list). | 
. 16. L. clypeatum (?), Lesqx. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown); U.C., 
Joggins (J. W. D.). q 

17. L. aculeatum, Sternberg. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

18. L. plicatum, spec. nov. (Fig. 169, C). Leaf-areolesmuchelon- _ 
gated; breadth to length as 1 to 5 or 6, tranversely rugose; central — 
line indistinct. Leaf-scar rhombic, with three vascular points; scars 
in old stems separated by rugose bark, and somewhat elongate. M. C., 
Pictou (J. W. D.). 

19. L. personatum, spec. nov. (Fig. 169, B). Areoles ovate acu- 
minate; breadth to length as 1 to 3 or 4, contiguous in young stems; 
central line distinct; lower part of areole with transverse lines. Leaf- _ 
| scars ovate, with two marks above and two below; leaves slender, 1 A 
inch long, one-nerved. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). — 1 


Hatonra, L. and H. 


Halonia, sp. A specimen probably referable to this genus from | 
Grand Lake, in the collection of C. F. Hartt. ; 


EE ss 


_———<—— - 


Lepipostrosus, Brongn. 


1. Lepidostrobus variabilis, L.and H. The most common species. 
M. C., Sydney (R. Brown) ; Pictou and Joggins (J. W. D.). 


oan, aS Pee 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 489 


. L. squamosus, spec. nov. (Fig. 171, E.) 2 to 8 inches long, 
Pa e thick; scales large, broadly tr etal acute. Allied to ZL. tri- 
 gonolepis, but larger. Probably a cone of Lepidophioios. M. C., 
Grand Lake (C. F. Hartt). 

8. LZ. longifolius, spec. nov. Long-leaved, like Lepidodendron longi- 
_ folium, L. and H. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

4. Lepidostrobus, sp. Acute trigonal leaves, small. M. C., Joggins 
(J. W. D.). 

5. Lepidostrobus, sp. Round, with obscure scales and remains of 
long leaves. L.C., Horton (J. W. D.). 

6. L. Trigonolepis, Bunbury. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


4% LepmporHyLiuM, Brongn. 

1. Lepidophyllum lanceolatum, L. and H. M. C., Joggins; U. C., 

Pictou (J. W. D.). 

2. L. Trinerve (?), L. and H. Two-nerved or three-nerved, like L. 

trinerve, L. and H., but narrower. Both the above are parts of 

Lepidostrobi. U.C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 

3. L. Majus (?), Brongn. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

4. Lepidophyllum, sp. Broad ovate, short, pointed, one-nerved, 

half an inch long. U. C., Pictou. 

5. L. intermedium, L. and H. M. C., Sydney (R. Brown’s list). 

Halonia, Lepidostrobus and Lepidophyllum, including only parts of 
_ Lepidodendron and Lepidophloios, are to be regarded as merely pro- 

 visional genera. 


4 
«% 


LeriporHtoios, Sternberg. 


1, Lepidophloios Acadianus, spec. nov. (Fig. 171). Leaf-bases 
broadly rhombic, or in old stems regularly rhombic, prominent, 
ascending, terminated by very broad rhombic scars having a central 
point and two lateral obscure points. Outer bark laminated or scaly. 
Surface of inner bark with single points or depressions. Leaves long, 
linear, with a strong keel on one side, five inches or more in length. 
Cone-scars sparsely scattered on thick branches, either in two rows 
or spirally, both modes being sometimes seen on the same branch, 
Scalariform axis scarcely an inch in diameter in a stem five inches 
thick. Fruit, an ovate strobile with numerous acute scales covering 
small globular spore-cases. This species is closely allied to Uloden- 
dron majus and Lepidophloios laricinus, and presents numerous varie- 
ties of marking. M.C., Joggins, Salmon River, Pictou (J. W. D.); 
Sydney (R. Brown). 

2. L. prominulus, spec. nov. Leaf-bases rhombic, pyramidal, 


25 
| re 


490 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


somewhat wrinkled at the sides, truncated by regularly rhombic 
scars, each with three approximate vascular points. M. C., Joggins 
(J5W. D.); 

3. L. parvus, spec. nov. (Fig. 170, G). Leaf-bases rhombic, small, 
with rhombic scars broader than long; vascular points obscure; 
leaves linear, acute, three inches or more in length, with a keel and 
two faint lateral ribs. Cones large, sessile. U.C., Pictou; M. C., 
Joggins (J. W. D.); M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 

4, L. platystigma, spec. nov. (Fig. 170, E). Leaf-bases rhombic, 
broader than long, little prominent; scars rhombic, oval, acuminate, 
slightly emarginate above; vascular points two, approximate or 

- confluent. M.C., Sydney (R. Brown); Joggins (J. W. D.). 

5. L. tetragonus, spec. nov. (Fig. 170, D). Leaf-bases square, fur- 
rowed on the sides; leaf-scar central, with apparently a single central 
vascular point. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 


Dirtorecium, Corda. 

Diplotegium retusum, spec. nov. (Fig. 172, B). The fragments 
referable to plants of this genus are imperfect and obscure. The most 
distinct show leaf-bases ascending obliquely, and terminating by a — 
retuse end with a papilla in the notch. Some less distinct fragments — 
may possibly be imperfectly preserved specimens of Lepidodendron — 
or Lepidophloios. M. C., Joggins (J. W. D.). 


KNorria. < 

Nearly all the plants referred to this genus in the Carboniferous ; 

rocks are, as Goeppert has shown, imperfectly preserved stems of 

Lepidodendron. In the Lower Coal formation many such Knorria 4 

forms are afforded by L. corrugatum. : 

Knorria Sellonit, Sternberg. This appears different from the -| 
ordinary Knorrie ; its supposed leaves may be aérial roots. It has | 

a large pith- eae with very distant tabular floors, like Sternbergia. 

M. C., Sydney (R. Brown). 


Corparres, Unger. (Pycunopuyiium, Brongn.). 

1. Cordaites borassifolia, Corda (Fig. 172, A). M. C., Pictou (H. 
Poole); Grand Lake and Springhill (C. F. Hartt); Sydney (R. 
Brown); Joggins, Onslow (J. W. D.); Bay de Chaleur (Logan). 
‘ Very abundant in the Middle Coal formation. 

2. C. simplex, spec. nov. Leaves similar to the last in size and 
form, but with simple, equal, parallel nerves. It may be a variety, 
but is characteristic of the Upper Coal formation. M. C., Grand River 
(C. F. Hartt); U. C., Pictou (J. W. D.). 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 491 


Carprocarrum, Brongn. 
1. Cardiocarpum fluitans, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, IT). Oval; apex 
entire or notched; surface slightly rugose; nucleus round ovate, 
acuminate, pitted on the surface, with a raised mesial line. M. C., 
_ Joggins (J. W. D.). 
2. C. bisectum, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, K). Nucleus as in the last 
species, but striate; margin widely notched at apex, and more nar- 
. _rowly notched belo. M. C., Grand Lake, Springhill (C. F. Hartt). 
3. Cardiocarpum, sp. like C.marginatum. M.C., Joggins (J.W.D.). 
4. Cardiocarpum, sp. allied to C. latum, Newberry. M. C., Pictou 
(HI. Poole). These Cardiocarpa are excessively abundant in the roofs 
of some coal seams; and the typical ones must have been samaras or 
winged nutlets. They must have belonged to phenogamous plants, 
. and certainly are not the fruits of Lepidodendron, though some of the 
_ spore-cases of this genus have been deseribed as Cardiocarpa. These 
I propose to place under the provisional genus Sporangites. 
a Sroraneites, Dawson. 
1. Sporangites papillata, spec. nov. (Fig. 173, L). I propose the 
_ provisional generic name of Sporangites for spores or spore-cases of 
Lepidodendron, Calamites, and similar plants, not referred to the 

| . 
_ species to which they belong. The present species is round, about 
one inch in diameter, and covered with minute raised papillz or spines. 
It abounds in the roof of several of the shaly coals in the Joggins 
section, and especially in one in group 19 of that section. M. C., 
__ doggins (JW: D.). 
2.8. glabra, spec. nov. (Fig. 168, F). About the size of a mustard- 
_ seed, round and smooth. Exceedingly abundant in the Lower Car- 
Bt _ boniferous Coal measures of Horton Bluff, with Lepedodendron corru- 
gatum, to which it probably belongs. A similar spore-case, possibly 
of another species of Lepidodendron, occurs rarely in the Middle Coal 
formation at the Joggins. 


SrerneeraiA, Artis. 

This provisional genus includes the piths of Dadoxylon, Sigillaria, 
and other plants, usually preserved as casts in sandstone, retaining 
more or less perfectly the transverse partitions into which the pith- 
eylinders of many coal formation trees became divided in the process 
of growth. These fossils are most abundant in the Upper Coal for- 
mation, but occur also in the Middle Coal formation. The following 
varieties may be distinguished :— 

(a.) Var. approximata, with fine uniform transverse wrinkles. This 
_ is usually invested with a thin coating of structureless coal. 


492 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


(0.) Var. angularis (Fig. 160), with coarser and more angular 
transverse wrinkles. This is the character of the pith of Dadoxylon. 


(c.) Var. distans, usually of small size, and with distant and irregu- Eg 


lar wrinkles. This is sometimes invested with wood having the 


structure of Calamodendron, and perhaps is not generically distinct 


from C. approximatum. 
(d.) Var. obscura, with distinct and distant transverse wrinkles, but 


not strongly marked on the surface. This is the character of the * 


pith-cylinders of Sigzllaria and Lepidophlotos. 


Enpocenites, L. and H. 


Many sandstone-casts, answering to the character of the plants 
described under this name by Lindley, occur in the Upper Coal for- 
mation. They are sometimes three inches in diameter, and several 
feet in length, irregularly striated longitudinally, and invested with — 
coaly matter. Sometimes they show transverse striation in parts of — 


their length. I believe they are casts of pith-cylinders of the nature 
of Sternbergia, and probably of Sigillarioid trees. 


Sotenites, L. and H. 


Plants of this kind are found in the sandstones of the Upper Coal 
formation of the Joggins. 


For all the specimens noticed in the above list as collected by Sir — 
W. E. Logan, Richard Brown, Esq., of Sydney, Cape Breton, Henry — 
Poole, Esq., of Glace Bay, C. B., and G. F. and C. B. Matthew and — 
C. F. Hartt, Esqs., St John, New Brunswick, I am indebted to the — 
kindness of these eenblem@ To Mr Brown especially I am under 
great obligations for his liberality in placing at my disposal his large — 
and valuable collection of the plants of the Cape Breton Coal-field. 


Summary. 


1. Of 196 nominal species in the list, probably 44 may be rejected 4 
as founded merely on parts of plants, leaving about 152 true species. — 
2. Of these, on comparison with the lists of Unger, Morris, and | 
Lesquereux, 92 seem to be common to Nova Scotia and to Europe, | 


and 59 to Nova Scotia and the United States. Most of these last 
are common to Europe and the United States. There are about 54 
species peculiar, in so far as known, to Nova Scotia, though there can 


be little doubt that several of these will be found elsewhere. It would 


thus appear that the coal flora of Nova Scotia is more closely related 
to that of Europe than to that of the United States, a curious cireum- 
stance in connexion with the similar relationship of the marine fauna 
of the period; but additional information may modify this view. 


PEPE AYA Et torn 


A ey edie aaa 


THE FLORA OF THE COAL FORMATION. 493 


_ 8. The greater part of the species have their head-quarters in the 
Middle Coal formation, and scarcely any species appear in the Upper 
Coal formation that are not also found in the former. The Lower 
Coal formation, on the other hand, seems to have a few peculiar species 
not found at higher levels. 
_ 4. The characteristic species of the Lower Coal formation are Lepi- 
dodendron corrugatum and Cyclopteris Acadica, both of which seem 
to be widely distributed at or near this horizon in Eastern America, 
while neither has yet been recognised in the true or Middle Coal 
measures. In the Upper Coal formation Calamites Suckovii, Annu- 
_laria sphenophylloides, Sphenophyllum emarginatum, Cordaites simplex, 
Alethopteris nervosa, muricata, etc., Pecopteris arborescens, P. ab- 
breviata, P. rigida, Neuropteris cordata, Dadoxylon materiarum, 
_ Lepidophloios parvus, Sigillaria scutellata, are characteristic plants, 
though not confined to this group. 
5. In the Middle Coal formation and in the central part of it, near 
the greater coal seams, occur the large majority of the species of 
4 Sigillaria, Calamites, Lepidodendron, and Ferns ; some of the species 
ranging from the Millstone-grit into the Upper Coal formation, while 
_ others seem to be more narrowly limited. It is to be ate how- 
_ ever, that, as we leave the central part of the system, the total number 
__ of species diminishes both above and below, and that it is only in those 
__ beds which hold large numbers of plants in situ or nearly so, that we 
 ¢an expect to find a great variety of species, and especially the more 
_ delicate and perishable organisms. 

It is also quite observable in the Joggins section, that while some 
beds, in the same part of the system, supported Sigillaric, others 
carried Calamites, others mixtures of these with other plants; so that 
differences of soil, moisture, ete., frequently cause neighbouring beds 

to be more dissimilar in their fossil contents than others much more 
q widely separated. These local and temporary differences must always 
have occurred in the deposition of the coal measures, and should not 
_ be confounded with those general changes which are connected with 
lapse of time. 


Additional Note on Vegetable Structures in Coal. 


In the foregoing pages reference has frequently been made to the 

existence of distinct vegetable structures in coal; and any ordinary 
q observer may satisfy himself of this by closely depliiting the surfaces 
_ of a lump of the mineral with the aid of a bright light and a magni- 

fying glass. But the microscope reveals a world of wonderful tissues 
, in coal, as perfect as if they had only yesterday formed parts of living 
_ plants; and as I have devoted many hours of patient labour to the 


| 


| 


ee ee eS 


- be seen to have a brown colour and a certain degree of transparency. 


494 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. a a 


investigation of these structures, I may here notice very shortly the — 
methods by which my results have been obtained, more particulaniaay 
in the case of the mineral charcoal. 

In examining the mineral charcoal, I have, after many aks adopted — 
the following process of preparation :—Specimens were selected con- 
taining the tissues of only a single plant. Fragments or portions of | 
stems of this character can be obtained by careful manipulation from 
most coals. They were placed in marked test-tubes, and treated with 
strong nitric acid, in which they were heated to the boiling-point, 
and kept in that condition so long as dense fumes of nitrous acid were 
disengaged, or until, on looking through the tube, the material could — 


In many cases, boiling in this manner for a short time is sufficient to 
render the fibres flexible, and as transparent as slices of recent wood 
when slightly charred. When ready for examination, the charcoal q 
was allowed to settle, and repeatedly washed with pure water before 
removing it from the tube. It was then examined in water, with — 
powers of from 50 to 300 diameters, drawings of the structures ob- — 
served being made with a camera; and when it appeared desirable, 
specimens were put up in balsam for further examination. Some 
refractory specimens were found to require alternate washing and _ 
boiling in hydrochloric and nitric acids before their structures could 
be made out; but in the preparation of more than four hundred speci- 
mens from various kinds a coal I have scarcely met with any that 
resisted all these processes.* a 
I may observe here that the object is not to decarbonize the con q 
and obtain what has been termed a siliceous skeleton. The change 4 
effected consists in the removal of bituminous matter, which is oxi- 
dized and dissolved by the acid, and of mineral matters, especially off . 
the sulphuret of iron, which is one of the principal causes of the — 
brittleness and opacity of the crude mineral charcoal. The prepared — 
material is nearly pure carbon, burning without flame and leaving ° 
scarcely any ashes. It represents the cell-wall and its ligneous lining, _ 
or perhaps in some cases only the latter, in a state of perfect integrity, 
appearing under the highest powers quite smooth and continuous, — 
and with all its minute markings in excellent preservation. The 
methods of incineration of the charcoal and of polishing its firmer 
portions I have found to be, in comparison with the nitric acid process, 
of little value. The first gives no adequate idea of the real character 
of the tissues. The second gives merely a rude outline of the more 
minute markings, and is chiefly valuable as affording cross-sections 


* This nitric acid process is, I believe, nearly the same with that recommended by % 
Goeppert and Morris. 


and a better view of the general arrangement of the tissues than can 
be obtained from the shreds of woody matter resulting from the process 
above described. 
It is further necessary to state that, to compare specimens of coal 
with the structures of mineralized plants from the accompanying beds, 
it is not sufficient to have slices of the latter. It is necessary also to 
have specimens prepared by removing the mineral matter by an acid. 
_ Most of the coal fossils showing structure are mineralized by the car- 
 bonates of lime and iron; and on removing these, the cell-walls will 
_ be found intact and sometimes apparently not even carbonized. Diluted 
~ hydrochloric acid suffices for this; and structures by no means to be 
found in the comparatively rude slices prepared by the lapidary can 
__ be distinguished in these isolated cells. Pyritous fossils, so intractable 
as slices, can usually be resolved by the treatment with nitric acid, 
though in some cases they require a preliminary roasting, or, what is 
_ better, exposure to the weather until the pyrites begins to crumble. 
he observer using the above method will find many vegetable 
_ fibres showing no markings. These are usually bast fibres. He will 
see others with one row of round pores (uniporous), or with distant 
round pores scattered irregularly (rariporous), or with several rows of 
alternate simple or bordered pores (multiporous). These are tissues 
of Sigillaria and Calamodendron, except some large vessels of the 
last mentioned type, which belong to Calamites. With the porous 
tissues he will often find slender scalariform vessels, or rather cells with 
_ transverse pores, which also belong to Sigillaria and Calamodendron, 
and are very different from the large coarse scalariform vessels of 
_ Lepidodendron and its allies, and of Stigmaria. The ducts of ferns 
have been already referred to. Some of these varieties of mineral 
charcoal afford very beautiful microscopic objects. 


Note on the Myriapods of the Coal Formation. 


The following has been communicated to me by Mr Scudder, since 
_ the printing of the notice of these creatures at page 385, supra :— 

“The specimens of Myriapods discovered by Dr Dawson in the 
Sigillarian stumps of the Coal formation of Nova Scotia, belong to 
two genera; in one, Xylobius, Daw., cross sutures divide the seg- 
ments into numerous fragments, in a manner wholly unknown among 
living Myriapoda; in the other, which we may call Archiulus, the 
Segments are simple. Of the former genus, I have discovered no 
less than four species among the fragments which Dr Dawson has 
permitted me to examine. For one the name of X. ségillaria, Daw., 
may be retained; the illustrations (Fig. 151, a, ¢, p. 385) probably 


- 


ll 


- and apparently have their front and hind edges turned up as in X. 


496 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 


belong to this species. It is distinguished from the others in having 
all the fragments of which each segment is composed more than twice — 
as broad as long, and the upper edges of the fragments somewhat x 
raised. The segments themselves are about 1-20th of an inch long, — 
slightly convex, with the anterior and posterior edges slightly and 
equally raised at the suture. Another species, closely allied to this, ' 
may be called X. similis. On different parts of the body, and even 
in adjoining segments, the fragments composing the segments vary in 
form from an obloirg half as long (z.e., down the segment) as broad to — 
a square; some are even a little longer than broad. The segments 
vary in length from 1-25th to 1-30th of an inch, are slightly convex, — 


sigillariz. To a third species I have applied the name of X. fractus: 
here the fragments are square, the segments are not more than 1-40th of 
an inch in length, although the insect is as large as X. s¢gillarte; there 
seems to be another characteristic in a distinct dorsal furrow. The — 
last species, which we may well name X. Dawsoni, is again a larger 
one: the segments measure from 1-20th to 1-30th of an inch in length; 
one of them is depicted in Fig. 59, in the Air-breathers. These — 
segments, which are broken up into squarish or transversely oblong — 
fragments, are very differently shaped from those of the other species, — 
the posterior third being elevated into a prominent rounded ridge, — 
upon the falling slope of which the suture of the succeeding segment — 
occurs; the anterior two-thirds of the segment is concave, with a — 
more eda curve. ; 

“The second genus, Archiulus, has but a single species, which, fami ; 
its resemblance to the other genus, and especially to the last mentioned 
species, may be named A. aylobioides. The segments are shaped 
almost exactly as in X. Dawsoni, but are never broken up into frag- 
ments; the segments are about 1-25th of an inch in length. Fig. 
151, 6, p. 385, probably refers to this species.” 2 


Should these interesting conclusions be confirmed by Mr Seudder’s — 
subsequent investigations, which he proposes to embody in a separate — 
paper, they will show that the group of Myriapods must have been — 
represented by numerous vegetable-feeding species in the Coal period — 
—a result not surprising, when we consider the vast amount of food 
for such creatures which must have existed in the Carboniferous 
swamps. 


497 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


LOWER DEVONIAN OF NOVA SCOTIA.—DEVONIAN OF SOUTHERN NEW 
- BRUNSWICK.—SECTION OF ‘‘ FERN LEDGES.’’—USEFUL MINERALS.— 
____ CRUSTACEANS AND INSECTS. 


Tue growth of geological knowledge in Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 
_ wick is in nothing more marked than in the fact that, in 1855, two 
chapters of Acadian Geology, and those somewhat meagre, sufficed 
‘J for all the rocks older than the Carboniferous, while now the quantity 
of matter on these rocks will be more than doubled, and it will be 
necessary to subdivide them into several series. 
_ Inthe present chapter I propose to describe the group of rocks imme- 
_ diately under the Carboniferous system, that to which the name Devo- 
nian has been given by the English geologists, and which is represented 
in the United States by the formations from the Catskill or Old Red Sand- 
stone to the Oriskany Sandstone inclusive. I may remark that the con- 
_ troversy which has been raised by Mr Jukes, as to the use of the term , 
Devonian in England, in no respect affects the questions we have to 
discuss, since whatever views may be entertained respecting the rocks 
known as Devonian in Devonshire and in Ireland, in America the 
existence of a great mass of sediment, characterized by a distinct fauna 
and flora, between the Carboniferous and Upper Silurian, is a fact 
which cannot be set aside. It is also to be observed that in the, 
Acadian Provinces, in passing downward from the Carboniferous to 
the Devonian we constantly find unconformability, and that there is 
ample evidence that the great masses and dikes of intrusive granite 
which in Nova Scotia penetrate all the rocks older than the Carbon- 
iferous belong to the close of the Devonian period. 
I had to remark in regard to the Carboniferous period that a well- 
marked difference in the deposits could be observed in the regions 
east and west of the Alleghany mountains. A similar difference 
exists in the Devonian. Beds of oceanic character are much less 
developed in the Acadian region than they are in New York and 
2K 


498 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


farther west. More especially the thick limestones of the latter dis- 
tricts are not represented, and there is a greater prevalence of sandy 
and argillaceous deposits, often with fossil plants. Minor differences 


exist in the Acadian Provinces themselves. In Nova Scotia only the 


lower members of the system have been distinctly recognised, though 
there are indications of the upper members. In New Brunswick the 
newer portion of the Devonian seems most largely developed, and is 
remarkably rich in fossil plants. 

I shall first notice the Lower Devonian rocks of Nictaux and its 
vicinity in Western Nova Scotia, and then, crossing the Bay of Fundy, 
describe the rich plant-bearing beds in the vicinity of St John, New 


- Brunswick. 


Devonian of Nova Scotia. 


In Nova Scotia the rocks older than the Carboniferous system have 
all undergone more or less alteration and disturbance. This, with the 
imperfect preservation of their fossils and their inland position, renders 
the working up of their details of structure very difficult. Large 
tracts of country thus remain in a state of uncertainty, their rocks 


being manifestly older than the Carboniferous, but yet otherwise of 


uncertain age. In the case of the Devonian, the only place in which 
it has been clearly made out as distinct from the Silurian, is the belt 
of hilly country extending along the south side of the Annapolis valley. — 
Here, in the section of the Nictaux River, the first old rocks that are 


seen to emerge from beneath the New Red Sandstone of the low 


country, are fine-grained slates, which I shall describe in the sequel 
as Upper Silurian. Their strike is N. 30° to 60° E., and their dip to — 
the S. E. at an angle of 72°. Interstratified with these are hard and © 
coarse beds, some of them having a trappean aspect. In following 


these rocks to the S. E., or in ascending order, they assume the aspect — | 


of the New Canaan beds; but I could find no fossils except in loose 
pieces of coarse limestone, and these have the aspect of the Upper 
Arisaig series, or newest Silurian of the eastern part of Nova Scotia. 
In these, and in some specimens recently obtained by Mr Hartt, 
I observe Orthoceras elegantulum, Bucania trilobita, Cornulites 
flexuosus, Spirifer rugecosta? and apparently Chonetes Nova-Scotica, 
with a large Orthoceras, and several other shells not as yet seen 
elsewhere,—all Upper Silurian. These fossils appear to indicate that 
there is in this region a continuance of beds of the upper Arisaig 
series nearly to the base of the Devonian rocks next to be noticed. 
After a space of nearly a mile, which may represent a great thickness 
of unseen beds, we reach a band of highly fossiliferous peroxide of 


Pa . 


DEVONIAN OF NOVA SCOTTA. 499 


iron, with dark coloured coarse slates, dipping S. 30° E, at a very 
high angle. The iron ore is from 3 to 44 feet in thickness. The 
fossils of the ironstone and the accompanying beds, as far as they can 
be identified, are Spirifer arenosus, Strophodonta magnifica, Atrypa 
unguiformis, Strophomena depressa, and species of Avicula, Bellerophon, 
Favosites, and Zaphrentis, etc. These Professor Hall compares with the 
fauna of the Oriskany sandstone; and they seem to give indubitable 
testimony that the Nictaux iron ore is of Lower Devonian age. The 
most abundant fossil is a Spirifer as yet not identified with any de- 
scribed species, but eminently characteristic of the Nictaux deposits. 
It is usually seen only in the state of casts, and often also strangely 
distorted by the slaty structure of the beds. The specimens least 
distorted may be described as follows :—General form, semi-circular 
tending to semi-oval, convexity moderate ; hinge-line about equal to 
width of shell; a rounded mesial sinus and elevation with about ten 
sub-angular plications on each side; a few sharp growth ridges at the 
margin of the larger valves. Average diameter about one inch; 
mesial sinus equal in width to about three plications. I shall call this 
species, in the meantime, S. Nictavensis. 

I figure two distorted specimens (Fig. 176), to show the remarkable 
differences of form produced in this way. The original form is inter- 
mediate. 


Fig. 176.—Spirifer Nictavensis. 


(a) Shortened, and (2) lengthened, by distortion, in the direction of the arrow. 


To the southward of the ore, the country exhibits a succession of 
ridges of slate holding similar fossils, and probably representing a 
thick series of Devonian beds, though it is quite possible that some of 
them may be repeated by faults or folds. Farther to the south these 
slates are associated with bands of crystalline greenstone and quartz 
rock, and are then interrupted by a great mass of white granite, which 
extends far into the interior and separates these beds from the similar, 
but non-fossiliferous, rocks on the inner side of the metamorphic band 
of the Atlantic coast. The Devonian beds appear to dip into the 
granite, which is intrusive, and alters the slates near the junction into 
gneissoid rock holding garmets. The granite sends veins into the 
slates, and near the junction contains numerous angular fragments of 
altered slate, 


ae 


; 
| 
f 
; 
{ 


500 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. > 


This junction is of great imterest, as showing the gradual alteration 
of slaty beds holding fossils into gneissose rock with garnets, within 
the distance in some places of a few hundred feet. It is observable 


also, that while the gneiss graduates into the slate it does not pass. 


imperceptibly into the granite, but presents a distinct line of separation, 
marking the limit of the Plutonic and Metamorphic rocks, and indi- 
eating that the granite was truly a heated mass intruded among the 
aqueous deposits (Fig. 177). Farther, as the granite is itself of 


Fig. 177.—Junction of Granite and Devonian Slate, Nictaux. 


. 
Nae A a 
« - 


yf, 


(a) Granite. (6) Slate with gneissose character, in fragments imbedded in the granite. 


Devonian age, we learn that no great interval of geological time 


elapsed between the deposition and the metamorphism of the beds. 


Again, as the granite cannot be a superficial or surface rock, there — f 
must have been a mass of upper Devonian rocks swept away by 


denudation to expose the beds as at present. Lastly, though the beds 
are inclined at high angles, they run against the granite in their line 


of strike in such a manner as to show that it cuts quietly through — 


them, without any great evidence of mechanical disturbance in con- 
nexion with its eruption, and it would appear that the general direction 
of dip is toward the granitic mass, as if the Devonian and Upper 
Silurian beds had sunk into a caldron of molten granite. Further 
exploration of the country southward of Nictaux will be necessary 
before we understand in detail the relation of the Devonian rocks to 
the great masses of granite which appear in this direction. 

Westward of the Nictaux River, the granite abruptly crosses the 
line of strike of the slates, and extends quite to their northern border, 
cutting them off in the manner of a huge dike from their continua- 
tion about ten miles further westward. The beds of slate in running 
against this great dike of granite, change in strike from south-west to 


+. 


DEVONIAN OF NOVA SCOTIA. 501 


west, near the junction, and become slightly contorted and altered 
into gneiss, and filled with granite veins; but in some places they 
retain traces of their fossils to within 200 yards of the granite. The 
_ intrusion of this great mass of granite without material disturbance 
_ of the strike of the slates conveys the impression that it has melted 
quietly through the stratified deposits, or that these have been locally 
erystallized into granite in sztw. 

At Moose River the iron ore and its associated beds recur on the 
western side of the granite before mentioned, but in a state of greater 
_ metamorphism than at Nictaux. The iron is here in the state of mag- 
netic ore, but still holds fossil shells of the same species with those of 
Nictaux. 

Still farther westward, at Bear River, near the bridge by which 
the main road crosses this stream, beds equivalent to those of Nictaux 
oceur with a profusion of fossils. The iron ore is not seen, but there 
are highly fossiliferous slates and coarse arenaceous limestone, and a 
bed of gray sandstone with numerous indistinct impressions apparently 
of plants. In addition to several of the fossils found at Nictaux, these 
beds afford Tentaculites, an Atrypa, apparently identical with an un- 
described species very characteristic of the Devonian sandstones of 
Gaspé, and a coral which Mr Billings identifies with the Pleuro- 
dictyum problematicum, Goldfuss, a form which occurs in the lower 
Devonian in England, and on the continent of Europe. 

_ Westward of Bear River, rocks resembling in mineral character 
those previously described, and probably of Devonian and Upper 
Silurian age, extend with similar strike, but in an altered condition, 
and in so far as I have been able to ascertain, destitute of fossils, quite 
to the western extremity of the peninsula, where they turn more to 
the southward, and are as I suppose, repeated by a sharp synclinal 
fold, after which they are succeeded by the Atlantic coast series, of 
lower Silurian date, and consisting of quartzite and clay slate, with 
chlorite and hornblende slates at Yarmouth and its vicinity, and 
further to the S. E. of mica slate and gneiss. 

I cannot certainly indicate the Devonian system in other parts of 
Nova Scotia. There are, however, in various places, at the margin of 
the Carboniferous areas, or projecting through these beds, rocks which 
may be Devonian, though, not having afforded characteristic fossils, 
their age must remain doubtful, as they might possibly prove to be 
altered members of the Lower Carboniferous or rocks of Silurian 
date. They are usually hard gray or purplish sandstone or quartzites, 
associated with gray or purplish slates or shales. Such rocks occur in 
the flanks of the Cobequid Hills, in the vicinity of Salmon River, and 


Pe 


| 
| 
| 


ee ee 


502 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


in the hills of Mount Thom and Mount Dalhousie. They are also 
found in the hilly country of Pictou and Antigonish; and the remark- 
able mass which seems to project through the Coal formation between. 
the East and Middle Rivers of Pictou is of this character. Its rocks 


do not resemble those of the Silurian series, and they abound in — 2 


obscure remains, evidently of land plants, which, though not certainly 
determinable, resemble those of the Devonian rather than those of the 
Carboniferous. 

Mr J. Campbell of Halifax seems to have been the first to observe 
these rocks; and I had the pleasure of examining them in his company 


in 1866. The fossils which I obtained are stipes of ferns, apparently 
of two species: a Pinnularia, and branching stems much resembling _ 


those of Psilophyton, a characteristic Devonian genus. There were 
also fragments of carbonized and pyritized wood, but not sufficiently 
perfect to show structure. These plants were contained in a hard 
gray altered sandstone or quartzite, underlying unconformably a 
Carboniferous conglomerate in Bear Brook, near the Middle River. 
I have received a specimen of laminated limestone, not fossiliferous, 
from this vicinity, and which probably belongs to the present series. 
These somewhat unpromising rocks would afford a rich field to any 
geological observer who could enjoy the work of unravelling strati- 
graphical intricacies ; and there is no reason to despair of their afford-- 
ing fossil remains were they explored with sufficient thoroughness. 
More especially the rich Devonian flora of St John, New Brunswick, 
encourages us to hope for similar discoveries of fossil plants in Nova 
Scotia. Collectors should keep this in view, more especially as, with- 
out attention, such plants might be confounded with those of the — 
Carboniferous rocks. 


Devonian of New Brunswick. 


The belt of partially metamorphosed rocks rising from beneath the 
Carboniferous on the southern coast of New Brunswick, was mapped 
in my first edition as Upper Silurian or Devonian, but without any 
certain evidence as to its age, other than its manifestly underlying the 
Carboniferous, and resembling somewhat in mineral character the 
rocks of Upper Silurian and Devonian age in Nova Scotia. The 
first fossil from these rocks ever seen by me was a specimen of 
Calamites, brought by the late Professor Robb of the University of New 
Brunswick to Montreal when on a visit to Canada in 1857. Professor 
Robb, impressed with the importance of the occurrence of vegetable 
fossils in these beds, proposed to devote some time to their study; 
but his lamented decease prevented this intention from being 


DEVONIAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 503 


carried into effect. The subject was, however, followed out by 
several gentlemen of St John engaged in geological studies, and more 
particularly by Mr G. F. Matthew and Mr C. F. Hartt, from whom 
I received the specimens described in my paper on the Pre-Carbon- 
iferous Flora of Eastern America in 1861, and with whom I had 
subsequently an opportunity of exploring the localities of the fossils. 
From these gentlemen I also obtained the further material published 
in my Flora of the Devonian Period, in 1862.* Mr Matthew subse- 
quently published a detailed account of the stratigraphical relations of 
the beds,+ and Mr Hartt has since collected largely from the most 
productive localities for the Natural History Society of St John, 
which has liberally placed its collections in my hands. Many addi- 
tional facts in relation to these beds have also been published in the 
Report of Professor Bailey on the Geology of Southern New Bruns- 
wick. With the aid of these materials, I shall endeavour to give an 
account of this interesting formation, and shall then notice in some 
detail its fossils. 

The Devonian series of the vicinity of St John is well exposed in 
the shore of Courtnay Bay, and also in the vicinity of Carlton. The 
red conglomerates, which here form the base of the Carboniferous, 
rest on it unconformably, and it is itself underlaid by the St John 
slates, a group of Lower Silurian age. 

The succession of beds seen in the Courtnay Bay and St John 
sections is thus given in my paper of 1862. The thicknesses stated 
are to be regarded as merely rough estimates, made up partly from 
Mr Matthew’s observations, and partly from my own. The names 
are those given by Mr Matthew and Professor Bailey :— 


Carboniferous System. 


Coarse red conglomerate, with pebbles of underlying rocks, and Feet. 
constituting in this vicinity the base of the Carboniferous 
System. : 

Devonian System. 
1. Mispeck Group.—Dark-red and greenish shales; flaggy sand- 
stones and grits; coarse angular conglomerate . 1850 
2. Little River Group (Upper part and passage beds). eaRediiuds 
conglomerate, with quartz pebbles; reddish, purple, and 
gray sandstones and grits; deep-red, gray, and pale-green 
shales. A few fossil planta , . 2350 
3. Little River Group (Middle and Lower part). —Blackish and 


* Journal of Geological Society, Nov. 1862. t+ Itid., 1865. 


i 


SE | 


504 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


gray hard shale and arenaceous shale (Cordaite shales in Feet. 

part); buff and gray sandstone (Dadoxylon sandstone) and : 

flags. Many fossil plants; Crustaceans and Spirorbis . 2800— 
4, Bloomsbury Group.—Reddish conglomerate, with slaty paste 

and rounded pebbles; trappean or tufaceous rocks; red, 

purplish, and green sandstones and shales. Thickness 

variable 5 3 : 5 F . 2500 


Lower Silurian System. 


5. Black Paro shale, with Tee of cone-in-cone concre- 
tions. 400 


6. Hard, generally coarse oe Sein aoe shales nad flaze, , 


of various shades of colour, and with some reddish shale 
and tufaceous or trappean matter at the bottom. Lingula, 
burrows, and trails of animals. Also in certain beds, 
Paradoxides, Conocephalites, and other primordial Trilo- 
bites —""; : : E ‘ 3000 feet or more 


The following details as to the several members of the Devonian are _ 
abridged from Professor Bailey’s and Mr Matthew’s excellent memoirs _ 
already referred to. Before giving these, I may explain that the 


several members of the Devonian system form, on the east side of St 


John Harbour, a trough or synclinal form, and that from the eastern 
extremity of this some of the members of the series are believed to 
extend for a great distance to the eastward, in a more or less meta- 
morphosed state. The general arrangement is shown in the section, 
Fig. 178. 

Mispeck Group. 

“The deposits of this group, constituting the newest member of the 
Upper Devonian series, occupy, in comparison with the groups to be 
described, a very limited area. So far as certainly known, they may 
be said to be confined within the narrow district intervening between 
the Little and Mispeck Rivers, and consequently occupying the centre 
of the trough already pointed out, as formed by the folding of the Upp 
Devonian groups. 

“They rest immediately upon the beds of the Cordaite shales, and 
so nearly resemble the latter as to be not easily distinguished. It is 
therefore not unlikely that the group may yet be found to have a 
wider distribution, especially westward of the St John River, in the 
peninsula of Pisarinco. 

The following descriptive remarks taken from the paper of Mr 
Matthew well represent its general character. 


DEVONIAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 505 


and north of Mount Prospect, where the Cordaite shales 
ear beneath the stratified gravel which covers the top of that 
the dip of the beds at the base of this group rapidly diminishes 


Bay of Fundy......... 


West Beach..........- 


Mispeck River........ 


‘ Devonian. 


St John Group,—Lower Silurian. 


Beaver Lake ......... 


Lower Carboniferous Conglomerate. 
Dadoxylon Sandstone, 

Bloomsbury Group, 

Coldbrook Group,—Huronian ? 
Portland Group,—Laurentian ? 


Mispeck Group, 
Cordaite Shales, 


a, ee ate Oe) Lo,” gen 


A, 
B 
Cc 
D 
F, 
G 
H 


Mount Prospect...< {j 


Fig. 178.—Section from Coldbrook to West Beach, New Brunswick. 


Coldbrook ........0+..0. 


from 30° to 15°, and the strike at the same horizon varies 10°. The 
lc ” member is a coarse reddish conglomerate, having a red slaty 

ste filled with large subangular fragments of a gray altered rock, 
like the lower slate of the Coldbrook group. It also contains frase 
nts of reddish sandstone, and a few pieces of impure slaty lime- 


stone. The conglomerate is overlaid by thick beds of purple clay 


stone and grit filled with white particles. The strata of this group ( 


- trict between Musquash and Chance Harbour.” 


506 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


slate, which, by accession of coarser materials, becomes a slaty sand- _ 


are much thicker on the north than on the south side of the basin, a 


An isolated deposit of red slates, resembling the finer beds of this — 


group, rests against a mass of altered rock, which seems to be a con- 
tinuation of the Bloomsbury volcanic beds, at Taylor’s Island, west of ' 
the Harbour of St John. 

“If the beds last alluded to be properly referred, it is very probable 
that those of Pisarinco, already mentioned, may in part at least apper- 
tain to the same group. They have been described, however, as forming 
a portion of the Cordaite shales. The same is true in part of the dis- 


Little River Group. 


“The Little River group consists of two members, one of coarse 
and the other of comparatively fine ingredients, termed, from the 
characteristic fossils which they hold, the Dadoxylon sandstone and 
the Cordaite shales. Though intimately connected, they do not in- 
variably occur together, and for this reason as well as others, will be 
separately considered.” 

“(A.) Cordaite Shales.—In the consideration of this, the upper mem- 
ber of the Little River group, we have presented for our study by far. 
the most useful and interesting deposit which occurs in this portion of 
New Brunswick, if not indeed in the whole province. Recognising 
its economical importance as a rich metalliferous series, it has been 
one of the special objects of the present survey to ascertain minutely 
the distribution, age, and characters of the rocks composing it, and to 
mark its limits accurately as the great copper-bearing group of Lower 
New Brunswick. Although the greater portion of the country occupied 
by this series is still uncleared, and among the wildest and most rugged — 
in the province, we have so far succeeded in tracing out its rock 
formations, that the limits of the latter may now be looked upon as 
approximately fixed, at the same time that its age and productive 
metalliferous character are satisfactorily established. . As the details 
of this examination are of great importance, I shall here describe the 
observations made more minutely than in the case of - other 
groups has been deemed necessary. 

“Tt will naturally be supposed that, forming as they do two members 
of a single group, the Dadoxylon sandstone and Cordaite shales should 
be intimately associated and occur together, and that the distribution 
of the former should be a general indication of the position of the 
latter. While, however, this is true as regards that portion of the 


DEVONIAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 507 


group occurring in the neighbourhood of St John, it has been ascer- 
tained that the Dadoxylon sandstones constitute a comparatively local 
deposit, while the shales which succeed spread much more widely 
over extensive districts, both to the east and west. 

“On the eastern side of the Harbour of St John, the shales referred 
to are first met along the coast near the mouth of the Little River, 
where they form a narrow band lying between the embouchure of 
that stream and the promontory of Red Head. The band of rocks 
__ thus appearing, though narrow at the coast, widens as it is traced into 
_ the interior of the peninsula, and follows approximately the curve 
_ already pointed out as marking the distribution of the subjacent 
sandstone. The line of its outcrop may be readily traced on the 
geological map, forming a sharp and somewhat irregular curve, ex- 
tending from Red Head to the mouth of the Mispeck. In the latter 
portion of the curve, owing principally to a fold in the strata, the 
rocks occupy a somewhat wider space than is covered in the 
former. 

“Terminating on the coast at the locality last mentioned, the Cor- 
daite shales, now trending south-westerly, seem for the moment to be 
lost in the waters of the bay. Like the sandstones which underlie 
them, however, they follow the curve of the volcanic beds of the 
Bloomsbury group, and doubling the promontory which marks the 
south-western termination of the latter, reappear along its eastern 
flank, still resting upon the Dadoxylon sandstone, and extend in this 
direction to the mouth of Emerson’s Creek. Along this portion of 
their distribution, however, between the Mispeck and Black Rivers, 
there is a great difference in the character of the group observable, 
so great a difference, indeed, as to have caused some hesitation in 
assigning these beds to their true position. They occupy the coast 
from the point south-west of the Millicent Lake, including Beveridge 
and Thomson’s Coves, as far as the mouth of the Black River. On 
the eastern side of the latter they extend along the shore to Emerson’s 
Creek, and in the interior to a somewhat greater distance, but from 
this point are rapidly covered with the Carboniferous deposits which 
extend to Quaco. They reappear, however, north-west of the last 
named place, and eastward of Tynemouth or Ten-Mile Creek, where 
they rise into a low ridge, consisting chiefly of the conglomerates at 
the base of the series, and are crossed by all the principal roads leading 
in this direction. 

“The same series has also been observed on Vaughan’s and 
Macomber’s Brooks, north-east of Quaco, covered as before by 
Carboniferous deposits on its southern slope, and to a less degree 


* ~.e 


EE 


EEE eee re 


508 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


on its northern also, where, however, it is succeeded, at a very — 
short distance, by beds of the Lower Coldbrook. Owing to the — 
disturbances and foldings alluded to in the description of the latter, 
the whole vast mass of the Lower and Upper Bloomsbury, St 
John slates, and Dadoxylon sandstones, have mostly disappeared, 
and we here find beds even below the base of the Silurian almost 
side by side with the shales of the Upper Devonian. 

“From Vaughan’s Brook, in the neighbourhood of Quaco, the 
upper member of the group now under consideration begins rapidly 
to widen, and to the eastward soon attains an enormous development. 
Higher members than those last described appear at Melvin’s Beach; 


-and thence, with the exception of a few isolated Carboniferous 


deposits at Salmon River, Goose Creek, and Martin’s Head, extend 
with a bold and unbroken front along the coast to Point Wolf, at 
the western limit of Albert County. They thence no longer keep 
the shore, but, pursuing their normal course, may be traced in a 
series of bold high ridges as far as Shepody Mountain. 

“While the southern limit of the group is thus uniform and regu- 
lar, the line which marks its northern boundary is more difficult of — 
recognition. Owing to one or more immense synclinal folds, the 
area covered by these rocks is enormously increased, and from the 
limited space occupied near the sea coast, behind Quaco, now widens — 
until it embraces the whole extent of country south of the Shepody 


Road. On the latter thoroughfare the rocks of the group were | 


first observed near Wallace’s Post Office, in the parish of Hammond, 
King’s, and near the source of the Great and Little Salmon Rivers. 
On the last named stream they were found to occupy the whole — 


_ country southward to the coast. Whether they similarly occupy the — 


entire valley of the former has not been ascertained: the difficulties — 


of descending these rapid and mountainous water-courses, through 


a country without a settlement, being of too serious a character 
to admit of exploring both of the above named streams. The limits 
of the group in this direction, however, cannot ie? far from the 
outlines as laid down on the Map. 

“Following the line of the Shepody Road from the pant 
above mentioned, the rocks of the present group, or ‘ coast series’ 
as it may eaaweniealle be termed, have been distinctly traced fo the 
eastward as far as the high lands back of Hopewell, while deposits, 
probably referable to the same series, have been observed at a great 
variety of places both in the county of King’s and eastward in that 
of Albert.” These will be found severally referred to in the remarks 
on the characters of the group in Professor Bailey’s Report. 


DEVONIAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 509 


_ “In general, it may be stated that the upper limit of the series 
is a line extending nearly northerly from the vicinity of Quaco, 
crossing the Shepody Road near the sources of the Salmon River, 
_ thence extending in the same line so as to include a large area 
in the parish of Hammond, to near the sources of the Pollet River. 
It follows the line of the Shepody Road eastward into Albert, 
_ and certainly includes all that portion of the latter county which 
lies southward of that road, between it and the sea; while the 
_ character of the metamorphic series which appear to the northward 
would seem to indicate even a wider distribution. Like all the older 
formations in this portion of the province, the Little River group 
_ is progressively covered to the eastward with Carboniferous deposits, 
which at Shepody Mountain finally cap the subjacent metamorphic 
beds, and form their well-marked eastern termination. 

“Before the commencement of the present season’s work, our 
knowledge of the extent of this most important group was limited 
to the area immediately about St John, and eastward to Black 
River and Gardner’s Creek. We have now succeeded in fixing 
its true limits in this direction, and in giving to it a distribution 
which, to say the least, is as gratifying as it was unexpected. 

“But not only have these metalliferous rocks been thus found 
to occupy such an extensive area to the east; they have also been 
found to spread widely to the west, and to give promise of valuable 
discoveries in a region to which, as yet, but little attention has 
been paid. I refer to portions of the peninsula of Pisarinco, west 
of St John, and to a large district south of the Musquash River, 
between the Lancaster Mills and Chance Harbour,” Their distri- 
bution in this direction is discussed at length in the Report above 
referred to. 

“(B.) Dadoxylon Sandstone-—The-lower member of the Little 
River group, to which the preceding name has been applied, imme- 
diately succeeds and rests upon the upper member of the Blooms- 
bury. Folded with the latter into a depression or trough, it has been 
traced by Mr Matthew in a double curve extending from Mana- 
Wagonish, west of the Harbour of St John, around, and along the 
southern flank of the Bloomsbury axis, maintaining throughout this 
district a nearly uniform width. 

“On the eastern side of Courtnay Bay, it first appears near the 
mouth of Little River, and thence following the line of the Blooms- 
bury beds below it, extends northerly and easterly towards the head 
of the Mispeck, being very well exposed at Mount Prospect, about 
four miles east of the city. Near the sources of the Mispeck the band 


ae ee. ae 


510 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


of these rocks bends slowly around, assumes a southerly direction, 
and follows the last named stream to within a few miles of its mouth. 
Again changing its direction, it now flanks the end of the Bloomsbury z 
ridge, and extends in a narrow belt eastwardly as far as the east branch 


of the Black River. Beyond the latter, as far as known, it rapidly 


disappears. e 
“To the west of St John, besides the locality of Manawagonish, the 


Dadoxylon sandstones have been observed on the west branch of = 


the Musquash River, in the village of Ivanhoe, resting upon a dope d 
of the Upper Te and overlaid by Cordaite shales. ; 
“Tt will be remarked, when describing the characters of the Blooms- _ 


. bury group, that the a deposits, which form its upper member, 


constitute beds of transition between that group and the one now 
under consideration. 

“ As indicated by the name it bears, the Dadoxylon sandstone is — 
chiefly composed of coarse materials, though less so than in the group 
which immediately preceded it. While the upper beds of the latter — 
consisted chiefly of reddish conglomerates, the present series is com- — 
posed of a hard gray sandstone, associated, however, with occasional 


beds of grit and layers of dark gray shale. The transition above “4 


alluded to consists, therefore, in a gradually increasing fineness in — 
the sedimentary beds, indicating changes in the physical conditions | 
under which they were deposited. 


“Tn lithological characters, the Dadoxylon sandstone, as described 


by Mr Matthew, is remarkably uniform and constant, and has been of 
great service in the study of the geology of the section now under 


consideration. But the chief interest which attaches to this deposit, 


is derived from the abundance and wonderful perfection of the organic _ 
relics which it holds, the oldest undoubted relics of aland vegetation 
in this long series of formations.” : 


Bloomsbury Group. 
The Bloomsbury group, like the Coldbrook, which it closely 


resembles, comprises two very different series of sediments, the 
lower and older being volcanic, while the upper and newer is of 
aqueous origin. These must be separately considered. 

“(A.) Sedimentary Beds.—The deposits of the Upper Bloomsbury, 
of purely aqueous origin, are generally found in bands of varying 
width, lying parallel to, and immediately above the volcanic deposits 
of the lower member. They may thus be traced, following the 
different distribution of the latter, almost throughout its entire extent. 
The greatest development of this member is along the space between 


DEVONIAN OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 511 


the Black and Mispeck Rivers, and towards the foot of Loch Lomond. 
On the southern shore of the latter red sediments also occur, which 
have been doubtfully referred to the Coldbrook Group, but may 
possibly be a continuation of the beds last described. On the south- 
eastern side of the Bloomsbury axis, the upper member of the group 
again appears, but it is here a comparatively thin deposit, and 
occupies but a very limited area. 

“Turning to the westward, this member is also but poorly re- 
presented, and at Courtnay Bay does not exceed a thickness of 
150 feet. In St John and Carleton, as well as at Sheldon’s Point, 
it is wanting altogether. On the west bank of the Musquash, 
however, in the village of Ivanhoe, reddish sediments occur resting 
upon the Portland series and overlaid by the Dadoxylon sandstone, 
and therefore belonging to the Upper Bloomsbury, but whether they 
have any direct connexion with the deposits to the east, or are 
the result of local and independent deposition, it is at present 
impossible to say. 

“Tn lithological characters the upper member of the Bloomsbury 
group is very constant, consisting of fine-grained red clay slate 
and reddish-gray conglomerate. Its thickness has been stated at 
500 feet. The rocks of this member, according to Mr Matthew, 
constitute a passage from the volcanic beds to the sandstone of the 
(Little River) group above. As far as known they contain no 
fossils.”” 

“(B.) Volcanic Beds.—The most extensive and typical exposure 
of the volcanic beds of the present group is furnished by the locality 
from which their name has been derived, the high hill called Blooms- 
bury Mountain, near the centre of the parish of Simonds. This 
mountain, as described by Mr Matthew, constitutes the western 
termination of a ridge of land extending north-easterly in the centre 
of the county, and appears to represent one of the ancient fissures 
or voleanic vents, from which, during the Devonian period, were 
poured forth the lava, ashes, and scoria, which now constitute the 
lower member of the Bloomsbury group. The streams of eruptive 
matter thus discharged flowed from the central opening in three 
directions, north-easterly, westerly, and south-westerly, as indicated by 
the positions which they now occupy. 

“The upper limit of the Bloomsbury lava streams, trending to 
the west, may be traced in a long, though narrow, line of hills, from 
the head of Black River, below Loch Lomond, to Courtnay Bay. 
Removed by denudation from the latter, the beds of the group re- 
appear in the southern part of the city of St John, and again on the oppo- 


512 ‘THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


site side of the harbour in the town of Carleton. They are some- 
what increased in bulk in the latter place, but soon disappear to 
the westward under extensive accumulations of post-pliocene gravels. 


At Sheldon’s Point, however, and Manawagonish, rocks probably : 
referable to the present group occur, and beyond in the peninsula — 


of Pisarinco, as well as on the Musquash River, and westward 
towards Lepreau. 

“The second great belt of Bloomsbury lavas, trending south- 
westerly, though in much thicker beds than those last described, 
is comparatively limited in distribution, reaching only from the 
central vent of Bloomsbury Mountain to the Millicent Lake, in 


‘the rear of Mispeck. The valley of Black River cuts directly 


across, and is largely included in the series referred to, and in its 


upper part forms the line of division between its two members. 


The thickness of the lower member, as measured by Mr Matthew, 
has been approximately stated at 2000 feet. 

“Of the eastward flow of the Bloomsbury lavas, little is known. 
Notwithstanding the great thickness of the group near the sources 
of Black River, it can be traced but a short distance in this direction, 


being rapidly covered and concealed by the Carboniferous deposits — 3 


in the rear of Quaco. 


“ At Bloomsbury Mountain, where the best exposure has been 4 


stated to occur, the following peculiarities have been noticed by 
Mr Matthew :— 
“¢The elevation consists of basaltic trap, and is flanked on each 


side by beds of amygdaloid, trap-ash, and other products of voleanie : 
origin, which also cover the crest of the anticlinal fold fortwoor | 
three miles west of the hill. The succession of strata is best dis- 


played on the south side of the hill, where they succeed each other 
in the following order :—Basaltic trap, unstratified, of great thickness; 
bedded basalt, amygdaloidal porphyry, bedded basalt, hornblendie 


trap-ash, micaceous quartzite, vesicular trap-ash slate; thickness of — 


the stratified deposits about 3000 feet. There is also on this slope 
a volcanic conglomerate, viz., fragments of trap rocks. imbedded in 
trap-ash slate. The quartzite resembles some of the finer beds at 
West Beach and Black River, and the porphyry is that alluded to 
in Gesner’s Third Report, p. 15. The trap-ash slate is in many places 
full of irregular vesicles, the sides of which are coated with minute 
crystals of quartz, calcite, and specular iron.’ 

“The remaining portions of the lower Bloomsbury beds do not 
differ from those above described, except in the comparative in- 
frequency of unstratified basalt.” 


a ee ee ee eee ee ee Se ae 


des eS al I ie 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 513 


The Devonian rocks appear at several places along the coast 
of New Brunswick, between St John and St Andrews, at which 
place they are connected with the Devonian sandstones of Perry, 
Maine. According to Professor Hind, an area of about twenty-five 
square miles near Campbellton on the Restigouche, consists of 
Devonian rocks, an extension or outlier of the Devonian of Gaspé. 
It is possible that some of the belts of Devonian rocks known to 
exist in the interior of Maine may extend into Northern New 
Brunswick; but this has not, I believe, been as yet certainly as- 
_ certained, 

I must refer to Professor Bailey’s Report for more full details 
on the Devonian of New Brunswick, and shall now turn to the 
more particular consideration of the highly fossiliferous members 
of the group as developed near St John, reserving for a subsequent 
_ chapter the consideration of the fossil plants. 


Section at the “ Fern Ledges,” near St John. 


Much interest attaches to that part of the St John section described 
above as the Little River group, on account of its fossil plants and 
insects; and for this reason I give below an abridgment of the 
detailed section prepared by Mr Hartt for Professor Bailey’s Report, 
and which will serve to show the resemblance as to mineral character 
between these beds and those of the Coal formation. Mr Hartt re- 
marks in introducing his section :— 

Of the several localities for fossil plants in the vicinity of St John, 
_ the richest and most interesting is that of the ‘Fern Ledges.’ These 
are a series of ledges exposed on the sea-shore, between high and 
_ low-water mark, at the foot of the properties of Messrs N. 8S. Demill 
and Zebedee Ring, Duck Cove, Lancaster, about a mile west of the 
town of Carleton. The ledges are formed by the outcropping edges 
of beds of sandstone and shale belonging to the Little River group 
of Mr Matthew. These have a strike of about W. 10° N., and a 
southerly or seaward dip of about 45°. This strike corresponds very 
nearly to the trend of the shore, along which, rounded and much worn 
by wave action and buried in sea-weed, their edges run in long ridges. 
The shale-beds, in which the plants oceur, are, on account of their 
softness, everywhere so worn away by the waves from between the 
enclosing sandstones, as to be in only a few places accessible. 

“ Only near high-water mark are the ledges of any height, and from 
these the plant-bearing shale-beds are almost entirely removed. The 
ledges extend along the shore for some 325 paces, with a width of 
300 feet, more or less, exposing a thickness of strata of about 150 
21 


—————— 


> 
. 
. 
| 
. 


he Oy PE ee A ee Oe ee ed 


514 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


feet. Numerous faults occur at the locality, the principal of which, 
on the easternmost side of the most prominent projecting ledge, and 
whose direction is S. 30° W., is a downthrow of about 50 feet. 
“ Directly i in front of the ledges, and about half a mile from the — 
shore, is a series of skerries laid bare at low water, called the ‘Shag — 
Rocks.’ I have not visited them, but the beds of which they are © 
composed have an apparent cats dees strike, and a high dip to 
the southward. They are probably the upper members of the Cordaite 
Shales. 
“ Beds of sandstone and shale, similar to those at the Fern Ledges, _ 
show themselves on the shore about three-quarters of a mile to the 


-westward. They contain the remains of a few species of plants 


identical with those occurring at the ‘Ledges,’ but the beds are 
higher up in the series. This locality, called the ‘Calamite Ledges,’ 
has not been so carefully examined as that to the eastward. I have 
collected there the following species, nearly all of which are common 
to the two localities :— 
“‘ Cordaites Robbii, Daws. Extremely abundant in certain layers _ 
of black shale, and very finely preserved. — Sphenopteris Hitch- 
cockiana, Daws. Abundant in detached pinnules. — Pecopteris 
discrepans, Daws. Apparently rare: have found but a single pinnule. — 
—Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws. Not infrequent, associated with — 
cordaites, calamites, ete.—Calamites transitionis, Goeppert. Abun- 
dant.—C. canneformis, Brongn.— Annularia acuminata, Daws. 
Pinnularia dispalans, Daws. Common.— Psilophy!on? glabrum, — 
Daws. — Stigmaria ficoides (var.), Brongn.— A single specimen 
with rootlets attached was found by my father, J. W. Hartt, in 
a bed of sandstone, about half-way up in the section here exposed. — 
—Lepidodendron Gaspianum? Daws. Two or three ill-preserved 
specimens of a Lepidodendron, which Dawson has referred with 
doubt to this species, were collected at this locality by Mr Matthew — 
and myself. 4 
‘The sandstone at the Fern Ledges is very compact and hard, and 
of a gray colour. It contains many plant remains, but usually ina 
badly preserved state. Thin beds of arenaceous shale, of a fine 
texture and dark-gray colour, becoming black sometimes, or passing 
into light greenish-gray, are interstratified with the sandstones, and 
these beds are highly charged with plants, which occur preserved as 
graphite, every nerve and nervule of a fern leaf being as distinct as — 
in a pencil drawing. 
“Tt had been ascertained several years ago by Gesner, Robb, 
Dawson, and others, that the beds of the Little River group were 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 515 


fossiliferous, and ill-preserved plant remains had been observed in the 
‘sandstones of the ‘ Ledges.’ Mr Matthew, who had previously dis- 
covered in the shales at the foot of the city of St John, near the 
barracks, the plants which Dawson described in his paper on the 
*Plora of the Precarboniferous, ete.,’ collected in 1860, at the 
‘Ledges,’ from one of the exposures of Plant-bed No. 1, of the fol- 
lowing section, some obscure markings which were probably leaves 

of Asterophyllites longifolia, Brongn. ; but it was not until May 1861 

that I found that these rocks were silty fossiliferous, and discovered 
_in Beds Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 8 (?), a large number of fossil plants, prin- 
cipally ferns, a remarkable Crustacean, Amphipeltis paradoxus, Salter, 
_and a Spirorbis. Messrs Matthew, W. R. Payne, James Hegan, and 
_ Lunn, took part in the explorations which were carried on during the 
summer, Mr Matthew discovering, among other things, a new species 
4 of Eurypterus, E. pulicaris, Salter; while Mr Payne secured a single 
_ specimen of a trilobite, still undetermined, the only one the locality 
has afforded. 
*« These discoveries proved so interesting that Principal Dawson, to 
whom I communicated them, paid a visit to St John, and examined 
the locality in person. The collections made were put into his 
hands, and the plants were described in detail in his paper pub- 
lished in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, entitled, 
£On the Flora of the Devonian Period in North-Eastern America.’ 
_ The number of plants obtained thus far from the Lancaster localities 
was 36, which, with the three species of Crustacea, the Spirorbis, and 
the three species of plants previously collected in St John by Mr 
_ Matthew, made the number of species of animals and plants ascer- 
tained to occur in the Little River group, 43. 

The following summer I spent thirty days at this locality, being 
_ rewarded by the discovery of some ten or more new species of plants, 
_ principally ferns, and by securing larger and more perfect specimens 
of many of the species described by "Diwsbn from mere fragments. 
But the most valuable and entitely unexpected discovery, was that 
_ of remains of insects, of which five species have been obtained. These 
specimens are in the hands of my friend Mr Scudder of Boston, the 
well-known entomologist, for description. During the summer, I 
began the task of examining every bed in the section at this locality, 
a task not easy to perform, where the tough rocks lying below high- 
water mark and buried in a luxuriant growth of sea-weed, are worn 
away in such a manner as to make it difficult to work them. 

“Tn the summer of 1863, I spent eight days at the locality, during 
which time I finished my section. Several new plants were discovered, 


, 
| 
| 
. 
{ 


Oe ee ee ene | 9 ee ee ee 


516 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


together with many quite perfect specimens of several hitherto known 
only as fragments. Of the latter was a large frond of Neuropteris 
polymorpha, Dawson. a 

“Tn the following section, the measurements were skort along aline 
crossing the beds at right angles to their strike, from high-water 2 
mark near the bathing-house stairs, to low-water mark. The rich 
fossiliferous shale-beds, or plant-beds, as I shall term them, are 
numbered from below upwards, for convenience of reference. The 
thickness and lithological character of these beds vary somewhat in 
their different exposures. The position of one or two plant-beds _ 
appearing elsewhere at this locality, but not observed on the line of 
section, is indicated. I have given lists of all the plants, ete, — 
described, which I have collected from each plant-bed, with some 
remarks on their mode of occurrence, and I have noticed some of the 
undescribed species. oa. 

“ The following section begins at the base of the Dadoxylon sand- __ 
stone beds, at their junction with the trappean beds of the Bloomsbury __ 
group, which form the high land skirting the shore to the northward, — 
and takes up the Eveline beds in ascending order :— 


“ Section of the Little River Group at the ‘Fern Ledges,’ Lancaster, N. BL 
By Mr C. F. Hartt. 


Heavy beds of gray sandstone and flags (Dadoxylon sandstone). 
Dadoxylon Ouangondianum, Daws., Calamites, ete. so 
Thickness, by estimation, 300 feet. 

Under this head I have classed all the beds underlying the Plant- 
bed No. 1, which I am disposed to regard as the lowest of the rich — q 
plant-bearing layers, and the base of the Cordaite shales. These beds 
occupy the low ground lying between the ridge of the Bloomsbury __ 
group and the shore. They are covered by drift, and show themselves : j 
only in limited outcrops, and in the ledges on the shore. In the 
western part of the ledges they are thrown forward on the beach ge 
a fault, forming a prominent mass of rock, in the summit of which a — 
fine fine of Dadoxylon is seen embedded in the sandstone. Recent — 
excavations made in these beds in quarrying stone for building pur- — fe 
poses, in the eastern part of the locality, where the rocks are very — 
much broken up by dislocations, have exposed numerous badly pre- 
served impressions of large trunks of this tree. ‘ 
PLant-BED No. 1 ; 5 i ; Thickness, 1 foot. — 


Black arenaceous shale, varying frond a fissile sandstone to a semi- 
papyraceous shale, very fine-grained and very fissile, charged most 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 517 


richly with beautifully preserved remains of plants, among which are 

the following species :— 

Calamites ‘transitionis, Goeppert. Occasional, in large, erect 
specimens.—Asterophyllites latifolia, Daws. Extremely abun- 
dant, often showing ten or twelve whorls of leaves, sometimes 
with many branches.—A. acicularis, Daws. Also very abun- 
dant.—(?) A. longifolia, Brongn.—A. scutigera, Daws. The 
curious stems of this species, with their scale-armed nodes, 
occur abundantly in this bed.— Sphenophyllum antiquum, 
Daws. — Pecopteris obscura, Lesqx.— Sphenopteris sp. ?— 
Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws. Rare.—Psilophyton elegans, 
Daws. Occasional. I have never detected any trace of 
Cordaites Robbii, Daws., in this bed. It is extremely common 
in the overlying strata. 

Gray sandstones and flags, with occasional ill-preserved plants, Cala- 

mites transitionis, Goeppt., Cordaites Robbii, Daws.—Asterophyllites 


and Sternbergie . ‘ - 2 feet 6 inches. 
Black arenaceous shales of the same cube acter as those 
of No. 1, but without fossils, so far as I have examined 11 inches. 


_ Compact flaggy, gray sandstone, with badly preserved 
plant remains, Calamites, etc. : . 2 feet. 
Very soft, dark, lead-coloured shales, much siieleain sided 
and ghtersvedk with fragments of plants. This bed is 
so soft that the action of the weather and the sea have 
everywhere denuded it to the level of the beach . . A feet. 


PLaAnt-BeEpD No. 2 4 ‘. S : 1 foot. 


At the point where the section crosses the bed, and where I first 
discovered it, it consists of very compact and hard, light lead-coloured, 
slate-like, arenaceous shale; but the character of the shale varies 
much in its different exposures, being sometimes very soft and fissile, 
and of a very black colour. The following is the list of species which 
it affords :— : 

Calamites transitionis, Goeppt. Occasionally; never in good 
specimens.—C. canneeformis, Brongn. Occasionally; never 
in good specimens.—Asterophyllites acicularis, Daws. Rather 
rare.—A. latifolia, Daws. Rather rare.—A. longifolia, Brongn. 
Rather rare. — A. parvula, Daws. Whorls of a minute 
Asterophyllites, which may belong to this species, are not 
infrequent in this bed.— Annularia acuminata, Daws.— 
Pinnularia dispalans, Daws. Abundant.—Psilophyton elegans, 
Daws. Quite common, always in fragments, never in good 
specimens.—P. glabrum, Daws. Flattened stems, with a wavy 


518 


ah ee ed oe eas Pe era wf 4 ~~ 
a iene we ae! rh ee " t mot are 
: us "F ) > ‘= ie 


THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


woody axis traced in a brighter line of graphite, occur in this — 
bed, but always in fragments.—Cordaites Robbi, Daws. Ex- — 
tremely abundant, and very fine specimens may be obtained, , 
especially from the upper part of the bed, and rarely specimens 
showing the base or the apex of the leaf.—Cyclopteris obtusa, 
Lesqx. Occurs very abundantly in detached pinnules.—Cyelop. 
varia, Daws. Rare.—V. polymorpha, Daws. Extremely abun- 
dant, never in large fronds.— Sphenopteris Heninghausui, Brongn. 
Quite abundant, often in fine fronds.—S. marginata, Daws. 
Abundant, in fine fronds.—S. Hartt, Daws. Veryrare—The _ 
original specimen came from this bed.—S. Hitchcockiana, 
Daws.—Hymenophyllites Gersdorffit, Goeppt. Rather rare— 
H. obtusilobus, Goeppt. Rare.—H. curtilobus, Daws.—Pecop- 
teris (Alethopteris) discrepans, Daws. Amongst all the abun- 
dance of plants afforded by Bed No. 2, I have detected only 
one or two pinnules of this fern, which appears first in abun- 
dance in Bed No. 3. It is afterwards one of the most common 
species. —Pecopteris ingens, Daws. Very rare, only two or three 
fragments of pinnules having been found.—Trichomanites (2) 
—only a single specimen, probably, as Dawson has suggested, - 
only the skeleton of a fern.—Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws. _ 
Abundant, and very finely preserved, never attached.—C. 
obliquum, Daws. Quite abundant, also never attached.— 
Trigonocarpum racemosum, Daws. Rare.—Eurypterus puli- 
caris, Salter. The occurrence in Bed No 2 of this minute — 
Crustacean was first detected by my friend Mr George 

Matthew. It is very rare, not more than four or five specimens _ 
having been found by Messrs Matthew, Payne, and myself, at 

the time of the description of the species by Salter. I have — 
since that time succeeded in collecting nearly twice as many — q 
more, some of which appear to belong to a new species— iM 
Amphipeltis paradoxus, Salter. The specimen figured in 
Salter’s paper was found by Professor Dawson and myself, in sl 
breaking a piece of shale in my cabinet, that came from this x 
bed. Only one other specimen has since been obtained. It p. 
consists of two or more of the thoracid segments, and was 
collected by Mr Lunn. It is in the collection of the Natural — 
History Society of New Brunswick. In addition to the above 
species, this bed has afforded the following :—Cyelopteris, sp. 
nov.—Veuropteris, sp. nov. A single specimen collected 
by Mr Lunn.—Sphenopteris, sp. nov.—Spirorbis, sp. (?) 
The leaves of Cordaites in the upper part of the bed are as 


ee ek eet 
rr , ] 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 519 


thickly covered with a little Spirorbis as are the fronds of the 
recent fucoids of the Ledges. The specimens are too poorly 
preserved for identification.—Trilobites. Mr Payne collected 
a minute trilobite from this bed. The specimen was sent by 
Professor Dawson to Mr Salter, but that gentleman has made 
no mention of it in his paper.—ZJnsect Remains! In the sum- 
mer of 1862, I discovered an organism in Bed No 2, which at 
the time I could make nothing of; but which I have since 
proved to be the wing of an insect. Several weeks after, 
I found in Bed No. 8 an unequivocal insect’s wing. This 
discovery was followed by that of others, my father, J. W. 
Hartt, finding another in this bed. 


Compact flaggy sandstone, quite barren . . 5 feet 10 inches. 


Puant-zep No. 3 ; : ? ; gD oo! 


Black and lead-coloured shales, quite compact in upper part, but in 
lower very crumbling, splitting irregularly, slicken-sided, often with 
polished surfaces, and traversed by thin quartz-veins. These shales 
are so soft that the sea and weather have everywhere denuded them 
to the level of the beach. There are now no exposures of the bed 
workable. The following are the fossils which occur in it :— 


Calamites transitionis, Goeppt. Occasionally.—C. canneeformis, 
Brongn.—Asterophyllites latifolia, Daws. Very beautiful 
whorls of this plant are very common here, the whorls, though 
usually detached, being sometimes found united three or four 
together. Annularia acuminata, Daws. Common.—Pinnu- 
laria dispalans, Daws. Common.—Psilophyton elegans, Daws. 
Oceasionally.—P. (?) glabrum, Daws. Occasionally.—Cordaites 
Robbii, Daws. Extremely abundant, but not so well preserved 
asin Bed No.2. Leaves apt to be sabkalied as polished bands 
of graphite, with venation obliterated.—Cyclopteris obtusa, 
Lesqx. Not very abundant.—Neuropteris polymorpha, Daws. 
In beautiful specimens, common.—Sphenopteris marginata, 
Daws. Not common.—S. Heninghausii, Brongn. Not com- 
mon.—Pecopteris (Alethopteris) diserepans, Daws. It was 
here that I first discovered this species. It occurs quite 
abundantly, but always in fragments.—Cardiocarpum cornutum, 
Daws. Quite common.—C..obliquum, Daws. Quite common. 


~ Coarse sandstone, full of obscure casts of Stern- 
bergie and Calamites . : : ; ‘ feet 6 inches. 
Soft shale and fissile sandstone, with Gladaenitee . >. care. 


— 


oe 
ee Pha a) a 


a: AT aE, RR et ee OE BET ae, ile feacaah ad Free OT re aan 
eh 2 . Re Ni tn 


‘ a 
ba 520 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 
- Sandstones E . 2 feet 3 inches. 
| Shale, with saniveiss remains ct iaiie. : . 0/53 aa 
Sandstones, barren, so far as examined ; . 2 spl. ae 
Sandstone and shale, with a few Calamites and 
| Cordaltes .i0ss . well gia oa 
, Sandstone and coarse shale with fee mark- 
ings : 5S be Te ia 
Light greenish, coarse F cited ith Sade 
) Cordaites, and obscure markings, Carpolites(?) 0 , 7 » ae 
Sandstones and coarse shales, with badly pre- | 
served vegetable remains : : i AS aye 7 | 
‘PLant-BED No. 4. ; ; te >» = 
Coarse shales, affording at the point herd the line of section crosses 
; it— i 
Cordaites Robbii, Daws.—Calamites transitionis, Goeppt.—Neu- 4 
| ropteris polymorpha, Daws.—Psilophyton glabrum, Daws.— 4 j 
. Pinnularia dispalans, Daws. q 
I have examined at two different points, in the eastern part of this 
locality, a bed which appears to correspond to this. Itis characterized 
there by a very beautiful Neuropteris (N. Dawsoni, Hartt) with long 
linear lanceolate pinnules decurrent on the rachis, to which they form 
a broad wing. The pinnules are often four inches in length. This — 
is one of the most beautiful ferns occurring at the locality. Several — 
other new forms are associated with it. Among these is a magnificent _ 
Cardiocarpum, nearly two inches in diameter (C. Baileyi, Daw.). a 
} Sandstone with obscure markings f . 9 feet 6 inches. — 
i Puant-sep No.5 wits i: area 6 
} Soft, fine-grained light- eaneee seat a 
Gorittitins Robbii, Daws. Extremely abundant.—Calamites cane- 


i formis, Brongn. Found occasionally.—Psilophyton(?) glabrum, 
Daws.—(?) Asterophyllites acicularis, Daws.—Pecopteris (Ale- 
thopteris) discrepans, Daws. Quite abundant.—Sphenopteris — 

. marginata, Daws. Quite abundant.—Sphenopteris margi- 
nata.—Pecopteris, sp. nov. (?)—Hymenophyllites, sp. (?)—Neu- *9 
ropteris polymorpha, Daws. Very abundant.—Spirorbis 
occurs in the bed, attached to the leaves of Cordaites. Ihave — 
never detected it in any of the beds higher up. 


Compact flaggy sandstones and coarse shales, with a few 
milenthe 502 : ; : : : : : : 8 feet. 


ro 
ae. 


«4 - » af =a ss. ee 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 521 


PLANT-BED No. 6 : ‘ 4 . 2 feet. 
- Fine-grained and light-coloured sida, with great abundance of 
Cordaites Robbii, and Calamites transitionis ; above that a layer of 
coarse shale, with Cordaites, and stems of plants badly preserved, 
then a layer of soft, very friable shale, with few fossils; and, lastly, 

a layer of coarse shale of a greenish-gray colour, with— 

Pecopteris discrepans, Daws. Abundant.—Cordaites Robbii, 
Daws. Abundant.—Calamites canneformis, Brongn. Neu- 
ropteris polymorpha, Daws.—Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws.— 
Cardiocarpum obliquum, Daws.—Pecopteris, sp. nov. Occurs 
abundantly in some of the overlying beds. 


Sandstones and coarse shales, with abundance of plant-remains, 
_ principally Cordaites and Calamites  . . : . . 5 feet. 


= Puant-sep No.7 : : a he 
This is one of the richest fist yee of was section. The shales 
_ composing it vary much in character in different exposures. They 
are for the most part of a gray colour, and compact, like a fine-grained 
sandstone, though they pass into a light-brownish, very fissile, soft 
shale, and there are some layers of a very black colour. 
Cordaites Robbii, Daws. Very abundant, and in a beautiful state 
of preservation.—Calamites transitionis, Goeppt. Not abun- 
' dant as good specimens.—C. canneformis, Brongn. Rare.— 
F . (?) Asterophyllites acicularis, Daws. In very beautiful specimens, 
- very common in certain thin layers. There are two or three 
other species, occurring also in the overlying beds, which 
appear to be new.—Annularia acuminata, Daws. Extremely 
plentiful.— Pinnularia dispalans, Daws. Extremely plentiful.— 
(?) Pstlophyton elegans, Daws. I have obtained several specimens 
of a Psilophyton, growing in tufts, and closely resembling this 
species.—NVeuropteris polymorpha, Daws. Occasional.—Pe- 
copteris (Alethopteris) discrepans, Daws. Abundant, and 
obtainable in good specimens.—Cyclopteris obtusa, Lesqx. 
Occasional.—Sphenopteris marginata, Daws.—Hymenophyllites 
subfurcatus, Daws.—Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws. Quite 
abundant.—C. obliquum, Daws. Quite abundant.—C. Crampii, 
Hartt. — Alethopteris Perleyi, Hartt. — Sphenopteris pilosa, 
Bes Daws. Several other plants not yet determined.—Jnsects. 
A single insect’s wing was obtained from this bed by my father 
and myself. 


Compact sandstone and coarse shales (barren of fossils) . 8 feet. 


522 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


Prant-BeD No. 8 foe Pom, er ot en OE 

Fine-grained, tough, but fissile sandstones, rather coarse shales, often — 
of a greenish cast, and at the top a thin layer of very black shale ~ 
very rich in plants. The middle portion does not contain so many _ 
plant remains, but the lower is as well stocked as the leaves of a her- q 
barium. The following are the fossils I have collected from it:— 


Cordaites Robbii, Daws. As usual in great profusion, and in 
very fine specimens.—C. transiiionis, Goeppt. Occasional._— — 
C. canneformis, Brongn.—(?) Asterophyllites acicularis, Daws. 
Quite common, together with one or two other species 
apparently new, which occur also in Bed 7.—Annularia — 
acuminata, Daws. Extremely common, especially in certain 
layers.—Pinnularia dispalans, Daws. Abundant.—(?) Lyco- 
podites Matthewi, Daws. Rare.—Cyclopteris obtusa, Lesqx.— _ 
Cyclopteris, sp. nov.—Neuropteris polymorpha, Daws. Quite 
frequent in detached pinnules.—Hymenophyllites subfurcatus, — 
Daws. Very common.—Pecopteris (Alethop.) discrepans, 
Daws. This is the most abundant fern in this bed. It 
occurs usually in detached pinnules, though not unfrequently 
in considerable fronds.—Pecopteris (Alethop.). Besides the 
above, there are three or four other species, some of which b 
oceur also in Beds 6 and 7.—Cardiocarpum cornutum, Daws. 
Not very common.—C. obliquum, Daws. Also not very 
common.—C. Crampii, Hartt. Quite common.—Several other 
species of plants not yet determined.—Jnsects. Two species, two _ 
specimens. One was obtained by my friend, Mr James Hegan. 


Sandstones and coarse shales, with badly preserved Cordaztes Robbii, 
Daws., C. transitionis, Goeppt., and Pecopteris (A.) dis- & 
crepans F - ‘ : . 26 feetaae 

Fine-grained, light- i araeiich shales with pe remains . 1 foot. — 

Sandstone and shales, with Calamites and obscure markings . 23 feet. ¥ 


This brings up the section to those beds which are exposed within 
a few feet of low-water mark. Owing to the short time during which 
the rocks are laid bare by the fall of the tide, to their hardness, and : 
to the way in which they are rounded down by the surf, the work of 
exploring this part of the section is very difficult, and I have not been — 
able to give them a very close examination. A very rich plant-bed | Ps 
crops out within a short distance of low-water mark on the very east- 
ern margin of the Ledges. Its place in the section is somewhere near 
Bed 8. It is characterized by Cyclopteris valida, Daws., which — 


SECTION AT THE FERN LEDGES. 523 


to be limited to it. The unique specimen figured: in Dawson’s 
Paper ‘On the Flora of the Devonian Period, ete.’ (plate xvii. fig. 52), 
came from this bed. I obtained here a magnificent frond of Neurop- 
is polymorpha, Daws., showing its structure finely, and the different 
forms of the pinnules i different situations on the frond. Many of 
the species common in the underlying beds are also to be found in 
this ; but I am unable to give a complete list. 

Total thickness of the beds embraced in this section . 444 ft. 11 in.” 


Fauna of the Devonian Plant-beds of St John. 


It will be necessary to devote a separate chapter to the interesting 

_ plant-remains of St John, which present to us a picture of the 
vegetation of the world at a period anterior to that of the great 

 coal-deposits, more perfect, perhaps, than that to be obtained in any 
other known locality. I shall notice here some small crustaceans 
~ and worms which lived in the waters into which these plants were 
drifted and four species of Insects, the very oldest known to geo- 
logists, and which flitted through the old Devonian woods. 


Fig. 179 (a, b).—Zurypterus pulicaris. Fig. 180.—Amphipeltis paradoxus. 


ce, a th ee 


ond hin ies comet 


re 


ol 
om Hees 


; 


Attached to some of the fossil plants in the Cordaite shales, we 
have, just as in the Coal formation, shells of Spirorbis. I have 
not been able to satisfy myself as to whether these are the familiar 
7 S. carbonarius of the coal or a distinct species. The crustaceans 

_ found with them are of two species, one, a little shrimp-like creature, 
belongs to the genus Eurypterus. It was found by Mr Matthews, 
and has been described by Mr Salter as 2. pulicaris (Fig. 179). 

The other is of higher type, perhaps allied to the modern Stomapods, 
and has been named by Mr Salter, to whom I sent the specimen, 


ee 


chowever, to observe that, like many other ancient animals, they — 


FS Ear a ae eet eet gees a el aa Pe a 
a, 2 ‘ , ob ue : i 


524 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


which was from Mr Hartt’s collection, Amphipeltis paradoxus* — 
(Fig. 180). . 

The insects found in these beds are of the very greatest geological _ 
interest, as being the oldest known representatives of that type. — 
They occur in the same shales with the plants, and are thus proved, _ 
both by stratigraphical and paleontological evidence, to be older — 
than the Carboniferous period. I have, therefore, figured the — 
remains found, which are all from the collection of Mr Hartt, and — 
which have been kindly described by Mr Scudder of Boston, one — 
of our best authorities on questions of this kind. They were all — 
Neuropterous insects, and allied to the Ephemeras. It is interesting, — 


a”. 
i 


show a remarkable union of characters now found in distinct orders 
of insects, or constitute synthetic types, as they have been named. __ 
Nothing of this kind is more curious than the apparent existence of 
a stridulating or musical apparatus like that of the cricket, man 
insect otherwise allied to the Neuroptera. This structure also, if 
rightly interpreted by Mr Scudder, introduces us to the sounds of 
the Devonian woods, bringing before our imagination the trill and 

hum of insect life that enlivened the solitudes of these strange old 
forests. 4 
Mr Scudder has kindly furnished descriptions of these insects 
as follows :— Z| 
Fig. 181.—Platephemera antiqua, Scudder. 


“The direction of the principal nervures in this insect convinces _ 
me that it belongs to the Ephemerina, though I have never seen 
in living Ephemerina so much reticulation in the anal area as — 
exists here—so, too, the mode in which the intercalary nervules 
arise is somewhat peculiar. It is a gigantic species, for it must 
haye measured five inches in expanse of wings—the fragment isa 
portion of an upper wing.” 

“At first sight the neuration of the wings seems to agree suffi- 
ciently with the Sialina to warrant our placing it in that family 

* Journal of Geological Society, February 1863. 


FAUNA OF THE DEVONIAN PLANT-BEDS OF ST JOHN. 525 


t it is very interesting to find, in addition to minor peculiarities, 
that near the base of the wing, between the two middle veins, there 
_ is a heavy cross-vein from which new prominent veins take their 


Fig. 182.—Homothetus fossilis, Scudder. 


rise; this is characteristic of the Odonata, and of that family 
only. We have, therefore, a new family representing a synthetic 
type which combines the features of structure now found in the 
Odonata and Sialina, very distant members of the Newroptera. 
The fragment is sufficiently preserved to show the direction, extent, 
and mode of branching of nearly every principal nervure. It is 
evidently a portion of an upper wing; the insect measured not far 
from 34 inches in expanse of wings.” 


sree 


a tl 


Fig. 183.—Lithentomum Harttii, Scudder. 


+ 4a 
+ 


ca ae ee he 
- 


ee 


“This was the first specimen discovered by Mr C. F. Hartt, and 
I have, therefore, named it after him:—apparently, it does not 
belong to any family of Neuroptera represented among living 
forms. It agrees more closely with the family Hemeristina, which 
I founded upon a fossil insect discovered in Illinois, than it does 
with any other; but is quite distinct from that, both in the mode 
of division of the nervures and in the peculiar cross-veining. 
The fragment which Mr Hartt discovered is very imperfect; but, 
fortunately, preserves the most important parts of the wing. I am 
inclined to think that it was a lower wing. The insect probably 
measured 34 inches in expanse of wing.” 


Fig. 184.—Xenoneura antiquorum, Scudder. 


2 = 


NS 


“ Although in this fragment we see only the basal half or third of 
a wing, the peculiar mode of venation shows that the insect cannot 
belong to any known family of Neuroptera, living or fossil; yet it is 
evidently a Neuropterous insect. In addition to its other peculiarities, 


. s » ys Take 
» — 2 2 ee. 6 eee ae 


’ . > 
— ee SS Fee eS eS 


-contained in the rocks of this system is the iron ore of Nictaux and 


» necessity of smelting with charcoal, are obstacles in the way of its 


526 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


there is one of striking importance, viz.:—the development of 
veinlets at the base of the wing, forming portions of concentric 
rings. I have endeavoured in vain to explain these away as some- — 
thing foreign to the wings, accidentally introduced upon the stone, 7 
and I know of nothing to which it can be compared but to the 
stridulating organ of some male Orthoptera! It is diffictlt to tell — 
whether the fragment belongs to an upper or an under wing. Its 
expanse of wings was probably from 2 to 24 inches.” 


Useful Minerals of the Devonian. 


In Nova Scotia the only important mineral deposit known to be 


Moose River. This is a conformable bed, at Nictaux about six feet 
in thickness, and quite accessible, as it crops out at the surface without 
any cover. The outcrop of the bed appears at several places in Nic- 
taux, and also at Moose River, where the thickness appears to be less 
than at the former place. At Nictaux the ore is a peroxide of iron, — 
laminated in structure, and full of fossil shells. At Moose River itis 
in the state of magnetic iron, but retains its characters in other 
respects. A specimen in my collection from Nictaux contains 55°3 
per cent. of iron. This ore is thus of great value, but is not at present 
worked. Its distance from the coal-fields, and the consequent — 


commercial application. 

In New Brunswick several important mineral deposits have been 
recognised in the Devonian of the south coast. The following account 
of them is from Bailey’s Report. More full details as to one of these — 
deposits, the ‘Vernon Copper Mine, are contained in Professor Hind’s 
Preliminary Report. &. 

“Tron Ores.—The principal locality for this metal is the dis- 
trict in the vicinity of West Beach and Black River, where several e 
large beds of hematite occur. As they are well known, and were 
described in a previous Report, it is not necessary to make further 
allusion to their character, than to say that one portion of the ore * 
occurs in a coarse reddish-gray conglomerate, the other, two or three 
miles to the eastward, in beds of trappean and micaceous slates. 
These rocks have been shown by Mr Matthew clearly to form a 
portion of the Cordaite shales in the Devonian series. 

“ Besides the ore-beds alluded to, iron is abundant in seams and — 
veins through most of the rocks occurring in this district, and it is _ 
not improbable that further search would reveal the latter in available — 
quantities. 


USEFUL MINERALS OF THE DEVONIAN. 527 


_ The only remaining district likely to be productive of this metal 

_ is the peninsula of Pisarinco. I have already alluded to the resem- 
 blance between the latter and the beds of Beveridge Cove, and stated 

_ that specular iron is not uncommon in its southern portion. Were 

_ the metal in greater demand, its presence in this region might be 

' looked for with very good prospect of success. The same is true of 
the district lying to the west of Musquash Harbour, and thence towards 
the Basin of Lepreau. 

“Copper Ores.—The most important and well-known localities of 

_ copper, appertaining to this series, are the mines occurring in the 
eastern portion of St John, and western portion of Albert, counties. 
In the district alluded to, between Martin’s Head and the settlement 
of Great Salmon River, no less than four distinet attempts have been 

_ made to carry on operations, with varying success. These constitute 
respectively the Vernon, Alma, Gordon, and Williams Mines. The 

_ three latter were visited by myself in the summer of 1863, and de- 
scribed in my Report of that year; the former, though also alluded to 
in the same Report, was not visited until the past season. It may 

_ therefore not be out of place to add a few observations, made by Mr 
Matthew and myself, upon its present condition. 

“The Vernon Copper Mines are situated upon the Bay Shore, about 
three miles eastward of Martin’s Head, and about two from the mouth 
of Goose Creek. The rocks in which operations have been begun are 
metamorphic beds of the Bay Shore belt, which here rise abruptly 
from the level of the sea to a height varying from six to eight hun- 
dred feet. Their character has already been described. They consist ¢ 
of dull purple and gray micaceous slates, conglomerates, and grits, 
much injected with igneous matter, and holding veins of quartz, cale- 
spar and chlorite. They are in every way identical with the rocks 
of Martin’s Head and the region to the westward, belonging, with the © 
latter, to the Cordaite division of the Little River group, a formation 
referable to the Upper Devonian age. 

“ Since the date of my last Report, operations of a vigorous char- 
acter have been begun, and a force of about forty men is now constantly 
employed. At the time of my visit, three adits had been driven near 
the base of the hill, and preparations were in progress for systematice 
labour. Owing, however, to the abrupt character of the shore, the 
want of a suitable harbour, and the difficulty of procuring supplies © 
through the unsettled district above, active operations had been greatly 
retarded. A road is now being opened to connect the mines with 
the Shepody Road, and I believe it is the intention of the Company 
to erect a breakwater, whereby the obstacles at present existing may 
be greatly diminished. 


/ 


9) 


_ way similar to those of the Vernon, and, for this reason, do not require — 


‘Salmon River, Albert, and on the road to New Ireland. Ore—Peacock — 


Ms ten ae oe oe ison vor ee, ee hee at Ms LS ey ae 


528 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


“The rocks of the Alma, Williams, and Gordon Mines, are in every 


further notice. All mining operations at these localities. have been 
for the present discontinued. 
“Tn addition to the places above described, the following are locale : 
ties appertaining to the Cordaite shales, in uae the presence of ores — 
of paper! has been ascertained :— ; 
“(a.) The shores of the Great Salmon River, Albert County 
probably a continuation of the lodes at the Alma and Gordon Mines. — 
ss Gael glance. 4 
“(6.) On the Farm of Andrew M‘Farlane, three miles back of — 


is a inn cn i 


copper and yellow sulphuret, in dark slaty grits. No explorations — 
capes been made. 3 
““(c.) Near entrance of Little Salmon River, St John County.* 
A small quantity of copper associated with much iron pyrites, occur- — a 
ring in slate. v 
‘‘(d.) M‘Lachland’s Farm.* Indications somewhat more promising — 
ain at the last named locality. 
“(e,) Near Martin’s Head, at foot of the hills, on the north side of 2 
the marsh connecting the feddlead with the shore. Ore—Erubescite : 
(or Peacock ore). The specimens seen were of a very rich character. _ 
No attempt had been made, at the time of our visit, to ascertain the 
extent of the deposit, but the locality is a promising one, and deserves — 
further exploration. The facilities for the successful carrying on — 
of mining operations are very superior to those of the Vernon Mine. 
the land being lower, and the shore protected by the promontory of 
Martin’s Head. Indications of copper have also been observed upon — 
the Head itself. ze. 
““(f) Shepody Mountain. Near the Manganese Mine of Mr 
Steadman, a shaft has been sunk in greenish chloritic slate, to a depth _ 
of 50 feet in search of copper, which is said to occur in veins of 
quartz. The locality was examined by Mr Hartt, but no indications 
of that metal were observed. It has also been stated that naling 
copper occurs in quartz veins in the conglomerates of the Manganese _ 
pine. 
“‘(g.) Black River Settlement, on the mountain road from Loo « 
Lomond. Ore—Copper pyrites and the green carbonate, in haay 
clay slate.* 
“(h.) Pisarinco. Yellow sulphuret of copper has been found in tial 
altered slates and grits of this peninsula, but not in profitable quantities. — 
* Observed by Mr Matihew. 


pene anil ta aT 


FAUNA OF THE DEVONIAN PLANT-BEDS OF ST JOHN. 529 


 -* At all the above named localities, the rocks are certainly members 
of the upper division of the Little River group. In those which follow, 
the beds are probably portions of the same series, but, as expressed in 
_ the remarks on the characters of this group, their position has not been 
ascertained with absolute certainty. 
_  *(é.) Blackwood Block, Albert County. I am informed by Mr 
_ Matthew, that in this district, and near the lake which forms the 
source of one of the branches of the Salmon River, copper has recently 
been found by Mr G. F. Keans of St John. 
“The latter gentleman observed some veins, and numerous boulders 
__ of quartz on the hillsides about the lake, as well as felspar, mica (silvery 
_ gray and black), hornblende, actinolite, and chlorite. The copper 
__ was observed in a ledge of hard gray metamorphic slate, on the north 
side of the lake, filling seams in the rock, and is a green carbonate, 
not the original ore. The accompanying rocks are described as paler 
_ and coarser slates, some of the latter having an ash-like aspect (vol- 
_ eanic ?), and reddish felsite. All of these rocks are similar to those 
oceurring in the Cordaite shales, or cupriferous band of the coast. 
- Both of the above named gentlemen, to whom I am indebted for the 
facts of its occurrence, regard the locality as a promising one, and 
deserving of further examination. 
“This locality is not very distant from the point at which particles 
of drift gold were observed by myself and others in the summer of 
1863. The occurrence of the latter is curious, and difficult of ex- 
planation. It can scarcely be supposed that this metal should have 
come from beds of Devonian age, such as those of the neighbourhood 
appear to be. Neither are there any rocks of a greater age in this 
_ portion of the province, unless we suppose the re-appearance of the St 
John slates, or some portion of the Coldbrook and Portland groups. 
As to the former, as far as observed to the eastward, no approaching 
alteration, such as is usually found in gold-bearing series, was ob- 
served, and eastward of King’s County the group itself appears to be 
entirely wanting. The same is true of the Portland group, but it is 
not at all unlikely that beds of the Coldbrook may be represented in 
this district, and to them we must provisionally look for the origin of 
this metal. It should, however, be borne in mind, that Dr Hayes of 


of the Vernon Mine, also a part of the series of which the locality at 
Blackwood is supposed to form a member. 

“(k.) Beech Hill, Westmoreland. On the south-eastern side of the 
Memramecook River, in the parish of Dorchester, and about three miles 
from Charters’ Inn, occurs a very singular metalliferous locality, but 
2M 


~ 


Boston has, by analysis, ascertained the presence of gold in the rocks + 


Re ere 


530 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


recently discovered, and which opens a new field of investigation in a 
district heretofore supposed to be destitute of metal-bearing rocks. 
“ The precise locality where this discovery was made, is on the land — 


of Joseph Landry, constituting a portion of the settlement known in — 


the vicinity as Beech Hill. The land has been leased from its owners 
by Mr Alex. Wright of Salisbury, with whom I paid a visit to the 
spot during the past season. 

“In examining the district where the ore occurs, I found that the 
land immediately surrounding the lode is everywhere covered with 
rocks of Carboniferous age, over the surface of which are scattered 
innumerable boulders of highly crystalline quartz. The beds from 
which the latter have been derived are not directly visible, but near 
the point where they are most abundant, a pit has been sunk to a 
depth of about five feet, exposing a distinct quartz lode of from four 
to five feet in thickness. This lode has a course about N. 22° W., a 
nearly perpendicular dip, and is bounded by regular walls. Only 
one of the latter was distinctly visible, and consisted of buff-coloured 


and reddish altered grit or breccia. Covering the latter, as well as a q 
= 


. 
* 


portion of the lode, are an ochreous clayey conglomerate, then a 
reddish slaty clay, and, finally, over all some two or three feet of soil. 
These uppermost deposits have a decidedly Carboniferous look, and 
are destitute of metallic indications. 

“‘ The ore, which is confined to the quartz lode, is the gray sulphuret, 


and is scattered through the rock in veins and sputs, while, by altera- 
tion, it has given a green tinge to much of the associated gangue. A 
portion of the quartz is distinctly, and at times finely, amethystine 
(indicating the presence of manganese). Barytes is also found in the 


lode, and specimens from the neighbourhood contain a green variety 


of fluor. There seemed to be an entire absence of calcareous matter. & 


“ Hoping that some exposures might be found in the neighbourhood, — 
by which the age of the deposit could be ascertained, I made a careful — 
search, but found no beds in situ, with the exception of Carboniferous — 


sandstones, shales, and conglomerates, the former holding characteristic — 
plants. Boulders, however, were common, and evidently derived from — 


a metamorphic series, such as gneiss, syenite, mica schist, green and 
ashy slates. 

“This locality is certainly an interesting one, and worthy of further 
exploration. It would seem to imply an easterly prolongation of the 


metalliferous coast belt, as well as a great thinning out of the Carbon- — 


iferous beds by denudation. It is not unlikely that similar exposures, 
from which the boulders have been derived, may be discovered in the 
neighbourhood.” 


; 


CHAPTER XXII, 


THE DEVONIAN PERIOD— Continued. 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN, 


Tue state of our knowledge of this subject at the time when the 
writer commenced his labours upon it, may be learned from the fol- 
lowing extract from his paper of 1861, already referred to :— 

“The known flora of the rocks older than the Carboniferous system 
has until recently been very scanty, and is still not very extensive. 
In Goeppert’s recent memoir on the flora of the Silurian, Devonian, 
and Lower Carboniferous rocks,* he enumerates twenty species as 
Silurian, but these are all admitted to be Algx, and several of them 
are remains claimed by the zoologists as zoophytes, or trails of worms 
and mollusks. In the Lower Devonian, he knows but six species, 
five of which are Algz, and the remaining one a Sigillaria. In the 
Middle Devonian he gives but one species, a land plant of the genus 
Sagenaria. In the Upper Devonian the number rises to fifty-seven, 
of which all but seven are terrestrial plants, representing a large num- 
ber of the genera occurring in the succeeding Carboniferous system. 

“ Goeppert does not include in his enumeration the plants from the 
Devonian of Gaspé, described by the author in 1859,; having seen 
only an abstract of the paper at the time of writing his memoir, nor 
does he appear to have any knowledge of the plants of this age 
described by Lesquereux in Rogers’ Pennsylvania. These might 
have added ten or twelve species to his list, some of them probably 
from the Lower Devonian. It is further to be observed, that certain 
specimens found in the Upper Ludlow of England,} appear to prove 
the presence of Lepidodendron in that formation; and that, in the 
paper above referred to, I have noticed specimens from the Gaspé 
limestone which seem to me to indicate the occurrence of Psilophyton 
and Noeggerathia or Cordaites in the Upper Silurian of Canada. 


* Jena, 1860. ; 
+ Journal of Geological Society of London, also Canadian Naturalist. 
t Murchison’s “ Siluria,” p. 152, Journal Geol. Soc. vol. iv. 


533 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


“Tt thus appears that, according to our present knowledge, the plant q 


life of the land, so rich in the Coal formation, dies away rapidly in the 


Devonian, and only a few fragments attest its existence in the Upper a 


Silurian. Great interest thus attaches to these oldest remains of land 
plants; and fragmentary though they are, and often obscure, they — 
merit careful attention on the part of the geologist and botanist. 

“‘ No locality hitherto explored appears more favourable to the study 
of this ancient vegetation than those parts of Eastern America to 
which this paper relates. The Gaspé sandstones have already afforded 
six Devonian species, some of them of great interest, and in a remark- 
ably perfect state of preservation; and from beds of similar age in 


New Brunswick and Maine, I am now prepared to describe at least 


ten species, most of them new. ‘This already raises the species found 
in the band of Devonian rocks, extending through the north-eastern 
States of the Union, and the eastern part of British America, to one- 
third of the number found in all other parts of the world; and the 
character of the containing rocks, the number of nondescript fragments, 
and the small amount of exploration hitherto made, justify the hope 
that a much larger number may yet be discovered.” ; 

In the paper from which the above extract is taken, the total number 
of American Devonian species was raised to twenty-one, of which 


seven were from St John. Subsequently the much larger collections 


obtained at this place, farther collections by the writer at Perry, and — 
specimens kindly placed at his disposal by Professor Hall of Albany and 
Sir William Logan, have raised the known species to eighty-two; and 


have thus placed Eastern America, in the matter of pre-carboniferous _ 
land plants, in advance of Europe. To these I am now able to add ~ 


eleven species recently obtained by Mr Hartt, and not before published, — 
making the whole number ninety-three, of which fifty have been found 
in the ‘St John beds. 

The general character of the Devonian flora, in comparison with 
that of the Carboniferous period, may be thus stated :— 


1. In its general character the Devonian flora resembles that of the — 
Carboniferous period, in the prevalence of Gymnosperms and Crypto- _ 


gams; and, with few exceptions, the generic types of the two periods 
are the same. Of thirty-two genera to which the species described in 
this paper belong, only six can be regarded as peculiar to the De- 
vonian period. Some genera are, however, relatively much better 


represented in the Devonian than in the Carboniferous deposits, and — 


several Carboniferous genera are wanting in the Devonian. 
2. Some species which appear early in the Devonian period continue 
to its close without entering the Carboniferous; and the great majority 


q 


‘ 


- 
i 


s 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 533 


Carboniferous period; but a few species extend from the Upper De- 
__vonian into the Lower Carboniferous, and thus establish a real passage 
from the earlier to the latter flora. The connexion thus established 
between the Upper Devonian and the Lower Carboniferous is much 
_ Jess intimate than that which subsists between the latter and the true 
Coal measures. Another way of stating this is, that there is a con- 
_ stant gain in number of genera and species from the Lower to the 
_ Upper Devonian, but that at the close of the Devonian many species 
and some genera disappear. In the Lower Carboniferous the flora is 
again poor, though retaining some of the Devonian species; and it 
goes on increasing up to the period of the Middle Coal measures, and 
this by the addition of species quite distinct from those of the Devonian 
period. 

3. A large part of the difference petal the Devonian and Car- 
boniferous floras is probably related to different geographical condi- 
tions. The wide swampy flats of the Coal period do not seem to have 
existed in the Devonian era. The land was probably less extensive 
and more of an upland character. On the other hand, moreover, it 
is to be observed that, when in the Middle Devonian we find beds 
similar to the underelays of the Coal measures, they are filled, not 
with Stigmaria, but with rhizomes of Psilophyton ; and it is only in 
the Upper Devonian that we find such stations occupied, as in the 
Coal measures, by Sigillaria and Calamites. 

4, Though the area to which this paper relates is probably equal 
to any other in the world in the richness of its Devonian flora, still it 
is apparent that the conditions were less favourable to the preservation 
of plants than those of the Coal period. The facts that so large a 
proportion of the plants occur in marine beds, and that so many stipes 
of ferns occur in deposits that have afforded no perfect fronds, show 
that our knowledge of the Devonian flora is relatively far less com- 
plete than our knowledge of that of the Coal formation. 

5. The Devonian flora was not of lower grade than that of the Coal 
period. On the contrary, in the little that we know of it, we find 
“more points of resemblance to the floras of the Mesozoic period, and 
of modern tropical and austral islands, than in that of the true Coal 
formation. We may infer from this, in connexion with the preceding 
general statement, that in the progress of discovery very large and 
interesting additions will be made to our knowledge of this flora, and 
that we may possibly also learn much more of the land fauna contem- 
_ poraneous with it. 

6. The facies of the Devonian flora in America is very similar to 


OES SS ee le, ee _e_uoe ee eee eee ee 


534 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


This may be connected with the different geographical conditions in 
these two periods; but the facts are not yet sufficiently numerous to 


prove this. 


7. The above general conclusions are not materially different from 
those arrived at by Goeppert, Unger, and Brongniart, from a con- 
sideration of the Devonian flora of Europe. 

The following list includes all the species of the St John beds 
known up to the present time, the most important of which I shall 
endeavour to illustrate by short descriptions and figures :— 


Dadoxylon Ouangondianum, Dawson. 


Sigillaria palpebra, Dn. 


Stigmaria ficoides (var.), Brongn. 


Calamites transitionis, Goeppert. 
canneformis, Brongn. 
Asterophyllites acicularis, Dn. 
latifolia, Dn. 

seutigera, Dn. 

— longifolia, Brongn. 
parvula, Dn. 

laxa, sp. nov. 

Annularia acuminata, Dn. 
Sphenophyllum antiquum, Dn. 
Pinnularia dispalans, Dn. 
Lepidodendron Gaspianum, Dn. 
Lycopodites Matthewi, Dn. 
Psilophyton elegans, Dn. 
glabrum, Dn. 

Cordaites Robbii, Dn. 
angustifolia, Dn. 
Cyclopteris Jacksoni, Dn. 
—— obtusa, Goeppert. 

varia, Dn. 

valida, Dn. 

—— Bockshiana, Goeppert. 
Neuropteris Dawsoni, Hartt. 


* IT have named this species after the ancient Indian designation of the St John 
River, Ouangonda. I use the generic term Dadoxylon as probably best known to 
English geologists; but I sympathize with Goeppert in his preference of the generic 


term Araucarites for such trees. 


(Conifere.) 


Dadoxylon Ouangondianum.*—Dn. Trunks of this fine coniferous 
tree are frequent in the St John sandstones. They retain their structure 
in great perfection, especially in silicified specimens. Some of the trunks 
have been a foot or more in diameter. They show traces of growth- 
rings on their weathered ends, and when perfect, are traversed by the 
transversely wrinkled pith-cylinders, formerly known as Sternbergie. 
Under the microscope the wood-cells are seen to be of remarkable — 


Neuropteris polymorpha, Dn. 

Sp. nov. 

probably two other sp. 
Sphenopteris Heeninghausi, Brongn. 
marginata, Dn. 

— Harttii, Dn. 

—— Hitchcockiana, Dn. 

pilosa, sp. nov. 
Hymenophyllites Gersdorffii, Goeppert. 
—— obtusilobus, Goeppert. 
curtilobus, Dn. 


subfurcatus, sp. nov. 
Pecopteris(Alethopteris)decurrens, Dn. 
—— (——) ingens, Dn. = 
aa ) obscura (?), Lesquereux. > 

preciosa, Hartt. 3 
—— Perleyi, Hartt. _ 
— serrulata, Hartt. i 
Trichomanites, sp. a 
Cardiocarpum cornutum, Dn. = | 

obliquum, Dn. - 

Crampii, Hartt. 

Baileyi, sp. nov. 
Trigonocarpum racemosum, Dn. 4 
Antholithes Devonicus, sp. nov. F 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 535 


size, being fully one-third larger in their diameter than those of Pinus 
_ strobus or Araucaria Cunninghami, and also much larger than those of 


Fig. 185.—Dadoxylon Ouangondianum. 


B 


a™ 
~ 

.e-8— 

“si: ie 

ot ee 

yA 

a5 >. 
*=.-& 

yee 

o- «* 

~ ae a* 

2a as 

*e els 


— 
~ 


A, Fragment showing Sternbergia pith and wood; (a) Medullary sheath; (b) Pith; (c) Wood; 
(d) Section of pith. 

B, Wood cell (a), and Hexagonal areole and pore (5), 
C, Longitudinal section of wood, showing (a) Areolation, and (+) Medullary rays. 

D, Transverse section showing (a) Wood-cells, and () Limit of layer of growth. 
the ordinary coniferous trees of the Coal measures. They are beauti- 
fully marked with contiguous hexagonal areoles, in which are inscribed 
oval slits or pores, placed diagonally. The medullary rays are large 
and frequent, but their cells, unlike the wood-cells (prosenchyma), are 
more small and delicate than those of the trees just mentioned. The 
pith when perfectly preserved presents a continuous cylinder of cellular 
tissue, wrinkled longitudinally without, and transversely within, and 
giving forth internally delicate transverse partitions, which coalesce 
toward the centre, leaving there a series of lenticular spaces, a 
peculiarity which I have not heretofore observed in these Stern- 
bergia pith cylinders. It is interesting to find in a Devonian conifer 
the same structure of pith characteristic of some of its allies in the 
Coal formation, where, however, as I have elsewhere shown,* such 
structures occur in Sigillaria as well; and since Corda has ascertained 
a similar structure in Lomatofloyos, a plant allied to Ulodendron, it 
would appear that the Sternbergiz may have belonged to plants of 
very dissimilar organization. 
* Paper on Coal Structures. Journal of Geol. Soc. 


a ee 


te 


Ser ee «) Pee 


7. eer ee! eS ee 
i 4 


TOES 


a small portion of the wood is attached to it; but Mr Matthew has a 


we a a ee a er 


is often eccentric, and specimens occur with two or three centres; but 


536 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


In my specimen the pith is only half an inch in diameter, and only 


specimen of a trunk ten inches in diameter, with the pith one inch in 
thickness, and another 114 inches in diameter, with the pith 24 inches. 
Both had the appearance of decayed trunks, so that their original size 
may have been considerably greater. 

Mr Matthew states in reference to the mode of occurrence of thal 
interesting species, that the wood is always in the state of anthracite. 7 
or graphite, or mineralized by iron pyrites, cale spar or silica. The 
pith is usually calcified, but in pyritized trunks it often appears as a 
sandstone cast with the external wrinkles of Sternbergia. The pith — 


these either consist of several trunks in juxtaposition, or are branching _ 
stems. The annual layers vary from one-eighth to one-thirtieth of an 

inch in thickness, and adjoining layers sometimes vary from one-tenth 
to one-twentieth of an inch. 
_ The trunks of this species appear to have had a strong tendency to — 
split in decay along the medullary rays, and in consequence the cross — 
section often presents a radiating structure of alternating black lines — 
representing the wedges of wood, and white rays of cale spar. The 
heart wood seems to have had its cell walls much thickened, and in ~ 
consequence to have been more durable than that nearer the surface. 
They appear to have been drift trees, and to have been much worn and ~ 
abraded before they were embedded in sediment. 


(Sigillarie.) 


Sigillaria palpebra, Dn. Ribs narrow, about a quarter of an inch | 
in width. Leaf-scars transversely acuminate, small. My only speci- 
men is a small fragment, showing three or four ribs, and with only 
a few of the scars preserved. The most perfect leaf-scars are shaped — 
much like a half-closed eye; but the specimen is only a cast, and “—a 
imperfect. Locality, St John. ; 

Stigmaria ficoides (variety), Brongniart. Large roots of Stigma ; 
in some stances with rootlets attached, occur, though-rarely, im the 
sandstone or arenaceous shale near St John—only two or three speci- 
mens having been found. They are not distinguishable from some $ 
varieties of the Stgmaria ficoides of the Coal measures. 


(Calamites.) 


Calamites transitionis, Goeppert. “Canad. Nat.,” vol. vi. p. 168 7 . 
(Fig. 186). This species, so characteristic, according to Goeppert,of | 
the Upper Deyonian and Lower Carboniferous series in Europe, isabun- 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 537 


dant at St John, both in the sandstone containing coniferous trees, and 
the shales which afford Ferns, Cordaites, ete. Some of the beds of 
the latter are filled with flattened stems. This was one of the first 
fossils recognised in the St John rocks, specimens having been shown 
to me in 1857 by the late Professor Robb.* 


Fig. 186.— Calamites transitionis. 


in fie 
eo te 


<3 vie 9 


UT 
ae (hy 


Calamites canneformis, Brongniart. This species, presenting the 
_ characters which it exhibits in the Coal measures, occurs in the ledges 
west of Carlton, associated with the last species, but in much less 
abundance. It is a widely distributed species, but has not, I believe, 
been found previously in rocks older than the Lower Carboniferous. 


\ i ‘ : 
tte SD 


(Asterophyllites, etc.) 


Asterophyllites acicularis, Dn. (Fig. 194, H and H?). Stems slender, 
striated, thickened at the nodes, leafy. Leaves one-nerved, linear, 


* Dr Gesner mentions (Second Report, 1840, p. 12) a Calamite (probably this species) 
as occurring near Little River. 


Ta ee 


538 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


slightly arcuate, ten to fifteen in a whorl, longer than the internodes. _ 
Length of leaves one-half to three-fourths of an inch. This plant 
is abundant in some layers of shale near St John. It resembles — 
A. foliosa, L. and H., but the leaves are longer, less curved, and more — 
numerous ina whorl. Some of the specimens show that the stem was 
leafy, as well as the branches; and I have a specimen, apparently the — | 
termination of a main stem, showing the whorls of leaves diminishing 
in size toward the apex. My specimen of this and the following 
species of Asterophyllites are from the collections of Messrs Matthew 
and Hartt, and were obtained from the ledges and cliffs west of — 
Carlton. I believe the small strobiles, one of which is seen at H? 
to be the fruit of this species. 


Fig. 187.—Asterophyllites. 


A, Asterophyllites latifolia. D, A. latifolia, larger whorl of leaves. 
B, Do. apex of stem (?) fruit, D!, Leaf. ~ 
C and Cl, Asterophyllites scutigera. 


Asterophyllites latifolia, Dn. (Fig. 187, A, B,D). Stemsomewhat — 
slender, with enlarged nodes. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, about thirteen 
in a whorl, one-nerved, longer than the internodes. Length of leaves 
varying from one-fourth of an inch, near the ends of branches, to an 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 539 


.. 


i, inch or more. This species abounds in the same locality with the 
t _ preceding, and is often very perfectly preserved. It has some re- 
semblance to A. galioides, L. and H., and to A. fertilis, Sternberg ; but 
it differs from the former in the pombe and form of the leaves, and 
from the latter in the acuteness of their points. The fruit or growing 
extremity of the stem is represented at (B). 

__ Asterophyllites (?) scutigera, Dn. (Fig. 187, C.) Stems simple, 
elongated, attaining a diameter of half an snl obscurely striated ; 

y bearing on the nodes whorls of round or oval scales, or flattened far 
lets, which at the ends of the stems are crowded into a sort of spike, 
_ while on other parts of the stems the nodes are sometimes an inch 
' apart. This is a plant of uncertain nature, which I place only con- 
 jecturally in this genus. The stems, which are very long, may have 
been horizontal or immersed, and the apparent scales may either have 
constituted a sort of sheath, as in A. coronata, Unger, or may have 
been seeds or nutlets flattened like the rest of the plant. Near some 
of the specimens are fragments of linear leaves, which may have 
belonged to this plant, though I have not found them attached. 
When flattened obliquely, the stems appear as rows of circular marks, 
which represent the harder tissue of the nodes, and have a very 
singular appearance. This plant, though found with the preceding, 
does not occur in the layers which contain the other plants; and this 
may possibly mark a difference of habitat. 

Asterophyllites longifolia, Brongniart. In the shales containing the 
preceding species are some fragments of an Asterophyllites with slender 
stems, internodes about an inch in length, and linear leaves two or 
three inches in length, and about six to eight in a whorl. It may 
belong to the species here named; but the remains are not sufficiently 
distinct to render this certain. 

Asterophyllites parvula, Dn. (Fig. 188, A). ‘Canad. Nat.,” 
vol. vi. p. 168, figs. 6 a, b,c. Branchlets slender. Leaves five or 
six in a whorl, subulate, curving upwards, half a line to a line long. 

Internodes ania to the length of the leaves or less. Stems ribbed, 

with scars of verticillate branchlets at the nodes. This diagivosten 
Species was originally found by Mr Matthew in the graphitic shale, 
associated with the Dadoxylon sandstone, at the southern part of the city 
of St John. Small fragments of it have subsequently been obtained 
from the shales of Carlton. 

Asterophyllites laxa, sp. nov. Stems very slender and flexuous. 
Internodes about an inch long. Nodes with about ten long linear 
one-nerved obtuse leaves an inch or more in Jength. This form was 
included in A. longifolia in my former paper, but additional specimens 


) 2. Ge a. er al on) 
TE CL Pe En hee eA ! aN Ree Oe nae 
f 1 =) Tey 


Ped} 


540 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. ° 


show it to be quite distinct. The Devonian plant-beds of St John 
are relatively richer in species and individuals belonging to the genus" 


Fig. 188.—Asterophyllites, Sphenophyllum, and Lycopodites. 


J .  — — 2 —y — = eee Oe eee 


A, Asterophyllites parvula; (a) Branches; (6) Leaves enlarged; (c) Stem. 

B, Sphenophyllum antiquum; (a) Magnified; (6) Natural size. 

C, Lycopodites Matthewi; (a) Branch and leaves; (0, c, d) Different forms of leaves. ; 
Asterophyllites than any zone of the Coal formation with which lam 
acquainted. The genus is represented i in the Devonian of Forni 
and more especially by the fine species A. coronata from Thuringia. — 

Annularia acuminata, Dn. (Fig. 194, G). Leaves oblong, acu- 
minate, one-nerved, six to nine in a whos erect or slightly spreading, ; 
Whorls usually found disconnected. Detached whorls of this species” 1 
occur, though rarely, on the surfaces of the shales of Carlton. lear 
seems to be a plant of the same type with A. sphenophylloides, Unger, | 
which, according to Lesquereux, occurs in the Coal formation of a 
Easeeylyante Some specimens show a few whorls attached to each — 
other by a very slender stem. = 

Sphenophyllum antiquum, Dn. (Fig. 188, B). “ Canal Nat.” 
vol. vi. p. 170, fig. 7. Leaflets cuneate, one-eighth of an inch wide — g 
at the apex, and less than one-fourth of an inch long. Nerves three, — a 
bifurcating equally near the base, the divisions terminating at the — 
apices of six obtuse, acuminate teeth. About eight leaves in a whorl. — | 
This plant was described from a few detached leaflets from the — 
graphitic shale of St John, which preserved their form and venation — 
in the most wonderful ee though they were completely 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 5Al 


 ¢hanged into films of shining graphite. I have since obtained from 
_ Mr Hartt a specimen found at Carlton, which, though the individual 
~ leaflets are more indistinct, shows their general arrangement in whorls 
of eight or nine ona slender stem. It is a beautiful symmetrical little 
_ plant, quite distinct from any of the species in the Coal measures. 

(  Pinnularia dispalans, Dn. (Fig. 194, L). Smooth slender stems, 
producing nearly at right angles long branchlets, some of which 
produce secondary branchlets in a pinnate manner. Stem and 
branches having a slender vascular axis. This plant was not very 
‘dissimilar from some common forms of Carboniferous Pinnularie. Its 
main stem must once have been cylindrical, and had a delicate central 
axis, now marked by a darker line of graphite in the flattened speci- 
mens. The branches were not given off in one plane, and also show 
traces of an axis. There are indications that the stems grew in 
bundles or groups. It was probably, as has usually been supposed in 
the case of the species in the Coal formation, an aquatic root or sub- 
merged stem of an Asterophyllites or some similar plant. 


(Lycopodiacee.) 

Lepidodendron Gaspianum, Dn. (Fig. 189, A). Dawson, Quart. 
Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xv. p. 483, figs. 8 a-3 d. This species, 
originally discovered in Gaspé, and described in my paper on the 
plants of that locality, was afterwards recognised among the fossils 
from Perry, and more recently at St John; and numerous and beautiful 
" specimens are contained in Professor Hall’s collections from New York 
State, where the species occur in the base of the Catskill group and 
in the upper part of the Hamilton group. The varied aspects of the 
species presented in the numerous specimens thus submitted to me, 
would, with a less perfect suite of examples, afford grounds for specific 
or even generic distinctions. Flattened specimens, covered with bark, 
present contiguous, elliptical, slightly elevated areoles, with an indis- 
tinct vertical line and a small central vascular scar (Fig. 189). De- 
corticated specimens, slightly compressed, show elliptical depressed 
areoles, not contiguous, and with only traces of the vascular scars 
In more slender branches the areoles are often elevated at one end 
in the manner of a Knorria (Fig. 189); and in some specimens 
the areoles are indistinct, and the vascular scars appear as circular 
spots, giving the appearance presented by the plants named Cyclostigma 
by Haughton. All these forms are, however, merely different 
States of preservation of the same species. This plant is closely allied 
to L. nothwm, Unger, but differs in its habit of growth and in the size 
of the areoles relatively to that of the branches. The branches were 


= 
» _ 
| 
7" 


542 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


long and slender, bifurcating rarely, and, unless they were very woody, — 
must have been pendent or decumbent. No large trunks have been 
seen. It was a widely distributed and abundant species in the Upper 
and Middle Devonian periods. The plant figured by Professor Rogers _ 
in the “ Report on Pennsylvania,” p. 829, fig. 677, can scarcely belong 
to any other than this species; and it is also figured in Vanuxem’s’ 
“ Report on New York,” p. 191, fig. 55, and p. 157, fig. 38. 


Fig. 189.—Lepidodendron and Psilophyton. 


A, Lepidodendron Gaspianum. B, C, Psilophyton elegans. 


Lycopodites Matthewi, Dn. (Fig. 188, C). “Canad. Nat.,” vol. 
vi. p. 171, fig. 8. Leaflets one-veined, narrowly ovate-acu-— 
minate, one-tenth to one-fourth of an inch in length, somewhat 
loosely placed on a very slender stem, apparently in a pentasti- 
chous manner. This species was described from specimens found 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 543 


by Mr Matthew in the graphitic shale in the city of St John. Some- 
4 what larger specimens have since been obtained from the same bed ; 
. 4 but I have not seen the plant elsewhere. 

» Psilophyton princeps, Dn. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xv. 
+ p. 479, figs. la to 17. This remarkable plant, so charac- 
i teristic of the whole Devonian system at Gaspé, filling many 
beds with its rhizomes, in the manner of the Stgmaria of the Coal 
_ measures, and preserved in such abundance and perfection that 
3 it is much better know to us in its form, structure, and habit of 
_ growth than any other plant of the period, proves, as might have 
been anticipated, to have had a wide distribution in space as well 
as in time. Fragments of its stems are distinguishable in the sand- 
stones of Perry, and numerous fine specimens occur among the 
_ plants from New York State committed to me by Professor Hall. It 
occurs in the Hamilton group at Schoharie, New York, and at 
Akron, Ohio, in the Chemung group at Cascade Falls, and in the 
Catskill group at Jefferson. Most of the specimens are stems, 
which show the habit of growth very perfectly. They confirm my 
inference from the structure of the Gaspé specimens that the 
plant was woody and rigid, as they often do not lie in one plane, but 
extend upward and downward in the manner of firm branches 
buried in sand. Most of the New York specimens seem to have 
been drifted; but groups of rhizomes, possibly tn stu, occur in 
argillaceous sandstone from Fullenham, Schoharie, and in similar 
beds at Cazenovia and Cascade Falls. These are the only instances 
presented by Professor Hall’s collections of root-beds resembling those 
of Gaspé. In New York only the Upper and Middle Devonian 
have as yet afforded land plants; but in Gaspé Psilophyton princeps 
occurs in the Lower Devonian, and fragments which neve belonged 
to it occur in the Upper Silurian. 

Psilophyton elegans, Dn. (Fig. 189, B, C). Stems slender, pro- 
duced in tufts from thin rhizomes, scores and curving at their 
summits. Surface smooth, with very delicate wrinkles. Fructi- 
fication in groups of small, broadly oval scales, borne on the main 
stem below the points of bifurcation. I distinguish this species from 
Psilophyton princeps by its smaller size, its smoother surface, its 
growth in tufts, and the different form of its organs of reproduction. 
Still it must be admitted that imperfect specimens could not readily 
be distinguished from branchlets of P. princeps. It was found by 
Mr Matthew in the shales near Carlton. 

Psilophyton(?) glabrum, Dn. Smooth, flattened, bifureating stems, 
two lines in width, with a slender woody axis. These are objects 


a 


‘ 
_ 
a 


544 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


of doubtful nature. They must have been stems or roots, bifur- 
eating in the manner of Psilophyton, but having a very slender 
woody axis. They may have been either roots of some plant, or 
stems of a smooth and comparatively succulent species of Psilophyton. 


i‘ - 
ts Fig. 190.—Cordaites Robbii. 


(a) Group of young leaves. (c) Base of leaf. 
(b) Point of leaf. (d) Venation; magnified. 


Cordaites Robbit, Dn. (Fig. 190). Leaves elongated, lanceol: 
sometimes three inches wide and a foot in length. Veins equal and — 
parallel. Base broad, clasping the stem, point acuminate. When — 
this species was described in my paper in the “ Canadian Naturalist, ; S 
only very imperfect specimens were in my possession; but numerous — 
and fine specimens recently found now enable me more perfectly — 
to characterize the species. The leaves vary much in form; ¢ ad | 

: * May 1861, p. 168. i 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 545 


in their young state, as represented in Fig. 190 a, were often of a 
_ regularly oblong form. They have numerous equal parallel nervures, 
, fi which were probably fibro-vascular, like those of Ferns, as they 
present precisely the same appearance as the nervures of the plants 
of this family preserved with them, and which, in these beautiful 
graphitized specimens, are traced in deeper lines of graphite than 
the film of the same material which represents the intervening 
parenchyma. In the best preserved specimens, the leaf is quite 
smooth; but in some the space between the nervures rises into little 
ridges, so as to give a striated appearance. These different aspects, 
however, often occur on different portions of the same leaf. The 
present species so closely resembles C. borassifolia of the Coal 
formation that it might readily be mistaken for it; but it differs 
somewhat in the form of the leaf, and still more in the venation, 
the nervures in the present species being perfectly equal.* 

In the paper already referred to, I have stated at length my reasons 
for preferring, in the case of this plant and C. borassifolia, the generic 
name Cordaites, to Poacites, Flabellaria, and Naggerathia, all of 
which have been applied to such’plants, together with others having 
no affinity to them. To the name Pychnophyllum, proposed by 
Brongniart, this objection does not apply; but Cordaites, I believe, 
has priority, and is due to the describer of the typical species. 

I associate the genus Cordaites with Lycopodiaceous plants with- 
out hesitation, notwithstanding the peculiar character of its foliage, 
because Corda has shown that its stem is strictly acrogenous in 
structure, and of the same type with those of Lomatofloyos and 
Ulodendron—a fact which excludes it alike from association with 
Monocotyledonous plants and with Ferns. (See Chap. XX., supra.) 

It is worthy of notice that, while the leaves of Cordaites, unlike 
those of Sigillaria and Lepidodendron, were not attached by narrow 
bases, but clasping, they were still, like those of nearly all other 
Devonian and Carboniferous plants, deciduous and capable of 
disarticulation, as is proved by the immense abundance of fallen 
leaves, while the stems, probably remaining attached to the soil, 
are rare. It is further to be observed that these leaves were rigid, 
and long resisted decomposition; on which account, no doubt, they 
formed a favourite base of attachment for the little Spzrorbes which 
swarmed both in the Devonian and Carboniferous Periods. At St 
John, many of these leaves are covered with these little shells. 


* The nervures in ©. borassifolia are alternately thick and thin; but there is 
another species in the Upper Coal measures of Nova Scotia which. has equal 
nervures. 


2N 


ry 


mies ae ~ "7 asa eee ae aoe bus cary s = 
x eet a se ee an ee ae 


as 


546 ‘THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. — 


i _ The leaves of the present species are very abundant in the sha 
ae of the vicinity of St John, and indeed are eminently character- - 
i istic of them; and on this account I regard the dedication of it t 
my late iowbsa friend, Dr Robb, as specially appropriate. I Hat 


Fig. 191.— Cyclopteris Jacksoni. 


More: <5 


a 


“. te De, ° 9 ee ae 


—e 


Ri 6 ee ee eee ne a 


pa ae ae 


(a and bd), Pinnules showing venation. 


not recognised this plant in the specimens from Gaspé or Perry ry 
and the only indication of it in the New York collection is a frag 
ment of a leaf from the Hamilton group of Cazenovia, New Yo 
not sufficiently perfect to render its identification certain. 

Cordaites angustifolia, Dawson. Leaves linear, much elongated, 
one-tenth to one-fourth of an inch broad, with delicate, equal, parallel 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 547 


nervures. This species, originally described from specimens collected 
at Gaspé where it abounds in the roof of the little Devonian coal- 
“seam, occurs also at St John, and in the Marcellus Shale of New 
York; and it has also been found by Sir W. E. Logan in the 
Upper Silurian of Cape Gaspé, together with fragments of the 
rhizomes of Psilophyton. It usually occurs as long riband-like 
detached leaves, not always easily distinguishable from the flattened 
stems and roots of other plants found in the same beds. I have not 
seen the apex nor the base of the leaf, but among Professor Hall’s 
specimens from the Marcellus Shale is one which appears to consist 
of the remains of several leaves, attached to a short stem, of which 
the structure and markings have perished. 

Plants closely resembling this are described by Unger and Goep- 
_ pert, from the Devonian of Europe; but the characters given do not 
% enable me to identify any of them with the present species. Such 
plants are placed by those writers in the genus Neggerathia, which 
_ I reject for the reasons above stated. : 


(Filices.) 

_  Cyclopteris Jacksoni, Dawson (Fig. 191). “Canad. Nat.” vol. 
vi. p. 173, fig. 9. “‘ Frond bipinnate ; rachis stout and longitudinally 
furrowed; pinnz alternate; pinules obliquely obovate, imbricate, 
_ narrowed at the base, and apparently decurrent on the petiole; 
nerves nearly parallel, dichotomous ; terminal leaflet large, broadly 
obovate or lobed.” ‘This species, first described, in my paper in the 
“ Canadian Naturalist,” from a specimen found at Perry, occurs also 
in small fragments at St John, and large specimens occur in the col- 
lection of Professor Hall from the Old Red Sandstone of Montrose, 
New York. It is closely allied to C. Hibernica, and is its American 
representative. It would be placed by many botanists in the genus 
Adiantites of Brongn., but this name is objectionable in the case of 
Ferns evidently not related to Adiantum. 

Cyclopteris obtusa, Lesquereux (Fig. 192, A). To this species, 
described by Lesquereux, from the Old Red Sandstone of Penn- 
sylvania, I refer a beautiful Fern not unfrequent in the shales near 
‘St John. Lesquereux places it in the genus Naggerathia, a name 
applied by other botanists to a very different group of plants. 
Cyclopteris valida, Dawson (Fig. 192, B). Tripinnate; primary 
divisions of the rachis stout and wrinkled. Pinnz regularly alternate. 
Lower pinnules nearly as broad as long, deeply and obtusely lobed, 
narrowed and decurrent at the base; regularly diminishing in size 
and breadth toward the point, and the last pinnules narrowly obovate 
and confluent with the terminal pinnule. Nerves delicate, several 


548 


Fig. 192.—Devonian Ferns. 


A, Cyclopteris obtusa. 
B, Cyclopteris valida, and pinnule en- 


larged. 

C, Neuropteris polymorpha, terminal pin- 
nules. 

D, Sphenopteris marginata, and portion 
enlarged. 


E, Sphenopteris Harttii. 


N, Hymenophyliites subfurcatus. 


THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


-* —- 2 


Aes 


ta Tin 2 


F, Sphenopteris pilosa. 

G, Hymenophyllites curtilobus. ae. 

H, Hymenophyllites Gersdorffii, and por- — 
tion enlarged. ; 

I, Alethopteris discrepans. 

K, Pecopteris serrulata. 

L, Pecopteris preciosa. 

M, Alethopteris Perleyi. 


a 8? he oe = 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 549 


times dichotomous. This is one of the most perfect and beautiful 
of the St John Ferns. It resembles at first sight Sphenopteris 
macilenta, L. and H.; but on examination it differs materially in 
details. It is an elaborate and ornate example of the peculiar type 
_ of Cyclopteris already referred to as characteristic of the Upper 
Devonian Period. 

Cyclopteris varia, Dawson. Pinnate (or bipinnate). Pinne with 
a thick petiole. Pinnules decreasing in size to the terminal one, 
which is ovate and lobed. Pinnules oblique, decurrent on one side. 
Nerves frequently dichotomous. This Fern has been found only 
in fragments. It seems to have been a_ thick fleshy frond, but 
the specimens are. insufficient to show its habit of growth. Its 
nearest allies seem to be C. Villierst, Sternberg (Neuropteris Villiersi, 
Brongn.), and Cyclopteris heterophylla, Goeppert ; but it differs 
from both. 

Cyclopteris, s. n.(?) Many fragments occur in Mr Hartt’s col- 
lections of a very large Cyclopteris which may possibly have re- 
sembled C. Brownii of Perry in Maine, but the specimens are not 
sufficient for its full description. 

Cyclopteris Bockshiana, Goeppert. Fragments referable to this 
species (if it is really a distinct species from C. obtusa), are found 
rarely in the St John shales. I retain the generic name Cyclopteris 
for all these ferns, so eminently characteristic of the Devonian as 
distinguished from the Carboniferous; not that I have any certainty 
that they belong to one natural genus, but because they resemble 
each other in venation, and the attempts to arrange them in such 
genera as Adiantites and Neggerathia are evidently injudicious. 
Neuropteris polymorpha, Dawson (Fig. 192, C). Pinnate or bipin- 
nate. Rachis or secondary rachis irregularly striate. Pinnules vary- 
ing from round to oblong, unequally cordate at base, varying from 
obtuse to acute. Terminal leaflet ovate, acute, angulated or lobed. 
Midrib delicate, evanescent. Nervures slightly arcuate, at acute 
angles with the midrib. This fern is very abundant in the shales 
near Carlton, at St John. At first sight it appears to constitute 
several species, but careful comparison of numerous specimens shows 
that all the various forms may occur on the same frond. In its 
variety of forms it resembles VV. heterophylla, Brongn., or NV. hirsuta, 
Lesquereux ; but it differs from the former in its delicate midrib and 
acutely angled nervures, and from the latter in its smooth surface. 
In the more recent collections of Mr Hartt there are very fine and 
perfect examples which I hope at some future time to figure. The 
fragment here figured is a part of a terminal pinna. 


4 


ee a ae tree 


3 
f 
é. 
ey 
s 
“tee 
y 
_ 
a, 
a 


550 


he BS ol yee in Bae De how . 5 
tant nA sie oy ghana fa Soi ele. 4 
ies tots Labrie ; apa " , a ts eC RE ee 
An , ~ - 5 F aE, - mn Soa: 4 


_ THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


Fig. 193.—Neuropteris Dawsoni.* 
Z rf 7 } ii 


tify, 


V4 
y typ 
Mi Ye, 
tj, 
t3: 
ty 
‘| “Oy yj A 


(a) Fragment of pinna. (b) Point of pinnule. (c) Venation. 


* The Midrib is not accurately given in this figure. = 


rea | eee ee aul dah 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 551 


Neuropteris Dawsoni, Wartt (Fig. 193). This remarkable fern, 
discovered by Mr Hartt, and to which he has done me the honour to 
attach my name, presents curious points of affinity to Cyclopterids 
_ and Neuropterids, and perhaps may, when more fully known, be placed 
in a distinct genus. Mr Hartt describes it as follows :— 

“Frond, pinnate or bipinnate (most probably the latter); rachis 
thick, sometimes when compressed half an inch wide, coarsely striated, 
always winged; pinne (pinnules?) alternate, very oblique, linear 
lanceolate, moderately acute at apex, slightly notched above its base, 
decurrent on the rachis, often about an inch in width, and sometimes 
_ six inches long; margin strong, a few large undulations; midrib thick, 
tapering gradually, disappearing before reaching the apex, straight, 
entering a pinna (pinnules ?) obliquely from the upper side, giving off 
very numerous nerves, which spring very obliquely from it, running 
about parallel with it, forking once near the midrib, and once more 
half-way to the margin, sometimes again close to the margin, the 
whole series being strongly arched. . 

“The pinne, particularly when the midribs are thick, show a strong 
tendency to split up in a direction to the rachis. I have sometimes 
noticed them folded in a conduplicated manner.” 
Neuropteris crassa, sp. nov. Single pinnules, broad, oval, oblique 
at base, thick, smooth above with very numerous arched veins. A 
pinna with somewhat larger pinnules similarly veined may belong to 
the same species. 2 
There are fragments which possibly indicate two other species of 
Neuropteris. 

Sphenopteris Haninghausi, Brongniart. One of the ferns from the 
shales near St John appears to be identical with the above species, 
which belongs to the Lower Carboniferous of Europe. 

- Sphenopteris marginata, Dawson (Fig. 192, D). This. resembles 
the last species in general form, but is larger, with the pinnules round 
or round-ovate, divided into three or five rounded lobes, and united 
by a broad base to the broadly winged petiole. Found with the 
preceding. One specimen, given to me by Mr Hartt, shows a frond 
six inches in length. 

Sphenopteris Harttii, Dawson (Fig. 192, E). Bipinnate or tripin- 
nate. Divisions of the rachis margined. VPinnules oblique, and con- 
fluent with the margins of the petiole; bluntly and unequally lobed. 
Nerves small, oblique, twice-forked. This beautiful fern very closely 
resembles S. alata from the Coal-field of Port Jackson, but differs in 
several of its details. I name it in honour of Mr Hartt, the discoverer 
of several of the St John ferns. Found with the preceding. 


552 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


Sphenopteris Hitchcockiana, Dawson. Doubtful fragments only 4 


occur. 


Sphenopteris pilosa, sp. nov. (Fig. 192 F). Bipinnate or tripinnate, q 
pinne oblong, with crowded, obovate, decurrent, pinnules, with a few ~ 


forking veins. Terminal leaflet, broad, obtuse, surface thickly covered 
with minute hairs, which generally mask the venation. I refer this 


curious fern to Sphenopteris with much hesitation, but I think its 


venation places it there in the present state of our classification, 
though in general aspect it rather resembles a Neuropteris or Cyclop- 
teris. It has some points of resemblance to the Carboniferous fern 
Sphenopteris decipiens. 

_ Hymenophyllites curtilobus, Dawson (Fig. 192, G). Bipinnate. 


Rachis slender, dichotomous, with divisions margined. Leaflets q 4 


deeply cut into subequal obtuse lobes, each one-nerved, and about 
one-twentieth of an inch wide in ordinary specimens. According to 
Lesquereux, the genus Hymenophyllites is characteristic in America 
of the Upper Devonian. In Europe it is represented also in the 
Lower Coal. I have seen only one or two species in the Carboni- 
ferous rocks of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick. The present species 


resembles a gigantic variety of H. obtusilobus, Goeppert (Sphenopteris — a 


trichomanoides, Brongn.). 


Hymenophyllites obtusilobus, Goeppert. Found with the preceding. E 4 


Hymenophyllites Gersdorffii, Goeppert (Fig. 192, H). Found with 
the preceding. 

Hymenophyllites subfurcatus, sp. nov (Fig. 192, N). This species 
is among Mr Hartt’s recent collections. It is of the type of A. 


furcatus, which, according to Lesquereux, is found in the Devonian 


of Pennsylvania, but it differs in its broader and acute divisions. 
Alethopteris discrepans, Dawson (Fig. 192, I). Bipinnate. 
Pinnules rather loosely placed on the secondary rachis, but con- 
nected by their decurrent lower sides, which form a sort of margin 
to the rachis. Mlidrib of each pinnule springing from its upper 
margin and proceeding obliquely to the middle. Nerves very fine 
and once-forked. Terminal leaflet broad. This fern so closely 
resembles Pecopteris Serlii and P. lonchitica that I should have been 
disposed to refer it to one or other of these species but for the char- 
acters above stated, which appear to be constant. P. Serlit is abundant 
in the Lower Carboniferous of Northern New Brunswick, and P. lon- 
chitica is the most common fern throughout the whole thickness of 
the Joggins Coal measures; but in neither locality does the form 
found at St John occur. On this account I think it probable that 
the latter is really distinct. In Murchison’s “ Siluria,” 2d edition, p. 


er ee ee ee a a 


= 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 553 


$21, a fern from Colebrook Dale is figured as P. lonchitica, which, so 
far as I can judge from the engraving, may be identical with the 
present species. Locality, St John. 
Alethopteris ingens, Dawson. Pinnules more than an inch wide, 
and three inches or more in length, with nervures at right angles 
to the midrib and forking twice. Only a few fragments of pin- 
nules of this species have been found in the shales near St John, 
They are usually doubled along the midrib, as if it had been their 
habit to be folded in a conduplicate manner. Their general aspect 
suggests a resemblance to the Mesozoic Tzeniopterids rather than to 
the Pecopterids of the Coal formation. 
Pecopteris (Alethopteris) obscura (?), Lesq. Mr Hartt has recently 
sent to me, from St John, a pinna of a Pecopteris having oblong, ob- 
tuse pinnules attached by the whole base, with a slender midrib, and 
slightly repand edges. The nervures are not preserved. It closely 
resembles A. obscura, Lesquereux, from the Coal of Pennsylvania. 
Pecopteris (Alethopteris) serrulata, Hartt (Fig. 192, K). This 
species is, I believe, the same with Neuropteris serrulata of a former 
paper, the imperfect specimens in my possession causing me to refer 
it to that genus. Mr Hartt, however, has found specimens which enable 
him to correct this error. I retain the specific name to prevent con- 
fusion of terms, though there are already species of Pecopteris known 
as serrula and serrata. The present species approaches closely to 
P. plumosa of Brongn., but differs in its more distant pinnules, not 
connate at the base, with the veins not forking at the margin, and the 
midrib more oblique and decurrent on the rachis. It resembles 
rather less closely P. serra, L. and H., and P. delicatula and dentata 
of Brongn., and may be regarded as the Devonian representative of 
this group of small-leaved Pecopterids. It is thus described by Mr 
Hartt :-— 
“Tripinnate, pinne short, alternate, close or open, lanceolate, very 
oblique, situated on a rather slender rounded subflexuose rachis; 
pinnules small, linear lanceolate, trenulate, revolute, moderately acute, 
oblique, sessile decurrent, widest at the base, open, separated from 
one another by a space equal to the width of a pinnule, slightly arched 
towards the point of pinna; longest at base of pinna, decreasing thence 
gradually to the apex; terminal pinnule elongated. Median nerve 
entering the pinnule very obliquely, flexuous, running to the apex. 
Nervules very few, oblique, simple, and somewhat rarely forking at 
the margin.” 
Pecopteris (Alethopteris) preciosa, Hartt (Fig. 192, L). Pinnew 
a little larger than those of the last species, not serrated ; placed nearly 


554 _ 'THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


suddenly widened or almost auriculate at the lower side; midrib ex- | 
tending to the apex; nerves few, at a somewhat acute angle. a 

Alethopteris Perleyi, Hartt (Fig. 192,M). “ This species resembles ~ 
Alethopteris serrula of Lesqx. It ities from it in the following — 
points :—The pinnz are wider and closer, and not so long; the pinne 
are usually tridentate. The teeth acuminate, the middle one some-_ 
times emarginate. The vein is three-forked, sending a veinlet into — 
each lacinia. The middle veinlet branches in the middle laciniay In 
A. serrula the pinnules, or, as Lesqx. terms them, the lobes, are united — 
more than half the way up. A. Perleyi has the pinnules united only — 
one-third of the way ; and whereas in the former they are divided by q 
a sharp gash, in the latter they are divided by a deep rounded sinus. _ 

“ Dedicated to the late M. H. Perley, Esq., H.M. Commissioner — 
of Fisheries and Vice-President of the Natural History of St John.” _ 


(Incerte sedis.) 


Cardiocarpum cornutum, Dawson (Fig. 194, A). Broadly ovate, — 
emarginate at base, dividing into two inflexed processes at top. A — 
mesial line proceeds from the sinus between the cusps, downward. — 
Nucleus more obtuse than the envelope, and acuminate at the top. 
Surface of the flattened envelope striate, that of the nucleus more or _ 
less rugose. Length about seven lines. Numerous in shale near St_ 
John. The specimens are all perfectly flattened, and many of them — 
are also distorted, being elongated or shortened according to the — 
direction in which they lie in the shale. The nucleus constitutes a 
strongly shaded spot of graphite. The flattened envelope appears as 
a less distinct wing or border. al 

Cardiocarpum obliquum, Dawson (Fig. 194, B). Unequally cor- 
date, acuminate, smooth, with a strong rib passing down the middle; — 
length about three lines. Found with the preceding. It somewhat 
resembles some of the forms of C. acutum, L. and H. 

Cardiocarpum Crampu, Hartt (Fig. 194, C). Elongate, sightiy ae 3 
expanding at the middle, obtuse at base, ehried or emarginate at apex, — % 
length one inch, greatest breadth -25 inch; nucleus small, central, 
oval, connected by a median line with the extremities; surface of 
margin slightly rugose. This fruit may at once be recognised by its — 
resemblance to the samara of an ash. It is dedicated to Mr Crome - 
of St John, a zealous collector of the Devonian plants. > | 

Cardiocarpum Baileyi, sp. noy. (Fig. 194, D). This anacal e 
discovered by Mr Hartt, is the largest and most beautiful of these # 
winged fruits as yet affdeded by the Devonian. — It is broadly corda Ea 


a ee ee 


es 


FLORA OF THE DEVONIAN. 555 


and emarginate at the apex, 1°5 inch broad, and one inch long, with 
a large broadly oval acuminate nucleus, and the usual mesial line. 
We have thus four distinct species of these mysterious winged seeds 
from the Devonian. They must have been fruits of trees, but whether 
of phenogams, or enormous winged spore cases of some eryptogamous 
plant, is uncertain. Their marginal wings show no venation what- 
ever, though preserved in shales which show very well the venation 
of ferns. The margin must have been membranous, and the nucleus 
thick and dense, that part appearing as a comparatively strong graphitic 
film, while the wing or margin is excessively tenuous. 


Fig. 194.—Devonian Fruits, ete. 


A, Cardiocarpum cornutum, F, Antholithes Devonicus. 

B, Cardiocarpum acutum. ts G, Annularia acuminata. 

C, Cardiocarpum Crampii. H, Asterophyllites acicularis, (H!'), Leaf. 
D, Cardiocarpum Baileyi. H?2, Fruit of the same. 

E, Trigonocarpum racemosum, K, Cardiocarpum (? young of A). 

(E},_E?.) Fruits enlarged. L, Pinnularia dispalans. 


Trigonocarpum racemosum, Dawson (Fig. 194, E). Ovate, ob- 
tusely acuminate, in some specimens triangular at apex. In flattened 
specimens the envelope appears as a wing. Attached in an alternate 
manner to a thick, flexuous, furrowed rachis. This is evidently a 
fruit or seed, borne in a racemose manner on a stout rachis. In 
some specimens the seeds are close to each other, in others more 


ad eS ato gh 


paw’ 


a ee ee ee 


Fate oe OLS 


- a Ser 
. 


Sg ans ae 


ao - b. 2h’ Cook en ~59e ie 6 eee 


a 


-as will aid in their identification. I trust that now, when so extensive __ 


556 THE DEVONIAN PERIOD. 


remote. Attached to some are apparently traces of calyx-leaves o "7 
bracts. Shales of St John. 
Antholithes Devonicus, sp. nov. (Fig. 194, E). Stipe thick, TUgOse 5 rf 
flowers distichous, Seat distant, each vik a strong, senate spine © 
or bract, and several broader scales. In some specimens a number of — 
slender threads (filaments or styles) are seen to project from between % 
the scales. This fossil is evidently of the same general character with 
the Antholithes of the Coal formation. ¥g 
I have to add to the above descriptions the remark, that I have been _ 
unable to figure the larger and finer ferns and other fossils of St John 
in a manner worthy of them. I have given merely such fragments 


; 


collections have been made, the means will be found to figure the finer __ 
specimens. In the meantime, after examining with care twelve large __ 

cases of these fossils, the property of the Natural History Society of | 
New Brunswick, I have arrived at the conclusion that we have nearly 
all the material necessary for a full illustration of most of the species, _ 
—a labour which I hope yet to complete. In examining this large _ 
collection, while I see much that throws new light on the species, it _ 
is a source of satisfaction to me that I have to retract so little of what 
I published on the evidence of comparatively imperfect material. ae 


Note.—Illustrations of several of the above species not figured in 
this work, will be found in the Author’s papers on the Devonian ; : 
plants of astern America in the Journal of the Geological Society, 
vols. xviii. and xix. r 


aed & 


0 PO ft ok Wea © 


; 


gene wwe Ne NS ce Tn tire tp 


? 


557 


CHAPTER XXIII. 
THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


UPPER SILURIAN OF NOVA SCOTIA—-OF NEW BRUNSWICK—USEFUL MIN- 
ERALS—FOSSIL REMAINS—-METAMORPHISM OF SEDIMENTS—IGNEOUS 
ROCKS. 


_ TTuar enormous mass of sediments constituting the Silurian system 
of Sir Roderick Murchison, is by some geologists divided into three 
_ portions—the Upper, Middle, and Lower. As will be seen, however, 
_ by reference to the table of geological cycles on p. 137, in North 
_ America this great system of formations represents two entire 
geological cycles, and no more. One of these has been named the 
Upper and the other the Lower Silurian; though, in accordance with 
ordinary geological nomenclature, each of these great groups, co- 
_ ordinate in importance with the Devonian and Carboniferous, might 
have a distinct name. The illustrious author of “ Siluria” has not, 
* in his latest edition (1867), claimed for the Silurian rocks this dis- 
_ tinction of constituting two systems ; but he has recognised the term 
4 Primordial, proposed by Barrande, in so far as to designate the lowest 
B members of the system as ‘ Brenviidiel Silurian.” While, however, 
the term Silurian as thus held includes two great eycles of the earth’s 
a _ history, the term Primordial is to be understood in a limited sense, 
since the only truly Primordial*rocks are the Laurentian, or those 
_ still older sediments from which the materials of the Laurentian have 
been in part derived. 
_ Acadia cannot, however, claim to be a typical region for any of 
these series of rocks, presenting them but in limited areas, and so 
much altered and disturbed, that their arrangement and subdivisions 
are by no means so clear as in the great inland plains of North America, 
We may therefore in this work rest content with the present nomen- 
clature, and proceed to consider the Upper Silurian as developed in 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. . 


il i ey ee ee TE ee 6 Bee aoe ey Oe ee 


ro 


SE 


TE fe ok oe ee One. 


558 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


1. Upper Silurian of Nova Scotia. 


oy 
On consulting the map, it will be observed that I have coloured as i 
Upper Silurian certain areas in Cape Breton, more particularly in { 
the eastern and northern parts; a very irregular hilly tract in Eastern 4 
Nova Scotia, commencing at Cape Porcupine and Cape St George, — 
and extending toward the Stewiacke River; the long narrow band of __ 
the Cobequid Mountains; and a belt of variable width skirting the 
northern side of the older or Lower Silurian. metamorphic district in 
the western counties. The area occupied by these rocks includes the 
highest land and the principal watersheds of Nova Scotia. 
Owing to the alteration and disturbance to which its rocks have 
been subjected, the structure of this district is much more complicated _ 
than that of those which have been described above, and its interior 3 
position causes it to present fewer good sections to the geologist. For — 
these reasons less attention has been devoted to it than to the Car- ~ 
boniferous districts, and the details of its structure are comparatively 
little known. In describing it, however, I shall endeavour to follow — 
the method previously pursued, by attending somewhat minutely to 
some of the best and most instructive exposures in coast and river 
sections, and applying the information obtained from these to the — 
eigciliniin of the true relations and structure of the remaining portions, — 3 
I shall then describe the important deposits of useful minerals which _ 
oceur in this group of rocks, and their fossil remains. In this order — ; 
of proceeding, it will be convenient to study first the development of — 
the formation in Eastern Nova Scotia, and to proceed westward, - . 
returning afterward to the Island of Cape Breton. >. 
At Cape Porcupine the igneous and metamorphic rocks come boldly 
out upon the Strait of Canseau, in a precipice 500 feet in height, and — 
afford a good opportunity of ae these rocks and their relations - i 
to the Carboniferous system. The central part of Cape Poreupine — 
is a mass of reddish syenite, consisting principally of red felspar and — 
hornblende. This once molten mass passes by gradual changes into 
hard flinty slates, which, in shattered and contorted layers, lean against _ 
its sides, and on these again rest beds of conglomerate, forming the 
base of the Carboniferous series, and made up of pebbles of syenite 
and flinty slate, like those of the cape itself. Here we can piainly 
read the following history :—First, Beds of mud deposited in the sea, 
probably in the Upper Silurian period. Secondly, These beds upheaved — 
and metamorphosed by the injection of the molten syenite. Thirdly, 
Large portions of the altered and igneous rock ground up into pebbles 
by water, and scattered over the sea-bottom to form the lowest layer 


. 


: 


a 
— 


’ NOVA SCOTIA 559 


f a new geological formation, the same that we have studied in pre- 
pane chapters. The structure of Cape Porcupine is represented in 
Fig. 195. 


"Fig. 195.—Arrangement of Syenite, Slate, and Conglomerate at Cape Porcupine. 


(a) Syenite. (b) Slate. (c) Conglomerate and Sandstone. 


* At Cape Porcupine the altered rocks of the group now under con- 
sideration occupy less than three miles of the coast section, and are 
separated by Carboniferous rocks and by Chedabucto Bay from the 
eastern extremity of the older metamorphic district of the Atlantic 
coast, distant about twenty-four miles. As Cape Porcupine affords 
no fossils, and can therefore tell nothing of the condition of the earth 
and its inhabitants at the time when these slates were deposited, we 
m ay proceed to trace the continuation of its rocks into the interior. 

~ From Cape Porcupine, the southern margin of the metamorphic rocks 
extends along the northern side of the Carboniferous district of Guys- 
borough for about sixty miles, when it meets the Lower Silurian rocks 
of the coast. In several places along this line, igneous action appears 
to have continued or to have recurred as late at least as the Coal 
formation period. This is testified by the condition of the Lower. 
Carboniferous rocks in many places near Guysborough, westward of 
which place a considerable promontory of altered and igneous rocks 
extends to the southward, nearly across the Carboniferous district. 

: The northern margin of the band, commencing at Cape Porcupine, 
“may be traced to the westward about forty miles, when it unites with 
a broader but very irregular promontory of similar rocks extending 
ql ibward Cape St George. Between these two bands is iricluded the 
Carboniferous district of Sydney County. The tract formed by their 
union is the widest extension of these rocks in the province. 

___ The metamorphic promontory extending to Cape St George, and 
including the Antigonish and Merigomish Hills, attains a greater 
slevation than the band connected with Cape Rorvenine, At its ex- 
‘tre mity, however, it becomes divided into a number of detached hills 
3 and ridges, separated by Lower Carboniferous beds, to which in some 
eases the metamorphic action has extended itself. The Antigonish 
and Merigomish Hills contain large masses of syenite, porphyr Ys 
_ compact felspar, and greenstone, associated with slates and quartzite.* 

— On their western side, near Arisaig, there is a patch of shale, slate, 
is Quartzite is a flinty rock produced by the hardening and alteration of sandstone. 


i 
| 


560 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


and thin-bedded limestone, with fossil shells, and but very little altered, — = 
to which we must return in the sequel in a more particular manner, 
The northern boundary of the broad band of metamorphic and — 
hypogene rocks, formed by the union of the two promontories already _ 
noticed, extends in a westerly direction along the south side of the 
Pictou Carboniferous district, until it reaches the east side of the East 
River of Pictou, when it suddenly bends to the south, allowing the 
Carboniferous strata to extend far up the valley of that river. Here, 
as at Arisaig, its margin includes fossiliferous slates, among which is __ 
a thick bed of iron-ore including fossil shells. With respect to these — 
fossils, I may remark that they are all marine, that they belong to — 


- numerous genera and species, and that they are all of distinct species _ 


from those of the formations before mentioned, there being a decided 
break between the fauna of the Upper Silurian and that of the 
Devonian period, and of course the Carboniferous fauna is still more _ 
remote in its characters. 

Both at Arisaig and the East River excellent opportunities are — 
afforded for studying the contrast between the Upper Silurian and the 4 
Carboniferous. The collector may, in the shales of Arisaig or the — 
slates of the East River Hills, collect a great number of marine species, _ 
some of them in a fine state of preservation, others distorted and ee a 
defaced by the partial alteration of the containing rocks. At both | 
places he can observe that the rocks containing these fossils have been — 
tilted up and hardened before the lowest beds of the Carboniferous — 
system were deposited. At both places he can find in these overlying 
Carboniferous rocks abundance of fossils, also marine, but entirely dis-_ 
tinct from those of the older group. He He finds that, in passing from — {. 
one of these formations to the other, he has passed from one great 
period of the earth’s history to a beans one, in which no trace 
remained of the animal population of the former. He has entered, _ 
in short, on a new stage of the creative work. ; 

Immediately on the east of the East River, the metamorphic band 
is about fifteen miles in breadth, and includes masses and dikes of 
syenite and greenstone, and beds of quartzite and slate, the latter of 
very various colour and texture. Beyond the East River, the meta- 
morphic band again widens; and between the upper part of the Middle 
River of Pictou and that of the west branch of the St Mary’s River 
(the point to which we have already traced its southern boundary) 
it forms a broad and irregular tract of metamorphic country. West- 
ward of this tract it becomes narrower, and, after extending between 
the Stewiacke and Salmon Rivers, sinks beneath the Carboniferous 
beds, while a group of detached masses of igneous and altered rock, 


NOVA SCOTIA. 561 


extending through Mount Thom, imperfectly connects it with the 
stern extremity of the Cobequid range of hills. In the hilly country 
connected with Mount Thom, and in the vicinity of the upper parts 
the Salmon, West, and Middle Rivers, considerable breadths of 
Lower Carboniferous strata have been partially metamorphosed, and 
invaded by greenstone and other igneous rocks. It is also quite pos- 
sible that portions of the rocks here cropping out from beneath the 
arboniferous may be Devonian. A mass of granite, containing dark 
ray felspar, abundance of black mica, and very little quartz, occurs 
on the east side of Mount Thom. This is the only instance, so far as 
Tam aware, of the occurrence of true granite in this group of rocks 
ir this part of Nova Scotia. 
The Cobequid Hills, extending nearly in an east and west direction 
_ for about ninety miles, in that part of Nova Scotia lying north of the 
southern arm of the Bay of Fundy, must be referred to the metamor- 
t phic group now under consideration. Both their stratified and igneous 
rocks are similar to those of the parts of this group already described. 
_ Fossils are absent or very rare in those parts of them which I have ex- 
_ plored, with the exception of Earlton, in the eastern extremity of the 
range, where there are slates containing fossils similar to those already 
noticed. I shall make no attempt to describe the numerous and 
_ singular varieties of altered and igneous rocks found in the Cobequid 
range, but shall content myself with a description of its structure 
in its central portion, which is illustrated by the general section 
attached to the map. 
_ On the northern side of the hills, near the post road from Truro to 
_ Amherst, and also on Wallace River, the lowest rocks of the Carbon- 
_ iferous system, consisting of eddie) brown conglomerates, are seen 
. at the base of the hills. Their dip is to the northward at a high angle. 
; ascending the hills, masses of red, flesh-coloured, and gray syenite 
are seen, and rise rapidly to the height of several hundred feet; the 
a orthern side of the range being steeper and more lofty shan the 
southern. The syenite of this part of the hills has often been described 
as a granite; but wherever I have observed it, it is a true syenite, 
- containing reddish or white felspar, black hornblende: and nearly 
colourless quartz. Some of the red varieties are large grained and 
very beautiful. The gray varieties are often fine grained, and appear 
_ to pass into greenstone. 
- It is remarkable that the syenite and greenstone of this part of the 
Mountain are traversed by numerous small veins of true granite. 
Whether these have been produced by segregation, or are parts of a 
later outburst of granitic rock, I cannot determine with certainty, but 
20 


oe 
a 


562 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


think the latter more probable. I am not aware that any masses of 
true granite occur here. It is, however, quite possible that after or 
during the cooling of the syenite, veins may have been injected | 
it fcr granitic masses below, which have not reached the surface. 

Penetrating further into the range, we find thick beds of dioritic — 
rock associated with slate and quartzite, of a great variety of colours : 
and textures. There appear to be also dikes of greenstone at some 4 
points, penetrated by a network of syenitic or felspathic veins. The — 
general course of the greenstone dikes coincides with that of the range 
of hills. Toward the southern side of the hills, gray quartzite, and — 
gray, olive, and black slate prevail, almost to the exclusion of igneous — 
rocks. The strike of these beds is nearly S.W. and N.E., with high 
dips to the southward. On the south they are bounded ani overlaid — a 
unconformably by Carboniferous conglomerate and sandstone. we 

The structure observed in this part of the chain appears to prevail — 
throughout; the syenitic rocks forming a broad band on the northern ~ 
side, and slate and quartz rock with dikes of igneous rock, probably _ 
of later date than those on the north side, occurring on the southern — 
ridges. The only exception to this that I am aware of is at the ex- 
treme eastern end, where the igneous rocks are less massive and the — 
syenite disappears. rf 

The Cobequid range presents a succession of finely wooded and 4 
usually fertile ridges ; aaa the chain is very continuous, though broken 
by some narrow transverse ravines. Many of the streams flowing from 
these hills plunge downward in fine cascades at the junction of the 
hard rocks with the softer Carboniferous beds. The most remarkable a 
of these waterfalls on the south side is that of the Economy River, on | 
the north side that of the principal branch of Waugh’s River. ; 

Passing from the Cobequid Mountains to the Slate hills of the south 
side of the Bay, in King’s County, we find slates not very dissimilar — 
from those of the Cobequids, in the promontory northward of the 
Gaspereaux River. Here the direction both of the bedding and of 
the slaty structure is N. E. and S.W.; but the planes of cleavage 
dip to the S.E., while the bedding, as indicated by lines of different 
colour, dips to the N.W. These slates, with beds of quartzite and 
coarse limestone, are continued in the hills of New Canaan, where | 
they contain crinoidal joints, fossil shells, corals, and in some beds of 
fawn-coloured slate beautiful fan-like expansions of the pretty Die- 
tyonema represented in Fig. 196. Very fine specimens of this fos- 
sil were found by the late Dr Webster of Kentville. It was the 
habitation of thousands of minute polypes, similar apparently to those 
of the modern Sertularta. The general strike of the rocks in New 


NOVA SCOTIA. 563 


Canaan is N.E. and S.W., and they extend from that place westward 
to the Nictaux River. Westward of Nictaux River, as already men- 
fioned in describing the Devonian, the beds of the Upper Silurian, as 


Fig. 196.—Dictyonema Websteri. 


(a) Portion enlarged. 


4 well as those of the last mentioned formation, are interrupted by great 
masses of granite, which form the hills along the south side of the 
_ Annapolis River, from a place called Paradise to Bridgetown, and 
with some interruptions nearly as far as the town of Annapolis. This 
granite is hardly distinguishable in its character from that of the south 
Tipoast of the province, except that it is perhaps more felspathic, and 
less largely and perfectly crystalline. Its age, as already stated, must 
be that of the newer Devonian or older Carboniferous. Near Paradise 
it is traversed by veins of reddish compact felspar, with crystals of 
 schorl and transparent smoky quartz. The latter mineral is found in 
_ yery large and beautiful crystals scattered in the surface rubbish, and 
is collected and sold by the inhabitants. 

_ Westward of Paradise, I have not traced the equivalents of the 
Upper Silurian; the Devonian beds, as already stated, appearing at 
Moose and Bear Rivers. At the Joggin near Digby, the slates, 
probably of this series, are broken up and much altered by masses or 
dikes of porphyritic rock. At one place here I found the strike of 
the bedding to be N. 15° E., while that of the slaty structure is N. 
45° E. Westward of this place the slates in a highly metamorphic 
condition continue with general N.E. and 8.W. strike to the coast 
of Clare, where a considerable breadth of country is occupied with 
olive and gray slates, quartz rock, and occasional dikes of greenstone. 
At Montengan these beds include veins of iron pyrites, one of them a 
foot in thickness. I have not been able to observe the junction of the 
group now under consideration with the metamorphic district of the 
Atlantic coast; but I think it probable that the limit of the altered 
Upper Silurian rocks in this direction is near Beaver River. . 

With respect to the age of these rocks, it is certain that the fossil- 


. to those of the Cobequid Mountains, and probably attaining an eque al ; 


564 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


iferous parts are Upper Silurian. Some portions of the altered rocks 
may, however, be either Devonian or Lower Silurian. The first up-— 
heaval and alteration of the beds must have occurred long before the — 
beginning of the Carboniferous period, but igneous action continued, — 
especially in the eastern part of the province, during and perhaps after — 
that period. In their original state these slates and quartz rock, and _ 
their iron ore, must ae been shales, sandstone, and iron sand, 
abounding in fossil remains, and with layers of caleareous matter mostly _ 
made up of shells and corals. Over large tracts the fossils have been 
obliterated by metamorphism, and a perfect slaty structure has been — 
induced. ‘2 
In Cape Breton, rocks similar to those above described constitute — 
the several irregular tracts of metamorphic and igneous country to — 
which the colour of this group has been assigned. Syenite and por- 
phyry are extensively developed in a line extending from St Peter's 
along the east side of the Bras d’Or, in the country between little Bras __ 
d’Or and the East Arm, in the high ridge extending to Cape Dauphin, _ 
in the hills near the Bedeque, Middle, and Margarie Rivers, in those — 
near Mabou, and in the irregular tract at the sources of the Tnhabitanii 
River, and River Denys. Slates are associated with them in these - 
ee but I am not aware that they contain any fossils. e 4 
I am informed by Mr Brown that the elevated region occupying the 
extreme northern part of Cape Breton, and of which I have seen only — 
the southern borders, consists, at least in the vicinity of the coas 7 
principally of red syenite and mica slate. Its interior is entirely 
unknown to geologists; but from its appearance as viewed from a 
distance, I infer that it consists of a number of elevated ridges similar 


3 
4 
7 

4 
e 


elevation. The patches of Lower Carboniferous rocks which appedty 
at intervals along its margin, indicate that, like the Cobequids, it 
formed a rocky island in the seas of the Carboniferous period.* = 

We may now return to those portions of the rocks whose distri- _ 
bution has been sketched above, in which fossil remains indicative of — 
their geological age have been found. The most important and in- 
structive of these is Arisaig, in the county of Antigonish, a locality 
to which the writer first directed the attention of geologists in a paper 
published in the Journal of the Geological Society in 1848, and more | 
fully in a paper published in the “ Canadian Naturalist,” vol. v.; and 
which has subsequently been more minutely described by Dr Honey- 
man.+ For a knowledge of its fossils we are indebted principally to 
Professor Hall, who described forty new species from this place in con- 


* See Appendix. t+ Journal of the Geological Society, 1864. 


NOVA SCOTIA. 565 


nexion with the paper above referred to in the “Canadian Naturalist,” 
having examined all the specimens in my collection, with a consider- 
able number of additional species kindly given to me by Dr Honey- 
nan. Next to this is the locality on the east branch of the East 
River, referred to in the first edition of this work, and from which I 
have lately obtained additional collections made by Mr D. Fraser of 
Springhill. Another locality, to which attention was first directed by 
D prenner, and Dr Webster of Kentville, is that of New Canaan, in 
ing’s County. I shall notice these in detail, and with them a few 
pther places where similar fossils have been atelitel 
_ Arisaig.—Near this place, at the extreme northern limit of the 
* Silurian system on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, is one of the 
= ost instructive sections of these rocks in the province. At the 
astern end of the section, where they are unconformably overlaid by 
Riowe: Carboniferous ENT and interstratified trap,* the 
= rocks consist of gray and reddish sandy shales and coarse 
limestone bands dipping south at an angle of 44°. The direction of 
the coast is nearly east and west, and in proceeding to the eastward, 
the dip of the beds turns to south 30° west, dipping 45°, so that the 
series, though with some faults and flexures, is on the whele descend- 
ing, and exhibits, in succession to the rocks just mentioned, gray and 
dark shales, cal bands and lenticular patches of coarse limestone, 
= of which appear to consist principally of brachiopodous shells 
_ insitu, while others present a confused mass of drifted fossils. Below 
these the beds become more argillaceous, and in places have assumed 
a slaty structure, and occasionally a red colour. The thickness of 
he whole series to this point was estimated at 500 feet. The dip 
EB ~ then returns to the south, and the beds run nearly in the strike of the 
_ shore for some distance, syiek they become discoloured and ochraceous, 
and then red and hagheced: and finally, at Arisaig Pier, are dishged 
~ into a coarse reddish itil jasper, where they come into contact 
_ with a great dike of augitic trap of Carboniferous date. Beyond this 
_ place they are much disturbed, and, so far as I could ascertain, desti- 
tute of fossils; but Dr Honeyman has detected fossils in their con- 
- tinuation at Doctor’ s Brook. The alteration of the beds extends to a 
- distance of 300 yards from the trap, and beyond this in some places 
slaty cleavage and reddish colours have been produced; the latter 
change appearing to be connected with vertical fissures traversing the 
In the lower or shaly portion of the Arisaig series, the characteristic 
- fossils are Graptolithus not distinguishable from G. Clintonensis, Lepto- 


* See my paper on Eastern Nova Scotia, J. Geol. Soe.; 1844. Section ante. 


566 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


celia (Atrypa) intermedia (Hall), a new species closely allied to Z. 
hemispherica of the Clinton group of New York, Airypa emacerata, 
Orthis testudinaria, Strophomena profunda, S. rugosa, Rhynchonella 
equiradiata, Avicula emacerata, Tentaculites, allied to or identical with —_ 
T. distans, Helopora allied to H. fragilis. There are also abundant 
joints and stems of crinoids, and a Paleaster, the only one as yet 
found in Nova Scotia, ic was presented to me by Dr Honeyman, 
and has been described by Mr Billings in the “ Canadian Naturalist” 
under the name of P. par viusculus. These and other fossils associ- 
ated with them, in the opinion of Professor Hall, fix the Geological v4 
position of these rocks as that of the Clinton group, the Upper Llan- . 
-dovery of Murchison, in the central part of the Upper Silurian. “4 
In the upper and more calcareous part of the series, fossils are very 
abundant, and include species of Calymene, Dalmania, Homalonotus, 
Orthoceras, Murchisonia, Clidophorus, Tellinomya, and several bra- 
chiopods, among which are Discina tennuilamellata, Lingula oblonga, _ 
Rhynchonella quadricosta, R. Saffordi (Hall), allied to R. Wilsoni, R. | 
neglecta, Atrypa reticularis, all found in the Upper Silurian elsewhere _ 
in America. Most of the other forms are new species, descriptions — 
of which have been given in Professor Hall’s paper. The general ta 


such a character as to warrant the belief that we may hanes in these 
beds a series somewhat higher in position, and probably equivalent — 4 
to the Lower Helderberg, the Ludlow of the English geologists. The 
new species Chonetes Nova-Scotica is very characteristic of the upper 
member. > | 

On the whole, we must regard the Arisaig series as representing _ 
the middle and upper parts of the Upper Silurian, a position some- 
what lower than that assigned to it in the first edition of “Acadian 
Geology.” In explanation of this, I may further state that, in papers — 
published previously to 1855, I foal regarded these rocks as Silurian; 
and that it was only in seleecaee to the opinions of able paleontologists, 
both in Britain and America, who compared the fossils with those of — 
the Hamilton group, that I abandoned this view, returning to itin 
1859, when enabled to do so by Professor Hall’s examination of the — 
fossils, the results of which were published in 1860. It is only just 
to Dr Honeyman to state, that he had independently stated similar — 
conclusions in Nova Scotia in 1859. Unfortunately the Arisaig— 
series stands alone, wedged between Carboniferous and Plutonic rocks, — 
so that little opportunity occurs on the coast of verifying the con- 
clusions derived from fossils, by the evidence of stratigraphical con-— 
nexion with newer or older Silurian deposits, and I have been unable — 


NOVA SCOTIA. 567 


to devote sufficient time to this object to attempt to trace the beds in 
_ their succession or continuation inland. 

Dr Honeyman has addressed himself with some success to the work 
of tracing the relations and continuation of the beds exposed in the 
: Arisaig section, and has published an interesting paper on the subject 
_ in the Journal of the Geological Society (1864). In this paper he 
_ divides the whole series seen at Arisaig into five sub-sections, noted 
_ respectively in ascending order as A, B, B’, C, D. He distinguishes 
_ the groups A and B from my Lower Arisaig series, which he regards 
as equivalent to his groups B’ and C, while D is the equivalent of 
my Upper Arisaig series. 

Group A, of Dr Honeyman’s paper, includes the altered jaspideous 
shales seen near Arisaig Pier, and the gray argillaceous and arenaceous 
shales of Doctor’s Brook. Dr Honeyman mentions, as occurring in 
them, species of Orthoceras, Murchisonia, Strophomena, Orthis, Rhyn- 
chonella, Calymene, Cornulites, Tentaculites, and Petraia (?), and, on 
the authority of Mr Salter, regards them as equivalents of the English 
Mayhill sandstone, a srrothibasti of the Upper Llandovery series. Their 
thickness is estimated at 200 feet. 

Groups B and B’ include principally dark and ferruginous shales. 
One of the most characteristic fossils of which is Graptolithus Clinto- 
nensis. ‘They contain also Tentaculites, joints of crinoids, Strophomena 
depressa, and other fossils; and Dr Honeyman has added in his paper 
two species of Grammysia, G. triangulata, and G. cingulata, and 
several other fossils not determined as to species. This group is 
regarded by Dr Honeyman and Mr Salter as equivalent to the Lower 
Ludlow of England, which is above the horizon of the American 
Clinton and Niagara. 

Group C, which is also characterized by fossils in the main Clinton 
in character, is regarded by Dr Honeyman and Mr Salter as the 
equivalent of the subordinate group known in England as the Ay- 
mestry limestone. The beds of this group are harder than those of 
the last and more calcareous; and in addition to the fossils mentioned 
above as characteristic of the Lower Arisaig series, Dr Honeyman 
mentions Rhynchonella Saffordi, Spirifer rugaecosta, and some other 
fossils previously regarded by me as characteristic of the upper series, 
and which indicate that this group includes the transition from the 
lower to the upper member. 

Group D, of Dr Honeyman’s paper, is equivalent to my Upper 
Arisaig series, and contains a great number of fossils, some of which 
are of Lower Helderberg or Upper Ludlow types, and so strikingly 
resemble those figured by Sir R. Murchison in his “ Siluria,” as char- 


I ke a as 6 ee eke 


568 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


acteristic of that group, that the most cursory glance would assure a J : 
geologist of their probable identity. Yet, as observed by Professor — 


Hall, there is also a mixture of forms looking toward a much lower 
part & the Upper Silurian series; and it is worthy of notice that — 


Hall, comparing the fossils with those of New York, gives tothe 
upper members of the series a rather lower or older place than that — 
assigned by Salter in comparison with English fossils, taking as our — 
standard the equivalency of formations in England and America as _ 
usually recognised. As the species are in great part different from — 


those of England and America, this slight difference of result may 


depend merely on defective data, and may be explained when larger 


materials have been collected, and when we shall be in a position to 


make allowance for the geographical as well as geological relations of — 


the formations. On either view the equivalent of the Niagara or 
Wenlock series does not appear, and we may suppose it absent, or 
that an upward extension of Clinton forms occupies the Niagara period. 

Merigomish—Dr Honeyman has traced the fossiliferous Upper 
Silurian along the hilly country crossing the upper waters of the 
rivers of Merigomish, connecting the Arisaig rocks with those next 


to be noticed on the East River of Pictou. What may be the arrange- 3 q 
ment of the beds in this thick band of slaty rocks is not certainly 
known, but they appear to contain equivalents of the Upper Arisaig 


series and also beds with Graptolithus Clintonensis, and others con- 
taining nodules charged with Zingule. Below these are beds with 


Petraia (?) and Cornulites, which may be equivalents of the lowest __ 
group at Arisaig. On the north, these rocks are overlaid by the 
Carboniferous rocks of the coast. Ou the south, they are continuous, — 
with a broad belt of metamorphic and igneous rocks, the former of ~ 
similar mineral character, extending across the country to the valley __ 
of the St Mary’s River. The only locality in which fossils have as 


yet been discovered in this broad belt is at Lochaber Lake, where 
Dr Honeyman has found some of the Arisaig fossils and also a species 
of Zaphrentis, a form which, with some other obscure fossils found at 
this place, would seem to indicate the presence of beds possibly newer 
than those of Arisaig. The occurrence of these fossils at Lochaber, 
as well as the mineral character of the beds, shows that a belt of 
country about fifteen miles in breadth is here occupied principaliy by 
Upper Silurian rocks, probably thrown into a series of synclinal and 
anticlinal folds, and penetrated by considerable masses sand dikes of 
Syenitic and Dieme rock. 

East River of Pictou—We next find the fossiliferous Upper 
Silurian rocks on the east branch of the East River of Pictou, 


NOVA SCOTIA. 569 


_ and its vicinity, where these deposits rise from beneath the Lower 
Carboniferous series, forming the high ground on the eastern side 
of the river. The beds are here much altered, and penetrated by 
igneous dikes, and are vertical, or with very high southerly dips 
and N.E. and §.W. strike. They consist of coarse slates and 
calcareous bands resembling those of the Upper Arisaig series in 
mineral character, and holding many of the same species, especially 
Chonetes Nova-Scotica ; but we have here in addition a great bed 
of fossiliferous peroxide of iron, in some parts forty feet in thickness, 
and with oolitie structure; but passing into a ferruginous sandstone, 
and associated with slate and quartz rock. The precise age of 
these ferruginous rocks relatively to the Arisaig series, it is not 
easy to determine, but they are evidently Upper Silurian. The 
stratigraphical evidence, though obscure, would place them in the 
upper part of the series. The fossils are in a bad state of pre- 
servation; but, in so far as they give any information, it coincides 
with the apparent relation of the beds. Similar ferruginous beds 
occur in the Clinton series (the Surgent of Rogers) in New York 
and Canada; and as we have already seen in the Lower Devonian 
in the western part of Nova Scotia. On the whole, I regard 
the beds seen at the East River of Pictou as belonging to the 
same line of outcrop with the Arisaig series, but as probably 
containing, in addition to the upper member of that series, beds 
somewhat higher in position. 
I am indebted to Mr D. Fraser of Springville, East River, for 
a large addition to my collection from this place; by the aid of 
which I am now enabled to present the following list, which has 
been kindly revised by Mr Billings. Unfortunately, many of the 
specimens were in a condition too imperfect to permit of satisfactory 
specific determination, and Mr Billings, with proper caution, declined 
to give them specific names for the present, in the hope that better 
materials might be found. The species common to the East River 
and Arisaig are indicated by an asterisk. 
* Chonetes Nova-Scotica, Hall, very characteristic of certain hard 
calcareous bands. 
C. tenuistriata, Hall. 
Strophomena, flat striated species. 
Spirifera, resembling S. cycloptera, but with regular ribs. 
* Spirifera rugaecosta, Hall. 
* Spirifera subsulcata, Hall. 
Rhynchonella (?) n.s., like R. transversa, Hall. This and another 
species very abundant in hard impure limestone. 


570 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


* Atrypa reticularis. 

* Crania(?) Acadiensis. 4 
Athyris (Meristella) didyma, a characteristic European Upper — 

Silurian shell. 7 
Lingula. 

* Megambonia striata. 
Megambonia (?) n. 8. 
Clidophorus (?) n. 8. 

Pterinea or Megambonia. 
Orthonata or Nuculites (?) n.s. 

* Bucania trilobita, Hall. 
Murchisonia, two species. 
Platyceras. 

* Orthoceras spunctostriatum, Hall. Some specimens found at 
East River, with the external markings of this species, are 
as much as two inches in diameter. 

Orthoceras (?) n.s. 
Cyrtoceras (?) n.s. 

* Cornulites flecuosa, and probably another species. 

Beyrichia, two or more species. 

Calymene Blumenbachit. 

Serpulites. 

* Stenopora allied to S. fibrosa. 4 

Cobequid Mountains.—At the eastern end of this chain, in Earlton — 
and New Annan, though the rocks are generally in a highly meta- _ 
morphosed condition, fossils are found in a few places; and in so — 
far as I have been able to determine from very small suites of speci- — 
mens, are those of the Arisaig series. From the apparent continuity — 
of strike along this long salient line of outcrop, it seems probable that 
these fossils indicate the true age of the greater part of the sedi- 
mentary rocks of the Cobequid Hills; a conclusion confirmed by 
their similarity in mineral character to the altered equivalents of 
the Arisaig and East River series as seen elsewhere. There aré, 
however, some indications of beds of Devonian age, along the flanks — 

of these hills, especially at their eastern end. The arrangement b 

of the beds and their mineral contents, in the central part of the — 

chain, will be found noticed in my paper of 1849, already referred 
to. They are not known to contain beds of iron ore; but have 
enormous vein-like deposits of spathic and specular iron associated 
with the carbonates of lime and magnesia, and running with the strike 
of the beds. These will be described in the section relating to 
useful minerals. = 


Or  ——— —————— 


— 


a 


, ae an Le ee. 


NOVA SCOTIA. 571 


New Canaan.—Between the East River of Pictou and New 
Canaan, in King’s County, 100 miles distant, I know no Silurian 
beds with fossils south of the Cobequid Hills; and in the central 
part of the province these rocks disappear under the Carboniferous 
deposits. In the hills of Horton and New Canaan they reappear, 
and constitute the northern margin of a broad belt of metamorphic 
and plutonic country, occupying here nearly the whole breadth 
of the peninsula. The oldest fossiliferous beds seen are the fine 
fawn-coloured and gray clay slates of Beech Hill, in which Dr 
Webster, many years since, found the beautiful Dictyonema, men- 
tioned in a previous page. It is a new species, closely allied to 
D. retiformis and D. gracilis of Hall, and has received the name 
of D. Websteri, in honour of its discoverer. It is most readily 
characterized by the form of the cellules, which are very distinctly 
marked in the manner of Graptolithus. A portion of a frond 
is represented in Fig. 196. 

The Dictyonema slates of Beech Hill are of great thickness, but 
have in their upper part some hard and coarse beds. They are 
succeeded to the south by a great series of dark coloured coarse 
slates, often micaceous, and in some places constituting a slate 
conglomerate, containing small fragments of older slates, and 
occasionally pebbles of a gray vesicular rock, apparently a trachyte. 
In some parts of this series there are bands of a coarse laminated 
magnesian and ferruginous limestone, containing fossils which, 
though much distorted, are in parts still distinguishable. They 
consist of joints of crinoids, casts of brachiopodous shells, trilobites 
and corals. Among the latter are two species of Astrocerium, 
not distinguishable from A. pyriforme and venustum of the Nia- 
gara group, and a Heliolites allied to H. elegans, if not a variety 
of this species. On the evidence of these fossils, and. the more 
obscure remains associated with them, Professor Hall regards 
these beds as equivalents of the Niagara formation of the New 
York geologists, the Wenlock’ of Murchison. Their general strike 
is N.E. and 8.W.; and to the southward, or in the probable 
direction of the dip, they are succeeded, about six miles from 
Beech Hill, by granite. They have in general a slaty structure 
coinciding with the strike but not with the dip of the beds, and 
this condition is very prevalent throughout this inland metamor- 
phic district, where also the principal mineral veins usually run 
with the strike. The beds just described run with S.W. strike 
for a considerable distance, and are succeeded in ascending order 
by beds holding the fossils of the Upper Arisaig series, which are 


eee, Ce.” 


572 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


either but slightly developed or obscured by imperfect exposures, 
and on these rest the Lower Devonian slates and iron ore of 
Nictaux, already described. 

Regarding the above as the most typical and most thoroughly. j 
explored portions of the Upper Silurian of Nova Scotia, it is important _ 
to attain to as correct notions as possible as to their equivalency 
with the beds of that system elsewhere. In estimating this, we 
must bear in mind the fact that they belong to the Eastern or 
Atlantic slope of America, in which the Upper Silurian rocks 
are not only more altered by heat and chemical agents than in 
the great central plain west of the Alleghanies, but appear to have 
differed in the original character of the deposits. These would seem 
to have been more affected by local differences of deposition, so as 
to produce great diversities of mineral character within limited 
distances. They seem also on the whole to have been more argil- 
laceous and less calcareous. These considerations may serve to 
account for the apparant absence of the great Niagara formation, 
the equivalent of the English Wenlock, from the Arisaig section, 
while the Clinton is greatly developed; and the Niagara formation, 
under a peculiar modification, occurs in considerable thickness 
at New Canaan and Kentville. Beyond the limits of Nova Scotia, 
the Upper Silurian of Southern New Brunswick and of the State 
of Maine presents much resemblance both in its mineral character 
and fossils to the Arisaig group in Nova Scotia. On the other 
hand, in Northern New Brunswick and Gaspé, beyond the great 
Lower Silurian belt of Northern New Brunswick, the Upper Silurian 
becomes more calcareous, and differs much in its fossils from the 


Upper Silurian of Nova Scotia. The Island of Anticosti presents 


another development of the lower part of the Upper Silurian not 
hitherto recognised in Nova Scotia. 

In the presence of so great local diversity, it seems chimerical to 
compare our Upper Silurian either with the fine and regular series of 
New York and Upper Canada (Ontario) or with the English series. 
It must be admitted, however, that, in a general way, the Nova Scotia 
Upper Silurian presents in its fossils characters in some respects inter- 
mediate between the American and European series, and therefore 
comparable with either or both. As the general result of the facts 
already stated, in their bearing on these questions, I may state the 
following conclusions :—(1.) The Upper Arisaig and Nictaux series 
may be regarded as on the horizon of the Lower Helderberg of 
New York and the Ludlow of England, though with some older 
forms among their fossils. (2.) The New Canaan beds are probably 


NOVA SCOTIA. 573 


equivalent to the Niagara of New York and the Wenlock of England. 
(3.) The Lower Arisaig series represents the Clinton of New York, 
and the Upper Llandovery series of England, with perhaps a 
portion of the time elsewhere represented by the Wenlock or 
Niagara. (4.) It is not improbable that the fossiliferous rocks re- 
eognised by Dr Honeyman at Doctor’s Brook may represent a some- 
what lower member of the Upper Silurian, but still probably not so 
low as the Medina and Oneida of New York, or the Lower Llan- 
dovery of England. I entertain no doubt that farther and more 
minute investigation will make the details of our Nova Scotian and 
New Brunswick Upper Silurian more complete. I think, however, 
that the above general comparison will continue in the main to hold 
good. In my own limited researches, I have found much difficulty 
to arise from the want of identity of the fauna with that of typical 
Silurian localities, from the imperfect preservation and frequent dis- 
tortion of the fossils, and from the difficulty of tracing the succession 
of the contorted and faulted beds. These. difficulties can only be 
finally overcome by detailed surveys and extensive collection of 
specimens. In the meantime, much caution is necessary in writing 
on the subject. 


2. Upper Silurian of New Brunswick. 


I have coloured certain limited areas in Southern New Brunswick 
as Upper Silurian, on evidence which I think indisputable, collected 
principally by Mr Matthew and Professor Bailey, and detailed in a 
paper by the former in the Journal of the Geological Society, and in 
the Report of the latter on the Geology of Southern New Brunswick. 
From these sources the following statements are taken. These rocks 
constitute the ‘“ Kingston Group” of the last mentioned Report, from 
which I quote the following description :— / 

“The peninsula of Kingston, constituting the neck of land lying 
between the Long Reach and the Kennebeckasis in the county of 
King’s, has heretofore been deséribed as a region composed solely of 
eruptive rocks, such as trap, syenite, and greenstone, and in previous 
geological maps has been undistinguished from the widely different 
voleanic beds which occur in other portions of the province. In 
reality this group of rocks is quite distinct, and is of very uniform as 
well as remarkable characters. 

“To describe the district as wholly a volcanic one is essentially 
erroneous. Although beds of such an origin are abundant, and taken 
collectively occupy much space, they are seldom purely eruptive, being 
invariably associated with aqueous deposits, and being themselves for 


574 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


the most part of a stratified metamorphic character. The whole 


peninsula is of sedimentary origin, and in some portions, aqueous — 


deposits have alone been concerned in its formation. Although 


occupying an extensive area, little variety is apparent, the group 7 


consisting principally of compact felspathic rocks, with some chloritie 
slates and numerous beds of interstratified greenstone or diorite. 

“Three parallel bands, differing slightly in character, and running 
the entire length of the peninsula, may be distinguished. 

“The first, forming the southern side of the peninsula, and skirting 
the north shore of the Kennebeckasis in a series of very bold and 
remarkably picturesque cliffs, is largely schistose, and extends with 
an almost unbroken front from the Milkish to Hampton Ferry. Near 
the latter place and opposite Darling’s Island, the group is represented 
by the following rocks :— 


“ Gray gneiss (?) or altered micaceous sandstone, with small crystals 


of red felspar.—Str. N. 60° E. 
“‘ Greenstone or diorite. 
“ Porphyritic felspathic schist of a pink colour, weathering white. 
“ Gray felspathic quartzite, injected with quartz veins. 
“ Grayish white altered slate. 


“The whole series is nearly vertical, and no satisfactory dip 


could be ascertained. My impression is that the taney is to 
the north. 

“Tn the neighbourhood of Clifton, rocks of the same band contain 
large masses of chlorite and epidote, with veins of specular iron. 


“The second band of rocks alluded to, although passing insensibly __ 


into the last, differs from it chiefly in the much greater abundance of 
altered sandstones and bedded greenstones, with a comparative in- 


frequency of slaty beds. The greenstones or diorites are interstratified 


with compact felspathic rocks, varying from white to pale pink, the 


latter at times associated with and passing into fine-grained syenite 
/and syenitic gneiss. Slates are comparatively rare, and when oc- 
curring, are sometimes chloritic and sometimes micaceous, being also, 


as arule, much twisted. Like the members of the first division, these 


' rocks also contain chlorite and epidote. The group may be readily 


seen in the village of Kingston, or along the Land’s End at the south- 
west extremity of the peninsula. 

“The third band, into which the last insensibly passes by the 
absence of its hedded diorites, occupies principally the northern side 


of the peninsula, where it is represented by a comparatively uniform — 
series of clay and chloritic slates. Though not so numerous asin the — 
centre and south of the district, trap beds are present, and at times — 


Ee 


ST = 


NEW BRUNSWICK. 575 


rise into bold ridges. This is especially the case near the middle of 
the Reach, where they produce some interesting scenery. 

“The rocks of the Kingston group, besides occupying the peninsula 
which properly bears that name, extend to the eastward within the 
_ limits represented on the map. Like most of the older formations 
in this part of the province, they are progressively covered to the 
eastward by Carboniferous rocks. They extend, however, on the 
south as far as Dickie Mountain, near Norton Station, and upon the 
north within a few miles of Belleisle Point, forming two bands, 
separated by a valley now occupied by Carboniferous sandstones 
and limestones. 

“On the northern shore of the Long Reach, lying between the main 
river and the granites of the Nerepis, is a band of rocks which I have, 
with some doubt, referred to the group now under consideration. I 
have not been able to examine this district in sufficient detail to fully 
establish its relative age, but have connected it with the Kingston 
rocks, for the following reasons :— 

“1st. At the extremity of Oak Point, towards the head of the 
Reach, and in the rocky islands occurring in this neighbourhood, the 
beds are undoubtedly connected with those of Kingston. At Oak 
Point two varieties occur, interstratitied with each other. 

“(a.) Very hard, black and green bedded diorite, with cale spar, 
chlorite, and epidote. 

“(b.) Light-coloured fine-grained felspathic rocks, graduating into 
coarser beds of syenite and syenitic gneiss. (General strike, N. 50° E, 
Dip N?). These latter are undoubtedly altered sandstones and con- 
glomerates. 

“2d. Rocks similar to the above seem to form a well defined band 
extending westward as far as the Nerepis. At Jones’ Creek they 
are well exposed in thick beds, and apparently rest on a still thicker 
series of blue and gray altered slates. These latter are little dis- 
turbed, having a strike about east and west, and a southerly dip 
of 62°. : 

“« Along the line of the Nerepis, and in the neighbourhood of the 
Douglas Arms, altered rocks similar to the above in their granitoid 
aspect occur, and are probably a continuation of the same series. 

“ Between these and the great granite range of the Nerepis valley, 
altered sandstones and slates, diorite, felsite, and cherty quartzite, 
occur. 

“ Tt will thus be seen that the band of rocks now under consideration 
resembles those of Kingston, in the presence of felspathic and green- 
stone beds, while it differs principally in the abundance of coarse 


‘ma? 


i ee ee Be ee Eh 


O76 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


syenite, and syenitic gneiss. The rocks of Oak Point seem to be a 


connecting link between the two. 


“To the southwestward of the series last described, and directly _ 
opposite the termination of the Kingston peninsula, the nature and — d i 
relations of the rocks are no longer doubtful. The abundance of pale __ 


pink felsites and felspathic quartzites, with beds of interstratified 
greenstone, at once recalls the rocks of Kingston, and indicates an 
extension of this series to the westward. Except along the line of the 


main river, however, their development in this direction is little known, q 


the district being as yet wholly unsettled. Rocks probably forming 


a part of the same series appear far to the south-west, along the New _ 


River, in the County of Charlotte. (See the Geological Map.) 
“ While the rocks of Kingston have thus been shown to occupy an 


extensive district, west and north of the St John River, along both © 


shores of the Reach, observations in other localities would seem to 
indicate a corresponding easterly extension. 


“Tt has already been stated that, while occupying the entire peninsula — 4 


from which their name has been derived, these rocks may be traced to 
the eastward in two diverging ridges, the one terminating at Dickie 


Mountain, near Norton Station, the other at a short distance below the —_— 
head of Belleisle Bay. Stretching along the northern side of the latter, 
and forming the watershed between the tributaries of the Belleisle and 
Washademoak Rivers, is a ridge of rocks, somewhat variable in com- 
position and of moderate elevation, which, though exhibiting some __ 

peculiarities, can with difficulty be distinguished from the deposits of 


Kingston and the Reach.” 


In Professor Bailey’s Report these rocks are described in detail, as : 
they occur at Bull Moose Hill, Belleisle Corner, and Kars. The © 


following remarks may be made with reference to their age and strati- 
graphical relations :— 

(1.) A series of specimens were submitted by Professor Bailey to 
the author and Dr Hunt, with the results stated in the following 
words :— j 

“In regard to the probable age of these rocks, Dr Hunt does not 


regard them as very like anything he knows in Canada. They are d 
not like the Quebec group or the Laurentian, our two principal series 


of metamorphic rocks in Lower Canada. 7 
“Tn comparing them with Nova Scotia, I have no hesitation in 
saying that they are unlike our Atlantic coast series, which I believe 
to be Lower Silurian, but that they are very like the rocks of the 
Cobequid Mountains and of the inland hills of Eastern Nova Scotia, 
which I believe to be Middle and Upper Silurian. This is the age to 


NEW BRUNSWICK. 577 


- which I would therefore be inclined to refer your rocks, though I 
_ would not affirm that they may not include Lower Devonian, which 
in Nova Scotia are altered with the Upper Silurian. 
a “T regard your specimens as altered sediments, though some of the 
_ felspathic and hornblendic ones may be true Plutonic rocks.” 
(2.) Mr Matthew has found, in loose fragments, near St John, pro- 
bably derived from these rocks, the following fossils :—Chonetes, 
Pterinea or Avicula, Clidophorus, Orthis, Rhynchonella (?), Leptodo- 
mus (?), ete.; and still more recently specimens have been obtained 
from undoubted members of the Kingston group, in which the follow- 
ing characteristic Upper Silurian assemblage of genera occurs, though 
in a state too imperfect for specific determination. 
The genera are Dalmania, Phacops, Orthoceras (2 species), Murchi- 
sonia (2 species), Loxonema, Holopea (?), Lucina (?) or Anatina (?), 
Avicula (?), Leptodomus (?), Spirifer, Chonetes (?), Atrypa, Rhyn- 
chonella (?), Retzia (?), Strophomena, Orthis, Discina, Favosites, 
Zaphrentis (2 species), Syringopora (?), and other corals. From 
Frye’s Island also, in the south-western extension of these rocks, 
Upper Silurian fossils have been obtained. 
(3.) A comparison of these rocks with those in Maine, in their line 
of strike, and ascertained by Hitchcock to be Upper Silurian, confirms 
- the above evidence from mineral character and fossils. 
One source of perplexity in the determination of these rocks arises 
from the fact that, in the vicinity of St John, the Devonian rests on 
the Lower Silurian without the intervention of Upper Silurian beds. 
This, as Mr Matthew suggests, may be accounted for by denudation, 
or by the elevation of the Lower series before the deposition of the 
Upper. In Maine, however, it would seem that these rocks appear in 
their regular sequence below the Devonian. 
It will be observed that, as in Nova Scotia, the Upper Silurian 
sediments are more argillaceous and less calcareous than the beds of 
this age in the more inland parts of the continent, and that they are 
also much more metamorphosed. “In both of these particulars we shall 
find a decided difference in the Upper Silurian of Northern New 
Brunswick, next to be noticed. 
_ A glance at the map will enable the reader to perceive, extending 
south-west from Bathurst, in the Bay de Chaleur, that broad and 
rugged belt of altered Lower Silurian and Plutonic rocks, the terror 
of railway engineers, which forms the natural limit of Acadia on the 
north-west, and separates the Coal-field of New Brunswick from the 
Upper Silurian valley of the Restigouche and Upper St John, the debate- 
able land, in point of physical geography, between the high lands of 
2P 


578 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


the Nepisiguit which belong to New Brunswick, and the high lands 
of Rimouski and Gaspé which belong to the Province of Quebec. 
This belt of very ancient rocks was probably a physical barrier even _ 


as early as the Upper Silurian period ; for on passing it we find in the 


valleys of the Restigouche and the neighbouring streams beds of 
highly calcareous and fossiliferous Upper Silurian rock identical in — 
character with those of Gaspé, and differing both in mineral character 
and the assemblage of fossils from those which we have just been — 
studying. The southern limit of this Upper Silurian area, in so far 


as it is known, may be seen on the map; and its structure may be — 


learned from the following description by Professor Hind of the see- 
tion at Cape Bon Ami, near Dalhousie. The section is in ascending ~ 
order, and the dips are to the northward at an angle of 45°. 
1. Trap. 
2. Caleareous shales. E 
3. Trap or trappean ash, more or less stratified, and with veins of 
carbonate of lime and quartz. 


4. Calcareous shales and honestones, weathering buff or pale yellow. ; 


5. Trap, vesicular, hard and black, weathering red. a 
6. Calcareous shale and limestone, with honestone. Many layers 


are fissile and shaly, weathering buff, others are hard and silicious. 
The limestones contain Favosites Gothlandica, Strophomena rhom- 


boidalis, etc. In the upper part of this series there appears to be a — 
conglomerate 14 feet thick, capped by honestone 36 feet thick. 
7. Massive trap. 
8. Limestone highly fossiliferous. Among its fossils are Favosites 


Gothlandica, F. polymorpha, F. basaltica, Strophomena rhomboidalis, 


S. punctulifera, Calymene Blumenbachi, Atrypa reticularis. 
9. Trap, highly ferruginous.* 


It is instructive to observe the large amount of bedded trap or 


volcanic ash in the above section. This accords with the presence 


of large quantities of apparently interstratified igneous rock in the ae 


Kingston group and in the Cobequid Mountains, as already noticed. 
Such interstratified volcanic matters are abundant in some parts of the — 


Silurian of Great Britain. They are comparatively rare in other parts _ ° 


of Nova Scotia, though beds of this kind occur in New Canaan. 

Similar traps occur in Gaspé, but they are absent from the typical 

Upper Silurian of New York and Western Canada. Their presence 

indicates the recurrence of volcanic eruptions at frequent intervals 
during the Upper Silurian period. 

A collection of fossils from the beds at Dalhousie and its vicinity 

* The total thickness of the above series is not stated by Professor Hind. 


NEW BRUNSWICK. 579 


has been kindly communicated to me by Professor Bailey, and has 
been submitted to Mr Billings, who regards the species as equivalent 
to those of the Port Daniel limestones of the northern side of the Bay 
de Chaleur, which may be regarded as intermediate in age between 
the Niagara and Lower Helderberg groups, and therefore probably 
not far from the horizon of the Upper Arisaig series, or perhaps 
between this and the Lower Arisaig group. 
The following fossils from Dalhousie and Restigouche, now in the 
Museum of the University of New Brunswick, have been determined 
by Mr Billings. The assemblage is in the main that of the Lower 
Helderberg. 
Favosites basaltica. . 
Favosites Gothlandica. 
Zaphrentis, n. s., same as one in the Gaspé limestone. 
Stenopora. 
Halysites catenulatus. 
Syringopora. 
Diphyphyllum. 
Orthis tubulistriata, Hall, or allied. 
Orthis oblata, Hall. 
Strophomena rhomboidalis. 
Strophomena punctifera, Conrad. 
Strophomena varistriata. 
Spirifera cycloptera. 
Atrypa reticularis. 
Cyrtia Dalmani. 
Rhynchonella vellicata, Hall. 
Athyris princeps, or allied. 
Leptoccelia, allied to L. hemispherica. 
Fenestella. 
Megambonia, allied to M. ovoides, Hall. 
Conocardium. 
Pleurotomara, allied to P. labrosa, Hall. 
Euomphalus sinuatus (?) 
Dalmanites. 


General Remarks. 
The group of partially metamorphic Upper Silurian rocks above de- 
scribed includes the most elevated land of Nova Scotia and Southern 
New Brunswick. The Cobequid range, attaining at several points a 
height of 1200 feet, is the highest chain of hills in Nova Scotia; and 
forms, in its whole length, the watershed dividing the streams flowing 


a 


‘passing near the lakes from which the principal branch of the East a 


580 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


into Northumberland Strait and Chiegnecto Bay from those flowing into. 
Cobequid Bay and Mines Basin and Channel. In like manner, the R 4 
complicated group of hills extending westward from Cape Poreupme 
and Cape St George, though less elevated than the Cobequid hills, — 

contains the sources of all the principal rivers of the counties through 
which it extends. The largest of these is the St Mary’s river. Its 
western branch, originating in the same elevated ground that gives 
rise to the Musquodoboit, the Stewiacke, and the Middle River of 
Pictou, flows for about thirty miles nearly due east along the valley 
which here separates the Lower and Upper Silurian districts. Its 
east branch flowing from the hills in the rear of Merigomish, and 


River of Pictou flows, receives tributary streams from the meta- 
morphic promontory stretching towards Cape Porcupine, and unites 
with the west branch at the northern margin of the Lower Silurian 
metamorphic band. The united stream then flows through a narrow 
valley, cutting the Lower Silurian belt transversely, to the Atlantic. 

Judging from the direction of the principal streams, as for instance 
the Liverpool River, it would appear that in the western counties, as 
well as in the eastern, this group of metamorphic rocks, with its 
associated igneous masses, forms the most elevated ridges. In the — 
southern part of New Brunswick also, and in Cape Breton, we every- _ 
where find these rocks forming rocky ridges separating the river 
valleys. 

The character of the surface over these rocks is very similar to — 
that which prevails in those parts of Lower Canada (Quebec) and 
New England, in which similarly altered Upper Silurian rocks occur. — 
The soil, where not too rocky for cultivation, is fertile; and in their 
natural state the hills are clothed with a rich growth of hard-wood 
trees. 

M. Jules Marcou, in the summary of American geology which 
accompanies his geological map, endeavours to apply to these ele-  — 
vations De Beaumont’s theory of the parallelism of mountain ranges — 
of like age. According to this view, the Cobequid Mountains, and 
the hills on the east side of the Bras d’Or Lake, belong to a system 
of elevations older than the Lower Silurian rocks; and the Meri- 
gomish and Antigonish Mountains, with the hills of Western Cape 
Breton, to a later dislocation, dating at the close of the Silurian 
period. It appears to me that both these dates are by much too 
ancient. I have already stated that the rocks of the Cobequid 
Mountains have been altered and elevated before the Carboniferous 
period ; but, on the other hand, these altered rocks themselves are in 


GENERAL REMARKS. 581 


‘ part Devonian, and there is no reason to believe any of them to be 
older than Upper Silurian. I would therefore refer the great line of 
- dislocation of the Cobequids, which runs nearly W. 10° S., as well as 
the nearly parallel lines of the south mountains of King’s County, the 
_ range ending in Cape Porcupine, and most of the hills of Cape Breton, 
to the close of the Devonian period. These ranges have, however, 
been broken and deranged in places, as at the eastern end of the 
Cobequids, the Antigonish Mountains, the hills near Guysboro’, 
and in the south-west of Cape Breton, by disturbances probably coeval 
with the great Alleghany range, that is, at or toward the end of the 
Carboniferous system, and there is evidence that between this time 
and the end of the Devonian period, igneous action was constantly 
more or less felt, and was also accompanied by elevatory movements. 
Hence these later movements in part, as along the Cobequid range, 
have conformed to the course of the older movement, and in part have 
broken out into irregular projecting ridges, having a tendency to a 
north-east and south-west direction. In short, the study of these 
elevations in Nova Scotia tends to show, that though there may be 
a certain parallelism between elevatory movements of the same period, 
when they take place in districts previously undisturbed, yet that in 
regions broken up by previous dislocations, they may either conform 
in direction to these, or break forth irregularly from them along lines 
of least resistance produced by previous transverse fractures. It is to 
be observed, however, that those very marked and important physical 
changes which closed the Devonian period were preluded by volcanic 
outbursts extending through the Upper Silurian and Devonian eras. 
In New Brunswick, the area occupied by the Kingston group is 
broken and elevated, and separates what may be termed the southern 
bay of the Carboniferous area from the remainder. As an ancient 
geographical feature, it is also connected with the large development 
of Lower Carboniferous rocks in this bay or arm. Still, it is not 
sufficiently extensive or continuous to give it any great importance in 
the present drainage of the country. The great Upper Silurian area 
in Northern New Brunswick is of much more importance in this 
respect, and contains the principal sources of the St John and the 
Restigouche; the former of which, the largest river of Acadia, 
gathering the waters of many tributaries from a great area chiefly 
of Upper Silurian rocks, finds a devious path through transverse 
valleys of the great Lower Silurian belt, crosses the south-west 
angle of the Carboniferous area, and entering the Silurian band of 
the coast, follows its strike for some distance in the “ Long Reach” 
before it finds its way to the sea, 


14, 
bed 
. 


582 _ ‘THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


Before leaving these rocks, I must state that their boundaries, as 
marked on the map, are often very rude approximations to the truth. 
It is impossible in the present state of our knowledge to distinguish 


accurately between these older rocks and the Carboniferous beds which : 


have in many parts of their borders been metamorphosed with them, 4, 


or to indicate accurately the position and limits of the irregular masses 
and dikes of igneous rocks. An immense amount of labour will be 
required before these disturbed and altered rocks can be accurately 
mapped, or their intricacies fully unravelled. 


Useful Minerals of the Upper Silurian in Nova Scotia. 


Tron, in veins traversing the altered rocks, abounds in this district ; 
and it also occurs in thick beds coeval with the neighbouring slates, 
and filled, like them, with fossil-shells. I shall first notice those de- 
posits which are veins properly so called. These, though occurring 
in many places, have been worked only along the southern slope of 
the Cobequid Hills in Londonderry, in the vicinity of the Great Village 
and Folly Rivers. This deposit appears to have been noticed as early 
as the time when the land on which it occurs was granted by the 
Crown; and it received some attention from Mr Duncan and other 
gentlemen in Truro nearly twenty years ago. No steps were, however, 
taken toward its scientific exploration until 1845. In the summer of 
that year I received a specimen of the ore for examination, and in 
October of the same year I visited and reported on the deposit. In 
the same autumn it was examined by Dr Gesner. In 1846 I again 
visited it, and reported on it to C. D. Archibald, Esq., of London, 
and other gentlemen associated with him; and in the summer of 1849 
I had the pleasure of again going over the ground and examining the 
vein at some new points, in company with J. L. Hayes, Esq., of 
Portsmouth, U.S. Since 1849 the extent and economical capabilities 
of the deposit have been discussed by several writers, both in this 
province and in Great Britain; and it has been opened, and smelting 
furnaces erected by an association of capitalists. 

I shall begin by describing the vein as it occurs on the west branch 
of the Great Village River, at the site chosen by C. D. Archibald, 
Esq., for the furnace and buildings of the “ Acadia Mine,” and as seen 
in 1849. In the western bank of this stream, at the junction of the 
Carboniferous and Metamorphic series, a thick series of gray and brown 
sandstones and shales of the former system, dipping to the south at 
angles of 65° and 70°, meet black and olive slates, having a nearly 
vertical position, and with a strike N. 55° E. The dip of these slates, 
where apparent, is to the southward, and the strike of the slaty 


i 


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USEFUL MINERALS. 583 


_ cleavage and of the bedding appears to coincide. Near the falls of 
_ the river, a short distance northward of the junction just noticed, the 
slates give place to gray quartzite, which, with some beds of olive 
Slate, occupies the river-section to, and for some distance beyond, the 
iron vein. 

The vein is well seen in the bed of the stream, and also in exca- 


vations in the western bank, which rises abruptly to the height of 327 


feet above the river-bed. In the bottom of the stream it presents the 
appearance of a complicated network of fissures, penetrating the 
quartzite and slate, and filled with a crystalline compound of the car- 
___ bonates of lime, iron, and magnesia, which, from its composition and 
external characters, I refer to the species Ankerite. With this mineral 
there is a smaller quantity of red ochrey iron ore, and of micaceous 
specular iron ore. 

In ascending the western bank of the stream, the vein appears to 
increase in width and in the quantity of the ores of iron. In one 
place, where a trench was cut across it, its breadth was 120 feet. 
Though its walls are very irregular, it has a distinct underlie to the 
south, apparently coinciding with the dip of the containing rocks. As 
might have been anticipated from its appearance in the river-bed, it 
presents the aspect of a wide and very irregular vein, including large 
angular fragments of quartzite, and of an olivaceous slate with glis- 
tening surfaces. These fragments are especially large and abundant 
in the central part of the vein, where they form a large irregular and 
interrupted rocky partition. 

That the reader may be enabled to understand the description of 
this singular deposit, I give the composition of the various substances 
contained in it, as aScertained by my own analyses and examinations. 


erystalline scales and masses. 
2. Magnetic Iron Ore, a compound of the peroxide and a rdioeule of 


this vein, are capable of affording from 60 to 70 per cent. of pure iron. 
Both of these ores have been introduced into the vein by igneous 
fusion or sublimation. 


vein, and is of great value on account of its richness and easy fusibility. 
It is also the material of which the mineral-paint produced by this 
region is manufactured. It varies somewhat in quality, but the purest 
specimens are peroxide of iron, with scarcely any foreign matter. 


most abundant material in the vein, and is usually of a grayish-white 
colour, though sometimes tinged red by the peroxide of iron. A 


1. Specular Iron Ore, or nearly pure peroxide of ri in black , 


iron. This and the first-mentioned ore, as they occur intermixed in | 


3. Ochrey Red Iron Ore. This is the most abundant ore in the , 


4. Ankerite, or carbonate of iron, lime and magnesia. This is the _ 


——— eS 


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584 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


specimen of the reddish variety, containing small scattered crystals of 
specular iron, gave on analysis— 4 
Peroxide of iron. i Piske Maa 
Carbonate oflime .  . . 46:0 
Carbonate ofiron .. +: fl 9-b 


Carbonate of magnesia. : 8 
Silicious sand . : ‘ ‘ “4 
ose ; 
The white variety consists of— | 
Carbonate of lime. , ~ goes | 
Carbonate ofiron . ; 6 iene | 
Carbonate of magnesia. Sh-ny s 
Silicious sand . 7 : - 7) 
99°7 


With this mineral is found a variety of Spathose Iron, or sparry 
carbonate of iron, containing about 20 per cent. of carbonate of mag- 
nesia. It is of a light yellow colour, and runs in little veins through 
the Ankerite. I have no doubt that all these substances have been 
molten by heat, and injected from beneath into the irregular fissurein 
which they are now found. The ochrey red ore, previously mentioned, _ 
appears to be a result of the subsequent action of heat on the spathose — 
iron. The ankerite and spathose iron may become valuable for 
mixing with the other ores, affording lime for a flux and much iron. 

5. Yellow Ochrey Iron Ore. This is found in great quantity on 
the surface of the vein, and has resulted from the rusting of the 
ankerite, which soon becomes covered with a yellow rusty coat when 
exposed. The yellow ochre is a peroxide of iron combined with water, 
and when calcined it affords a good red pigment. On analysis, it 
gave— — 

Peroxide of iron . : - 74:52 


Alumina : ‘ - 4:48 
Carbonate of lime i magnesia 40 | 
Silica and silicates . - 6:20 } 
Water, mostly combined . 14-40 | 

100-00 : ; 


6. Brown Hematite occurs in large balls along the outerop of the 
vein. It has been produced by the solvent action of acid water on 
the carbonate of iron, and the subsequent precipitation of iron from 
these solutions. It is a valuable ore, but is probably most abundant : 
near the surface of the vein. . 


USEFUL MINERALS. 585 


7. Sulphate of Barytes occurs in small crystals lining fissures, and 
_ in compact veins in the ankerite. Though quite insoluble, this sub- 
stance can be decomposed by heated solutions of alkaline carbonates ; 
_ and when these are cooled it is re-formed and deposited.* It has 
_ probably been introduced in this way into this vein. 

_ I shall endeavour in the following remarks to state the manner in 
which these minerals occur in the complicated mixture which fills this 
_ vein, and their probable origin. Let the reader then imagine that he 
is standing on the side of the deep ravine of the Great Village River, 
looking into a rocky excavation in which the minerals above mentioned 
appear to be mixed together in the most inextricable confusion, in 
great irregular cracks of the slaty rocks, and he will be able, perhaps, 
to wade through the following description. 


surrounds and includes all the other contents of the vein, and greatly 
exceeds them in quantity. Where not exposed, it is white and coarsely 


of yellow ochrey hydrous peroxide of iron. In some parts of the vein, 
the ankerite is intimately mixed with crystals and veinlets of yellowish 
spathose iron. The red ochrey iron ore occurs in minor veins and 


two yards in thickness; and the shapeless masses are often of much 
_ larger dimensions. Specular iron ore also occurs in small irregular 
veins, and in disseminated crystals and nests. At one part of the 
bank there appears to be a considerable mass of magnetic iron ore, 


after I had left the ground. 

The whole aspect of the vein, as it appears in the excavations in 
the river-bank, is extremely irregular and complicated. This arises 
not only from the broken character of the walls, the included rocky 
fragments, and the confused intermixture of the materials of the vein ; 
but also from the occurrence of numerous transverse fissures, which 
appear to have slightly shifted the vein, and whose surfaces usually 
display the appearance named “slickenside,” and are often coated 
with comminuted slate or iron ore. In some places these are so 
numerous as to give an appearance of transverse stratification. One 
of them was observed to be filled with flesh-coloured sulphate of 
barytes, forming a little subordinate vein about an inch in thickness. 

The general course of the vein, deduced from observations made by 
Mr Hayes and myself at the Acadia Mine and further to the eastward, 
* Bischoff, quoted by De la Beche. Geol. Obs. p. 669. 


el 
be 
a 


The ankerite should evidently be considered the veinstone, as it, 


erystalline. On exposure it becomes yellowish; and near the surface, — 
as well as on the sides of fissures, it is decomposed, leaving a residue ~ 


irregular masses dispersed in the ankerite. Some of these veins are | 


mixed with specular ore ; this mass was not, however, uncovered till ° 


ay 


586 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


is S. 98° W. magnetic, the variation being 21° west. At the Acadia 
Mine this course deviates about 33° from that of the containing rocks. — 

In other localities, however, the deviation is much smaller; and in 
general there is an approach to parallelism between the course of the © 
vein and that of the rock formation of the hills, as well as that of the 


junction of the Carboniferous and Metamorphic systems. The vein, 
for a space of seven miles along the hills, is always found at distances 
of from 300 yards to one-third of a mile northward of the last Car- 
boniferous beds, and always in the same band of slate and quartzite. 
Westward of the Acadia Mine the course of the vein over the high 


’ ground is marked by the colour of the soil, as far as Cook’s Brook, 


about a mile distant. The outcrop of the ore was not exposed in this 
brook, but large fragments of specular ore have been found in its bed, 
and a shaft, sunk on the course of the vein, has penetrated more than 
forty feet through yellow ochre containing a few rounded masses and 
irregular layers of ankerite. At this point the decomposition of the 
ankerite and spathic iron has extended to a much greater depth than 
usual, and is so perfect that a specimen of the yellow ochre was found 
to contain only -4 per cent. of the carbonates of lime and magnesia; 
the remainder being hydrous peroxide of iron, alumina, and silicious 
matter. 


Still further west, in Martin Brook, I observed indications of the — 


continuation of the vein. Beyond this place I have not traced it; 
but I have received specimens of specular iron ore and ankerite from 
the continuation of the same metamorphic district, as far west as the 
Five Islands, twenty miles distant from Acadia Mine. 

On the east side of the west branch of the Great Village River, the 
ground does not rise so rapidly as on the western bank, and the vein 


is not so well exposed. On this side, however, a small quantity of 
copper pyrites has been found in or near the vein, but it does not seem 


to be of any importance. Indications of the vein can be seen on the 
surface as far as the east branch of the river. In the east branch, red 
and gray conglomerates, dipping to the south, and forming the base 
of the Carboniferous system, are seen to rest unconformably on olive, 
black, and brown slates, whose strike is 8. 75° W. The continuation 
of the iron vein was not observed in the bed of this stream. 

Further eastward, on the high ground between the Great Village 
and Folly Rivers, indications of the ores of iron have been observed ; 


especially near the latter river, where in two places small excavations — 


have exposed specular and red ores, and where numerous fragments 
of brown hematite are found scattered on the surface. 
The ravine of the Folly River affords a good natural section of the 


a aS et ees i i er Re as tis = 
lini iit i 


<i Sree 


USEFUL MINERALS, 587 


quartzite and slate of the hills, as well as of the Carboniferous beds of 
_ the lower ground. This section, as far as the base of the,hills, is 

described in Chapter XV. The lowest Carboniferous bed is a thick, 
coarse, gray and brownish conglomerate, dipping 8. 20° W. It rests 
unconformably on a bed of slate very similar to that seen in a like 
_ position at the Great Village River, and which differs considerably in 
appearance from most of the slates of these hills. The strike of the 
slate is S. 70° W.; and that of the bedding and slaty structure appear 
_ tocorrespond. Ina layer of graywacke included in this slate I ob- 
served small and well-rounded pebbles of light-coloured quartz. This 
slate is succeeded by thick beds of gray quartzite and hard olivaceous 
slates. These occupy the river section for about 700 yards, or as far 
as the “ Falls,” where the river is thrown over a ridge of quartzite 
fifty-five feet in height; a small rill pouring in on the eastern side 
from a much greater elevation. Between the conglomerate and the 
_ waterfall the quartzite contains a few narrow strings of ankerite, and 


at the fall there is a group of reticulating veins, some of them six, 


inches in thickness. They coutain a little iron pyrites. These are 
the only indications of the iron vein observed in this section; and as 
the group of beds in which it should occur is well exposed, it is 
probable that it is represented here only by these small veinlets 
distributed over a great breadth of rock. Above the fall the quartzite 
and slate continue to alternate for a considerable distance, the dip 
being generally to the southward, in one place at as low an angle as 
55°. About a quarter of a mile above the fall they are traversed by 
a dike or mass of fine-grained hornblendic igneous rock. 
On the elevated ground east of the Folly River the vein is again 


on the property of the Londonderry Mining Company. The excava- 
tion nearest to the river showed a thickness of 190 feet of rock on the 
south side of the vein. This consists of gray quartzite, olive slate, 
and about three feet of black slate. These beds are traversed by a 
few small strings of ankerite, which increase in dimensions on ap- 
proaching the broken and irregular wall of the vein. About seventeen 
feet of the south side of the vein consist principally of ankerite. 
Adjoining this on the north is red iron ore, with nests of specular 
ore, veins and blocks of ankerite decomposed in part to yellow ochre, 
and fragments of rock. Ten feet in thickness of this red ore were seen 
without exposing the north wall of the vein. 

On the surface in this vicinity are large fragments of brown hema- 
tite, which mark the course of the vein. In the eastern excavation, 
this mineral was seen in place near the surface and occupying fissures 


a 


largely developed, and two excavations exposed a part of its thickness ° 


——ebe) |< ee 


588 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


in a fragment of quartzite. In this second excavation the red ore was 


more largely mixed with the micaceous specular variety, and also ey 


included large rounded blocks of ankerite and angular fragments of — 
rock. The width exposed here was thirteen feet, and neither wall was 


seen. The ankerite is decomposed to the depth of eight feet. The a 


same appearance of transverse vertical layers seen at the Acadia Mine ~ 
is observed here, and is probably due to the same cause. 
Still further east, on the property of C. D. Archibald, Esq., and on 


ground equally elevated, three excavations have shown a still greater 


development of the vein. A trench fifty-three feet in length, and 
nearly at right angles to the course of the vein, showed in its whole 
length a mixture of red and specular ores with ankerite. Another 
excavation, ninety-five feet to the northward of the first, exhibited 
ankerite tinged of a deep red colour by peroxide of iron, and traversed 
by reticulating veins of rediron ore. A third opening, 365 feet south- 
eastward of the first, showed white and gray ankerite, having some of 
its fissures coated with tabular crystals of white sulphate of barytes, 
The walls of the vein were not seen at this place; but 150 paces south 
of the first trench a thick dike of greenish igneous rock, apparently a 
very fine-grained greenstone, appears, with a course of S. 102° W. — 
This dike was not seen westward of this place, but it can be traced for 


a considerable distance to the eastward. In the Mill Brook, two miles 
east of Folly River, it appears in connexion with a bed of black slate _ 


near the mar gin of the metamorphic system, and probably a continuation 
of that seen in a similar position in the Folly and Great Village Rivers. 
At the Mill Brook the dike is about 100 feet in thickness. 


In the bed of the Mill Brook, the vein is seen in the form ofa 2 


network of fissures chiefly filled with ankerite; and iff its eastern bank — 


it attains a great thickness. In the bank of another brook still further 
to the eastward, and in the same line of bearing, it appears to be of 
large dimensions, and contains abundance of red iron ore and red 


ankerite. I have not traced it further to the east, but I have no doubt ee 
of its continuance to a great distance in that Sireciion: 

The geological history of this deposit embraces the following 
occurrences :—Ist, The formation of a wide irregular fissure, along a 
great part of the length of the Cobequid Mountains. 2dly, The filling 
of this fissure with a molten or softened, and partially even sublimed, 
mass of ferruginous and calcareous matter, presenting, as I think, an 
evident illustration of the igneous formation of a vein of calcareous, 
magnesian, and ferruginous carbonates. 3dly, The breaking up of the © 
vein thus formed by cross-fractures and faults. 4thly, The partial 
~ roasting of its contents by heat, so as to produce the red ores, which 


eta 


USEFUL MINERALS. 589 


are obviously the result of the heating and oxidation of a part of the 
& carbonate of iron, and this process may be seen, on minutely examining 
a the vein, to have extended itself from the walls of the smallest fissures. 


depositing sulphate of barytes and brown hematite. 6¢h/y, The inflas 
ence of the air and surface waters in changing large portions of the 
superficial contents of the vein into ochrey hydrous peroxide of iron. 
It is, however, to be observed that this deposit might be accounted 
for on the supposition that a bed of iron ore and carbonate of lime and 
magnesia, similar to those occurring elsewhere in the Upper Silurian, 
had been so softened and altered by heat as to penetrate in vein-like 
forms the surrounding rocks. Sir W. E. Logan has shown that 
phenomena of this kind occur in the Laurentian regions of Canada. 


many difficulties to the miner. Difficulties have also been found in 
smelting the ore to advantage; but these are often incident to the 
first trials of new deposits, to which the methods applicable to others, 
of which the workmen have had previous experience, do not apply. 
It is believed, however, that these preliminary hindrances have 
been overcome, and that the mine has now become highly profitable 
to its proprietors. I quote the following estimate of the value of 
the deposit from the elaborate Report of J. L. Hayes in 1849. It 
has been fully confirmed by experience :— 

“From the descriptions which I have above given, it is evident, 
that although the unlimited extent of the ore at any particular point 
can only be determined by working the deposits, yet an immense field 
is open for explorations and working. 

“ Although it is quite probable that an abundant supply of ore will 
be found upon the west bank of the river, at a price which will not 
exceed two dollars to the ton of iron; if this should not be the case, 
an ample supply can be furnished from the other localities at an expense 
which, including raising and hauling, could not exceed four dollars to 


points upon the line, to determine the cheapest point for mining, and 
the ores which can be used most advantageously. If this is done, 
the price of the ore cannot be fairly set down at the sum for which it 
can be obtained from the nearest locality, but at an average of the 
prices of the ores from different localities, delivered at the point 
selected for the furnace. This may be estimated at three dollars to 
the ton of iron. 


_ Sthly, The action of heated waters passing through its crevices, and — 


This deposit is evidently wedge-shaped, being largest and richest _ 
on the surface of the highest ridges. It contains, however, an immense 
quantity of valuable ores of iron, though its irregular character opposes ~ 


the ton of iron. I would advise the opening of the veins at different . 


© 


590 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


“The value of this locality with respect to ore may be judged of 4 3 


by comparing it with establishments in the United States. In Berk- — 


shire County, Massachusetts, at some establishments which have been 
successfully conducted, the price of the ore is between five and six 
dollars to the ton of iron. In Orange County, New York, ore yielding __ 
between 40 and 50 per cent. costs between four and five dollars tothe 


ton of iron. At one locality m New York the ore costs ten dollars to the 


ton of iron. At some establishments on Lake Champlain, ore costing 4 


one dollar per ton at the mine, is carried twelve miles to the furnace. — 


The ore at the Baltimore furnaces costs over seven dollars to the ton of — 


iron. This is about the average cost of the ore at the furnaces in 


Pennsylvania. Estimating the cost of the ore even at four dollars to 


the ton of iron, there will be advantage over the average American 
localities. 

“The cost of ores at some of the Swedish and Russian furnaces is 
still greater. In certain parts of the Ural Mountains the minerals are 
carried by land to the forests a distance of from 40 to 80 miles. Some 
of the forges of Sweden are supplied with minerals from Presburg and 
Dannemora, which are transported by land-carriage, the lakes, and 
the sea, to distances exceeding 370 miles. 

“There is no trace of sulphur, arsenic, or any foreign matter which 


* can deteriorate the quality of the iron, or of titanium or chrome, which 


would render the ores refractory. The red ochrey ore, the most 
abundant variety, being sufficiently porous to present large surfaces 


) to the reducing gases in the blast furnace, and yet sufficiently compact 


not to choke the furnace, but to allow the free passage of the blast, 
can be used with peculiar advantage. The daily make of iron from 
these ores will be large, and the consumption of combustible com- 
paratively small. 

“T have no doubt that iron of the first quality for purity and strength, 
and which will demand the highest prices in the market, can be made 
from these ores. If Mr Mushet’s opinion, based upon his own ex- 
periments, that these ores will furnish steel-iron equal to the best 
Swedish marks, should prove correct, these ores possess a rare value ; 
for, of the many charcoal iron establishments in the United States, 
I know but one which furnishes iron suitable for making the first 
quality of steel.” £ 

In addition to the use of the ores of iron in these deposits as sources 
of the metal, mineral paints and artificial slate of excellent quality are 
manufactured from the iron ochres of the Folly Mountain, and are 
extensively used for protecting wooden buildings, etc. : 

Since the publication of the first edition of this work, extensive 


USEFUL MINERALS. 591 


Po ‘mining and smelting operations have been carried on at the London- , 

 derry mines, and in 1865 I saw a thriving mining village where, 

in 1849, there had been but a wild wooded ravine. I had not time 

to visit the excavations; but Dr Honeyman informs me that the 

_ original vein at Great Village still holds out, or rather appears as 

- two veins, about twenty feet apart, and each with from four to five feet 

_ of ore, though occasionally widening to about twenty feet or dimin- 

ishing to mere strings. One of them consists chiefly of brown 

hematite. Extensive openings have been made at Martin’s Brook, 
where the ore is also hematite. The ore is now smelted with 

_ charcoal, large quantities of which are made in the neighbouring 

hills; but a great extension of the operations is anticipated, so soon 

as the railway shall connect the mines with the coal district of 

Springhill. The reputation of the iron made from this ore is very 

high, owing to its excellent quality, and suitableness to the manu- | 

facture of steel. | 

Within the last few years veins of hematite are stated to have 

been discovered in rocks of Upper Silurian age on the East River 

of Pictou, near Springville, and I have received from a locality near 

the French River of Merigomish a fine specimen of compact carbonate 

of iron, which is said to occur there in large quantity, though whether 

as a vein or bed I am not informed. | 

Veins of iron ores, similar in character to those above described, | 

occur in nearly every part of this metamorphic district; they are, 

however, of small magnitude, and I am not aware that they are in 

any place of workable dimensions. In many places extensive masses 

of shattered quartzite and slate are penetrated in every direction by 

slender veins of micaceous specular iron ore. 

In addition to these veins of iron ore, conformable beds, as already 

mentioned, exist in the Upper Silurian slates, more especially on the 

East River of Pictou, at the locality indicated on the map. At 

this place, one bed appears to be forty feet thick, and much 

resembles that in the Devonian at Nictaux, but the ore is more 

silicious, and contains only about forty per cent. of metal. It is 

not at present worked. This bed of ore could no doubt be traced 

extensively, and must eventually become of great economical im- 

portance. Though the ores are less rich than those of the Cobequid 

Mountains, the deposits are likely to be more continuous and persistent. 

This great bed of ore on the East River of Pictou is especially 

worthy of the attention of capitalists engaged or about to engage « 

in smelting operations, as it is only ten miles distant from the Albion 

coal-mines, and is in the vicinity of abundance of limestone and 


7 


4 


592 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


building-stone. The hematite and clay ironstone of the same region — 
might also be profitably used with the specular ore of the great bed. 

Copper ores occur in several parts of this district. In the country — 
eastward of the Lochaber Lake, in the county of Sydney, large ~ 
fragments of copper and iron pyrites are found in the surface gravel, _ 
and have no doubt been derived from a vein containing this ore, 
along with ores of iron similar to those of the Cobequid Hills, and 


which are found attached to the loose fragments. These indications 


were examined by the author in 1848, and made known to the — 
Mining Association. A Cornish miner was afterwards employed — 
_ by the Association to explore the locality, but his labours were un- — 
~-suecessful; and as yet nothing has been found except the loose 
masses already referred to, some of which are from two to three feet 


in diameter. The strike of the rocks at this place is 8. 70° W. to 


S. 20° W., and the district in which the ores occur consists of olive, 
gray, and black slates, with beds of quartzite and dikes of green- 


stone and compact felspar. In some places the slates are filled with 


small veinlets of specular iron ore and ankerite. The pyritescon- 


several specimens being 10-8 per cent. This would be a valuable s j 
ore if found in sufficient quantity and of easy access; there appear, 
however, to be serious difficulties in the way of opening the 


deposit, more especially its low situation and the depth of the surface 
cover. 


Copper pyrites, yielding 31:6 per cent. of copper, and therefor . 
of very rich quality, has been found on the south branch of Salmon 
River; but Iam not aware that it occurs in sufficient quantity for 
mining purposes. This ore has also been found in small quantity 
near the Acadia iron-mine, and in the barytes veins at the Five 


Islands. 


Sulphate of Barytes.—This mineral occurs in considerable quantity, % 
in numerous irregular veins traversing the slates in the banks of the 
East River of the Five Islands. I have little doubt that these veins — 


are strictly a continuation of the great iron veins already described ; 
but here barytes predominates, and only a small quantity of specular 
iron is present and a very little copper pyrites. The barytes at this 
place is pure white, and often in very beautiful crystalline masses. 
Its cavities are coated with fine crystals of carbonate of lime of the 


variety known as dog-tooth spar. Large quantities of barytes have — 


been extracted at this place, by levels and open excavations in the 
steep sides of the ravine, and have been exported to the United States ; 
but I believe the demand has not been found sufficient to warrant a 


USEFUL MINERALS. 593 


continuance of the works on a large scale. The presence of copper 


continued, valuable quantities of such ores would be discovered. 

_ White marble occurs in the metamorphic slates at Five Islands, 
as well as a coloured marble of a purplish hue, with green spots 
tinged by serpentine. These beds at Five Islands have not been 
sufficiently opened fairly to test their quality. The white marble 
_ affords small specimens of great purity and of very fine grain. The 
coloured variety has been objected to on the ground of unequal 
hardness. 

Slate, apparently of good quality, is found in New Canaan, and 
on the Middle River of Pictou. It is not at present quarried, but 
_ the first-mentioned locality would appear to present great facilities 
for profitable working. 

_ Syenite and Porphyry, suitable for building and ornamental pur- 
poses, occur in various parts of the Cobequid Mountains, and on 
the east side of the Bras d’Or, and other places in Cape Breton. 
_ Owing to their inland position, and the want of any internal demand, 
these rocks are not at present quarried. 

Smoky Quartz, in large and beautiful crystals, is found in the 
surface debris at Paradise in Annapolis County; and its native 
_ matrix is a reddish compact felspar, which occurs in veins in the 
granite of that district. 


Useful Minerals of the Upper Silurian in New Brunswick. 


The Upper Silurian rocks of Charlotte County afford promising 
indications of lead and copper, and are a continuation of the metal- 
liferous rocks of Washington County, Maine; but little has yet been 
done to ascertain their actual value. To this age are referred the 
coppér ores of Le Tete and the sulphate of barytes of Frye’s Island, 
said to be in large quantity and accessible. Copper and iron have 
been stated to occur at Dickie Mountain and Bull Moose Hill, in 
the Kingston group; but are not very favourably reported on by 
Professor Bailey. As I have not personally examined any of the 
localities, I may refer the reader for such information as is at present 
to be obtained to the Reports of Professor Bailey and Professor Hind. 


It may be anticipated that the igneous and metamorphic hills 
of this district in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, so varied in their 9 
composition, and at present so little open to detailed investigation, 
will be found to contain many useful minerals in addition to those « 
2Q 


594 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


above mentioned; and that as population and enterprise increase, 
they will become saved mining and manufacturing districts. b 
The soils of this district are in general good. They produce in — 
their natural state a fine growth of hardwood timber, sufficient for  _ 
a long time to supply the demands of the shipyards and iron furnaces, 
and when cultivated they are remarkably favourable to the growth — 
of hay and grain crops. They are well supplied with lime and — 
phosphates; and when deep are less easily exhausted than most other — 
kinds of upland. Hence in the more fertile parts of these hills, as — 
in Southern Horton, Earlton, New Annan, the Pictou Hills, Lochaber, 4 
and Northern Cape Breton, there are fine and flourishing agricultural 
settlements, which, in spite of a climate a little more rigorous, are — 
advancing more rapidly in wealth than most of the lower districts. 


Fossils of the Upper Silurian. 


Under this head I give the descriptions of new species published _ 
by Professor Hall in 1860, and notices of additional species since 
obtained, including the Paleaster described by Mr Billings, and species — 
mentioned by Mr Salter as occurring among Dr Honeyman’s 
specimens submitted to him, also the specimens communicated to — 
me by Professor Bailey in 1867. 


1. Radiata. 


Stenopora, allied to S. fibrosa. East River, pee 
Favosites Gothlandica, Lin. Dalhousie, Professor Bailey. 
Favosites polymorpha, Goldfuss. Dalhousie, Professor Bailey. 
Favosites basaltica, Goldfuss. Dalhousie, Professor Bailey. 
Helopora fragilis, Hall, var. Acadiensis. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. — 
Zaphrentis, n. s., identical, according to Mr Billings, with a species — 
from Port Daniel. Dalhousie, Professor Bailey. 
Astrocerium pyriforme, Hall. New Canaan, coll. J. W. D. 
Astrocericum venustum, Hall. New Canaan, coll. J. W. D. 
Heliolites, allied to H. elegans. New Canaan, coll. J. W. D. ae 
Petraia Fon sien, Honeyman, Arisaig. I have seen no deserip- a 
tion or figure of this species. a 
Dictyonema Websteri, Dawson. Beech Hill (for description at : 
figure see p. 163, supra), = 
Paleaster parviusculus, Billings (Fig. 197). The specimen is 
about six lines in diameter. The rays are two lines in length and — 
one line and a half in width at the base, tapering at an angle of a 
little less than 45°. The: five oral plates are: sub-pentagonal, abotilt 4 
half a line in width. The first adambulacral plates of each pair of 


FOSSILS. 595 


adjacent rays are in contact with each other outside of the oral plates, 
and not completely separated as they are in P. Niagarensis. There 
are six or seven adambulacral plates on each side of the ambulacral 
groove in each ray, and they gradually decrease in size from the 
oral plate outwards to the point of the ray. The width of the 
- ambulacral groove is equal to one-third the width of — Fig. 197. 

the ray, and consequently the adambulacral rows of plates ,/™easler 
are also each equal to one-third the whole width of the 

ray. In each groove there are two rows of small and 
apparently nearly square ambulacral plates, twelve or 
fourteen in each row, and they seem to be continued 
round on the inner margin of the oral plates; the mouth is about 
; one line wide. 

_ ‘This species differs from P. Niagarensis, Hall (Pal. N. Y., Vol. 2, 
page 247, Pl. 51, Figs. 21, 22, 23), in being smaller, the a not so 
slender, atid more epartintly 3 in the junction of sed adambulacral 
_ plates outside of the oral plates. 

The specimen was collected at Arisaig by fie?! Dr Honeyman. 


2. Mollusca. 


Crania Acadiensis, Hall (Fig. 198). Cireular or broadly sub- 
oval, moderately convex, the greatest convexity near the apex; apex 
obtuse. 

Several casts show a central elevated area, with strong muscular 
impressions; the more elevated portion being surrounded by a flat- 
tened border, which is radiatingly striate. 

These specimens are casts which appear to be of the ventral valve; 
and the form of the muscular impressions is so characteristic of the 
genus that I can have little hesitation in thus referring them. Arisaig, 
East River, coll. J. W. D.* 

Discina tenuilamellata, var. subplana. Shell broadly elliptical, or 
suborbicular, externally depressed, apex subcentral; surface marked 
by thin sharply elevated lamellz.” 

This closely resembles the Niagara species of New York, but may 
be distinct. Should further examination prove it a distinct species, 
the name D. subplana may be adopted. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Three other species of Discina are mentioned by Dr Honeyman as in 
his Arisaig collections. 

Chonetes Nova Scotica, Hall (Fig. 199). Shell semi-elliptical, 
width varying from once and a half to nearly twice the length. The 


* Of the species from Arisaig thus marked, some specimens were colleeted by Dr 
Honeyman, and were placed with my own collections in the hands of Professor Hall. 


596: THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


ventral valve variably convex, and often showing a flattened or 
slightly concave space down the middle of the shell; cardinal ae 
ornamented by four or five minute spines on each side of the beak; 
cardino-lateral margins often a little wrinkled; surface finely strialal 3 
strie flexuous, dichotomising and increasing by interstitial additions 
so that there are more than 100 on the margin of the shell; strie 
increasing in size below the umbo; concentric striz fine, close, 
rounded and slightly undulating. 


Fig. 198. Fig. 199. Fig. 200. : 
Crania Acadiensis. Chonetes Nova Scotica, and Chonetes tenuistriata, 
portions magnified. —T ' 


Fig. 201. 
Trematospira Acadice. 


a> 


Dorsal valve moderately concave; striz much stronger below the — 
middle of the shell and sometimes bifureating toward the margin. 

This species resembles in form the Chonetes cornuta of the Clinton __ 
group of New York, but is a much larger and more ventricose shell; 
the strie are proportionally less numerous and more closely arranged, — 
the interstices being less than the striw, while in the C. cornuta the — 
interstices are wider than the striz, and the latter increase only by — 
interstitial additions below the middle of the shell. A stronger and 
more elevated stria often marks the median line from beak to base of 
the ventral valve. Arisaig, East River, Nictaux, coll. J. W.D. 

Chonetes tenuistriata, Hall (Fig. 200). Shell semi-oval, twice as — 
wide as long; ventral valve moderately convex, hinge-line equalling 
the width of the shell; surface marked by fine, even, closely arranged 
strie, which apparently increase only by interstitial additions, and are — 
not flexuous. The number of strize on the margin of the shell is 
nearly 100. : 

This species is more finely striated than the preceding, the strize — 
not flexuous, more even, and in shells of equal size much more a 
numerous. This species is sowewhat larger and more closely striated — 
than the C. cornuta of the Clinton group of New York. Arisaig, East — 
River, coll. J. W. D. 

Spirifer rugecosta, Hall. Shell somewhat semi-elliptical ; dorsal — 
valve very convex, with the mesial fold depressed along the centre; 
ventral valve with a wide deep mesial sinus; plications six or seven 


Fig. 202. 
Leptocoelia intermedia, 


i 


Y) 
is q 


a 


" 


FOSSILS. 597 


on each side of the mesial fold and sinus, strong, and much elevated, 

_ subangular, crossed by numerous strongly elevated, lamellose, imbri- 

eating concentric striz. 

The specimens examined are almost all imperfect casts, some of 

which preserve the impression of the strong concentric stria, and in 

one or two specimens an impression of the shell reveals the strength 

of the surface markings. 

In many respects this species resembles the S. perlamellosa of the 

Lower Helderberg group in New York, but the mesial elevation of this 

species is flattened or depressed, a character never observed in New 

York specimens. Arisaig, East River, coll. J. W. D. 

Spirifer subsulcatus, Hall. Shell semi-elliptical, hinge-line equalling 

or greater than the length of the shell below; plications five or six 

on each side of the mesial fold; mesial fold somewhat flattened or 

very slightly rounded on the summit; plications rounded; surface 

concentrically lamellose. 

The specimens are all casts, or impressions of the shells. 

They bear some resemblance to S. sulcatus of the Niagara group, 

and are intermediate between that species and the S. cycloptera of the 

Lower Helderberg group. Arisaig, East River, coll. J. W. D 
Spirifera, resembling 8. cycloptera, but with regular ribs. East 

River, coll. J. W. D. 

Strophomena profunda, Hall. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. Dalhousie, 

Professor Bailey. 

S. rugosa. Arisaig. 

S. flat striated species. East River, coll. J. W. D. 

S. corrugata, Conrad. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Tremastospira Acadie, Hall (Fig. 201). Shell wider than long; 

beak of the ventral valve produced and incurved; mesial depression 

marked by a small fold on each side, which originates about one-third 

of the length below the beak and continues to the margin; sinus 

bounded on each side by a more strongly elevated plication, beyond 

which are six other plications on each side. Surface marked by fine 

concentric striz. 

This shell is referred to the genus Trematospira from external 

characters alone, which are unlike Rhynchonella proper, and the shell 

is not a Spirifer. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Rhynchospira sinuata, n. sp. Shell ovoid, ventricose beak of the 

ventral valve incurved; a mesial sinus beginning a little below the 

beak; surface marked by about eight or nine simple scarcely sub- 

angular plications on each side of the mesial sinus. 

Surface marked by concentric lines of growth. 


a 
1 
i 


598 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


This species differs from the R. formosa of the Lower Helderberg — 
rocks of New York in the plications being more slender, in the more 
defined sinus of the ventral valve, and the continuation of the two — 
small folds in the sinus nearly to the beak. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Rhynchonella Saffordi. Shell varying in form from ovoid to globose. 
Full grown specimens usually wider than long, and sometimes becom- 
ing extremely ventricose, so that the diameter across the two valves 
much exceeds the length. Ventral valve depressed convex, with the ~ 
beak minute, closely incurved; dorsal valve very ventricose, most 
prominent toward the front. Cardinal slope a little depressed, sides — 
rounded, and the front in direct line flattened but not depressed. — 
Surface finely plicated, plications little elevated, rounded or scarcely 
subanguylar, about five or six depressed in the flattened sinus of the _ 
ventral valve, and a corresponding number raised on the flattened — 
mesial elevation, which rises abruptly, though usually but slightly 
above the lateral portions of the shell. From ten to fourteen plications __ 
mark the surface on each side of the mesial fold and sinus. Plications — 
in front marked by a sharp groove along the centre, and those of each 
valve deeply interlocking. 3 

This species resembles the A. nucleolata of the Lower Helderberg __ 
rocks of New York, and in some specimens it approaches to R. 
ventricosa, but is always much more finely plicated than either. — 
It closely resembles the 2. Wilsoni of Europe in its general form, — 
but the plications are more rounded and somewhat coarser, and 
while in that species the sinus causes no depression in the ventral 
valve below the general surface of the shell, in ours there is an 
abrupt depression as well as a slightly abrupt elevation on the dorsal 
valve, while there is no similar feature in the 2. Wilsonz.* a 

The Nova Scotia specimens are in all respects identical with those — 
from Tennessee. Arisaig, Earlton, coll. J. W. D. % 

The geological position of the specimen from Tennessee is in 
rocks of the age of the Lower Helderberg group, associated with 
Pentamerus galeatus, P. Verneuili, Spirifer macropleura, Spirifer 
perlamellosa, Spirifer eycloptera, and others. oe. 

Rhynchonella equiradiata, Hall. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Rhynchonella neglecta, Hall. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. . 

Rhynchonella, n.s. (?) allied to R. transversa. Arisaig, coll. J. W.D. 

Leptocelia intermedia, Hall (Fig. 202). Shell concavo-convex; 4 
outline semi-elliptical, cardinal extremities rounded, and the hinge- | 
line a little shorter than the greatest width of the shell; ventral . 


* Sowerby, M. C., vol. ii., page 38, says: The “‘ sinus at the front, although deep, : 
does not alter the evenness of the surface,” . 


a ts me 


= =. 


id FOSSILS. 599 


Wan 


& 


a valve moderately convex, carinate in the middle by a strong plication 


with six or seven smaller ones on each side, the lateral ones slightly 
curved towards the outer extremity. Dorsal valve concave, with 
a broad shallow mesial sinus, the margins on either side being bent 


a little upward, giving a sinuous outline to the margin of the shell ; 


surface marked by fine concentric striz. 

This species resembles the L. hemispherica of the Clinton group 
in New York in general form, but the hinge-line is shorter, and 
the extremities rounded; the mesial elevation consists of a single 
strong plication, while in L. hemispherica the surface is regularly 
plicated, with the central one sometimes a little stronger than the 
others. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Atrypa reticularis, Dalman, Arisaig. East River, coll. J. W. D. 

Atrypa emacerata, Hall. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Athyris (Merista) didyma, Dalman. East River, coll. J. W. D. 

Orthis testudinaria, Dalman. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Lingula oblonga, Hall. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Lingula, (?) n.s. Merigomish, Dr Honeyman. 

Modiolopsis (?) rhomboidea, Hall (Fig, 203). Shell sub-rhomboid, 
rounded in front, wider and obliquely truncate behind, hinge-line 
slightly ascending from the anterior end; beaks subterminal, posterior 
umbonial slope obtusely subangular below, anterior to which the 
shell is flattened; basal margin nearly straight, the shell gradually 
widening behind, and the posterior basal extremity abruptly rounded, 
Surface evenly striated concentrically. 

Anterior muscular impression very strong, posterior muscular im- 
pression less strongly defined, but still very conspicuous and sub- 
duplicate; palleal line simple, nearly parallel to the basal margin, 
strongly and almost equally defined in all parts of its length between 
the two muscular imprints. 

This shell bears some resemblance to J. primigenius, but is less 
ventricose in the middle, and the sub-angular umbonial slope is not 
so well defined in that species. ‘Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Modiolopsis sub-nasutus, Hall. Shell elongate sub-spatulate, the 
length being more than twice the greatest width at the hinge-line; 
slightly ascending posteriorly; beaks sub-anterior, the anterior end very 
narrow, gibbous on the umbones, with a sub-angular ridge on the 
umbonial slope which extends to the postero-basal angle; basal 
margin nearly straight, the posterior end somewhat flattened and 
obliquely sub-truncate at the extremity; surface marked by con- 
centric lines of growth. 

This shell bears a close general resemblance to M. nasutus of 


—— SS es. UL 


600 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


the Trenton limestone, but a careful comparison shows it to be 
wider and more abrupt at its posterior termination, while the 
direction of the strie of growth is very distinctive, these marks — 
being regularly curving toward the posterior end in M. nasutus, 
while in this species they are abruptly bent at the postero-basal 
angle, and again on the cardinal side, corresponding with the © 
truncate posterior extremity of the shell. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Modiolopsis allied to M. subcarinatus. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Clidophorus cuneatus, Hall. Shell ovoid, gibbous in the middle 
and on the umbones, gradually declining behind; beaks anterior, — 
sub-terminal ; anterior end broadly rounded, the posterior end — 
narrower and sub-acute, posterior umbonial slope marked by an 
obtuse rounded ridge, which extends to the posterior extremity, — 
and below this an undefined sinus which, expanding, extends to 
the postero-basal extremity, while a less defined ridge bounds this 
sinuosity on its anterior side; surface marked by fine irregular con- — 
centric strie. 

In the casts of this shell there is a strong linear straight clavicle, 
extending from a point just anterior to the beak two-thirds across 
the valve. Arisaig. ; 


Fig. 203. Fig. 204. Fig. 205. 
Modiolopsis rhomboidea. Clidophorus concentricus.  Clidophorus erectus. 


— 
a | 


Clidophorus concentricus, n.s. (Fig. 204). Shell sub-equilateral, — 
very broadly oval-ovate, the anterior end the broader; height nearly — 
four-fifths the greatest length; anterior side a little shorter and more 
broadly rounded at the extremity; a slight depressed sinus on the _ 
posterior umbonial slope, which is more anterior than in the preceding 
species. Surface marked by even band-like concentric strie; shell 
thin; a linear curving clavicle extends from the cardinal line just — 
anterior to the beak more than half way to the base. a OE 

The prominent points of distinction between this and the preceding __ 
shell are the nearly central beaks, the band-like strie, and the curving © 
clavicle with the broad and nearly equal extremities of the valve. 
Arisaig. at 

Clidophorus erectus, n.s. (Fig. 205). Shell somewhat rhomboid- _ 
ovate, the height and length about equal; umbones prominent, beaks 
nearer the anterior end, somewhat curved and elevated; posterior — 


FOSSILS. 601 


 eardinal line curving, with a scarcely defined ridge along the um- 
bonial slope; basal margin strongly rounded, sinuate on the postero- 
_ basal margin and regularly rounded, with a scarcely defined ridge 
_ extending down the slope just anterior to the clavicle. Surface finely 
- striated concentrically, a slightly curving clavicle extending from the 
_ eardinal line nearly two-thirds the distance to the anterior basal margin. 
This species differs from the preceding in the equal length and 
breadth, and consequent greater proportional height, in the sinuosity 
of the postero-basal margin, and more abruptly-rounded basal outline, 
and the curving forward of the beaks. Arisaig. 
Clidophorus elongatus, Hall (Fig. 206). Shell sub-elliptical, 
length about twice the height, beaks much nearer to the anterior 
end, which is narrowly rounded; umbones rounded, prominent; a 
defined gradually widening depression extends from the ig, 568 
umbo to the posterior basal margin, causing a straighten- ¢, aon giitid 
ing or slight sinuosity in the edge of the shell; a defined 
ridge along the posterior slope between the sinus and the @@55. 
cardinal margin. Surface very finely striated. A slender 
clavicle extends from the anterior cardinal margin a little more than 
half-way to the base, and curving slightly forward. 
This species differs externally from all the others in the greater 
proportional length and in the rounded umbones. 
The C. cuneatus of the same size is a stronger and proportionally 
higher shell, having a less defined sinus on the posterior slope, and 
a much stronger clavicle. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Clidophorus semi-radiatus, Hall. Shell somewhat oval-ovate, length 
about one-third greater than the height. 
Surface marked by fine concentric band-like striae, and the posterior 
slope by flattened dichotomized radiating strie, the two sets of strie 
gradually dying out at their junction. A faint line anterior to the 
beak marks the place of the clavicle. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Clidophorus nuculiformis, Hall. Shell nearly equilateral, sub- 
ventricose, height and length as seven to nine. Anterior end rounded, 
basal margin regularly curved; posterior end sub-acute, a slight 
flattening or depression along the posterior umbonial slope, and be- 
tween this and the cardinal line a narrow ridge. On the anterior 
slope there is a depressed line almost parallel to the cardinal line, 
marking apparently the course of the clavicle. Surface marked by 
fine concentric striz. 
This species resembles in form the C. concentricus in its equilateral 
form, but the fine unequal concentric striw and the difference in diree- 
tion of the clavicle are sufficient to distinguish it. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 


602 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


Clidophorus subovatus, Hall. Shell, broadly oval or ovate, moder-— 
ately and evenly convex; beaks near the anterior end; umbones 
moderately elevated; a scarcely defined depression extending from 
the umbo towards the postero-basal extremity; anterior extremity ~ 
rounded, posterior extremity unknown (? regularly rounded) ; clavicle 
extending half way from the anterior cardinal margin to the base 
of the shell. Surface marked by fine unequal sub-lamellose — 
striz. > 

This shell is larger and more regularly convex than any of the — 
others here described, and more inequilateral than any except the — 
C. cuneatus. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 4 
_ Nuculites (Orthonota) carinata, Hall (Fig. 207). Shell extremely — 
elongate, nearly three times as long as wide; sides sub-parallel; 
hinge-line straight, beaks appressed, sub-anterior, the anterior ex- — 
tremity rounded; posterior extremity obliquely truncate, longer | 
on the hinge-line than on the basal margin. Surface marked by a 
sharp carina which extends from the umbo obliquely to the postero- — 
basal angle; the space anterior to this carina marked by distinct — 
elevated lamellose striae, and intermediate- finer ones. The space — 
between this and the cardinal line smooth and slightly depressed. 
Cardinal line anterior to the beak showing six or seven crenulations. — 
A strong clavicle extends from the anterior cardinal line with a 


gentle curve nearly to the base of the shell. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. _ b 
Fig. 207. Fig. 208. Fig. 209. 7 
Nuculites carinata. Tellinomya attenuata. | Megambonia cancellata. : 


This shell presents characters not before observed combined in — 
one species. It has the general form of Orthonta, while the crenu- — 
lated cardinal line and the anterior clavicle are characters of Nuculites. a 
The shell is readily distinguished from species of either genus hereto- 
fore described. The Orthonotz, yet known, have the surface marking _ 
much less sharply defined. Us 

Tellinomya attenuata, Hall (Fig. 208). Shell elongate, narrow, 
more than twice as long as high, anterior end short and rounded; __ 
beak elevated, situated a little in advance of anterior third, posterior 
end narrow and abruptly rounded; basal margin slightly curved, 
and impressed posterior to the centre ; posterior cardinal line straight 
but gradually declining; contour evenly convex. Surface concen- — 
trically striated, shell thick. 


FOSSILS. 603 


This shell resembles the 7. macheriformis, but the anterior end is 
proportionally longer and more regularly round, the posterior narrower 
and more attenuated, and the convexity of the shell much greater. It 
is much smaller and proportionally more elongated than the 7. nasuta 
of the Trenton limestone. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Tellinomya angustata, Hall. Shell elongate, narrow elliptical, more 
than twice as long as wide, beaks fully one-third from the anterior 
end. The anterior and posterior ends similar and equally rounded ; 
basal margin regularly curved without indentation or sinuosity. Sur- 
face evenly convex and very finely concentrically striated. Arisaig, 
coll. J. W. D. 

Leptodomus (Sanguinolites) aratus, Hall. Shell rhomboid-ovate, 
ventricose, beaks at the anterior third of the valve, incurved and 
pointed forward, umbones gibbous, a slight depression from the 
umbo directly to the base of the shell, leaving a slight impression 
in the central margin; posterior slope sub-angular, the angle not 
defined ; anterior slope with a defined angular ridge which borders 
a large cordiform lunette; anterior sharply rounded; basal margin 
nearly parallel with the hinge-line, curving upwards at the posterior 
extremity, and somewhat obliquely truncated from the cardinal line. 
Cardinal line straight posteriorly, with a wide and deep ligamental 
area. Surface marked by strong unequal ridges and furrows parallel 
to the basal margin, which become obsolescent on the posterior car- 
dinal slope. 

It is scarcely possible to refer any fossil with satisfaction to the 
genera Sanguinolites or Leptodomus of M‘Coy, since the grouping of 
species under these names appears to us to comprise a heterogeneous 
assemblage in either case. Our shell corresponds in its external 
features with Leptodomus costellatus of M‘Coy, so far as the general 
form, surface markings, ligamental area, ete., and is doubtless generi- 
eally identical with that shell. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Megambonia (?) cancellata, Hall (Fig. 209). Shell sub-ovate, 
widening posteriorly; beak anterior, incurved, umbo gibbous, with 
a gibbous umbonial slope on the posterior side, which is scarcely 
diverging from the cardinal line; posterior extremity rounded, the 
basal margin arcuate, with a slight impression anterior to the middle, 
the anterior end a little gibbous. Surface cancellated by concentric 
and radiating elevated striz. 

It is not possible from the specimen before me to refer the species 
satisfactorily to any known genus. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Megambonia striata, Hall. Shell somewhat oval, the basal and 
cardinal lines nearly parallel; beak sub-anterior, small; umbones 


,. it 
eS —— 


604 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


convex, scarcely gibbous; umbonial slope regularly convex, below 
which is a slight depression reaching to the postero-basal margin; 
posterior end rounded, the longer part of the curve on the basal side. 
Anterior end short and narrow, somewhat abruptly rounded. Surface — 
marked by regularly radiating rounded striz with faint concentric lines — 
of growth. 

This differs from the preceding species in being less gibbous, in the 4 
more nearly parallel cardinal and basal lines in the direction of the 
umbonial ridge, and in the stronger radiating strie. Arisaig, East — 
River, coll. J. W. D. BS - 

Avicula Honeymani, Hall (Fig. 210). Left valve: body of the — 
shell obliquely ovate, convex and somewhat gibbous towards the — 
umbo, anterior wing small rounded, posterior wing large triangular, __ 
obtuse at the extremity, extending two-thirds the length of the shell. — 
The line between the wing and body of the shell well defined by a 


Fig. 210.—Avicula Honeymani. 


slight abrupt depression along the junction. Surface marked by — 
rounded radiating strie which are interrupted by fainter concentric 4 x 
undulations or lines of growth; the wing is marked only by con- — 
centric strie. 
This species bears some resemblance to A. emacerata of the Niagara — 
and Clinton groups of New York; butits form is slightly more oblique, — 
and the wing is marked only by concentric striz, while in the New 
York species the radiating lines on this part are stronger than the 
concentric ones. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Grammysia triangulata, Salter. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Grammysia cingulata, Hisinger. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Pterinea retrofleca. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 7 
Goniophora cymbaeformis, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. This 
and the three last shells I give on the authority of Dr Honeyman 
and Mr Salter. ~ 
Theca Forbesii, Sharpe. Collected by Dr Honeyman at Arisaig. _ 
Murchisonia Arisaigensis, Hall. Shell teretely conical, volutions — 
about five, gradually increasing from the apex, rounded with a slight . 
angulation or carina in the middle. The surface is unknown, andthe | 


FOSSILS. 605 


angular band on the volution is the only means of determining its 
_ generic relations. 

This differs from any of the described species of Murchisonia from 
American localities. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Murchisonia aciculata, Hall. Shell slender, very gradually tapering, 
volutions about six or seven, the last ones moderately ventricose, 
_ aperture elongate-oval or ovate, rounded at the anterior margin, 
columella plain; volutions marked by a distinct band along the 
centre, and a sub-sutural carina marking the upper side of the volu- 
tions; surface striated. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Pleurotomaria. A flat species with four turns. Arisaig, Dr Honey- 
man. Nictaux, J. W. D. 

Holopea reversa, Hall (Fig. 211). Shell small, sinistral; spire 
depressed, volutions about three; the two first small and gradually 
expanding, the last one rapidly expanding and ventri- 
cose; aperture wide expanded; suture impressed. Sur- 
face unknown. ‘This shell has the general form of Holo- 
pea, but I have seen only a single specimen, which is a 
east. It is remarkable and readily recognised from the sinistral spire. 
Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Bucania trilobita, Hall. Arisaig, East River, Nictaux, coll. J. W. D. 
Bellerophon expansus (?), Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Bellerophon carinatus, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Platyschisma helicites, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 

Acroculia helicites, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. This and the 
three last species are from the lists of Dr Honeyman and Mr Salter. 
Orthoceras punctostriatum, Hall (Fig. 212). Shell slender, very 
gradually tapering, almost cylindrical. Septa distant about one-third 
the diameter. Siphuncle central; section circular. Surface very 
finely striated with unequal undulating striz, the interstices between 
which are puncte, which are oblong indentations often becoming 
confluent. 


Fig. 211. 


Fig. 212. Orthoceras punctostriatum. Fig. 213. O. elegantulum, and portion magnified. 


qn 


Hh 
Nt 


This species is remarkable for its extremely gently tapering form ; 
the fragment of more than an inch long, showing scarcely a per- 
ceptible diminution in diameter. There are twelve and a half cham- 


q 


606 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


bers in the space of one inch. The surface markings are peculiar, and — 
among the species of the genus known to us constitute a distinctive — 
character. Large specimens nearly two inches in diameter from East 
River have the characters of this species. Arisaig, coll. J. W.D. 
Ortheceras elegantulum, Dawson (Fig. 213). This is a very 
beautiful species, apparently new, but closely resembling O. perelegans, — 
Salter, of the Lower Ludlow formation. It is cylindrical, but slightly — 
flattened; septa very convex and one-twentieth of an inch apart ina — 
specimen half an inch in diameter; siphuncle central. Surface with — 
slight rounded annulations from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch — 
apart, and covered with delicate transverse striz, scarcely visible to 
the naked eye, and about sixteen ina line. Under the microscope — 
the strie appear as thin sharp parallel curved ridges, the spaces 
between being finely granulated and wider than the ridges. Arisaig, 
coll; J. W. D.: a 
Orthoceras (?), n. s. East River, coll. J. W. D. 
Orthoceras (?), n. 8. Nictaux, coll. J. W. D. 
Cyrtoceras, n. 8. East River, coll. J. W. D. 
Orthoceras exornatum, Dawson. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. This 
species, collected by Dr Honeyman at Arisaig, is circular in the cross — 
section, moderately tapering, and straight; with the siphuncle slightly 
excentric, and septa half a line to a line apart, in a specimen two to — 
four lines in diameter. The surface is slightly annulated, and orna-_ 
mented with about twenty-four flat longitudinal flutings in the manner — 
of a Doric column. The whole surface is also delicately striated 
transversely. « 
Orthoceras nummulare, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Orthoceras Ibex, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. P 
Orthoceras, like O. bullatum, Sow. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. This — 
and the two last are given on the authority of Dr Honeyman and Mr ~ 
Salter, who also mention species of Lituites and Phragmoceras. 4 


Articulata et Incerte sedis. 


Cornulites flexuosus, var. gracilis. This fossil resembles the one in 
the Clinton group of New York, but is somewhat more slender, and 
the annulations a little more closely arranged. The specimens from _ 
the rocks of New York present some variation in form, and the com- 
parative distance of the annulations. None of them, however, are so 
slender as the Nova Scotia specimens. Arisaig, East River, coll 
Te Wl 

Cornulites (?), n. s. East River, coll. J. W. D. 


i 


FOSSILS. 607 


side greater than the length of the axis. Axis wider than the lateral 
lobes, distinguishable (in casts) from the lobes by a bending of the 
ribs and a scarcely perceptible depression along that line; annulations 
abruptly prominent; seven on the lateral lobes and nine on the axis, 
the anterior ones bending slightly backward at the line of division 


_ between the axis and the lateral lobe; each successive one bending 


more and more abruptly till the last one approaches a rectangular 
turn; the whole curving gently forward at their extremities, and all 
terminating abruptly before reaching the margin. Behind the seventh 
annulation the axis is marked by two more annulations, leaving nearly 
one-fourth of its length smooth. 

This species is described from the casts and impressions of the 
eaudal shield, so that the crustaccous covering is unknown. It is 
readily distinguished by the broad not prominent axis, the rectangular 
direction of the annulations on the axis, and their abrupt bending at 
the lateral furrow. An impression of a few imperfect annulations of 


the body shows that they are strongly elevated, much more so than 


in any known American species. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 


Fig. 214.—Homalonotus Dawsoni, Head and Pygidium. 


Fig. 215.—Dalmania Logani, Head and Pygidium. 


When Professor Hall described this species, the caudal shield only 
was known, with some of the segments of the body. Dr Honeyman 
subsequently found specimens of the head. It has the posterior border 
nearly straight, the glabella moderately prominent and slightly wider 
behind than before. It descends abruptly in front, and the frontal 
margin appears to have risen with equal abruptness in front of the 
glabella and eyes. The eyes are large and prominent, and advance 
into a line with the front of the glabella. Some specimens have the 
head nearly three inches broad. 

Calymene Blumenbachii, var. Caudal shield somewhat semicircular, 
axis very prominent, marked by about seven annulations, lateral lobes 
marked by five ribs, the four anterior ones bifureating. Surface granu- 


Sa | CU 


—_ vr 


ee a 


es TO ee re ae 4 


608 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


lose. The specimens are not sufficient to make any satisfactory 
determinations regarding specific differences. Arisaig, East River. _ 
Dalmania Logani, Hall (Fig. 215). The specimens are two or — 
three imperfect cephalic shields, one preserving the palpebral lobes, — 
and others consisting principally of the glabella, with two or three 
parts of caudal shields. There is a fragment of a cheek which may 
be of this species. Cephalic shield somewhat semicircular. Glabella 
ovate, wider in front and truncate behind, depressed convex; occipital” 
ring narrow, prominent; occipital furrow bending a little forward in 
the middle, and curving gently backward in the middle of each side, — 
and again turning forward; posterior furrows narrow and sharply — 
impressed, each one extending about one-third across the glabella and 
curving forward at their outer extremities; central furrow linear, — 
obscure, having a direction transverse to the axis; anterior furrow 
obscure; oblique to the axis, linear extending to the margin of the — 
glabella a little forward of the eye; frontal lobe regularly rounded ~ 
anteriorly. A fragment of a cheek in the same association is broad, 
produced posteriorly in a short strong spine, and marked by a broad — 
sub-marginal groove. Caudal shield somewhat semi-elliptical, convex, 
acute behind, axis very prominent, rounded and marked by about 
eight annulations, which are gently curved backward at the extremi- 
ties; lateral lobes with six simple flattened ribs which terminate in — 
a thickened border, and separated from the axis by a strongly defined — 
furrow; extremity abruptly pointed. 1 
The glabella of this species more nearly resembles Phacops in the — 
general form and faintly impressed furrows, of which the posterior 
one is conspicuous. The form of the palpebral lobe, and the absence 
of tubercles at the base of the glabella, together with the form of the 
caudal shield, ally it with Dalmania, and it may be compared with — 
D. Phillipst of Barrande, but has a more pointed caudal shield, and — 
the cheek, if correctly referred, is prolonged in a posterior spine.* — 
Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Proetus Stokesii (?), Edwards. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 
Homalonotus Knightii, Konig. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. 
Phacops Downingi, Salter. Arisaig, Dr Honeyman. The two — 
last species are given on the authority of Dr Honeyman’s and in 
Salter’s lists. - | 
Beyrichia pustulosa, Hall (Fig. 216). Valves unequally semi- 
oval, a little more than once and a half as long as wide; surface — 
marked by three prominent ridges; central, anterior, and posterior. 
The central one is a single oblong oval tubercle, which is directly | 


ese RS UP ee elu le) 


.. 


* Attached to a fragment of one of these trilobites is asmall Spirorbis. Itis dextral, q 
with two to three turns, and rounded concentric wrinkles on the last whorl.—J. W. D. c: 


2... Vn: 


FOSSILS. 609 


transverse to the dorsal margin and a little nearer the anterior side. 
The anterior ridge consists of a single highly elevated, rounded or 
papillose tubercle near the dorsal margin, and an elongated elliptical 
tubercle placed obliquely near the antero-ventral margin, and in older 
specimens sometimes swelling and spreading over the margin. The 
posterior ridge rises near the dorsal margin, and making a slightly 
broader curve than the posterior end of the valve approaches the 
ventral margin at the centre: the ridge is high and angular with a 
small prominent tubercle at the dorsal extremity, and from four to six 
smaller spine-like tubercles along its curve. The central ridge or tuber- 
cle is separated from the lateral ridge by a distinct furrow, and its con- 
tinuation from the base of the tubercle passes between the lower ends 
of the two lateral ridges. Ventral and lateral margins with a narrow 
thickened rim. 

This species resembles very nearly the B. tuberculata of Kloden, as 
described and figured by Mr T. Rupert Jones. In our specimens the 
dorsal angles are more rounded; the posterior ridge at its base is 
never extended beyond the middle of the valve, and is marked on its 
erest by several small spine-like tubercles. The anterior ridge is 
usually more extended along the ventral margin in our specimens, 
and the furrow is better defined, while the tubercles are never flattened 
above or overhanging the base as shown in the European specimens. 
Smaller specimens, which appear to be the young of this species, pre- 
sent some slight variations of surface markings, but show less difference 
than the young of B. tuberculata. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 


Fig. 216.—Beyrichia pustulosa. Fig. 217.—B. equilatera. 


og 


Beyrichia equilatera, Hall (Fig. 217). Nearly equilateral, very 
convex, marked by three smooth or nearly smooth ridges. The 
central ridge is an oblong tubercle reaching from near the dorsal 
margin a little more than half way to the ventral margin. The pos- 
terior ridge is a little larger, but scarcely differing in form from the 
anterior one, its ventral extremity terminating beneath or a little in 
advance of the middle of the central tubercle. The furrow is narrow, 
but well defined on the two sides of the central tubercle, and becoming 
shallow in its passage to the marginal furrow; ventral and lateral 
margins thickened. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 

Leperditia sinuata, Hall. Minute, sub-ovate, anterior end narrow, 
dorsal line one-third shorter than the length of the valve ; an extremely 
minute tubercle near the anterior end. Centre extremely convex or 
2k 


OO ae 


610 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


ventricose; ventral margin near the posterior end a little sinuous, or 
indented from the inner side. Surface smooth under an ordinary lens. — 

Two specimens only of this species have been observed, both of 
them having the same dimensions. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. : 

Tentaculites distans, var. The specimens under examination do 
not present any important points of difference from those of the Clinton _ 
group in New York. In the Nova Scotia specimens there are numerous” 
annulations near the apex, which are not observable in the New York 
specimens. Arisaig, coll. J. W. D. 


Note on the Character of the Metamorphic and Igneous Rocks of the 
Upper Silurian District. 


These rocks introduce us more distinctly than the previously de- — 
scribed Devonian series to those changes in sedimentary deposits 
known to geologists by the term metamorphism, and which, whatever 
views may be entertained as to the precise causes of such changes in — 
the case of particular rocks, may be stated in general terms to be the 
results of heat and pressure acting in the presence of moisture at great — 
depths in the interior of the earth. In so far as the Upper Silurian 
rocks of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are concerned, the alteration ; os 
they have undergone and the unstratified masses introduced among 
them, may be grouped under the following general statements :— 

Pert Some portions consist of shaly, sandy, and calcareous deposits, 
ceddembly hardened and much disturbed, yet retaining abundance — 
of fossil shells and other evidences of a marine origin. In these, with 
the exception of mere hardening, the changes which have been in- 
duced on the sediments are limited to the following:—(1.) The pro- — 
duction of slaty structure, by which the rocks are rendered fissile in — 
planes different from those of their true bedding. This is termed 
slaty structure as distinguished from mere shaly lamination, and is — 
believed to be due principally to mechanical pressure. (2.) In con- 
nexion with this, much distortion of the fossils, so that their propor- 
tions and general forms cannot be relied on as specific distinctions. _ 
(3.) The production, to a greater or less extent, of crystalline struc- 
ture; for example, in the New Canaan beds fossils occur in rocks 
which have to a great extent been converted into micaceous schists. 

Secondly, Other portions, originally no doubt similar to those now 
less altered, are highly metamorphosed, and are not only hardened and 
schistose, but have assumed a crystalline structure, so that instead of ee | 
the mud, sand, and similar materials of which they were originally 
composed, we find more or less crystalline aggregates of quartz, mica, 


se = 


~~ = 
_: 7 


ie 


METAMORPHIC AND IGNEOUS ROCKS. 611 


felspar, hornblende, chlorite, and other minerals, which must have 
been produced by re-arrangement of the substances contained in the 
sediments, under the influence of chemical agencies. Such fossils 
as may have existed in these rocks have entirely disappeared, or may 
in some instances be seen to be replaced by mere nests of calcareous 
erystals or even by crystals of garnet. In the distriet now under 
consideration, these metamorphic rocks may be grouped under the 
following heads, each of which, however, includes many varieties 
graduating into each other:—(1.) Quartzite, or a hard silicious rock 
produced from the alteration of sandstone or arenaceous shale; (2.) 
Gneiss, a stratified rock composed of quartz, felspar, and hornblende, 
or quartz, felspar, and mica, and a product of the metamorphism of 
conglomerates and other mixed sediments; (3.) Micaceous and 
chloritie slates, consisting of quartz and mica, or quartz and chlorite, 
and apparently a result of the further alteration of clay slates, into 
which the micaceous schists graduate; (4.) Déiorite or Hornblendic 
greenstone, a crystalline mixture of the mineral hornblende with 
felspar, often laminated or rudely stratified. These rocks may be 
merely altered mud-rocks or shales, but in many cases they may have 
been originally volcanic tufas or ash-rocks. (6.) Compact Felspar 
and Felspar porphyry, containing small isolated felspar crystals in a 
paste of more compact material of similar composition. Many rocks 
of this character appear to be stratified, and are probably metamorphosed 
clays. (7.) Crystalline Limestone or Marble, usually white and some- 
times with crystals of tremolite and patches of serpentine. Owing 
to the small amount of calcareous matter in the original sediments, this 
kind of rock is not largely developed in the Upper Silurian districts. 

All of the above are stratified and metamorphic. With these are 
other rocks in masses or veins either intrusive, and of the nature of vol- 
eanie rocks, or “indigenous” products of the fusion of ‘sedimentary 
rocks in situ. These igneous rocks, as they may be called, though 
probably of similar origin with the trap of the Triassic and Carbon- 
iferous systems, differ somewhat in composition and appearance. They 
are mostly coarser grained or more crystalline, indicating that they 
are less superficial, and hence have cooled more slowly. Hornblende 
usually replaces the Augite of the trap. Felspar, which is the pure 
white or flesh-coloured part of ordinary granite, exists in greater 
abundance than in trap. Quartz or uncombined silica is also often 
present in considerable quantity. Rocks of this class are very variable 
in their composition and appearance, hence it is difficult to give them 
accurately distinctive names, and geologists entertain different opinions 
as to the amount of internal heat, or igneous action proper, involved 


a eee 


612 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


in their production, and also as to the question whether they are 
derived from deep-seated sources under the stratified rocks, or have 
been produced from the fusion or semi-fusion, with aid of heated water, 
of portions of the sediments themselves. That in some cases they are ~ 
at least partially of the latter character is, I think, evident from the 
manner in which they appear to replace stratified ee in their line 
of strike, or to occur in bedded masses among them, and also from 
their apparent relation in mineral character to the associated igneous 
rocks. On the other hand, in their frequent intrusion into the fissures 
of the aqueous rocks, they are certainly in many cases to be regarded 
as eruptive rocks of unknown and deep-seated origin. Dr Hunt has 
very fully gonsidered these points in reference to similar rocks in the 
Reports of the Geological Survey of Canada. In the district now 
under consideration, the following terms may serve for the designation 
of the more important rocks of this class :— 

Unstratified Diorite or Hornblendic Greenstone consists of horn- 
blende and felspar, sometimes in large distinct crystals of black or 
green hornblende and white felspar, and in every gradation of crystal- 
line texture between this and a gray or greenish rock in which the 
separate crystals are scarcely distinguishable. When there are large 
distinct felspar crystals imbedded in the mass, it is named Porphyritic 
greenstone. 

Unstratified Compact Felspar or Felsite is a rock consisting of the 
materials of felspar with some quartz, but not distinctly crystalline. 
It is sometimes fine-grained and flinty in aspect, and in other cases 
dull and rough in its fracture, approaching to the rocks called Trachyte 
and Claystone. Its colours are usually dull-gray, reddish-brown, and 
greenish. It often contains scattered distinct crystals of lighter 
coloured felspar, and is then Felspar Porphyry. 

Granite, composed of distinct crystals of quartz, felspar, and mica. 
Granite is less abundant in this district than in the Lower Silurian 
area, next to be noticed, and the varieties which occur are often less 
perfectly crystalline, or have a less resisting felspar, causing them to 
decompose readily. 

Syenite consists of distinct crystals of reddish, gray, or - white felspar, 
with a smaller quantity of dark-coloured hornblende and some quartz 
—the whole forming a material somewhat similar to granite, -with 
which it is often confounded. We may associate with this rock, or 
with greenstone and compact felspar, a number of nameless rocks in 


which crystalline felspar forms the chief ingredient, with or without 
quartz and hornblende. 


: 


r 


613 


CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


LOWER SILURIAN OF NOVA SCOTIA—GOLD—LOWER SILURIAN OF NEW 
BRUNSWICK—“ ACADIAN GROUP’’—USEFUL MINERALS— PRIMORDIAL 
FOSSILS. 


To this geological age I have referred, principally on evidence of 
an inferential character, the extensive belt of metamorphic sediments 
extending along the coast of Nova Scotia from Cape Canseau to Cape 
Sable. On similar grounds certain extensive areas of metamorphic 
rocks in New Brunswick have been regarded as belonging to this 
period; and very recently the discovery of a rich primordial fauna in 
some of these beds near St John has confirmed this view in regard 
to a portion of these areas; while in Northern New Brunswick 
the resemblance of the beds to those of the “Quebec group,” and 
their relation to the Upper Silurian beds, tend to give similar con- 
firmation. 

In describing these districts, we shall first sketch the character and 
distribution of the Atlantic coast series of Nova Scotia, with the 
important discoveries of gold which have given to it so great economic 
importance, and shall then proceed to notice the rocks of similar age 
in New Brunswick, with the very remarkable fossils—the oldest known 
in Acadia—which have recently been discovered in them. 


1. Lower Silurian of the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia. 


This series extends continuously, with prevailing east and west 
strike, from Cape Canseau to the middle of the peninsula at Halifax 
Harbour; thence it continues with prevailing north-east and south- 
west strike to the western extremity of the province. Its most 
abundant rocks are coarse clay slate and quartzite in thick beds. In 
some districts the slates are represented by mica schist and gneiss, and 
interrupted by considerable masses and transverse bands of intrusive 
granite. It has afforded no fossils; but it appears to be the continuation 
of the older slate series of Mr Jukes in Newfoundland, which has 


614 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


afforded trilobites of the genus Paradoxides. These fossils would 
indicate a position in the lower part of the Lower Silurian series, 
possibly on the horizon of the Potsdam sandstone or Lingula flags. 
If so, the Lower Silurian limestones are either absent or buried by 
the unconformable superposition of the next series, or of the carbon- 
iferous beds which in some places immediately adjoin these older rocks. 
It is to be observed, however, that the mineral character of the rocks 
themselves very closely resembles that of some portions of the ‘‘ Quebee 
group” of Sir William Logan. If coeval with this, they would be 
somewhat higher in the Lower Silurian scale; but I think it may be 
safely affirmed that no newer group than the Quebec series can claim 
them with any show of reason. We may therefore in the meantime . 
regard these rocks as probably representative of some portion of the 
lower part of the Lower Silurian, but without venturing to assign 
them to any definite horizon, and admitting the possibility that future 
researches may establish differences sufficient to divide them into 
distinct formations. More especially in the western part of Nova 
Scotia, where this band attains to great breadth, I entertain the hope 
that a continuous sequence may be one day ascertained from the 
Devonian to the base of the Lower Silurian. 

Large though this district is, there is by no means so great a variety 
in its rocks as in those of the district last described; and most of them 
are nearly related to each other, being composed of the same materials 
variously arranged. I shall notice them specially with reference to 
their differences from those of the Upper Silurian series. 

1. Granite, as it occurs in this district, is a crystalline mixture of 
white, or more rarely flesh-coloured, folipac® with smoky or white 
quartz and gray or black mica. It varies in its texture, and is some- 
times porphyritic ; that is, it consists of a base of fine-grained granite, 
with large crystals of felspar forming distinct spots. It often contains 
altered fragments of the neighbouring slates, and penetrates in veins 
into the adjoining rocks, which in its vicinity are always more highly 
metamorphosed than usual. 

2. Gneiss is a fine-grained granitic rock, arranged in lamine or 
layers. It is unquestionably here, as in the Upper Silurian district, 
a product of the metamorphism or “baking” of sedimentary rocks 
by heat and water, and in this series it almost invariably holds mica 
and not hornblende. 

3. Mica slate consists of quartz and plates of mica, forming a highly 
fissile rock with shining surfaces, and usually of a gray or silvery 


* Orthoclase, but with soda as wellas potash. The granite of Annapolis, mentioned 
in last chapter, has in some places reddish quartz. 


ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. 615 


colour. In the coast metamorphic district of Nova Scotia, it appears 

in many and beautiful varieties. Talcose, chloritic, and hornblendic 

slates are comparatively rare in this district. 

4. Quartz rock, or Quartzite, consisting of grains of flinty sand 

fused together, and with occasionally a little mica, occurs in this series 

in very massive beds. 

5. Clay slate, or argillaceous slate, abounds, and is usually in this 

district of gray and black colours, and varying very much in texture 

and hardness. It often presents indications of the original bedding 

in different planes from those of the lamination, the latter being an 

effect of causes acting at a time posterior to the original deposition, 

and, as already stated, pressure was probably the most efficient of 
these causes. 

Between these rocks there are many intermediate forms. Granite 
often passes by imperceptible gradations into gneiss—this into mica 

slate—this into quartzite—and this into coarse or flinty clay slates. 

There appears every reason to believe that all these rocks, except the 
granite, are merely variously metamorphosed forms of common sand- 

stones and clays. 

The Lower Silurian rocks form a continuous belt along the Atlantic 

coast of the province, narrow at its north-eastern extremity, and at- 

taining its greatest development in the western counties. Its southern 
or coast side has a general direction of 8. 68° W.; its inland side, 

though presenting some broad undulations, has a general direction of 
about S. 80° W. Its extreme breadth at Cape Canseau, its north- 

eastern extremity, where it is bounded on one side by the ocean, and 
on the other by Chedabucto Bay, is only about eight miles. In its 
extension westward, it gradually increases in width, until at the head, 
of the west branch of the St Mary’s River, eighty miles distant from 
Cape Canseau, it is about thirty miles in breadth. In the western 
counties it again increases in width, and though its northern boundary 
is not well ascertained, its breadth can scarcely be less than fifty miles. 

Its total length is 250 miles. ~ 

The general character of the geology of this district may be very 
shortly stated. It consists of thick bands of slate and quartzite, having 
a general N.E. and 8.W. strike, and highly inclined. In several places 
large masses of granite project through these rocks, and in their vicinity 

the quartz rock and clay slate are usually replaced by gneiss and mica 
slate, or other rocks more highly metamorphosed than usual. Bearing 
in mind this general character, we may proceed along this district from 
west to east, noting the more interesting points of its structure as they 
occur. 


; 
. 


Sr... 
te 


acer 


> Cae 18S ee Ee 
< war 


616 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


The county of Yarmouth presents a succession of low ridges of slate 
and quartz rock, separated on the coast by narrow inlets, and inland 
by valleys, often containing lakes and bogs. The prevailing strike 
appears to approach more nearly to north and south than in other 
parts of this district. Near the town of Yarmouth it was observed to 
be N. 20° E., and at Pubnico nearly N. and S. Near the town of 
Yarmouth there are hornblende and chlorite slates, and inland, in the 
direction of Carleton, clay slates appear to prevail. Veins of white 
quartz abound in these rocks. On the east side of the Tusket River 
quartz rock prevails, and forms a stony country. Toward Pubnico, 
mica slate and micaceous quartz rock appear, and are traversed by 
granitic veins, leading us to the massive granite of Shelburne county. 
Granite is also said to occur inland at Kempt; but I have not visited 
this place. 

On entering Shelburne, we find granite at Wood’s and Shag Har- 
bours, and extending inland for some distance. At Barrington there 
is still abundance of granite and mica slate, with strike N. 23° E. 
At Port La Tour, the mica slate and gneiss abound in large prismatic 
crystals of a greenish magnesian mineral, allied to steatite. These 
crystals, which are perhaps pseudomorphous, project from the weathered 
surface of the rock. At the town of Shelburne there is abundance of 
a fine-grained granite of excellent quality, and toward the mouth of 
the harbour gneiss occurs, with small crystals of garnet; its strike is 
S.W. Veins of coarse-grained granite penetrate these rocks, and in 
some places these veins present the singular variety to which the 
name graphic granite has been applied, from its resemblance to written 
characters. In this variety of granite, quartz and felspar alone are 
present, and the quartz in hardening has arranged itself in plates 
between the felspar crystals, so that when the mass is polished, the 
sections of these quartzose plates present the appearance of ancient 
Samaritan on modern phonographic writing. In the graphic granite 
of Shelburne, the characters are in gray quartz, and the ground is 
white or flesh-coloured felspar. In surface gravel, near the town of 
Shelburne, I found pebbles of the beautiful mineral rose-quartz, but 
did not observe it in place. 

At Jordan and Sable Rivers, in the eastern part of this county, 
gneiss and mica slate appear in many fine varieties, and contain 
abundance of crystals of Staurotide ; and Schiller spar and tale some- 
times enter into the composition of these rocks as well as mica. 

On entering Queen’s County we find granite at Port Joli and Port 
Mouton, and toward the town of Liverpool these give place to quartz 
rock, which, with some beds of micaceous slate, here occupies a great 


Sin Bp eige - h 


ali 


a 
“a” 
—s 
‘3 


ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. 617 


breadth, and produces a very stony and barren country, encumbered 
with large boulders. This rocky surface, at the distance of about ten 
miles from the coast, gives place to a fine undulating wooded country, 
supporting populous agricultural districts, and traversed by the Liver- 
pool and Port Medway, two of the largest rivers in the province, with 
numerous and large lakes at their sources. The source of the Liver- 
pool River is in the high lands near Annapolis, not more than ten 
miles from the shores of Annapolis Basin; and the distance in a direct 
line from its source to its outlet is more than fifty miles. Lake Ros- 
ignol, one of the many fine lakes that stud its course, is twelve miles 
in length, and five in its greatest breadth. 

The prevailing rock in this northern district of Queen’s County is 

clay slate, having a general south-west strike, and almost everywhere 
polished and marked with diluvial striz. This inland slate district 
appears to be continuous with that of Lunenburgh on the east, and 
that of Yarmouth on the west; so that in this part of the province 
the granitic rocks appear to be confined to the vicinity of the Atlantic 
coast, and to the inland hills near the Annapolis Valley, while a fine 
undulating slate country, diversified with numerous lakes, occupies 
the interior. In such a situation, more modern rocks than those of 
the Atlantic coast may be expected to occur. I searched in vain, 
however, for fossils in the northern district of Queen’s, but obtained 
from a gentleman resident there a fragment of hard quartzose rock, 
which he believed to have been found zn stu, and which contains some 
fragments of fossil shells, not certainly determinable, but apparently 
resembling Upper rather than Lower Silurian forms.* 
On the eastern side of Queen’s County, the quartzite and mica slate 
are associated with granite, and beyond this they give place to clay 
slate, which occupies the county of Lunenburgh as far as Cape Aspa- 
togoen, and inland as far as I have any acquaintance with its structure. 
The country here has much of the aspect as well as the agricultural 
value of that of Northern Queen’s, and presents in these respects a 
favourable contrast to most other parts of the Atlantic coast. The 
slates of this county are usually blue or black, and often charged with 
iron pyrites, which, when weathered, gives them an intense rusty 
yellow colour. This appearance is especially prevalent in some places 
in the western part of the county. Their strike is S.W. and N.E. 

It is on the margin of this slate district of Lunenburgh, and at the 
bottom of a deep bay penetrating into it, that the limited tract of 
Lower Carboniferous rocks, already noticed as occurring at Chester 
Basin, appears. These Carboniferous beds dip at a moderate angle 


* Poole, Report on Gold-fields, 1862, mentions similar fossils, and gives many 
additional facts as to geological structure. 


618 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


S.S.E., and give no evidence that this metamorphic district has suf- 
fered any considerable disturbance since their deposition. At Mahone 
Bay, however, I observed a large quantity of fragments of reddish 
amygdaloidal trap, which cannot be far from their original site, and 
probably belong to some trappean eruption of the Carboniferous 
period. 

Aspatogoen, which is a rocky promontory, about 500 feet in height, 
separating Mahone from Margaret’s Bay, consists, according to 
Mr Poole, principally of quartzite and slate with granite, and is 
apparently at the extremity of a thick dike or ridge of the latter 
rock, extending to the northward across the stratification of the 
country. It is the highest land on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. 

Margaret’s Bay is another deep indentation, between Aspatogoen 
and a broader but lower tract of granitic rock, extending to the north- 
west arm of Halifax Harbour. Around Margaret’s Bay, as at 
Chester, there are small patches of Lower Carboniferous rocks; but 
these are for the most part concealed under granitic debris drifted 
from the neighbouring districts. 

The granitic district east of Margaret’s Bay, and terminating at 


Cape Sambro, has a north and south direction. It contains several — 


varieties of common and porphyritic granite, with veins of coarse- 
grained, and more rarely of graphic granite. Near the north-west 
arm there are good opportunities of observing its junction with the 
slates which succeed it to the eastward. The slate is not here con- 
verted into mica-slate ; but, in the vicinity of the granite, it is hardened 
and rendered crystalline, and in some places passes into a rock re- 
sembling hornblende slate. In other places it appears as a hard 
flinty slate, filled with slender prismatic crystals apparently of stauro- 
tide. In close contact with the granite the slates assume the appear- 
ance of gneiss, and are traversed by granite veins, which often contain 
crystals of schorl and garnet, indicating that these veins received 
additions of foreign substances, as boracic acid, iron, etc., in passing 
through the stratified rocks. The granite itself is here porphyritic, 
and occasionally contains fragments of the rocks through which it has 
passed, fused into gneiss and mica slate. All these appearances 
indicate that the intensely heated and molten granite was the cause 
of the alteration of the slates. 
Eastward of Halifax, the whole country as far as Musquedoboit 
River, and northward to the northern limits of this district, consists 
principally of alternate thick beds of coarse clay slate, often highly 
pyritous, and quartzite, granite bosses projecting through it in a few 
places. The strike of the beds in this part of the province approaches 


Tere NERA Ee rea brie Fa 


wey 


¥ 
’ 


ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. 619 


more nearly to E. and W. than at the places previously described. 
At many localities, however, it retains its usual S.W. and N. E. 
direction. Thus, at the tower at Point Pleasant, the strike of the 
bedding is N. 30° E., and that of the slaty structure N. 75° E. On 
the shore near the same place, the strike is N. 60° E., and the dip is 
to the north-west. Nearer the city, the dip of the true bedding is in 
some places to the south, the strike being nearly E. and W. The 
cleavage is, however, here much better defined than the bedding, 
which is indicated principally by lines of different colour, and appears 
to undulate very much. On the road from Halifax to Windsor, at 
Dartmouth, and at Musquodoboit River and Harbour, the strike both 
of the bedding and slaty cleavage approach to E. and W. magnetic. 
On the Musquodoboit River, granite reappears, and extends to the 
eastward as far as the Great Ship Harbour Lake. Beyond this place, 
as far as the extreme eastern end of the district, quartzite and mica- 
slate, with masses and bands of granite and gneiss, prevail; but I 
have scarcely any knowledge of their distribution, except in the 
vicinity of the St Mary’s-River, and in the peninsula of Cape Canseau. 
The valley of the lower St Mary’s River is a rugged and rocky 
gorge, excavated at right angles to the structure of the country, and 
affording an outlet for the waters of several streams that, seeking a 
passage across the hilly barrier of the metamorphic district, form a 


small lake at the entrance of this common channel. At the mouth of 


the river, a considerable breadth is occupied by micaceous slates, with 
bands of quartzite. The strike of these rocks is N.E. and S.W., and 
in the places where I observed their dip, it is to the S.E. at high 
angles. Behind the village of Sherbrooke, and two miles eastward 
of the river, a mass of granite projects through these rocks, but does 
not occur in the river section. This granite is well seen in the lakes 
emptying into Indian Harbour. On the river itself, the slates and 
quartz rock continue with considerable regularity of strike; the latter 
becoming quite predominant, and rising into considerable eminences 
as it approaches the ‘“ Forks,” where it suddenly descends into the 
Carboniferous valley of the St Mary’s. 

Eastward of the St Mary’s River, this district gradually narrows 
toward its extremity at Cape Canseau, but still presents on its northern 
margin a range of abrupt eminences, and on the south a low, rugged, 
and indented coast. Indeed, the steep rounded swell with which its 
northern side descends at the head of Chedabucto Bay, and the pre- 
cipitous headlands beyond Crow Harbour, are the finest appearances 
in point of scenery which it presents in its whole extent. 

A large part of the peninsula terminating at Cape Canseau, is 


salle 


620 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


occupied by white fine-grained gneiss, with veins and masses of 
granite, sometimes of a reddish colour. There is also much mica 
slate, and dark-coloured clay slate, filled with crystals of the singular 
mineral chiastolite or cross-stone. Near the extremity of Cape 
Canseau specimens of this mineral occur, of a reddish or fawn colour, 
three or four lines wide, and exhibiting the characteristic black cross 
in considerable perfection. I have not found this mineral in any 
other part of Nova Scotia. 

Having thus shortly surveyed this large though little explored 
district, I may notice the probable arrangement of its beds, and the 
causes of their present condition, the waste it has undergone, and the 
materials it has contributed to newer formations, its useful minerals, 
and the peculiarities of its surface and soils. 

The beds of the Lower Silurian district present a considerable uni- 
formity of strike, in the direction already mentioned, along the whole 
coast; a fact which, in addition to the statements above made, is 
curiously indicated by a table of compass dips and strikes of the 
rocks on this coast now before me, and for which I am indebted to 
H. Poole, Esq. In this table, out of eighty-three observations at 
various places between Halifax and Yarmouth, the strike is between 
W. and S. in seventy-three instances, and in a great many of these 
not far from 8. 45° W. The dips are, however, very variable, and 
it is, in many cases, not easy to distinguish them from the slaty 
structure, which often gives planes much more distinct than those of 
the bedding. On carefully examining a section, such as, for example, 
that already referred to at Halifax Harbour and its vicinity, it will be 
found that the beds undulate in synclinal and anticlinal curves, often. 
of no great magnitude, so that they are frequently repeated within a 
few miles. This structure has been worked out in some detail by 
Mr Campbell* in the country between Halifax and Windsor. In 
other sections, however, as, for example, in that of the St Mary’s 
River, there appears to be an enormous thickness of beds with a 
uniform dip. Reasoning on these facts, we arrive at the conclusion 
that the alternations of quartz rock and clay slate constitute one 
very thick formation having probably a predominance of quartzite 
below and of slate above; but whether the mica schist and gneiss 
which occur on the peninsula of Cape Canseau, and also in Queen’s 
County and Shelburne, and the chloritic beds of Yarmouth, are to be 
regarded as continuations of this series, differently changed by meta- 
morphism, or as portions of other members of the Lower Silurian or 
of still older deposits, remains uncertain. To settle this question, 


* Report on Gold Mines of Nova Scotia. Journals of Assembly. 


ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. 621 


detailed lines of section should be run across the district at several 
places, and some of the more decided outcrops of quartz rock should 
be carefully traced. 

It is interesting to note the points of difference between these rocks 
and the more highly altered portions of the Upper Silurian series, as 
described in a previous chapter. Quartz rock oceurs in both; but 
it exists in greater abundance and in more massive beds in that last 
described. Clay-slate also occurs in both, but in the first described 
it presents much greater variety of colour and texture; it is associated 
with many coarse beds, which have been usually named graywackeé, 
and graywacké slates, and in many places it approaches to the char- 
acter of a steatitic slate. These inland slates are also highly metal- 
liferous, abounding in veins of iron ore, and containing at least one 
great conformable bed of that mineral, while copper ores also appear 
in a variety of places. They also contain numerous calcareous bands 
and layers of limestone. In all these respects the slates of the 
Atlantic metamorphic district are strikingly different. They are 
thick-bedded and uniform in their appearance, destitute of calcareous 
matter, and with few metallic minerals, except disseminated crystals 
of iron pyrites, and the veins of auriferous quartz, which are nearly if 
not altogether peculiar to this formation as compared with the other. 
They also pass into micaceous slate, which is rarely seen in the other 
district. These and other differences of detail must prevent any 
observer acquainted with both districts from supposing their rocks to 
be geologically equivalent. 

The metamorphism of these rocks must have occurred prior to 
the Carboniferous period, and there can be no doubt that the granitic 
rocks have been the agents in affecting it, if they are not themselves 
portions of the stratified beds completely molten and forced by 
pressure against and into the fissures of the neighbouring unmelted 
rocks. It will be observed that many of these granitic masses 
have a north and south direction, whereas the general strike of 
the beds is N.E. and S.W. “This would indicate either that the 
lines of greatest igneous intensity and intrusion of molten matter 
had no direct connexion with the elevating and disturbing forces, 
or that these granitic masses are merely outliers from a great N. E. 
and §.W. granitic axis, at one time the summit of a line of hills 
of which only the margin remains visible, the axis itself having 
sunk again into the bowels of the earth, before the commencement 
of the Carboniferous period. 

The general direction of the strike of this district coincides with 
that of the Lower Silurian bands of New Brunswick and of the Lower 


a 


baste asa~45 eee, 


ly ek, 


tee ol 


= Poe Bd } pls 


a 


622 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


St Lawrence, and the movements of its beds may have begun in con- 
nexion with the disturbances which Logan and others have shown to 
have occurred at the close of the Lower Silurian period; but the 
intrusive granite appears to be continuous with that of Devonian age 
described in a pr evious chapter. 

Whatever view may be taken of the age of the granitic rocks 
of this group, it is certain that they are strictly hypogene rocks, 
that is, that they belong to the deep-seated foci of subterranean heat, 
and are not superficial products of volcanic action. They are sub- 
stances such as we might expect to find, could we penetrate miles 
below the surface, beneath modern volcanoes. They were therefore 
probably at one time buried deeply, and have been brought up by 
movements of dislocation, and by the removal of their superficial 
portions by aqueous agents. They have without doubt furnished 
much of the material that has been employed in building up the 
more recent formations of the country. 

This leads to the question, Can we discover in the subsequent 
rock formations evidences of such an origin, and can the changes 
which these derived materials have undergone be satisfactorily ex- 


plained? This subject, the genealogy of rocks as it may be termed, 


is of some interest, and I may glance at it in its bearing on the 
geology of Nova Scotia. 

The granite of Nova Scotia and its associated gneiss and mica- 
slates are among the oldest rocks found in the province, and we 
may therefore take them and their derived rocks for illustrations. 
The products of the decomposition of granite are quartz sand, scales 
of mica, and fine clay which results from the decomposition of felspar. 
Such materials, when washed down and deposited in water, will 
form coarse and fine sandstones, micaceous sandstones and flags, 
arenaceous and argillaceous shales; and these may, by heat and 
pressure, be converted into quartzite, mica slate, and clay slate. 
From pure white granite the derived detritus would be colourless 
or nearly so. But the mica and felspar of many granites contain 
iron, and the sulphuret of iron is also present in some granites. In 
these cases the derived sediment will have a yellow or buff colour, 
from the presence of the yellow oxide of iron; or in some cases 
the clay may have a red colour, from the peroxide of iron present 
in red felspar. Of course, when the granites contain hornblende 
or are syenitic, much more iron may be present in the derived 
sediment. In nature nearly all soils of granitic origin are more 
or less coloured in these ways. In this manner, buff, brown, and 
red clays, and buff and brown sandstones may be produced. 


* 


peat 


aA 
ia 
a 
a 
sa 


ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. 623 


Igneous action may produce still farther changes. The yellow 
sand which results from the decay of granite is merely stained on 
the surface by the ferruginous colouring matter, and a very slight 
degree of heat is sufficient, by expelling the water of the iron rust, 
to convert this yellow stain into a bright red. This change is super- 
ficially produced by forest fires, and might readily occur when 
decomposing granitic rocks have been subjected to the influence of 
intensely heated or molten masses, with access of air or water. Red 
sands and clays produced in this way, and washed into the sea, 
become red sandstones and shales. Such red deposits are, however, 
liable to still farther change. If long washed about in the sea, the 
red coat is worn from the sands and added to the fine clays, so that 
whitish sandstones may alternate with red shales. If vegetable or 
animal matter is present, the changes of colour referred to in treating 
of the marsh mud may take place, and dark-coloured or gray beds 
may result, or greenish stripes and bands may appear in the mass of 
red deposits. 

Clays and sands thus deposited may be hardened into rock by 
pressure, by heat, or by cementing matter introduced by the per- 
colation of mineral waters. 

It will thus be perceived, that from the granitic rocks it is possible 
to deduce a variety of yellow, brown, and gray sandstones and shales, 
quartzites, and slates. Many other rocks, however, beside granite 
have been decomposed, especially to form the more modern deposits ; 
hence more complicated results than those above stated have been 
produced. Enough has, however, been said to show how much 
derived deposits may differ in appearance from those which have 
furnished their materials; and also the mode in which the waste 
of the older rocks has been disposed of. These facts also serve to 
show the enormous waste or denudation which the’ older rocks 
must have suffered in order to furnish the materials of the derived 
formations, for example, of the Carboniferous beds. They farther 
illustrate the connexion of red sandstones with periods of igneous 
activity, and the prevalence of gray and dark-coloured sediments 
at times when deposition has been slow and organic matter 
abundant.* 

With respect to surface and industrial capabilities, the different 
rocks occurring in this district present very various aspects. The 
clay slate often has a regular undulating surface, and a considerable 
depth of shingly or clay soil of fair quality, though usually deficient 


* See on this subject the author’s Paper on ‘“* The Colouring Matter.of Red Sand- 
stones,” Jour. of Geol. Soc., and page 24 supra. 


=. 


624 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


in lime. These slate districts, however, often contain beds of quartz 
rock which form rocky ridges, from which boulders have been 
scattered abroad, and which, by damming up the surface waters, — 
produce lakes and bogs,—an effect also often produced by the ridged 


structure of the slate itself, and the impervious subsoil which it 


affords. Wherever, as for instance in Northern Queen's and Lunen- 
burgh, the slate is sufficiently elevated for drainage, and not encum- 
bered with surface stones, it supports fine forests and valuable 
farms. Where quartz rock prevails, the soil is almost invariably 
extremely stony and barren. Instances of this occur in Southern 
Queen’s, near Halifax, and in the hills near the St Mary’s River. 
The mica slate is little better, for though it does not furnish fragments 
to cumber the surface, it scarcely affords any soil. 

The granite and gneiss in some places appear in precipitous hills 
of considerable elevation, and in others form low and uneven tracts. 
Their decomposed surface affords a sandy quartzose soil, often strewn 
with large rounded blocks of granite, which in some instances cover 
the whole surface, so that a granitic hill appears to be merely a huge 
mound of boulders. This appearance results in most cases from the 
nodular character of the granite, or from its consisting of great balls 
of hard resisting rock, united by a material of more perishable — 
character. Where the granite or gneiss is wholly of a resisting ~ 
character, its surface is sometimes almost entirely bare, or coated 
only with a layer of peaty vegetable soil. This occurs to a great 
extent in the peninsula of Cape Canseau. The granitic soils in their 
natural state often support fine groves of oak and other deciduous ~ 
trees; but the bare summits, destitute of soil, are clothed only with 
stunted spruces and various shrubs and mosses. Where the original 
vegetation has been destroyed by fire, the granite hills often become 
perfect gardens of flowering and fruit-bearing shrubs. I have col- 
lected in a day in August, on a single granitic eminence, sixteen 
species of edible wild fruits. The alkaline matter afforded by the 
waste of the granite is especially favourable to the growth of these 
plants as well as of ferns; fields of which (chiefly the common brake, 
Pteris aquilina) may be seen in the valleys among the granitic hills 
to attain the height of four feet. 


Useful Minerals of the Lower Silurian of Nova Scotia. 


Gold.—At the date of the publication of “ Acadian Geology” in 
1855, no actual discovery of gold in Nova Scotia was known to have 
been made. At that time I could only indicate the possibility that 
such discoveries might be made, and the most probable localities; 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 625 


and even in this I had not the advantage which would have been 
afforded by the discoveries subsequently made by Sir W. E. Logan 
as to the true age of the gold-bearing rocks of the Chaudiére district 
in the province of Quebec. At that time I ventured to hint at 
these probabilities in the following terms :— 

“Since the gold discoveries in California and Australia, reports 
of similar discoveries have locally arisen at different times in Nova 
Scotia; but, so far as I am aware, have always proved deceptive. 
Iron pyrites, or the bright golden scales which occur among the 
debris of granite containing black ferruginous mica, have usually 
been mistaken for the precious metal. Quartz veins, however, occur 
abundantly in some parts of this district, and it would not be wonder- 
ful if some of them should be found to be auriferous. It is, however, 
much more probable that such discoveries may be made in the inland 
metamorphic district described in last chapter than in that now under 
consideration, as its rocks bear a much closer resemblance to those 


Nova Scotia have been too well explored to leave much probability 
that any extensive surface deposits of the precious metal exist, but 
that it does not occur in small quantities cannot with safety be asserted, 
until careful trials of the sands and gravels of the streams flowing 
from the metamorphic districts shall have been made. The gold deposits 
of the River Chaudiére in Lower Canada afford an instance in which, 
while individual search has proved quite unprofitable, washing opera- 
tions on a large scale with the aid of machinery have repaid the 
labour and capital employed. Unless some accidental discovery should 
indicate a promising locality, it would be unwise for individuals to 
engage in such trials; but if a public survey should be undertaken, 
they would form a part of its duties.” At that time, as some absurd 
articles had appeared in the public prints predicting the discovery 
of gold in very unlikely localities, and some excitement had been 
caused thereby, I feared even to say this much. 

Public attention was first attracted to the existence of gold in 
Nova Scotia in 1860. Previously to that time, though Mr J, 
Campbell had found indications at Laurencetown, and accidental 
discoveries had been made by others, nothing practical resulted. The 
circumstances and place of the first discovery are thus stated in a 
Report of the Hon. Joseph Howe :— 


ee Poere te eras 


ee ea = ee, ee te 


a piece of gold shining among the pebbles over which the stream 
flowed. He picked it up, and searching found more. , This was 
about half a mile to the eastward of the debouchment of Tangier 
25s 


of the auriferous districts in other parts of America. Most parts of _ 


“Tn March this year, a man, stooping to drink at a brook, found ~ 


Ss eS a 


‘ unfrequently crosses the slaty structure where this differs from the 


626 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


River, a stream of no great magnitude, taking its rise not very far 
from the sources of the Musquodoboit, flowing through a chain of 
lakes which drain, for many miles on either side, a rugged and 
wilderness country, and falling into the Atlantic about forty miles — 
to the eastward of Halifax. These discoveries were soon followed by — 
others at Musquodoboit, Laurencetown, and the vicinity of Halifax, 
Lunenburgh and Wine Harbour; and arrangements were made by 
the Government for the allotment of mining areas, and for surveys of 
the district by Mr Campbell and Mr Poole.” 
The principal gold region of Nova Scotia is the long belt of 
partially metamorphosed rocks extending along the south coast from 
Yarmouth to Cape Canseau, and, on the grounds which I have stated 
above, believed to be of Lower Silurian age. The sedimentary rocks 
of this region, as already stated, are slates and quartzites,* usually 
in thick bands, and thrown into a great number of abrupt anticlinal 
and synclinal folds ranging in direction from N.E. and 8.W. to 
nearly east and west; though, where the band becomes narrow eastward 
of the St Mary’s River, it would seem that the whole of these 
beds are thrown off from one predominant anticlinal line. The 
gold occurs in veins of milky and translucent quartz, contained in 
the beds of quartzite and slate, and almost invariably running with — 
the strike of the beds. It is associated with several other metallic 
minerals, to be mentioned in the sequel. 
The veins range in thickness from a few inches to eight feet or 
more, and are not constant in thickness. This is a usual character 
of such deposits, and arises from their occupying irregular and 
often shifted or faulted spaces or openings in the beds. The dip of 
the larger veins usually coincides with that of the bedding, but not 


bedding. It results from this arrangement, that the actual relation 
of the veins to mining operations is rather that of beds than of 
veins, and that they dip away from the anticlinals in the same 
manner with the beds; one case being known where an auriferous 
quartz vein folds round the crown of an anticlinal arch. These 
peculiar characteristics of the auriferous veins will be illustrated 
in the sequel. It is not easy from mere inspection of the vein-stone 
to predicate as to its value, since the gold is usually invisible to the 
eye. It is found, however, that the milky white and colourless 
varieties of quartz are the least rich, while that which has a gray 
or leaden colour, and is associated with metallic sulphurets, which in 
their decomposition cause it to become stained, is the most productive. 


* The quartzite or bedded quartz rock is locally known under the name of “ whin.” 


Ae ei oat 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 627 


I had an opportunity, in 1866, of examining one of the most 
extensively worked deposits in Nova Scotia, that of Waverley, 
near Halifax, in company with my friend, James Thomson, Esq., of 
Halifax, and shall describe it as a characteristic example of the 
whole. This district is situated in the vicinity of Lake Thomas, 
about ten miles distant from Halifax. The ore is extracted from 
a number of openings along the strike of the vein, worked by horse 
gins. The deepest pit was 225 feet, on the slope of the vein. © 
On descending this pit, I found the vein to consist of compact 
grayish-white quartz, varying in thickness from four feet to six 
inches, but having an ordinary width of about two feet. Its strike 
is S. 50° W. magnetic, and its dip at an angle of 65° to 70° to the 
north-west. The lower wall, where I saw it, consists of coarse 
gray slate, with small cross veins of quartz. The upper wall is 
hard gray quartzite presenting a waved and crumpled surface, which 
I have no doubt is an original strata plane, and shows that the vein 
is strictly in the plane of the bedding (Fig. 218). The quart 


Fig. 218.—Bottom of a Shaft in the Waverley Gold Mine. 


of the vein itself has a laminated or banded appearance, and the 
gold seems to be most abundant near the walls; though visible gold 
is rare in this vein at present, the greater part being in a minutely 
disseminated and invisible state. The superintendent of one of the 
mines informed me that the thicker portions of the vein afforded 
scarcely more gold than the thinner portions, and that the gold 
is most abundant near the hanging wall. This vein is known as the 
Tudor vein, and two smaller veins occur in its vicinity. One 


4 


628 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


is ten feet to the north of the Tudor “lode” or “lead,” the other 
is 1100 feet to the south. Their course appears to be similar to that 
of the principal lode. : 

The quartz from the workings of the “ German Mine” at Waverley 
is crushed in an admirable stamping mill, worked by steam, and 
at present having sixteen stamps, though capable of being increased 
to more than double that number. The apparatus for the subsequent 
amalgamation and distillation necessary to obtain the gold appears 
to be of a very complete character, though improvements are still 
being made, more especially in the processes for obtaining gold from 
the metallic sulphurets. There are three other mining properties 
in the vicinity, and in the line of the same veins, but in these the 
mining operations are less considerable. The yield of the Waverley 
mines in 1865 was 13,102 ounces. The number of men employed 
) was 270. Five mills were in operation; four worked by steam 
and one by water. The yield of gold was rather more than an 
~ ounce for each ton of quartz crushed, and the rate of return per man 
was $895 per annum. In 1866 the yield per man was only $584. 
This Waverley district was until lately the most important gold-pro- 
ducing area in Nova Scotia. 

On one of the claims on the Waverley area a remarkable undulation 
of the containing beds has affected one of the gold-bearing veins in 
such a way as to produce the appearance known as “barrel quartz,” 
and which has been described by Professor Silliman, Dr Honeyman, 
and others. When first uncovered, the quartz vein at this place presented 
the appearance of a series of arches parallel to each other, and resem- 
bling trunks of trees placed horizontally side by side. At the time 
of my visit these barrels had been removed, but a more simple con- 
tinuation of the structure could be seen in a shallow adit which was 
being worked in the course of the vein (Fig. 219), and also in some 
open excavations. The appearances showed that the barrel arrange- 
ment had constituted the crumpled crown of an anticlinal bend or areh— 
an explanation already given by Professor Silliman, and on one side the 
vein could be seen following the beds downward on the side of this 
arch. The arrangement indicates great lateral pressure; and, which 
is of more importance, proves conclusively that the quartz veins are 
contemporaneous with the folding of the rock, since they have 
perfectly followed its folds without fracture. That the auriferous 
quartz veins are not beds, is evident from the manner in which they 
send off branches into the neighbouring rock, as well as from their 
own crystalline structure and the character of the imbedded minerals. 
They are undoubtedly true veins, but not veins formed by fracture of 


= A a i Pit 


a 


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i Aiaaealte es baci iinet 


POSES 


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At 4 ona at 


ae, Cee | ae 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 629 


the containing rocks when in a hard and metamorphosed state. They 
have been formed and filled in the very act of the contortion and 
altering of the strata, and are thus of the nature of segregation veins, 
gradually formed as the spaces containing them were opened out, by 
a process so slow and gentle that the containing beds were bent 
without fracture and with but little crushing. The barrel quartz is 
most instructive as an illustration of this peculiar mode of formation, 
which must have often occurred in the disturbance and metamorphism 
of sediments; though geologists, from the habit of looking exclusively 
at fissure veins on the one hand, and beds on the other, have often 
been puzzled by these apparent anomalies which occur in the case of 
what may be termed contemporaneous veins following the strike of 
the enclosing beds, and which, while simulating beds, and obviously 
not filling mere rents or fractures opened in hard rocks, must have 
been produced by forces acting long after the original deposition of 
the containing strata. : 


Fig. 219.—Section of Vein of ‘‘ Barrel Quartz,” Waverley. 


(a, a) Quartz vein, with contorted slate below and quartzite above. 


The minerals associated with the gold at the Waverley Mines are 
mispeckel (sulph-arsenide of iron), galena (sulphide of lead), blende 
(sulphide of zinc), and, more rarely, iron pyrites, copper pyrites, and 
calcareous spar. The visible gold appears in irregular grains and 
nuggets, included in and attached to the mispeckel, galena, blende 
and quartz, in such a manner as to show that it is in all cases either 
of contemporaneous or later introduction, and it has probably been 
segregated from the mass of the quartz when the latter was in a soft 
or pasty condition, or while it was in process of deposition. This 
view is confirmed by the fact, that those veins and parts of veins, which 
contain many “sights” or visible portions of gold, are less rich in 


ra) 


—_ a ~ 


630 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


disseminated gold than those which are deficient in visible gold. 
Some of the richest veins indeed rarely show visible gold, while 
others which contain nuggets are in other respects very poor. A 
specimen of calcareous spar from the Waverley vein, given to me by 
the superintendent, seemed to be of later formation than the quartz, 
and to have filled a“ vug” or cavity; but in a specimen from the 
Britannia Mine, presented to me by Mr R. G. Fraser of Halifax, 
a magnesian and ferruginous cale-spar holding gold occurs near the 
wall of the vein, and is interlaced with thin veinlets of quartz which 
are highly auriferous. Gold also occurs occasionally in the slate 
forming the wall of the vein, occupying minute crevices in the rock, 
and I observed at the Montagu Mine, near the Waverley, that gold 
occurs in thin veins of quartz and mispeckel, penetrating the slate 
to some distance from the main vein. At the Montagu Mine the 
’ vein worked is from four to eight inches thick, and is enclosed in 
gray slate nearly vertical, and with strike W. 5° S. to W. 10° S. 
Another smaller vein occurs at a distance of fifteen feet; and about 
five feet from this last the slate gives place to quartzite, which in 
this vicinity appears to alternate frequently with the slate. 

No geologist who examines these veins can, I think, doubt their 
, aqueous origin; but different opinions may be entertained as to the pre- 
cise mode of introduction of the metallic minerals. The facts already 
stated, in reference to the structure and mode of occurrence of the 
veins, and the manner in which the gold is associated with the other min- 
erals present, appear to me to prove conclusively that the veins were 
formed at the time of the disturbance and alteration of the containing 
beds, and in consequence of the mechanical and chemical changes 
then in progress. In this case the gold and other metallic minerals 
were probably contained in a state of solution in alkaline sulphurets, 
in the silica-bearing heated waters which penetrated the whole of the 
beds, and from which, as from a sponge, these silicious and metallic mat- 
ters have been pressed out in the folding and contortion of the beds. In 
Nova Scotia it appears that those changes by which the older sedi- 
ments have been brought into their present state occurred. in the latter 
part of the Devonian period, as I have pointed out in my paper on 
these rocks in the “Canadian Naturalist and Geologist” already 
referred to, and in a previous chapter of this work. Accordingly, in 
one of the gold districts of Nova Scotia, as already explained,* nuggets 
and grains of gold are found in the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate 
associated with debris of the qnartzose and slaty matrix. This inter- 
esting example, first noticed by Mr Hartt, proves that the gold veins 


* See above, under “‘ Carboniferous,” p. 277, ante. 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 631 


were in their present state at the time when this old gravel of the 
Lower Carboniferous period was being formed. 

To sum up our conclusions on this subject :—The rocks containing 
the auriferous veins of Nova Scotia are of Lower Silurian age. The 
veins themselves were opened out and filled with the minerals which 
they now hold at the time when these Lower Silurian rocks were 
contorted and altered, and this probably occurred in the Devonian 
period, contemporaneously with the production of intrusive granites, 
and in connexion with the changes of metamorphism then pro- 
ceeding. It was certainly completed before the beginning of the 
Carboniferous period, since which time little change seems to have 
occurred in the veins. 

The “Gold Districts” at present recognised by the Government 
of Nova Scotia are,—1st, The Ovens and Gold River, in Lunenburgh 
County; 2d, Renfrew and Mount Uniacke, Hants County; 3d, 
Oldham, Waverley, Montagu, Laurencetown, and Tangier in Halifax 
County; 4th, Wine Harbour, Sherbrooke, and Stormont, in Guys- 
borough County ; and, 5th, Middle River or Wagamatcook, Victoria 
County. All of these, except possibly the last mentioned, and the 
opening in the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate at Gay’s River 
already mentioned, are in Lower Silurian rocks. 

In all parts of this district, the conditions under which the precious 
metal occurs in the rocks are similar to those above described; but 
at the “Ovens” in Londonderry County we have the remarkable, 
and, in so far as I am aware, unique spectacle of a modern gold 
alluvium now actually in process of formation under the denuding 
action of the waves. The slaty rocks of this coast holding auriferous 
quartz veins are daily being cut away by the waves of the Atlantic, 
and the gold is accumulating in the bottom of the shingle produced, 
and in the crevices of the subjacent rock. The portion of this deposit 
available at present is only that on the beach; but there can be no 
doubt that if the bed of the sea were elevated into land, the alluvia 
exposed would be precisely simnilar to those of California or Australia, 
We have thus in Nova Scotia marine gold alluvia of Lower Carbon- 
iferous and of modern date, and there are no doubt others of inter- 
mediate ages; but their amount, in so far as yet ascertained, does not 
seem to be great, and the chief supply of gold is likely to be derived, 
as at present, from the original repositories in the quartz veins, 

The annual yield of gold from the Nova Scotia Mines is stated in 
the Report for 1865 to be 24,867 ounces; that for 1866 is 24,162, 
that for 1867, 27,583 ounces. These amounts cannot, however, be 
considered as approaching to the possible productiveness of these 


w 


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—_ ee. - 


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632 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


mines in the future. The total area of the gold region may be estimated 
at about 7000 square miles, and the proclaimed districts do not yet 
reach a twentieth part of this area. Discoveries are being continually 
made; but in a country covered with wood and with boulder clay © 
these must be slow and gradual in their progress. The quartz veins, 
which run in the strike of the beds, seem everywhere to contain gold, 
and the rocks throughout the whole area, are interlaced with such 
veins, few of which have been exposed, and of these few have yet 
been tested. It may therefore be anticipated that the productive 
gold districts will for some time continue to enlarge and increase in 
value, and that occasionally a strong stimulus will be given to enter- 
prise by great and unexpected discoveries. 

It isalso to be observed that the veins at present opened are not yet 
worked up to their highest point of profit. Even in the larger mines, 
like those of Waverley, no vertical shafts have been sunk on the vein, 
nor have the excavations been extended beyond a very moderate 
depth. The desire to make the work remunerative as it proceeds 
has induced all the Companies to sink on the slope of the veins, and 
to conduct the works on the cheapest possible plan. I am convinced, 
however, from a consideration of the regularity and extent of the veins, - 
that were vertical shafts sunk to a great depth, and regular mining 


' on the Cornish plan pursued, the preliminary outlay would be more 


than repaid by the increased production. At the depths to which 
excavations have been carried some of the veins have improved; 


> others appear to have diminished in productiveness; but there is no 


reason, except the analogy of certain other gold regions, and this is 
often a very fallacious guide, to doubt that the principal veins opened 
continue productive to great depths, and that by opening them exten- 
sively richer portions might be found to compensate for the poor 
ground sometimes reached in the present workings. It would, I think, 
repay the provincial Government to give special privileges to Com- 
panies which would expend sufficient capital to open mines on a large 
scale. 

In 1855, I supposed that the probabilities of the occurrence of gold 
in the inland hills of Upper Silurian age were even greater than those 
in the older rocks of the coast. This view was based on the then 
received age of the Canadian auriferous deposits, and on the apparently 
more metalliferous character of the inland rocks. Experience, 
however, has hitherto been in favour of the coast series. Gold has, 
it is true, been found in the inland district, and possibly in the Upper 
Silurian series. The Middle River district in Cape Breton may 
be of this age. Gold has been found in the vicinity of Cape Porcupine, 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 633 


and in arecent paper by Mr P. S. Hamilton, I find the statement 
that it has been found near the head waters of the Musquodoboit 
and Stewiacke Rivers, and also near Five Islands. The same 
authority also states that gold has been found in quartz ocecur- 
_ ring in the Triassic Trap of Partridge Island and Cape D'Or. 
In this last case the metal has possibly been brought up by means 
of the Trap from its original repositories in the Silurian rocks 
below. These facts indicate that though the coast series is at 
present much more productive, important discoveries may yet be 
made in those rocks of Upper Silurian age which constitute the 
inland metamorphic hills extending from Annapolis County to the 
North of Cape Breton, and also constituting the Cobequid range. 
On the view of the origin of the veins given above, there is no reason 
why the Upper Silurian series should not be auriferous as well as 
the Lower; and it is known that gold occurs in both series in the 
gold district of the province of Quebec, and perhaps more abundantly 
in the Lower Silurian. 
The large areas of altered Lower and Upper Silurian rocks, indi- 
eated in the map as occurring in New Brunswick, are also likely to 
afford gold, more especially as a portion of this area in Northern New 
Brunswick may be regarded as a continuation of the gold district of 
Lower Canada. Nor are the metamorphic rocks of the southern part 
of New Brunswick unlikely to afford the precious metal, more 
especially those of Lower Silurian age; and recent discoveries in 
Canada show that this probability may extend even to the still older 
Laurentian series. 
It has been remarked, that it is wonderful that in a district so 
thickly settled, and so much subjected to the operations of the surveyor, 
road-maker, and agriculturist, as the south coast of Nova Scotia, so 
numerous deposits of gold should so long have escaped observation. 


a 
, 


passed through the district. Still, when it is considered that the 
country is netted with quartz veins, and that perhaps not more than 
one in a million of these is appreciably auriferous, the wonder ceases. 


ing up and examining barren veins of white quartz, and certainly 
cannot spend two years in “ prospecting,’ as the discoverer of 
the Wine Harbour deposit is said to have done. My own field 
notes contain the record of many days of hard work among these 
unpromising rocks, and countless quartz veins have suffered from my 
hammer without yielding a speck of gold. I believe I have visited 


Ordinary observers do not notice such things. A geologist, not ° 
specially looking for useful minerals, soon becomes wearied of break- — 


Geologists also and mineral explorers have repeatedly visited and ° 


634 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


all the localities of the discoveries except Tangier, and in some of 
them, as at the St Mary’s River, Indian Harbour, and Wine Harbour, 


I have spent days in examining the rocks, not certainly with a special __ 


view to the discovery of gold, but often with the assistance of intel- 
ligent friends who were good observers. The truth is, that in cases 
of this kind it is difficult to make the initial discovery ; but this once 
made, it is comparatively easy to trace the productive rocks over 
) considerable districts, if the requisite knowledge of the geological 
character of these has been obtained. 

The conditions under which gold occurs in Nova Scotia are quite 
similar to those of other auriferous regions. The principal point of 
_ difference is the amount of gold found in rock veins, as compared 
~ with alluvial washings derived from their waste—a mere accident of 
the deposits or of the mode of exploration.’ It is probable that the 
Nova Scotia deposits are strictly a continuation of those which run 
along the eastern Appalachian slope as far as Alabama, and which 
may throughout, as in Canada and the Ural Mountains, occur in 
altered members of the Silurian series. It is to be anticipated 
that the connexion with the auriferous deposits of the United States 
may soon be effected by the discovery of gold in the metamorphic 
districts of New Brunswick. The quartz veins of Nova Scotia are 


remarkably rich in gold; and, as already stated, there is no reason _ 


© that they will be found to diminish in productiveness in following 
them downward. 

There is little room to doubt that gold will be found throughout 
the coast metamorphic district of Nova Scotia: more especially the 
slaty rocks of southern Guysborough, Halifax, Lunenburgh, and the 
northern parts of Queen’s, Shelburne, and Yarmouth, may be expected 
to be auriferous. Careful examination may show that the gold occurs 
chiefly or entirely in the veins traversing certain bands of the thick 
beds of slate and quartz rock in these districts; and these may be 
recognised by their mineral character, especially if defined in their 
relation to the other beds by a detailed survey of the productive 
localities. Still the indications in one locality may not. be unfailing 
when applied to another; and in the meantime it would be the best 
course for explorers to look at all quartz veins, and especially at those 
occurring in soft dark slaty beds, particularly near the junction of these 
beds with other rocks. Further, it would seem that the narrower 
veins, those following the strike of the rocks, and those stained with 
iron rust, are most likely to be productive. Minute examination 
should be made, as gold often occurs in a very fine state of division, 
though sufficiently abundant to pay for extraction. Nor should the 


USEFUL MINERALS.—GOLD. 635 


% ~ washing of the sands and gravels in the beds of rivers, and of the 


_ many cases that gold may occur in these when the veins originally 
containing it have had their outcrops worn away or concealed. 
Exploring for gold in new localities cannot be expected to be remu- 
nerative, except in rare cases; but it would be well at least that 
persons residing in the district above referred to, would embrace such 
opportunities as may occur of examining the quartz veins in their 


_ exist, for making discoveries, and improving those already made. 
The table on the next page, from the Reports of the Commissioner 
of Mines for 1866 and 1867, will give more precise information 
as to the present state of gold production in Nova Scotia, and the 
following remarks relate to districts not mentioned in the table :— 


The Ovens in Lunenburgh County yielded, in 1862, 361 oz. of gold 
from surface washings. The mine at Laurencetown yielded in 1862 
75 oz., and that at County Harbour 40 oz., but operations have been 


opened, and yielded in 1867, 947 ounces of gold. Localities in 
Upper Stewiacke, Musquodoboit, and Sheet Harbour, are also attracting 
attention. 


their gold veins on Gold River, which are said to be very promising ; 
one sample tested having given 77 dwt. gold, and 12 oz. silver per 
ton. Alluvial sand from the banks of Gold River is said to have 
afforded to Professor How gold at the rate of 14 dwt. 10 grains to 
the ton. This last fact is of some interest as indicating the possible 
occurrence of auriferous alluvia which seem to be rare in Nova Scotia ; 


lower part of the boulder clay, and in the bottom of the beds of more 
recent alluvial sand and gravel. Even poor deposits of this kind 
might be made to pay by the methods of hydraulic washing on a 
large scale now in use in California.— 

The mining of gold for the present eclipses all the other resources 
of this district of Nova Scotia. It is not known to contain any other 
metallic minerals of value. Its granite, however, affords an excellent 
building stone, now used to some extent, more especially in Halifax. 
Some of the bands of slate have been opened for roofing slates, but 
I believe not as yet on a large scale; and clays of excellent quality 
for bricks and coarse pottery occur at Chezzetcook and other places 
on the Atlantic coast, and are manufactured to some extent. 


alluvial deposits on their banks be neglected, for it may happen in ¢ 


vicinity. It is to be hoped that in a short time a geological survey , 
will place within their reach greater facilities than those which now 


0 


suspended at these places. Mount Uniacke is a new locality recently ‘ 


The “Chester Mining Company” have opened shafts on some of 4 


but perhaps might reward more careful search, more especially in the ~ 


— =. =, 


THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


636 


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NEW BRUNSWICK—ACADIAN GROUP. 637 


2. Lower Silurian of the south shore of New Brunswick.—The Acadian 

group. 

The city of St John stands on the outcropping edges of a thick 

band of hard slaty rocks underlying the Devonian beds, which appear 
at the southern end of the city. These St John rocks were until 

recently of uncertain age. Believing them to underlie conformably 
the last-mentioned series, I had supposed them to be Lower Devonian 
or Upper Silurian, but Mr Matthew has ascertained that they are 
really unconformable to the overlying formation; and more recently 
the discovery of fossils by that gentleman and Mr Hartt in the lower 
part of the series has set the question at rest. 

The general character of the formation is thus given by Mr 
Matthew :—‘‘ It consists of a gray clay slate often sandy, the layers 
of which present glistening surfaces, owing to the abundance of minute 
spangles of mica. This rock very frequently becomes very fine in 
lamination and texture, and dark in colour. Four thick bands of this 
kind occur, the uppermost of which is a black papyraceous shale. 
The three bands of coarser shale which alternate with them include nu- 
merous layers of a fine compact gray sandstone, from a few inches to ten 
feet or more in thickness; a few are so highly caleareous as to become 
almost limestones. The surfaces of the layers in the coarser beds are 
frequently covered with worm-burrows, ripple marks, shrinkage cracks 
or scratches—apparently made by creatures gliding through the 
shallow waters in which they were deposited, and other evidences 
indicating that the slates are in great part of littoral origin.” 

The following section of the series at St John is given by the same 


observer :— 
feet. feet. 
“1, a. Gray sandstone or quartzite : : : : . 50 
b. Coarse gray arenaceous shale. ‘ 
[This and the preceding are passage-beds from the 
Coldbrook or Huronian group.) 
Gray argillaceous shale, rich in fossils: Paradowides, 
Orthis, Conocephalites, Obglella. 150 
d. Black carbonaceous shale, full of fossils: Para- 
doxides, Conocephalites, Orthis, Discina, Ortho- 
ceras, and a thin subtriangular shell resembling 


2 


Theca, all much distorted 4 : ; : 200 
. a, Dark-gray shales, with thin seams of gray sandstone 220 
b. Coarser gray shales, with gray flagstones . : . 200 550 
c. Gray sandstone and coarse shales: Lingula, ete., - 130 
a. Dark-gray shales, finely laminated. : ° - 450 
b. Black carbonaceous and dark-gray argillaceous shales 750 
more compact than the last e , : . 300 
. Shales and flags resembling 2a andb_. ‘ . : 800 (?) 


Carry forward 2300 


a 
a 


2 ed othe ene es ee OS Se TT) Dak 


~~ he le, ae 4 oe 


OAM RF eee 


638 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


Brought forward 2300 
5. Black carbonaceous shales, serge lings 3 b, but finer and 
softer . 450 
6. a. Shales and flags ae 2 a = b; ‘Titandal a aeaedaten: 
Coprolites, Worm-burrows, and Crustacean markings 7 00 (2) 
b. Gray and ferruginous sandstones and beds of coarse 1100 (?) 
shale: Lingula : : ; é 
7. Black carbonaceous shales, finely lantiuated : : ; 650 


4500” 


Westward of the St John River, the rocks of this series extend 
through Carlton, but soon diminish in thickness and disappear. To 
the eastward they are prolonged ina band skirting the older (sup- 
posed Huronian rocks) to Loch Lomond, where they disappear along 
the line of outcrop proceeding from St John, but reappear on the other 
side of a synclinal, and extend with opposite dips nine miles farther 
to the eastward. Their whole extension in this district is about thirty 
miles, with a breadth of about four miles. Farther details will be 
found in Professor Bailey’s Report. 

Though thus limited in their distribution, these beds are in the 
highest degree important in a geological point of view, as their fossils 


establish for the first time on the American Continent a series of 
fossiliferous beds older than the Potsdam sandstone, hitherto sup- 


posed by American geologists to be our oldest Paleozoic group; and 
corresponding with the older Lingula flags of Wales, and with Bar- 
rande’s “‘ Etage C.’”’ in Bohemia. These fossils also contribute to 
affix the same age to the Paradowides slates of Newfoundland, and 
of Braintree, Massachussets. In other words, they add a new forma- 
tion to the Paleozoic period in America. This formation has as yet 
been known as the St John group; but I think this name unsuitable, 
both on account of the number of places known as St John, and on 
account of the variety of formations occurring near St John in New 
Brunswick, and would therefore propose for the group now under 
consideration, characterized by Paradoxides, Conocephalites, ete., 
and the oldest known member of the Paleozoic of America, the name 
AcapIAn Group, by which I hope it will be known to geologists 
in whatever part of America it may be recognised. 

In the northern part of New Brunswick a broad belt of metamor- 
phic rocks with granite bands extends from the south shore of the 
Bay de Chaleur westward of Bathurst in a south-west direction 
to the sea-coast of Maine. Theserocks were denominated “Cambrian” 
by Dr Gesner and Dr Robb, but by more recent observers are regarded 
as Lower Silurian, principally on the ground of difference in mineral 
character from the Huronian rocks and similarity to those of the 


NEW BRUNSWICK.—ACADIAN GROUP. 639 


- Lower Silurian as developed at St John and in Nova Scotia. The 
following remarks on their age‘are from a paper by Mr Matthew, 
already quoted :— 

“A provincial collection in the University Museum of the rocks 
in this quarter closely resembles those of the Lower Silurian slates 
of St John, and differs essentially from the Upper Silurian and 
Devonian deposits which have been recognised in this region. 

“Tn the alternations of arenaceous and dark-coloured clay slate 
with intercalated quartzite, this formation, which is also auriferous, 
resembles the gold-bearing series of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, 
long ago recognised as Lower Silurian by Dr Dawson. If both 
prove to be on the same horizon geologically as the St John series, 
namely, the lower part of the Lower Silurian, our knowledge of the 
age and relations of the older metamorphic rocks of Acadia will be 
placed on a firmer basis than heretofore. 

“So far as our knowledge goes, they differ from contemporaneous 
deposits to the westward in being conformable to the Huronian 
series; and also in the rarity of calcareous and magnesian sediments, 
there seeming to be little else than shales of various degrees of fine- 
ness, flagstones, and quartzites.” 

Professor Hind, in his Preliminary Report, regards these rocks as 
equivalent to the Quebec group, which is now recognised by the 
Canadian Survey as between the Calciferous and Chazy ; but whether 
this is their real age, or that somewhat lower horizon which is marked 
by the fossils of the St John group, we have at present no certain 
means of determining. The rocks above referred to constitute two 
broad bands flanking a ridge or series of interrupted parallel ridges 
of granite, believed to be of Devonian age. In the maps of the 
Province these belts have usually been marked as uniform and regular, 
with an aggregate width of 35 to 50 miles, but Professor Bailey 
informs me that many facts known to him render it probable that 
their limits are more irregular and not well ascertained. I have 
marked them in the map as nearly as possible in accordance with 
the views of Professor Bailey and Professor Hind. 

A shorter belt of mica schist and other metamorphic rocks associ- 


the New Brunswick Coal-field, and near the St John River, comes 
into contact with the supposed Upper Silurian belt of Kars and 
Havelock, is believed by Professor Bailey, on the evidence of mineral 
character, to be probably of Lower Silurian age. This belt, extending 
to the south-west, unites with the others above mentioned in the 
south-western corner of the province, the greater part of which is 


a 


ated with granite, which runs parallel to the south-eastern side of < 


oe eee 


‘> states that gold has been found in a “ black plumbaginous slate” 


640 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


believed to be occupied with altered Lower Silurian rocks; but — 
the precise distribution of these, and the limits between them and — 
the older and newer rocks in their vicinity, are very imperfectly — 
known. 


Useful Minerals of the Lower Silurian of New Brunswick. 


Gold.—The probability that these rocks in New Brunswick may — 
be geologically equivalent to the auriferous rocks of Nova Scotia — 
and of the province of Quebec, would of itself excite hope that — 
the precious metal might occur in them. In addition to this, drift — 
gold has, according to Professor Bailey, been found on the head — 
waters of the Tobique and Miramichi, and at the Grand Falls of 
the St John, and it has also been found in situ by the officers of © 
the Geological Survey of Maine at St Stephens. At this place 
it occurs in quartz veins in micaceous schist. Professor Hind also — 


at St Stephen. These indications are sufficient to warrant the hope 
that important discoveries would reward a careful exploration of 
this district. a 
Antimony.—This metal was discovered to exist in the parish of — 
Prince William, York County, about twenty-five miles from Freder- 
ickton in 1863, and subsequent exploration has led to the belief of — 
the existence of very important deposits. The ore is a pure sulphuret, — 
capable of yielding about 70 per cent. of metallic antimony, and is — 
contained in numerous large and well-defined veins of quartz, filling — 
lines of dislocation in highly tilted argillaceous slates and quartzites. 
“These veins are true veins of segregation, showing a distinctly — 
banded character, and an alternation of materials, the antimony ore — 
itself frequently forming distinct layers, though often penetrating irregu- 
larly the surrounding rocks. Excavations have been made by different 
Companies at several points, two of them distant more than three- — 
fourths of a mile from each other, and have in each case proved . 
productive. No very persistent or vigorous operations have, however, ; 
as yet been carried on. 533 cwt. of ore was exported in 1864.”* 
Small quantities of silver occur in the antimony ores of this — 

~ place. 
Lead.—Indications of galena or sulphuret of lead are reported 
as having been found on the Tobique and elsewhere; but, as yet, 
nothing remunerative. ae 
Copper.—In Professor Hind’s Report, a number of localities of 
copper ores are mentioned; but as in all of them the metal appears | 
* Professor Bailey, MS. 


USEFUL MINERALS. 641 


to be, so far as at present known, in very small quantity, I merely 
refer to his Report. 

Iron.—The most important deposit at present worked in this 
district is that at Woodstock. At this place the ores, according to 
Professor Hind, are in “ sedimentary deposits many feet in thickness, 
interstratified with red and green argillites or with calcareo-magnesian 
slates of a red and green, or mottled red and green colour. The ores 


times feebly magnetic, but it derives its colour more from the presence 
of manganese than from the black magnetic oxide.” 


The ore yields 32 per cent. The quantity produced in 1864 was 
2750 tons. 

Manganese occurs in the Tattagouche River, and has been worked 
to a small extent. 

Nickel, in the form of green silicate, is found in small quantities 
associated with the antimony ore of Prince William. 

Zinc, in the state of blende or sulphuret of zine, also occurs in 
small quantity in Prince William.* 


Fossils of the Primordial or Acadian Group at St John. 


These are the oldest organic remains which I can present to the 
reader from the rocks of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia, and they 
represent the oldest forms of life known to geologists, with the excep- 
tion of the far more ancient Eozoon Canadense, and the few other 
organisms found with it in the Laurentian rocks of Canada. These 
fossils were originally discovered at Coldbrook by Mr Matthew, and 
they were subsequently collected by Professor Bailey, Mr Matthew, 
and Mr Hartt, at Ratcliffe’s Millstream and also near the city of St 
John. The first publication in reference to them was the following 
notice by Mr Hartt in Professor Bailey’s “ Observations on the Geo- 
logy of New Brunswick,” 1865. _ 

“My examination of the fossils collected last August, from the St 
John group, at Ratcliffe’s Millstream, by Professor Bailey, Mr George 
Matthew, and myself, and of a collection made from the same group 
at Coldbrook, in 1863, by Messrs George and C. R. Matthew, is not 
yet sufficiently complete to enable me to give an extended description 
of them here. I shall therefore limit myself at present to a notice 


* For the information under the above heading, I am indebted to Professor Hind’s 
Report and the MS. notes communicated by Professor Bailey. 


27 


q 


vary in composition, being both red and black. The black is some- ~ 


One or more furnaces are in constant operation at Woodstock, ° 
and others are in process of erection. The iron is of a superior quality. ~ 


642 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


of the genera, and of the aid they afford in the determination of the 
geological position of the St John group, leaving the descriptions and 
figures of the species to be given in a future paper. q 

“The fossils as yet known to occur in the rocks of the St J ohn group, © 
are principally Trilobites, which are represented by quite a large | 
number of species, and Brachiopoda, which last are of more rare occur- 
rence. All these fossils are preserved as casts or impressions, the — 
tests of the crustacea and the shells of the Brachiopoda being usually _ 
transformed into oxide of iron. q 

“‘ All the specimens have suffered more or less from distortion through _ 
pressure and the metamorphosis to which the rocks enclosing them _ 
have been subjected. The Trilobites occur also as detached fragments, 
so that their accurate determination is not easy, and more material is 
required in order satisfactorily to figure and describe all the species. 

“‘ Representatives of four genera of Trilobites have been obtained thus 
far from the St John rocks, viz. :—Paradoxides, Conocephalites 
Agnostus, and a new genus (? ) allied to Conocephalites. 

“The number of species in each genus has not yet been satisfactorily 
made out; but of Paradowides there are at least five, of Conocephalites 
seven, and of Agnostus and the new genus each one. 

“All the species appear to be new. One of the Paradoxides bears 
a close resemblance to P. rugulosus, Corda, from the Etage C. of — 
Barrande, in Bohemia, and one of the Conocephalites is allied to C. 
coronatus, Barrande, from the same fauna and horizon, though neither 
is identical with the European species. 

“There are six species of Brachiopoda, belonging to the genera 
Orthis, Discina, Obolella, and Lingula. I have not been able to 
identify any of the forms with described species. 

“Though all the species from the St John group are apparently new, 
yet the occurrence of Paradoxides and Conocephalites, genera confined 
entirely to the so-called Primordial fauna of Barrande, and every- 
where characteristic of it, together with the strong likeness borne by 
the St John species, in their facies, to those of the same genera of the 
faunze of the “ Primordial” in Europe and America, enable us unhesi- 
tatingly to assign to the St John group, or at least to that lower part 
of it which has afforded Trilobites, a geological position equivalent to — 
Barrande’s Etage C. or to the Lower Potsdam of America. > 

“‘Barrande uses the word fauna, in his term primordial fauna, 
in a sense equivalent to epoch or horizon. A fauna is strictly a 
collection of animals confined within a limited geographical area. 
The terms “primordial fauna,” ‘second fauna,’ are used with 
propriety when applied to the groups of fossils characterizing the 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 643 


_ Etages C. and D. in Bohemia; but these terms, unless limited, should 
not be extended to equivalent groups of the same age, but forming 
_ distinct faunz, in other parts of the world, for such a double emploi is 
incompatible with that precision which should mark the use of scientific 
terms. Primordial zone is objectionable. If the term Primordial is 
used, and it is very appropriate, it would be much better to say 
Primordial period,—period, as used by Agassiz, being equivalent to 
Barrande’s étage. 
“The lower part of the St John group, at Coldbrook, has been 
divided by Mr Matthew, on lithological grounds, into three bands, 
viz. :— 
“t No. 1. The lower or arenaceous band, with no determinable fossils, 
and constituting passage beds from the Coldbrook group. 
“No. 2. Argillaceous shales, rich in fossils, Paradoxides, Orthis, 
Conocephalites, Obolella. 
“No. 3. Carbonaceous shales, full of fossils, Paradoxides, Conocepha- 
lites, Orthis, Discina, ete., all much distorted. 
“T have not observed No. 2, at Ratcliffe’s Millstream. No. 3, at 
Coldbrook, corresponds exactly, in its fossil remains, to the bed at 
the Millstream, from which the Trilobites, ete., were obtained. 
Nearly, if not all the fossils I have seen from No. 2, at Coldbrook, are 
entirely distinct from those of No. 3 of the same locality and the Mill- 
stream; but more material is required to establish the claim of these 
two beds to be considered as being characterized by distinct succes- 
sive faune. At all events, all the species from both beds are different 
from those elsewhere occurring, and for at least bed No. 3, we have 
in the vicinity of St John a distinct fauna of the Primordial period.” 
Other engagements have prevented Mr Hartt from fulfilling his 
intention of publishing detailed descriptions of the species. In com- 
pliance, however, with my desire to place these interesting forms 
before geologists in this work, he has kindly communicated to me 
his MS. notes; and I have extracted from these the following 
descriptions of several of the more common species, with notices of 
the others : * — 

Eocystites primaevus, Billings, Coll. Hartt (Fig. 220). Fig. 220. 
The little plate with radiating sculpture, represented or 
somewhat enlarged in the figure, is regarded by Mr 
Billings, to whom the specimens have been submitted, ti 
as indicating a new genus of Cystideans. Eocystites. 


* Mr Hartt desires me to state his obligations to Professor Agassiz for the oppor- 
tunity of comparing these fossils with specimens in the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology, Cambridge, U.S. 


Ra? = aT 


644 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


Fig. 221.  Lingula Matthewi, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 221). Dorsal valve, 3 
—circular in outline or very slightly wider than long, © 
extremely flat, the convexity being scarcely noticeable; _ 
shell very thin; on each side a segment such as would 4 

Lingula be cut off by a chord running from the umbo to the 

Matthewi. extremity of the transverse diameter, is slightly turned up — 
on the margin. 

Inside, a strong mesial ridge, rounded and of moderate width, 
runs from the umbo to a point a little beyond the middle of the shell; 
at the umbo this ridge bears a small nail-head-like process or swelling, 
and there are two minute and extremely short secondary ridges, 
originating from the head of the primary, and extending obliquely 
backwards. Inner surface marked with numerous indistinct and 
irregular concentric striz; outer surface not visible. 

I have found one perfect dorsal valve in a piece of slate sent me 
by Mr G. F. Matthew from Coldbrook. 

Lingula, n. s., Hartt, MS. Differs from the above in being almost 
straight in front, broadly rounded at the sides and narrowed towards 
and pointed at the umbo. It was also larger, thicker, and more 
convex. Ratcliffe’s Millstream, Hartt. 


Obolella transversa, Hartt, MS. A very small, faney see oval ; 4 


species, from Coldbrook, St Jolin 
Discina Acadica, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 222). Shell elliptical in out- 
line; sides more or less straight. Conical, but very depressed. Apex 
Fig. 222. apparently central. Surface marked with a number of 
deep concentric irregular sharp furrows, not always con- 
tinuous, and often breaking up into smaller grooves; and 
all these seem at times to be impressed with lighter lines 
Discina running nearly parallel with them. Of the large furrows, 
Acadica. from nine to ten can usually be counted. The whole 
surface of the shell is marked with a great number of delicate raised 
lines radiating from the summit to the circumference, and just visible 
to the naked eye. Rather rare in the Trilobite shale at Ratcliffe’s 
Mill. The shell appears to have been thin, and is probably much 
compressed vertically. Collected by N. B. Survey and J. W. Hartt. 
Orthis Billings, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 223). Shell subquadrate to semi- 
circular, broader than ia g; greatest width at the hinge-line; moderately 
convex; greatest thickness at about the middle, de- 
pressed in front. Hinge-line straight. Dorsal valve _ 
semi-circular or subquadrate, depressed, with a 
ree shallow sinus running from the umbo to the front. 
Orthis Billings. Umbo not elevated above the hinge-area, which is 


+ yee 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 645 


very narrow, and marked by fine parallel longitudinal stria. Hinge- 
plate bearing two slight incurved internal processes. Ventral valve 
more arched than the dorsal, with a narrow flat margin produced 
in the plane of the valve. Hinge-area triangular, concave, and 
marked with fine parallel lines. Umbo elevated above hinge-line 
about one-fourth of length of shell. Foramen triangular and 
of moderate size. Surface ornamented by about thirty prominent 
rounded radiating plice, increasing in width towards the margin, 
becoming less elevated and slightly curved toward the ears, crossed 
by a number of distinctly marked, concentric, squamose lines of 
growth, and numerous fine concentric striz. The radiating plice 
inerease by bifurcation, which takes place at about one-third the dis- 
tance from the umbo to the margin. Rather common in the Trilobite 
shales, Ratcliffe’s Millstream, and St John. Collected by N. B. 
Survey and J. W. Hartt. The figure does not show the fine con- 
centric lines. . 
Orthis,n.s. There appears to be a second species in the St John slates; 
but the material at hand does not at present warrant its description. 
Conocephalites Baileyi, Hartt. MS. Head transversely semi- 
elliptical, half as long as wide; anterior margin in front more or less 
straight, posterior margin quite straight; posterior angles of cheeks 
slightly rounded and unfurnished with spines. Facial suture never 
visible ; anterior margin of shield with a narrow very elevated border, 
which is widest and most elevated in front, and grows narrower and 
lower posteriorly, becoming obsolete, or nearly so, at the posterior 
angle of the shield. This border is separated from the other part 
of the shield by a deep, rather wide furrow, which is deepest in 
front but grows shallower as the anterior border loses in height 
going posteriorly. General form of shield convex, but much 
depressed. Glabella more depressed than the cheek, sub-triangular, 
depressed convex, broadly rounded in front, and separated from the 
cheeks and front by a deep well-marked furrow ; width at base equal to 
length, which last is about 7-10fhs that of shield ; very much narrowed 
in front. Lateral bounding furrows inclined to one another at such 
an angle as would cause them to meet if produced to the middle of 
the front margin of head. Occipital furrow deep and well marked, 
slightly arched forward in middle, and curving downwards and forwards, 
growing narrower at the extremities, and less deeply cut than the bound- 
ing furrow of the Glabella. No lateral glabellar furrows, or very 
slightly marked, never seen on casts. Occipital ring more elevated, and 
rather wider in the centre; bent forward at the sides; narrow, with a 
very low spine-like tubercle in the centre. Posterior furrow moderately 


eh aes kee Be et Ce a kc 
2 i | 


646 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


deep and wide. Sides of shield bent slightly downwards. Posterior a 


angles flattened. Cheeks sub-triangular, bounded by the straight a 4 


dorsal furrow, the straight groove which separates them from the 


glabella, and the curved marginal furrow. They are more convex F a 


or gibbous than the glabella, sloping gently towards the marginal 
furrow, but steeply to the other bounding grooves. In the cast 
they are marked on the edge of the bounding groove of the glabella 
at the points where the straight sides of the latter begin to curve — 
around the front by two small, low, but well-marked ocular pro- 
minences, from each of which extends a slight ocular ridge, with a 
more or less outward curve towards the posterior angle of the shield, 
but usually losing itself at about half the distance in a system of 
delicate ramifications, which may often be traced to the posterior 
angles of the cheek lobes. Like ramifications are thrown off for the 
whole length of the ridge from its anterior side, and these occupy the 
surface of the cheek-lobes in front of the line. The surface of the 
cast sometimes appears granular, but the mould is always smooth, 
and the outer surface of the shield was unfurnished with tubercular 
or granular ornamentation. The posterior border on each side of 


glabella is very elevated in the middle, and loses height thence : 


each way. Cephalic shield sometimes an inch and a half in width. 

Heads only of this species have been found. They occur in 
moderate abundance in the primordial shales of the St John group’ 
at Ratcliffe’s Millstream. Collectors, Professor L. W. Bailey, G. F. 
Matthew, J. W. Hartt, and C. Fred. Hartt. 


Fig. 224.—Conocephalites Matthewi, head.* 


Conocephalites Matthewi, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 224). Head, semi- 
circular to semi-elliptical, more than twice as wide as long; front. 
and lateral margins forming a regular curve; posterior margin 
nearly straight; posterior angles of shield flattened and rounded 
without spines; margin with a strong, round, rather narrow fold, 
which becomes narrower and lower towards the posterior angle of 


shield, where it disappears. This is separated from the cheek-lobes by 
a very deep, moderately broad groove. This groove is arched forward | 


in front by a large semi-globose swelling, situated just in advance of 


* Owing to the difficulty of drawing from imperfect and distorted specimens, this 
and the following figures do not adequately represent all the characters of the species 
as described by Mr Hartt. 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 647 


the glabella, encroaching upon the marginal fold, causing it to be 
thickest on each side of this prominence. 

The posterior margin is also folded, but the plait is more or less 
inclined backwards. The fold is narrow near the occipital ring, but 
grows more prominent, and gains in width towards the posterior angle, 
but, like the anterior fold, it disappears at that point. Its course is not 
straight; at about half the distance of the outer angle it bends slightly 
backwards and downwards, and then forwards slightly, to disappear on 
the flattened or rounded angle of the shield. ‘This fold is separated 
from the cheek-lobes by a groove shallower and broader than the mar- 
ginal one, which it resembles, by expanding gradually into the flat- 
tened space of the outer angle. This groove follows a course parallel 
to the fold which it accompanies. Length from occipital furrow about 
half that of head. 

Glabella sub-conical, longer than wide, strongly rounded in front, 
and about half as wide anteriorly as posteriorly ; length about half that 
of whole shield, strongly convex, but less elevated than the cheek-lobes, 
bounded laterally and anteriorly by deep grooves, the anterior being not 
so deep as the posterior. The sides of the glabella are impressed and 
divided into lobes by three pairs of deep lateral glabellar furrows. 
Those of the posterior pair are the longer and more deeply impressed. 
These furrows begin abruptly at a point somewhat in advance of the 
middle of the longer diameter of the glabella, and directed back- 
wards at an angle of about 45° to the antero-posterior diameter of the 
shield, disappear abruptly without gaining the medial line, usually 
extending a little more than the third of the distance across the gla- 
bella. ‘Those of the median pair begin also on the bounding groove 
very abruptly, only a little in advance of the posterior pair, but they 
are usually not so oblique, and extend on each side not more than a 
quarter of the distance across the glabella. The distance between the 
outer extremity of the median and anterior furrows is somewhat less 
than between those of the median and posterior, and these but slightly 
impress the sides of the glabella, and occasionally are scarcely visible. 
The anterior lobe is about as wide as the one which follows it. 

The occipital furrow is deeply cut in the outer third of its length, 
and strongly directed forwards. In the middle third it is not so deep, 
and is quite strongly arched forwards. The occipital ring is narrow, 
strongly convex, and vertically arched, the sides being more or less 
narrowed, turned downwards and forwards, being projected obliquely 
more or less across the posterior marginal cheek-groove towards the 
inner posterior angleof cheek-lobe. The ring projects backwards beyond 
the margin, but not beyond the posterior lateral angle of shield. The 


648 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


middle part is produced into a very short conical tubercle-like spine, 
directed slightly backwards. The cheek-lobes are strongly gibbous, and 
very regularly arched, the convexity being stronger anteriorly. A nar- 
row distinet wavy ocular ridge begins on the cheek-lobe, just opposite the 
anterior part of glabella, and, thinning gradually out and arching, at 
first slightly forwards, curves round and is directed towards the outer 
angle of cheek-lobe, but it usually vanishes before reaching that point. 
From its anterior outer side it throws off a very numerous set of fine 
bifurcating raised lines or ridges. These lines are directed outward 
from the primary line at a rather acute angle, and appear to bifureate 
several times. This ocular ridge is thickened at its commencement, 
but is not so strongly marked at that point as in C. Baileyi. It is 
also more arched forward than in the latter species. The whole outer 
surface of shield is covered by innumerable, close-set, raised points or 
granulations just visible to the naked eye, but very distinct under 
the lens, appearing in the impression of the shield as minute punctures. 
These appear to be more distinct on the convex portions of the shield. 
The raised margins, cheek-lobes, glabella, occipital ring, as well as the 
lobe just in advance of the glabella, bear sparsely sown, minute, short 


spines, which give to the surface a distinct granular appearance. — 


These are always wanting in the furrows and on the cheek-lobes, 


are more crowded on the outer halves of the cheek-lobes. They are _ 


true spines, but usually appear as granulations on the casts. 

In very young specimens, a line in diameter, the shield is semi-circular, 
the cheek-lobes are extremely gibbous, and very much more convex 
than the glabella, and the pre-glabellar lobe is very conspicuous. 

I take great pleasure in dedicating this the most abundant and 
prettiest of these Trilobites to its discoverer and my intimate friend 
and geological companion, Mr G. F. Matthew. Common at Rat- 
cliffe’s and St John’s. Specimens from Coldbrook show slight differ- 
ences, probably only varietal. 

Conocephalites Robbit, Hartt, MS. Head without movable cheeks, 


of moderate size, depressed convex, slightly arched in front, where the: 


width is considerably less than behind. Length about equal to breadth 
in front. 

Glabella, ovate-conical, sides straight, and dorsal furrows so inclined 
as to meet if produced in middle part of anterior margin; very convex; 
more elevated in the middle; posterior furrows reaching about one- 
third of the way across the glabella, directed strongly backwards, and 
reaching nearly to the base of glabella; middle furrows less distinctly 
marked, short, not so oblique as first; anterior very short, appearing 
only as little pits or depressions on the sides of the glabella. 


fi 


~ ¢ 
et » nm 7 ro r * 
‘ RV: 
Cay. Se ee 


‘ 
¢ a we - Ts 
7 b 7 * — my rte . 
Ae OE ee Oe Pe re ee 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 649 


Occipital ring narrow, convex, widest in the middle, narrowing 
towards sides, which are turned forward, giving to it a crescent shape. 
Occipital furrow deep and well developed, widest in the middle, where 
it slightly impresses the base of the glabella; narrow and slightly 
bent forward at the ends. The ring bears a little short conical 
tubercle-like spine in the middle, directed slightly backwards. 

Fixed cheeks, frontal limb one-third to one-fourth of whole length 
of head, with a narrow, high, convex border, inside of which is a 
moderately deep furrow; cheek-lobes depressed, convex, meeting in 
front, rising abruptly from the deep dorsal furrow, on the borders 
of which they reach their greatest elevation, which, however, is 
not equal to that of glabella, and sloping thence roundly towards 
the sides and front. The posterior limb bears a deep, wide, furrow, 
which widens somewhat near extremity. The marginal fold is very 
narrow and of little prominence; and widens a little in the outer half. 
The posterior margin bends slightly backwards at extremity of limb, 
which is rounded. Ratcliffe’s Millstream.—N. B. Survey and J. W. 
Hartt. 

Conocephalites Orestes, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 225). The head-shield 
of this species without movable cheeks is of medium size, length 
about equal to breadth in front, or to two-thirds 
width behind; margin arched moderately in front, 
with a rather wide, low border fold, widest in front, 

narrowing toward the sides, separated from the rest 

of the head by a shallow groove. Glabella long, ; 

ovate, conical, or cylindrico-conical, extremely ee 
convex, wider behind than in front, where it is Ts ta 
rounded. The sides are straight, and so inclined to one another as 
to meet, if produced, at a distance in advance of margin in front about 
equal to the distance of that line from glabella. The glabella is 
flattened on the sides, and never regularly convex. 

There are three pairs of furrows, which lightly impress the sides of 
the glabella, and of which traces are not always distinctly preserved ; 
and they are apt to be seen best in slightly distorted specimens. Dorsal 
furrow narrow, deep, and sharply cut; occipital ring widest in the 
middle, narrowed from behind at the sides, separated from glabella 
by a distinct furrow. Bears in the middle a minute tubercular spine 
pointing upwards. Fixed cheeks strongly convex, but much less so 
than the glabella, meeting in front with abrupt slopes toward dorsal 
and posterior marginal furrows, but with gentle rounded slopes 
toward sides and anterior groove. Ocular ridges, marked as lightly 
raised lines, originating at the dorsal furrow some distance behind 


Fig. 225. 


f 
. 
, 


650 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


the front of the glabella, and rising obliquely upwards and backwards 

to ocular lobes, which are small and semi-lunar, folded considerably _ 
upwards, and are situated just opposite middle of head ; width between — 4 
ocular lobes about equal to width in front. Behind the eye the 
suture describes a long open sigmoid curve, which is continued inward 
somewhat so as to give the limb a rounded outline, and make the cheek 


here about one-third wider than at the eye. Posterior margin of — 


cheeks with a slight fold, more prominent in the middle; outer half of 
this margin is arched backwards. Whole head arched slightly for- 
ward vertically. 

This species resembles C. Halliz, Hartt, but differs from it in the 
shape of the anterior marginal furrow. This same feature and the 
long and narrow glabella distinguish it from C. Robbit. Rather 
common in shales at Ratcliffe’s Millstream.—N. B. Survey, 1864, and 
J. W. Hartt. 

Conocephalites elegans, Hartt, MS., Ratcliffe’s Millstream. Head 
or cephalic shield semi-circular or semi-elliptical, more than twice as 
broad as long, nearly straight behind; anterior border with a very 
strong fold, separated from the rest of the head by a deep groove. 
This fold is widest and most elevated just in front of the glabella, — 


where it is sometimes the tenth of an inch in width. Atthis point the 


groove bends abruptly and angularly, and arches forward on each 
side so as to encroach on the marginal fold and cause it to disappear 
at about half the distance between the middle point in front and the 
posterior angles of shield. The posterior marginal folds are very thin, 


most elevated in the middle, and sloping each way towards the occi- 4 : 


pital ring and posterior angles of shield. The axis of the outward half 
is more and more inclined backward from the perpendicular towards _ 
the posterior angles, which are rounded, more or less flattened, and 

without backward projecting spines. The grooves separating the 
posterior fold from the cheeks are very deep, and are slightly directed 


forward. Length of glabella about six-tenths of antero-posterior PH 


diameter of shield, a little wider at base than long, and less than half 
as wide anteriorly; triangular, with anterior part rather broadly 
rounded, highly inflated, and bounded by deep grooves, which in front 
join in with the anterior marginal groove. There are three pairs of 
glabella furrows. Those of the posterior pair impress deeply the sides 


of the glabella, are strongly curved backwards, and scarcely reach a . | 


third of the distance across each side. The second and third pairs 
only just impress in like manner the sides of the glabella. Those of 


the second pair are curved backward, and extend about a quarter of = 


the distance across the glabella. Those of the third pair are very 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 651 


short, and appear to be parallel with the transverse diameter, but 
they are not always distinct. 

Occipital furrow deep, slightly arched forward in the middle, and 
with the ends turned in the same direction; occipital ring of moderate 
width, the middle is produced into a spine often more than a quarter 
of an inch in length. This spine is more or less strongly directed 
backwards. The cheek-lobes are very gibbous, more so than the 
glabella. Their posterior border is so strongly impressed by the 
posterior furrow that it arches slightly over it. The surface of the 
convex part of the shield is ornamented by very fine, close-set granu- 
lations, distinctly visible to the naked eye, and by a set of delicate 
little tubercles more sparsely sown. 

Rather uncommon at Ratcliffe’s Millstream.—J. W. Hartt, Prof. 
Bailey, Mr Matthew, C. F. Hartt, and N. B. Survey, 1864. This 
bears in its granulated surface a strong likeness to C. Matthewi, but is 
distinguished from that species by the thickened, triangular, anterior 
border, the wider glabella less deeply lobed, and by the long occipital 
spine. The fine granulations are more distinct, while the coarser are 
tubercles and not spines. It is larger than C. Matthewi. Specimens 
without anterior border, and with badly preserved surface markings, 
are apt to be taken at first sight for C. Baileyi. The glabelle of these 
two species are very alike in outline, but C. Bacleyi wants the gla- 
bella furrows, or has them only indistinctly marked. 

Conocephalites Ouangondianus, Hartt, MS. Head, ‘without mov- 
able cheeks, strongly convex in outline, somewhat sub-angular in front ; 
much narrower in front than behind, where width is 
greater than the length; width in front very nearly 
equal to length; anterior margin wide, with a strong i 

fold, whose axis is strongly inclined forwards, so that 4 aN 

it presents a short, steep, convex slope forward, and ~~ — 

a long concave slope in the inner side, being much Conocephalites 
less elevated than glabella or fixed cheeks. se ae 
Glabella long, ovate-conical, nearly twice as wide posteriorly 
as in front, very convex, slightly sub-angular at the middle; sides 
straight, inclined to one another so as to meet in the middle of front 
margin if produced; rounded in front. Casts sometimes showing 
three pairs of short, raised, transverse lines on the sides of glabella, 
occupying the position of the ordinary glabella furrows; of these the 
two posterior are directed obliquely backwards. In some specimens 
there seems to be a fourth pair in advance of the other, represented 
by little tubercle-like processes, situated on the side of the glabella in 
front, just where the sides curve to the front. Glabella very much 
more convex than fixed cheek. 


Fig. 226. 


2 
i 
. =e 


652 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


Occipital ring strongly arched upward, and separated from glabella 
by a well-marked groove; middle of posterior margin produced 
backwards in a short conical spine. Fixed cheeks highest along 


dorsal furrow, towards which they pressed abrupt round slopes, 


while their general surface slopes gently and quite evenly towards 
front or sutures. The dorsal furrows are confluent in front with the 
flat margin, so that the cheek lobes do not meet in front. They are 
highest along the straight dorsal furrows, but where they bend to go 
round the anterior extremity of glabella, the cheek-lobes narrowing 
and curving towards each other, gradually sink away and disappear 
in the front flattened space. 

The ocular lobes are very well developed, forming sub-semicircular 
lappet-like lobes, curved strongly upwards, and situated about opposite 
to the centre of the head. An ocular ridge, low and rounded, but very 
prominent, runs from anterior margin of ocular lobes, with a curve 
almost parallel with front margin of shield, but slightly divergent 
from it to the dorsal furrow, which it gains at a point considerably 
back of front of glabella, and where the straight part of the dorsal 
furrow bends to go round the front. Posterior limb short and 
broadly rounded. Post-marginal furrows less deep than dorsal, 
wider; marginal fold narrow and moderately prominent; shield 
strongly arched transversely ; surface smooth. 

Cephalic shields without fixed cheeks, only part preserved. Rather 
uncommon in the Trilobite shales of Ratcliffe’s Millstream.—nN. B. 
Survey, 1864, and J. W. Hartt. 

Conocephalites tener, Hartt, MS. Minute, glabella ovate-conical, 
truncate at base, rounded in front, where it is about half as wide as at 
occipital furrow; slightly contracted behind; length about equal to 
width at occipital furrow; strongly depressed convex, more elevated 
at base than at front, and higher also than fixed cheeks; aspect varies 
with state of preservation of specimens ; arcuate, rounded, convex, or 
concave; the middle seems to be inclined to project back slightly 
over the occipital furrow; slopes abruptly to occipital furrow, which — 
is moderately deep, wide, and narrowed, and slightly inclined forward 
at the ends, where it terminates abruptly; bounding groove deeper 
than other grooves in head; occipital ring projecting backward 
bodily beyond higher margin, with the axis of its fold inclined more 
or less backward, and produced in the middle into a short conical 
backward inclined spine; anterior limb regularly arched as if the 
outlines of the complete head were semi-circular. 

Fixed cheeks anterior border broad, flat-concave, rising more or 
less abruptly to a sharp, thin, marginal fold; width between anterior 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 653 


extremities of cheek sutures equal to or about twice width of glabella 
at base. Cheek-lobes but slightly convex, and much more depressed 
than the glabella. Ocular ridges very distinct, thin, sharp, elevated 
ridges, that begin about inner edge of cheek-lobes, just behind 
rounded front of glabella, run outward and backward at an angle of 
60°—65* to the antero-posterior diameter. They are at first straight, 
but soon begin to bend backward more and more abruptly, forming a 
fragment of a spiral, their extremities being slightly directed inwards. 
The width between the ocular lobes is about equal to twice the length 
of the glabella. The ocular ridges are inclined outwards and forwards. 
Another ridge of the same appearance begins a very short distance 
behind the origin of the former, and on the very margin of the cheek- 
lobes, and, diverging from the margin nearly opposite to the base of the 
glabella, bends off abruptly along the posterior margin of the cheek- 
lobe, describing a curve, whose convexity is directed backwards. 
This ridge terminates considerably outside of the ocular lobe at a 
point distant from the glabella about equal to half the width of the 
latter at its base. This ridge is usually found inclined in the opposite 
direction to the former, viz., inward and backward. Posterior mar- 
gin of fixed cheeks moderately and regularly S-curved, the inner 
halves curving forwards, the outer halves backwards, with a marginal 
fold most elevated in the middle, but much less so than the ridges of 
the cheek-lobe or the anterior fold. This fold becomes double at 
about the middle, by the appearance of a groove running along its 
summit, and it appears to run out before reaching the lateral suture. 
The width between the posterior extremities of cheek-sutures is con- 
siderably greater than between the anterior extremities or between 
the ocular lobes. Glabella without furrows. 

This beautiful species I have found only in breaking up some 
fragments of fine dark shale sent me from Coldbrook by my friend 
G. F. Matthew. It is associated with Microdiscus Dawsoni, and 
Paradoxides lamellatus. 

Conocephalites Aurora, Hartt, MS. Resembles C. Ouangondianum, 
but differs in wider head, more depressed, anterior margin more 
broadly rounded, and border more strongly reflexed and elevated, 
ete. Rare at Ratcliffe’s Mill—N. B. Survey and C, F, Hartt. 

Conocephalites Thersites, Hartt, MS. Differs from the last and 
also from C. Ouangondianum in the front margin being broad and 
flat, and bordered by a low narrow flattened foid or ridge, ete. 
Glabella in the cast has three pairs of very short raised lines on the 
sides. Very rare at Ratcliffe’s Mill—J. W. Hartt. 

Conocephalites gemini-spinosus, Hartt, MS. Resembles C. Mat- 


654 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


thewi, but with wider and less elevated marginal folds, cheek-lobes — 
much more gibbous and semi-ovoid, etc. Sparsely sown with minute — 
spines, grouped two and two. Rare at St John.—C. F. and J. W. — 
Hartt. 


Fig. 227. Conocephalites Hallii, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 227). Well Be 


row, and long glabella, ovate, or cylindro-conical ; 
as well as by its strongly rounded sub-angular out- 
Conocephalites Jine in front, and by its peculiar anterior marginal 

Halli?) fold. Not common at Ratcliffe’s Mill.—N. B. Survey 
and J. W. Hartt. 

Conocephalites quadratus, Hartt, MS. Head minute, transversely 
oblong, twice as long, slightly curved in front, straight behind, very 
flat; a narrow elevated fold, convex in front, concave behind, and 
somewhat inclined backward, goes round the margin. Very rare at 
Coldbrook.—Mr Matthew’s cabinet. 

Conocephalites neglectus, Hartt, MS. Glabella regularly semi- 
elliptical; length, exclusive of occipital ring, about two-thirds of 
width at base, moderately convex. Highest at middle of base and 
sloping with a regular curve toward the front. Traces of two pairs of — 
glabella furrows on the sides. Occipital furrow deep and concave. 
Occipital ring with straight parallel margins, narrow with a short 
conical spine directed upward, ete. Very rare at Coldbrook— 
Mr Matthew’s cabinet. 

Conocephalites formosus, Hartt, MS. Head trapezoidal in outline, 
the anterior and posterior margins approximately parallel, and the 
former of less extension than the latter. Glabella as wide at occipital 
furrow as long, narrowed in front, and broadly rounded, with straight 
sides,—three transverse furrows dividing it into almost equal parts, 
ete. Not very common, Ratcliffe’s Mill. 

Conocephalites, n.s.(?), Hartt, MS. Resembles C. tener, but has 
much shorter head and glabella, and very high anterior marginal 
fold. Very rare at Ratcliffe’s Mill. 

Microdiscus Dawsoni, Hartt, MS. (Fig. 228). Cephalic shield 
semi-lunar, with thickened border crossed by numerous grooves run- 

Fig. 228, Ming perpendicularly to the circumference. Glabella convex, 

narrow, rounded in front, conical and pointed behind, pro- 

Gir jecting beyond posterior border, without furrows or occipital 
i ribashig groove. Cheeks convex, no eyes, and no traces of sutures. 

mag. Posterior angles of shield with backward projecting spines. 
Pygidium — sub-triangular, with curved outlines, rounded in 
front and behind. Middle lobe distinctly marked, and divided 


©) separated from all the others by its very convex, nar- 


Tal ae et ne » “ vee 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 655 


into six segments. Lateral lobe also divided, furnished with a narrow 
border. 

This pretty little species I have never detected in the shales from 
Ratcliffe’s Millstream, but it occurs quite abundantly in the shales 
of Coldbrook. All the specimens I have seen were collected while 
breaking up some fragments of slate sent me from that locality by 
Mr Matthew. I am not aware that it is found in St John; I have 
never collected it at that locality. It always occurs broken, the 
cephalic shields and pygidia being separated, 

Note-—Mr Hartt had originally described this species under the 
new generic name of Dawsonia; but Mr Billings regards it as a 
species of Microdiscus of Salter. The surface has a very fine granu- 
lation not shown in the figure, and the grooves of the border are also 
more distinct. 

Agnostus Acadicus, sp. nov. (Fig. 229). Head minute, transversely- 
elliptical or sub-cireular, breadth and length about equal, convex but 
very depressed, outlines in front and on the sides slightly straight- 
ened. A narrow flattened and but very slightly elevated border 
goes round the front and lateral margins. This is separated from 
rest of shield by a narrow, shallow, flat space, or Fig. 229. 
groove, which, on going posteriorly along the lateral 
margins, loses gradually in width toward the posterior (Cr 
angles of shield, which are rounded. Glabella a little 
less than two-thirds the length of shield, long elliptical, ©) 
depressed convex, but more elevated than other parts of “S# 
the shield, about twice as long as broad, bounded ante- Agnostus Ac- 
i i adicus, head 
riorly and laterally bya sharp rather deep grooveconcentriec and _pygidi- 
to the outer one above described. A well-marked trans- "» ™®8 
verse furrow arching backwards separates the anterior third of the 
glabella as a sub-circular lobe. Posterior part of glabella rounded, but 
impressed on each side by a little lobe situated in the angle between 
the cheek-lobe and the glabella. These little lobes are about one 
quarter the size of the anterior glabellar lobe. Cheeks of the same 
width throughout, and uniting in front of the glabella, being bounded 
by the two concentric grooves above mentioned. Posteriorly they are 
rounded ; in width they are rather greater than the glabella. They are 
convex, more elevated along their inner margin, but sloping outward, 
roundly, and evenly. Glabella with its lobes project considerably 
beyond posterior margin. Surface smooth. Pygidium of this 
species (?) of about the same outline as cephalic shield. The 
posterior and lateral margins have a slight raised border, separated 
from lateral lobes by a shallow but well-marked groove running 


- ~~) 
a he eS Uh 


656 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 


parallel to the margin. This groove widens at the point where if — 
bends to go forward along the sides, in such a way as to encroach on — 
and thin out the marginal fold, and, just before reaching the anterior __ 
margin, it narrows itself from the inner side so as to cause the lateral — 

lobes to widen somewhat anteriorly. These are narrow, flattened, 
about half as wide as the middle lobe, narrowing to a point just — 
behind the middle lobe where they do not unite. The medial lobe is _ 


about five-sixths of length of pygidium, shield-shaped, flattened, convex, 
more elevated than the lateral lobe. Its anterior border is slightly 
concave in the middle. The lateral angles are rounded, and the lobe 
is contracted a little anteriorly. It is bounded by two deep and 
well-marked furrows, which join one another in the middle of the 
marginal furrow, forming a pointed arch.* Medial lobe projecting 


farther forwards than the lateral ones. A little spine is situated on 


its mesial line about one-fourth its length from front. Surface smooth. 


The pygidium and cephalic shield, from which the above descriptions 


were drawn up, were collected by my father and myself at St John, 
near the residence of W. R. Burtis, Esq., from shales of the lower 
part of the Acadian group. They were associated with Conoce- 


phalites Baileyi and C. Matthewi, Orthis Billings, ete. The two — 


parts are separate, and each is represented by but a single specimen. 
I have little hesitancy in referring the one to the other. The 
glabella seems to be marked by a broad but faint transverse depres- 
sion just behind the anterior glabella furrow. There are indistinct 
traces of an anterior articulating border to the pygidium. Both the 
specimens figured are casts. 

Agnostus similis, Hartt, MS. Differs from the last species in its 
straight sides, wider marginal groove, and more distinct marginal 
fold. Cheek-folds narrower in front of glabella. The pygidium shows 
similar difference of proportion. Ratcliffe’s Millstream, somewhat rare. 

Paradoxides lamellatus, Hartt, MS. This is a small species dis- 
tinguished from several others found with it by the presence of a num- 


ber of sharp perpendicular laminz on the anterior lobe of the glabella. 


Fig. 230.—Portions of Heads of Paradoxides. 


* More so than in the figure. 


a esa saslUeselUr SS CUD 


FOSSILS OF THE ACADIAN GROUP. 657 


Mr Hartt recognises several other species of Paradoxides, but 
has not found time to work out their characters in detail; and this is 
rendered particularly difficult by the circumstance that the thin crusts 
of these creatures appear to have suffered even more from distortion 
than the other fossils imbedded with them. 

The descriptions above given, with the fact that some of the layers 
are perfectly loaded with fragments of Trilobites, will serve to show 
the exceeding richness of this ancient fauna, and to indicate its 
relations to Primordial life in other parts of the world. These 
remarkable fossils deserve, however, much more full and detailed 
illustration than that which I have been able to give them; and 
many additional species will no doubt be found. 


Fig. 231.—Paradoxides. 


Restored by Mr Matthew from fragments found at St John, and probably belonging to a species 
indicated in Mr Hartt’s MS. by the name P. Micmac. 


2u 


658 


CHAPTER XXYV. 


THE HURONIAN AND LAURENTIAN PERIODS. 


INTRODUCTORY REMARKS—THE HURONIAN SYSTEM—THE LAURENTIAN 
SYSTEM—-SUMMARY OF THE GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ACADIA— 
CONCLUSION. 

Tue formations last described carry us far back through the long 4 

ages of the earth’s geological history to the beginning of the — 

Paleozoic period; but still older rocks, indicating still earlier periods, 

are known to geologists. These, until lately, were regarded as azoic, 

or destitute of remains of life; but the discovery of Zozoon Canadense 
now entitles them to the name Eozoic, or those that indicate the — 
morning of that great creative day in which the lower forms of animal 
life were introduced upon our planet. Formations of this age occupy — 
great breadths in the northern part of the North American continent. — 

All that rocky and hilly region on the north side of the St Lawrence 

Gulf and River, constituting the Laurentide Hills, reaching from — 

Labrador to Lake Superior, and the extension of it to the south in — 

the Adirondac Mountains of New York, consists of Laurentian rocks, — 

and these are skirted on the south, more particularly on the shores of — 

Lake Huron, by the newer Huronian series, which, however, like the 

first, underlies all the Silurian formations, The rocks of both these 

great groups, as might have been anticipated from their vast antiquity, a 

and the vicissitudes which the earth has undergone since their for- y 

mation, are in a highly metamorphic state. Still there.is good evi- a 

dence that, like the altered Silurian rocks above described, they were __ 

originally sedimentary deposits, formed in the sea, and subsequenill = 
brought into their present state. F | 

Until a few years ago, we had no evidence of the existence of these 
old formations in Acadia, or indeed elsewhere on the Atlantic coast 
south of the Gulf of St Lawrence, other than the vague suspicion that 
some of the metamorphic rocks of unknown age might possibly be — 
referred to these periods. The discovery of the Primordial fossils — 


THE HURONIAN SYSTEM. 659 


noticed in the last chapter has however, among other important results, 
enabled Professor Bailey and his able coadjutors to introduce into his 
“Observations on the Geology of New Brunswick” the two great 
groups of rocks which stand at the head of this chapter, while Mr 
Murray has recognised the Laurentian in Newfoundland, and a con- 
siderable area on the banks of the Lower Hudson has also been referred 
to the same period. These discoveries indicate a second long line of 
outcrop of Laurentian rocks parallel to that previously known, and 
separated from it by broad areas of Silurian, Devonian, and Carbon- 
iferous rocks. They also show that immediately after the Laurentian 
period, not only the breadth of the American continent in the north 
was marked out by these rocks, but also the direction of its eastern 
coast. 

Huronian Series (Coldbrook Group). 
Under the St John or Acadian series, in the vicinity of St John, 
and more especially at Coldbrook, there occurs a group of unevenly 
bedded rocks, evidently marking a period of much disturbance, and 
consisting, in large part, of conglomerate and of beds which seem to 
be of the character of volcanic tufa or indurated volcanic ash. In 
mineral character these beds closely resemble the MHuronian of 
Georgian Bay, and as they underlie the Primordial slates of St John, 
I think we are fully justified in assigning them to this age. Should 
this view prove correct, the oceurrence of these peculiar beds in New 
Brunswick, and also in the basin of the great Canadian lakes, will 
constitute an interesting illustration of the existence of similar physical 
conditions at the same time in widely separated areas, and will 
increase our appreciation of the geological importance of that period 
of physical disturbance which seems to have separated the quiet seas 
of the Laurentian with their reefs of Hozoon from the equally quiet 
conditions of the Lower Silurian ocean. 
Though visible only along a line of outcrop about thirty miles in 
length, and a few miles wide, these Huronian beds attain in one 
locality, according to Mr Matthew, a vertical thickness of not less 
than 7000 feet. . In other places, however, their thickness is stated to 
be only 150 feet. On this difference of thickness, and the composi- 
tion of the group, Mr Matthew bases the following remarks :— 
“These figures indicate that the ancient continent, previously ele- 
vated above the sea, sank under the accumulated weight of Huronian 
sediment to the extent of one mile and a half or more in that short 
distance, and that a coast-line near the position now occupied by the 
city of St John limited the Huronian sea to the eastward during a 
great part of this period. 


a 


—_- 


ot hg a a. > a 


660 THE HURONIAN AND LAURENTIAN PERIODS. 


“ Its opening, if we may judge by the lowest member known, was — 
marked by the accumulation of littoral sediment. To this succeeded — 
an epoch when igneous eruptions commingled molten matter, scoria, — 
and fragments of rock with the fine mud resulting from the wearing F ' 


of the Azoic continent. After an interval of time, during which the 


arenaceous shales of No. 3 were formed, these conditions were again — 
repeated in a still greater accumulation of voleanic ashes, tufa, ete., _ 


which, as the pre-existing land sank beneath the waters, spread as a 
thin deposit further west. 

“The whole was eventually covered by the red and purple sedi- 
ments of the Upper Division, which are more uniformly distributed, 
and are conformably surmounted by the lowermost strata of the Lower 
Silurian formation, thus becoming, like the Cambrian of Britain, the 
‘basement segments of the Silurian system.’ And although Professor 
J. D. Dana classes these fundamental rocks of the Paleozoic series as 
Azoic, he remarks, that ‘ should the Huronian rocks be hereafter 
found to contain any fossils, they will form the first member of the 
Silurian.’ 

“Tn general characters there is a remarkably close resemblance 


between this formation and the Huronian of Canada, notwithstanding ‘= 
the wide extent of country which intervenes. Both are largely com- _ 
posed of erupted materials, diorites, tufas, and voleanic mud: hard- _ 


ness, and obscurity in the lamination of the slates is a feature in 
common; and here, as in Canada, slate conglomerates may be seen of 


a texture so compact and uniform that the inclosed masses are dis- 


tinguishable only by a difference of colour.” 
The structure and composition of the series are thus given by Mr 
Matthew, in ascending order :— 
“ Lower Division. 


‘1. Coarse red conglomerate (with an abundance of quartz pebbles) 
and red sandy shale. 


‘2. Dark porphyritic slates and trap, with slate conglomerate, trap- 


ash, and tufa. 
“3. Gray and ferruginous arenaceous shale and sandstone, becoming, 
when altered, a laminated compact felspar or felspathic quartzite. 


“4, Pale-green (weathering gray) slate, stratification very obscure 3 
[apparently an indurated volcanic ash], with slate conglomerate, ash- 


beds, and tufa. 
“* Upper Division. 


‘5. Red and gray conglomerate and red shale. Red and purple 4 


grit and sandstone. 


a a ee 


~ mat aa a oie ee «<a 


- —- =» 


ee a oe 


THE HURONIAN SYSTEM. 661 


“ Of these beds, Nos. 1, 2, and 3 do not extend so far west as St 
John, and No. 4 diminishes very much in bulk in the rear of the 
city, where it fills inequalities in the uppermost beds of the Portland 
(Laurentian) series.” 

Professor Bailey makes the following remarks on the age of these 
rocks :— 

“The facts upon which depend the determination of this question 
have already been given in the remarks on the age of the Portland 
series, where also a parallelism is suggested between the Coldbrook 
rocks and those of the Huronian series of Canada. The parallelism is 
apparent, partly in the fact that the former, like the latter, underlie 
the rocks of the Potsdam group (of which the St John slates are here 
the representatives), and partly in their mineral characters and the 
absence of fossils. 

“Tt is impossible to read the description given of the Huronian 
series in the reports of the Canadian Survey, without being struck by 
the close resemblance which exists between the members of that 
series, and what has been termed in New Brunswick the Lower Cold- 
brook group. In both the prevailing rock is a hard compact slate, 
almost universally of a dull grayish-green colour, with which are 
associated pink and white, or greenish-white felspathic quartzites, 
and at the base of the series, dark gray sandstones and conglomerates, 
In both, also, dioritic or greenstone dykes are common, as well as 
stratified amygdaloidal traps, the igneous outflows penetrating the 
rocks as well as lying in regular beds among the strata, in which 
they have produced excessive alteration. It will thus be seen that 
the two formations are alike in their general character, as well as in 
the conditions under which they were produced. Indeed, the resem- 
blance is much stronger than would naturally be on in series 
so widely separated. 

“In passing to the upper member of the Coldbrook group, the task 
of establishing a parallelism with either of the Canadian series is 
much more difficult. Unless we regard the red quartzites and jasper 
conglomerates of the Huronian rocks (Nos. 7 and 8 of the section 
given in the Canadian Reports, near the Thessalon River), as the 
equivalents of the red conglomerates and sandstones of the New 
Brunswick group, no rocks approaching the latter in character are 
found, with the exception of the red sediments associated with the 
copper-bearing rocks of Lake Superior. As these, however, have 
been shown to be the probable equivalents of the Chazy group, which 
occupies a higher horizon than the Potsdam beds, which here overlie 
the rocks of Coldbrook, we must, for the present, be content to con- 


662 THE HURONIAN AND LAURENTIAN PERIODS. 


sider their precise position as uncertain, only remembering that they _ 
constitute a series lower than the Primordial rocks, at the base of e 
the Silurian.” 
The rocks of the lower part of the Coldbrook group hele much 
harder than those of the upper member, and than those of the St __ 
John group, present a marked feature in the topography of the country, 
projecting in a bold and rugged ridge, well marked for some distance _ 
to the eastward of St John. 
The Huronian of Western Canada is rich in metallic minerals, more 
especially in copper; but that of New Brunswick has not as yet — 
afforded useful minerals. Indications of copper and lead, however, — 
oceur in rocks referred to this age on the Hammond River, near — 
Quaco, and in other localities specular iron has been observed. 
It is to be observed that while on Lakes Huron and Superior the — 
lower Silurian rocks of about Chazy age rest unconformably on the 
Huronian; at St John, the Primordial shales of the Acadian group, 
which are, however, much older than the Chazy, appear to repose 
conformably on the Coldbrook series. 


Laurentian Series (Portland Group). 


Regarding the group of rocks last described as Huronian, there 
seems no alternative but to assign the great mass of calcareous and 
gneissose rocks underlying the Coldbrook group to the Laurentian. 
These rocks form an anticlinal northward of the Coldbrook group, 
and occupy an area about forty miles in length and from two to eight 
miles wide. In the immediate vicinity of St John, they are overlaid, 
apparently conformably, by the Coldbrook group. They may be ob- 
served elsewhere to be covered unconformably by rocks of Devonian _ 
and Carboniferous age. 

When examining these rocks several years ago, I was struck with 
their resemblance to the Laurentian of Canada; but as nothing was 
then known with certainty as to the age of the St John rocks, Ieould 
not venture to assign them to so ancient a period. Their mineral 
character, as it then presented itself to me, is described as follows :*— 

“The oldest rocks seen in the vicinity of St John are the so-called 
syenites and altered slates in the ridges between the city and the 
Kennebeckasis River. These rocks are in great part gneissose, and 
are no doubt altered sediments. They are usually of greenish colours; 
and in places they contain bands of dark slate and reddish felsite, as 
well as of gray quartzite. In their upper part they alternate with 
white and graphitic crystalline limestone, which overlies them in 


* Journal of Geological Society, vol. xviii. 


THE LAURENTIAN SYSTEM. 663 


thick beds at M‘Closkeney’s and Drury’s Coves on the Kennebeckasis, 
and again, on the St John side of an anticlinal formed by the syenitic 
_ or gneissose rocks, at the suburb of Portland. These limestones are also 
well seen in a railway-cutting five miles to the eastward of St John, 
and at Lily Lake. Near the Kennebeckasis they are unconformably 
overlain by the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate, which is coarse 
and of a red colour, and contains numerous fragments of the limestone. 

“ At Portland the crystalline limestone appears in a very thick bed, 
and constitutes the ridge known as Fort Howe Hill. Its colours 
are white and gray, with dark graphitic lamine; and it contains 
occasional bands of olive-coloured shale. It dips at a very high angle 
to the south-east. Three beds of impure graphite appear in its upper 
portion. The highest is about a foot in thickness, and rests on a sort 
of underclay. The middle bed is thinner and less perfectly exposed. 
The lower bed, in which a shaft has been sunk, seems to be three or 
four feet in thickness. It is very earthy and pyritous. The great 
bed of limestone is seen to rest on flinty slate and syenitie gneiss, 
beneath which, however, there appears a minor bed of limestone.” 

Their structure is more fully represented in the following section 
by Mr Matthew. The order is ascending :— 

“1, Gray limestones and dolomites (?) of great thickness, with beds 
of clay slate, occupying the middle of the peninsula which separates 
Kennebeckasis Bay from the Bay of Fundy. 

“2. A mass of syenite and protogene, probably metamorphosed 
sediment. 

“3, Gray and white limestones and beds of syenitic gneiss. 

“4, Gray and reddish gneiss, conglomerate, and arenaceous shale, 
altered, resembling syenite and granulite. Arenaceous shale and 
gray quartzite. Dark flinty slate, with oval grains (black). 

“5, Graphitic shale and pyritous slate, frequently alternating with 
gray and white limestones and dolomites (?). The beds thinner, 
and alternations more frequent, towards the top.” 

I have searched in vain, in the specimens in my possession, for 
indications of the characteristic fossil of the Laurentian; but there 
are traces of vegetable tissues, probably fucoidal, in the graphite and 
graphitic shale ; and in rocks at Sand Point, referred by Mr Matthew 
to this group, there are worm-burrows and other markings, probably 
of organic origin. No representatives of the great deposits of iron 
ore found in the Laurentian of Canada and New York, have yet been re- 
cognised in New Brunswick. Nor do we know of anything correspond- 
ing to the interesting auriferous veins of Madoc, in Upper Canada 
(Ontario). The limestone of Portland, however, and other places, 


664 SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY. 


has long been applied to economic uses; and, in some places, its tex- q 


ture is such that it would afford an excellent marble, the beauty of 
which is in some cases increased by the intermixture of green ser- 


pentine, exactly as in the Laurentian limestones of the Ottawa. 
Graphite also occurs in large quantity, as already mentioned, and 
though its quality is coarse and impure, it is possible that by subject- 
ing it to the processes of mechanical purification now in use in other 
countries, a valuable product might be obtained from it. Its nearness 
to the city of St John, and to the great water power afforded by the 
river, constitute inducements for further attempts to render it useful. 


Summary of the Geological History of Acadia. 


‘Descending from the Modern period, we have now reached those 
rocks which constitute the lowest and oldest known foundations of 
our continents,—rocks which, in the Acadian provinces, have been 
almost wholly swept away or buried up in the formation of later 
sediments. That there were rocks older even than these, we know, 
from the cireumstance that some of the beds above described are of a 
fragmental character. That some forms of animal and vegetable life 
already existed upon our earth—some of the creeping things of the 
waters—we also know; but of the old rocks which furnished the 
material of the Laurentian beds, or the land which may have been 
composed of them, we know nothing,—perhaps we never shall know 
anything,—at least from the records of the rocks. Here, then, we 
may turn from our descent into the bowels of the earth, and, retracing 
our steps, emerge once more into the light of day. In doing so we 
may lightly glance, in the historic or ascending order, at the several 
formations which we have described in detail in the opposite or 
descending method. 

Beginning with Laurentian Acadia, we have before us an ocean of 
whose shores we know nothing; but in whose depths sandy and 
argillaceous sediments are being deposited, and animals and plants of 


the simplest structure are building up coral-like reefs, and accumu- - 


lating masses of fetid muddy vegetable matter,—the whole to be, in 
process of time, converted by the magical alchemy of mother earth 
into crystalline gneiss, marble, and graphite. As ages roll on, and carry 
us into the Huronian period, the bed of this quiet sea is broken up, 
rocky ridges are exposed to the destructive action of the waves, vol- 
canoes belch forth their lavas, and discharge their showers of ashes 
and scoriz. 

Another geologic age rolls by, and we see stretched out before us 
the northern nucleus of the American continent extending westward 


oa, ft. 2S Ge Se Se eee 


= 


SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY. 665 


from Labrador, a rocky, lifeless continent, in so far as we know. 
Along its shores are spread out muddy bottoms swarming with 
strange forms of crustaceans and shell-fish ; and, in its more profound 
depths, are being slowly produced the great coral reefs which are to 
form the Lower Silurian limestones. In the area representing the 
Acadian provinces, shallow waters, invaded by muddy and sandy 
detritus, appear to have prevailed, with gradual subsidence of the 
bottom of the sea. 

The Upper Silurian period would seem to have been introduced 
by new and extensive physical changes, which had the effect of 
producing greater inequalities of the sea-bottom, and ultimately 
a deeper sea, though perhaps more limited in area. At this time, 
also, extensive processes of elevation and disturbance were in pro- 
gress along the Appalachian chain, and must have tended to sepa- 
rate more completely the Acadian area from that of the central part of 
North America. These movements were further connected with an 
entire change of the animal life of the region—a change, however, . 
not sudden but gradual—and in the course of which, it would appear 
that many species which had long previously existed in other parts 
of North America, extended themselves over the Acadian area. 

As the Upper Silurian period approached its close, and the sea- 
bottom had been loaded with many hundreds of feet of arenaceous, 
argillaceous, calcareous, and ferruginous sediment, another series of 
physical changes supervened. New lands were thrown up, and— 
still more wonderful change—these lands were clothed with a rich 
vegetation ; and the oldest known land animals, delicate and beautiful 
insects — water-born but air-dwellers— flitted through its shades. 
With these changes came another and even more thorough revolution 
among the living things of the seas. 

But while the Devonian rocks were being built up, the older 
sediments, buried under these newer beds, had been subjected to 
the intense action of the earth’s pent-up igneous agencies; and, at 
the close of the period, it would seem as if the solid crust had 
given way, slowly and gradually, to the superincumbent weight, 
along certain lines; while in others the edges of the beds were tilted 
up, and the whole surface of Acadia was thrown into a series of 
abrupt folds,—great masses of plastic granitic matter invading every 
opening in the shattered masses. This period surpasses every other, 
in the geological history of the eastern slope of the American conti- 
nent, in its evidences of fracture of the earth’s crust. To this period 
we must refer the greater part of the intrusive granites of Eastern 
America, and to it also is referable the greater part of the metamor- 


S 


666 SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY. 


phism of the Silurian rocks, and the origin of the numerous metallic 
veins by which these are traversed. 
This great earth-storm of the later Devonian left the surface of 


Acadia with its grand features marked out as they are at present; 3 


and the wide wooded swamps of the Carboniferous, and the sea 
areas in which its beds of shells and corals were depicted, occu- 
pied the present valleys of the country, and were limited by the 
same ridges of folded Silurian and Devonian rocks, which form 
the highest hills at present. So close is this correspondence, that 
the limits of the older formations on the map must very nearly 
mark the coast-lines of Carboniferous Acadia at the epoch of the 
Carboniferous limestone. For the present interests of Acadia, the 
great Devonian disturbances which charged the older formations 
with metallic minerals, and tilted up to the surface the great beds of 
iron ore, and the succeeding growth of the coal accumulations of the 
Carboniferous period, were the most important of all its geological 
changes, as being the sources of its great mineral wealth. Yet these 
momentous eras are not to be taken by themselves, but as links in a 
great chain of processes, with all the parts of which they are more or 
less closely connected. 

Here we may pause for a moment to glance at the map, and to 
observe the three broad bands of Lower Silurian rock, portions 
of which appear on it, all of them running in a north-east and south- 
west direction. The most northern of these is seen only on a corner 
of the map, skirting the south side of the St Lawrence; but it is 
the most important of the whole, extending far to the south-west 
through Canada and the United States, constituting, with the excep- 
tion of the Laurentian already mentioned, the oldest portion of the 
great Appalachian breast-bone of North America. The second is 
that extending across New Brunswick into Maine, and thence south- 
ward along the coast-line of the United States. The third is the 
coast series of Nova Scotia, extending to the north-east into New- 
foundland, but disappearing to the south-west under the Atlantic. © 
All these are auriferous and otherwise metalliferous, and they consti- 
tute three great lines of upheaval or ridging up of the earth’s crust, 
in the troughs between which lie the Upper Silurian, Devonian, and 
Carboniferous areas of Acadia. ; : 

Of no geological period is the history better recorded in the Acadian 
provinces than the Carboniferous, in regard to which they may even 
be considered as a typical region, presenting the formations of that 
period in the greatest possible thickness and variety, and exhibiting 
in a very perfect manner, and with features not as yet paralleled in 


aa | 


SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY. 667 


other regions, the terrestrial life of that very interesting era. The 
wonderful history of the Carboniferous period has, however, been so 
fully detailed above, and is in itself so ample, that I shrink from any 
attempt to sum it up here. 

We now reach a blank in the geological history of Acadia—a 
blank represented only by certain elevations and disturbances of the 
Carboniferous beds, which occurred during the period occupied in 
some other regions in the deposition of the Permian rocks. This was 
succeeded by the local but important volcanic outbursts which accom- 
panied the probably rapid deposition of the Triassic red sandstone, an 
association of volcanic phenomena with the hasty deposit of coarse 
sediment stained with oxide of iron, which had occurred before in the 
Lower Carboniferous, in the Lower Devonian, and in the far earlier 
Huronian. 

The Trias of Prince Edward Island alone gives us, in the bones of 
Bathygnathus, a single glimpse of the reptilian life of the Mesozoic 
“Cage of reptiles,” so richly exhibited in some other countries. 

A blank in this monumental history of enormous length succeeds 
the Triassic period, and Acadia with the neighbouring parts of North 
America was probably, during these long Mesozoic and Tertiary ages, 
a part of an extensive continental area, in which animals and plants, 
characteristic of those periods, no doubt flourished, but have, so far 
as we know, left no traces of their existence. 

The next vicissitude of which we have any record is that mysterious 
glacial period, which I am inclined to regard as one of subsidence 
under an ice-laden sea, in so far at least as Acadia is concerned. 
Certain it is that no deposit similar to the boulder clay had occurred 
previously in Acadia, unless indeed we may regard some of the 
coarser conglomerates of the Carboniferous period, as evidence that 
ice was grounding on the coasts on which the vegetation of the coal 
formation was flourishing. Probably at this period Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick were in circumstances very nearly the same with that 
of the great Newfoundland ‘banks at present. Under any view, 
nothing is more remarkable in the geological history of the earth than 
the almost universal subsidence and glaciation which seem to have 
affected the Northern Hemisphere at this period, geologically so 
recent. Little by little, terrace after terrace, the land rose from the 
glacial submergence ; and, as it rose, it began to be peopled with a 
gigantic race of quadrupeds which gradually gave place to those now 
existing; the extinction of the Mammoth and Mastodon having pro- 
bably had relation to the gradual increase of the surface of the 
land, and its warmer and drier summers. Had these creatures 


Oo 


668 SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY. 


finally disappeared before the advent of the Micmac and Mali- 
seet? We know not; but in so far as negative evidence is entitled 
to weight, we may suppose that they had; and that the human occu- 


pation of Acadia may not be of older date than the origin of the his- | 


toric nations of the old world. The Red man still survives, with the 
remnant of the wild animals which fed his forefathers, and of the 
forests which sheltered them; but now the towns and cities of 
civilized man grow up on the borders of our rivers and bays, his fields 
spread over the land, his sails dot the surface of the waters, his mines 
penetrate the deeply hidden stores of subterranean wealth, while his 
ever active mind studies with penetrating insight the monuments of 
that strange series of creative processes by which in the counsels of 
Almighty wisdom its present destiny was worked out. What next? 
Geology cannot answer the question; and the geologist, as he lays 
down his hammer and his pen, can only utter the prayer that in the 
future history of this old world, in whatever of new development and 
higher glory its Maker may have in store for it, Acadia and its sons 
and daughters may bear a worthy and a happy part. 


Conclusion. 


In the preceding pages, I have neither sought nor avoided the 
discussion of those questions on which geologists are at present 
divided in opinion, in so far as these questions are raised by the 
history of the formations developed in the Acadian Provinces. I 
have, however, made such discussions subordinate to the statement 
of the facts immediately under consideration; and, for this reason, 
they will be found scattered in various places throughout the work. 
I may now shortly sum up my conclusions with reference to a few 
of the more important of these disputed points. 

The hard-fought field of glacial denudation, striation, and boulder 
drift, I have traversed in the Chapter on the Post-pliocene, and have 


endeavoured to show that the phenomena of the boulder clay and drift 


in Eastern America are to be accounted for not by a universal glacier; 
but by local glaciers, drift ice, and the agency of cold northern cur- 
rents, in transporting materials and eroding the surface of a partially 
submerged continent. 

On the modern notion of ‘‘ homotaxis,” as distinguished from actual 
contemporaneity of formations on the same geological horizons, I have 
fully stated my views in introducing the history of the Carboniferous 
period, and have shown reason for believing that the formations of 
this great period in America are exactly, and even in their sub- 
divisions, synchronous with those known by the same names in Europe. 


- as | —- J — 


—_-oas = 


CONCLUSION. 669 


I would also invite the attention of geologists to the doctrine of 
equivalent geological cycles, as stated in that chapter; believing that, 
in spite of all local diversities, such general cycles of geological change 
will at length be fully established. For the present, I am aware that 
there is a tendency among some of the younger geologists to extend 
to the whole world, and to all time, the exceptional coast-conditions 
of small areas, and very limited faunas; but this attempt to raise the 
exceptions to the rank of the rule cannot deceive those whose studies 
have made them familiar with the enormous areas of deposition and 
life-distribution in the modern ocean, and with the still more uniform 
conditions of the Paleozoic land and sea. 

With respect to theories of metamorphism and the production of 


what have been termed “ Indigenous” crystalline rocks, the pheno- ¢ 


mena observable in Acadia point out that the heat of the great igneous 
masses of the interior of the earth’s crust has been mainly instru- 
mental in effecting such changes, though much must be allowed for 
the original chemical differences of the beds. There is also very 
striking evidence of the power of huge Plutonic masses to melt their 
way, if we may so speak, through the aqueous beds, with very little 
mechanical disturbance, and only a limited amount of metamorphism 
in the immediate vicinity of such masses. Nor can there be any 
question that the igneous masses themselves have been much modified 
in their chemical constitution by beds through which they have 
passed, so that there is a certain correspondence between the character 
of igneous rocks and that of the beds which they penetrate. In 
addition to all this, we have bedded traps and tufaceous beds composed 
of the debris of igneous rocks, readily assuming under metamorphism 
the aspect of Plutonic dykes. It is clear that a want of careful 
analysis of facts so complicated may readily lead to the confused and 
contradictory doctrines on the relations of the metamorphic sedi- 
ments and the ‘exotic’? Plutonic rocks now too prevalent. 

I have not been able to find, in the remarkably complete series of 
fossils afforded by the Carboniferous of Nova Scotia, any evidence of 
the gradual transmutation of species by natural selection or any other 
cause. On the contrary, species appear without any manifest cause, 
and remain unchanged, or with very limited varietal modifications 
during very long periods. I admit, however, that in the case of cer- 
tain species of wide range and long continuance, as Productus cora 
and Alethopteris lonchitica, for example, varietal forms can be observed 
to be characteristic of certain places and beds; and that if we were to 
regard the varieties as species, andthe latter as sub-genera, then such 
supposed species might be regarded as transmutable into each other, 


> 


670 CONCLUSION. 


inasmuch as they pass into each other by indefinite gradations; but I 
cannot regard such varietal forms as true species. a 

The relations of the Carboniferous to the Devonian flora appear 
to militate in a positive manner against the theory of transmutation. 


The Devonian flora of Eastern America, of which there are now known __ 


nearly one hundred species, affords all the principal generic forms 
of the Carboniferous. A few of its species are identical, but the 
greater part are distinct; and this distinctness is even more marked _ 
in the Lower Carboniferous than in the Coal formation. While, 
therefore, a few species continued unchanged through all the vast 
time of the Devonian and Carboniferous, others disappeared at the 
close of the Devonian and were replaced by distinct species in the 
Carboniferous, and all this without any material improvement or 
elevation of type. 

It may be added, that in New York and Ohio, where no physical 
break separates the Devonian and Carboniferous, the change of flora 
takes place in the same manner, and that the floras of the Devonian 
and Carboniferous are now too well known, and that over too large — 
an area to allow us to explain this by “imperfection of the record.” 

Again, if we turn to the Primordial fauna of St John, we find there, 
as in similar horizons in Europe, several distinct types of animal exist- 
ence already well defined, and none of them pointing by any character 
to the primitive Eozoon of the Laurentian rocks, which stands out as 
distinctly by itself as the two little land-shells of the Coal measures. 

On the great question at issue between the “ Uniformitarians” and 
“ Catastrophists,”’ I desire to occupy that middle ground to which I 
am glad to see that Lyell and Murchison, the two great leaders of © 
geological opinion in Great Britain, tend in their later works. While 
the doctrine of the absolute uniformity of natural laws cannot be too 
strongly held, we must admit that periods of more and less energetic 
action of the great causes of geological change have alternated with 
each other over regions so extensive as practically to affect the whole 
world, and that the period of human observation has been probably ~ 
too limited to enable us fully to appreciate the extremes of these 
oscillations. In other words, the long-continued operation of uniform 
causes, whether geological or astronomical, may lead to an accumula- 
tion of effects in certain directions, terminating in a change, cataclysmal 
in its character, and initiating a new train of causes perhaps under 
very different conditions. It is true that such a cataclysm may, in 
a broader view, be regarded as a part of the uniform order, just as a 
thunderstorm or an earthquake may be regarded as an effect of regular 
natural laws, as much as a tide or a current. Still we should beware 


CONCLUSION. 671 


of limiting the intensity or extent of such phenomena by our own 
short experience. Nor must we fail to consider that all successions 
have implied progress, that every oscillation of the piston-rod, every 
turn of the wheels, urges the machine forward. Nothing can be more 
evident than the continued progress and development of both unor- 
ganized and organized nature on the surface of our planet, from the 
earliest periods of geological time to the present day. But our 


experience of existing causes has been too short to enable us fully to » 


realize this, or to harmonize it with our notions of uniformity or cata- 
clysms or creative intervention. We are but infants in knowledge, 
and we have been passengers in the ship of nature for so short a time 
that the oscillations of the piston-rod may appear to us cataclysms 
irreconcilable with the steady motion of the wheels, and that we may 
yet be unable clearly to discriminate between the action of the lifeless 
machinery and that of the unseen hand and mind which regulate and 
guide; and while we may readily discover motion and progress, the 
port of departure and that of destination are alike invisible in the 
distance. Patient observation and thought may enable us in time 
better to comprehend these mysteries; and I think we may be much 
aided in this by cultivating an acquaintance with the Maker and 
Ruler of the machine as well as with His work. 


ae ys <= 


—-aaSs awe Ss a6 &@-°S fh © 2 8 ee oe ee ae ce, Pe 


ayy 4a 4 ke 
Bek in a en Pee eee 13 Beam 4 


APPENDIX. 


(A.)—Micmac LANGUAGE AND SUPERSTITIONS. 


I REFERRED in Chapter IV. to the fact that, in the judgment of my friend 
Mr Rand, there are strong points of resemblance between the Micmac and 
Maliseet languages and some of the older languages of Europe, and that 
these may still be traced in many root words. He has furnished me with 
a number of these which have occurred to him in translating the New 
Testament; stating that he merely presents them as genuine resemblances 
occurring in primitive aboriginal words, and the precise value of which he 
leaves to be estimated by philologists. They are undoubtedly too numerous 
and important to be purely accidental; though they may be accounted for 
either by supposing that the Algonquin languages, of which the Micmac is 
merely a branch, actually retain traces of roots derived from the Eastern 
Continent, or by supposing that in the formation of the language similar 
ideas as to onomatopeeia occurred to the mind of the American Indian and 
his contemporaries in the Old World. In either case, the similarity indicates 
the claim of the American to kinship with the European; and the following 
list of words will illustrate a fact of some interest, whatever its value in 
philology. I have given merely a few of the examples communicated to me 
by Mr Rand, and have left out a great number in which the resemblances 
are obscured by change of consonants, such as the substitution of other 
sounds for “r,” which does not occur in Micmac, The vowel a is sounded 
as in “father,” except when marked short (&), when it sounds as in “ man,” 
The other vowels are long, except where marked as short, 


Piilés, a pigeon. Cf. rercra. 

Agé or ahge, earth. Cf. Heb, avetz, yn. 
Padoos, a boy. Cf. rasdos. 

Pegoon, afeather. Cf. rwywy. 
Oo-lakiin, a dish. Cf. Aexog. 

Oktan, the main sea. Ct. dxeavog. 
Alasoomk, I beseech. Cf. Arooomas. 
Agwitk, it is in the water. Cf. aqua. 
Ep-agwit, it lies in the water; the Micmac name of Prince Edward Island, 
Astow, in the sunshine. Cf. estus. 
Jiin, a child. Cf. juvenis, jung, young. 
Ancane, ancient. 

Kékoo-niim, I have it. Cf. éxaw, 


no 
al 


i, = + © 


674 APPENDIX. 


Tiibagiin, a vehicle. Cf. wagon. 

Taboo, two. Seest, three. 

Wegdlitk, to bark. Cf. brAaxrea. — 

Queetitim, I seek. Cf. quaero, quaestus. 

Mat-tuk, to beat. Mdttole, I beat thee. Mdtitnaga, I fight. 

Comé,a harbour. Cf. xwun. 

Epsit, warmed. LEpsiim, I heat it. Cf. épw. 

Cubilakum, a cradle-board. Cf. cubile. 

Nekokul, a spear. Cf. dxwxn. 

Ankedasi, I think earnestly. Cf. ango, ayxu. 

Ekai,l come. Cf. xm. 

Cheenum,aman. Cf. yevos. 

Oo-dun, a town. Cf. dun and dune. 

Ait, he says. Cf. ait. 

Mitle, many. Meg, great. Mal, bad. Cf. mickle, weyas, malus. 

Well-ake, he is well. This root well occurs in many compounds. 

*M-digin, a thumb. Cf. digitus. 

"M-pak, the back. The prefix ’m appears to be a remnant of an in- | 
definite article. 

Oolk, a ship. Cf. hulk, oAnxas. 

Keloos, good. Cf. xadog. 

Keloos-oodee, goodness. Oodee in Micmac has the force with the a 
postfix hood, in childhood, ete. 

Oontiks, a wing. Cf. év&. 

Wigwam (oikom), house. Cf. oswog (Fosxog), vicus. 

Weeka, his home. Cf. oma. 

Tem-sum, I cut it. Cf. rewve. 

Miiliik-ich, milk. A word which is one of the most primitive, and con- 
tained in most languages. 

Moo, no. Cf. wn. 

Kwis,ason. Cf. vios. 

Nephk, he is dead. Cf. vexgog. 

Kwa, hail. Cf. sage. 

Kakayak, it fails. Cf. xaxew. 

Tokoo, then. rors. 

Kewkw, an earthquake. Cf. quake, quatio. 

Alea, to go. Cf. ire, aller, ete. 

Ejikuladoo, I cast away. Cf. ejicio, 

Wy, prefix signifying with. 

Tan, when. Cf. drav. 


To these examples I may add an illustration from Mr Rand’s Micmac 
version of St John, xix. 24, where the leading words in one of the clauses _ 
are very similar in Greek and Micmac. 

M7 SX 5upLev, Aare CLE» 
Moo skwiska lakade-néch. 
We shall not rend, but cast lots for it. 


The superstitions, traditions, and astronomical notions of the paca ; 4 
Micmacs also present points of similarity with those of other nations, and 


4S me ss ss © os eo 


APPENDIX. 675 


Mr Rand’s knowledge of their language has enabled him to collect many 
of these. 

They believe in fairies, whom they call ‘ Wiggiil-laddiim moochkik,” 
very little people. They are supposed to be superhuman, immortal, living 
in caves and underground, and, like the fairies of other lands, coming out to 
dance, and disappearing in the day-time. 

They also have a tradition of a primitive race of giants, “ kookwés” 
(cf. yiyas), of great size, and cannibals. 

By the term “ Chinook,” which is the actual name of a tribe of Western 
“flat-head” Indians, in historic times far removed from the Micmacs, they 
denote a northern people with hearts of ice, and so terrible that their very 
war-whoop was fatal. 

They know of fauns or demi-gods, ‘ Migumoowesoo,” which haunt the 
woods, and sing and play exquisitely, seeking to entice unwary travellers. 
They have also seen mermaids of the true mythological type. 

The ancient Micmacs had names for the principal constellations, but their 
degenerate descendants have lost most of these. They still know “ Mooin,” 
the Bear, or Ursa Major; and it is characteristic, that as Micmacs know that 
bears have not long tails, the stars of the tail of the Bear are called the 
“Hunters.” Each of these has his name. The nearest is Pilés, Pigeon ; 
the next is Chigugéck, Chickadee or Titmouse; the third is Chipchiwitch, 
Robin. These words are curious illustrations of the prevalent onomatopeeia 
in the names of animals. A small star near one of the Hunters is his 
“ Kettle,” and Berenice’s Hair is the “ Bear’s Den.” The Evening Star 
they call Neganoos, the leader of the host. The Morning Star is Oota da 
bitin, the herald of morning. The Belt of Orion they call the “ Fishermen,” 
and his sword the “ Kings.” Four stars in the form of a cross in the thigh 
of Antinous are called the “Loon.” The Pleiades are named Ajalkiich, 
the meaning of which is not known. 

Lastly, they have a great traditional immortal patriarch, benevolent and 
powerful, “ Glooscap,” of whom they have many legends, and who has left 
his children, the Micmacs, because of their sins, but who will one day return 
when they are sufficiently humbled and penitent. 


(B.)—Peat AS FUEL. 


It is not to be expected that, in the vicinity of the coal-fields, peat can be 
profitably manufactured for fuel; ‘but in those parts of Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick remote from the coal districts, there exist important deposits of 
this substance which may become economically useful. ‘The principal dis- 
advantage of peat as compared with coal is the large quantity of water 
which it contains, amounting to about 90 per cent. of the whole in the crude 
material, and even in the dried peat to from 20 to 35 per cent. This difficulty 
is partially obviated by thorough drying in the air, and more completely by 
pulverizing and compressing the peat, or by charring it, as is done in France, 
The only locality in Canada where peut is at present extensively worked is 
on the property of Mr Hodges, in Bulstrode, P. Q. The process employed 
is that of excavating the peat, reducing it to pulp, cutting it into square 
portions like bricks, and thoroughly drying it. The machinery employed 


4 2 he ae See 


676 APPENDIX. 


is placed in a barge, which excavates a canal, in which it floats as the work 


proceeds. Pressure is not employed. Peat prepared in this way is sold at 
4 dols. per ton in Montreal, and has been used advantageously for the pro- 
duction of steam and in domestic fires. In Ireland and in Scotland attempts 


. have been made on a large scale to use peat as a source of tar, coal-oil, and _ 


other products. In some cases the results have been profitable, in others 
the reverse. This appears to have depended partly on the processes em- 


ployed, and partly on the quality of the material. Persons desirous of 4 


making further inquiry on this subject will find additional details in Sir W. 
E. Logan’s Report on the Geology of Canada, 1863, and in a paper by Dr 
Hunt in the Canadian Naturalist for December 1864, 


(C.)—ConE-IN-CONE CONCRETIONS, 


Every field-geologist is familiar with various forms of concretions, as of 
clay-ironstone, flint or chert and carbonate of lime, which occur in clays and 
similar beds, or in limestones. They are in general attributed to the 
mutual attraction of particles diffused through masses of sediment, and 


Cone-in- Cone. 


aggregating themselves around solid bodies as nuclei, or flowing into cavities 
of fossils and other places of least resistance. Such nodular arrangements 


are especially abundant in the underclays and other clay beds of the Coal ~ 


measures, where the carbonate of iron formed by the action of decaying 
vegetable substances on the oxide of iron present in the sediment, has 
shown a singular aptitude for assuming such structures, and the nodules 
and nodular sheets of ironstone often contain fossils of much interest. In 
these nodular layers also, as well as in certain layers of hard argillaceous 
matter, we often find the remarkable structure to which this note relates. 
It consists of series of conical forms often running together into rows and 
ridges, and consisting of a series of concentric coats, whence the name 
“ Cone-in-cone,” given by the miners. The surfaces of the coats are also 
curiously marked with transverse ridges, giving a wrinkled appearance, so 
much resembling some organic structures as to deceive some persons into 


eo 


APPENDIX. 677 


the belief that these curious forms may be fossils. ‘The figure represents a 
somewhat perfect example, selected from a series of specimens kindly sent 
to me by H. Poole, Esq., from the beds overlying one of the Coal-seams 
at Glace Bay, Cape Breton. Previously to the receipt of these specimens, 
I had thought little as to the origin of these forms, but a careful study of 
Mr Poole’s specimens led me at the time, in exhibiting them to the Natural 
History Society of Montreal, to state my belief that they are produced by 
“concretionary action proceeding from the surface of a bed or layer, and 
modified by the gradual compression of the material.” Subsequently, at 
the Meeting of the American Association at Burlington, Professor Marsh 
of Yale College, in the course of an able dissertation on the origin of the 
so-called “ Lignilites or Epsomites,” incidentally referred to the ‘“ Cone-in- 
cone,” and attributed it to the same cause, though unaware at the time 
that this explanation had occurred to any other person, 

Taking this view of the origin, these concretions serve as an interesting 
illustration of the curious imitative forms sometimes assumed by concretions, 
and also of the twofold movement of particles of matter in sediments under- 
going consolidation under the double influence of mutual attraction and 
of mechanical compression. Farther examples of the effects of these forces 
may be found in the formation of ordinary nodules, the infiltration of the 
cavities of fossils, the slickensiding of underclays and other beds full of 
vegetable matter, by the giving way of the latter under pressure, and the 
curious crushing of erect jointed stems of Calamites into rows of disc-like 
bodies, representing the firm nodes, while the intermediate portions have 
collapsed (see figs. at pp. 150 and 406). The remarkable distortion of fossils 
by pressure already referred to (p. 499), the nodular changes, and curious 
minute crumplings which have taken place in the production of slaty struc- 
tures, are also illustrations of that mobility of particles in consolidating 
rocks, which must be invoked to explain the Cone-in-cone. 

Cone-in-cone is found in the Coal-formation rocks of other countries than 
Nova Scotia, being not infrequent in the clay ironstones of England. It 
is noticed by Professor Rogers and Professor Hall as occurring in the 
Devonian of Pennsylvania and New York, and I have observed it in one of 
the layers of fine laminated shale in the primordial strata of St John, New 
Brunswick. 


APPENDIX. 


678 


a oeSelUOrUCS — 


a f 


Pas ~~ “*gogT ‘Aqo100g JworSozoaN Jo peuNoL ‘royyne ayy Aq aodud morg 


“UBLINTTS 
aaddy Alqvqoad “ozo ‘ourdnd 
-10g aduy jo “aja ‘saye[g 


Cage “A 
"A *]OA “UINOLP ‘LOO “toyNE 
Aq todug) “ssouyoryy yvoas 
JO OYRLOTUOTSU09 AVIS OS.1800 
uo Surysoa ‘syuvyd yo syuour 
-S¥IJ OANOSGO YBIA ‘smoj[oo 
yoviq pur Avis jo soreys 
pus . souojspuss  paeyy 


“QAO 1OISTUT A JO SPUvUL 
pue ‘umnsddés ‘auojsomy 


NBASUB) JO IBZ JO sou0}s 
-purg ‘anoqueyy drqg pus 
‘syueyiqeyuy aoany ‘aA0g 
NOQIIv{) JO SaAMsvOUL [BOD 


“W008 JON 


“uojang *Q ‘9a0D Laysimy 


“YOIMsuNIG, MON JO osuvs 
ysvoo ut ‘os¥ uelmoaad 
jo syoot o1ydiowmeyzoyy 


(201 *d “xy "Joa 
“Tino [ORD “oygne oy Aq 
rode) ‘aovid yeyy jo p.cem 
-JSOM SOLPPBIOT IOYJO pus 
OUIW JOQ Ly ‘Loysoyoro(d 
eAOgB “LAATY OBIPOd Tg 
ye uoeoes ‘soysy jo sureur 
-at JO eouRpuNgy *eu0}s 
“puts jo spoq UlY? YT 
‘sayeys snourmnyiq ATYSuy 
pus snooreojwo = oul yy 


“YY OBIPOD}TZOT pur 1oysaqo 
-10Q JO oVBLoWOLSu0s pus 
‘unsd4s ‘souojsoury 


‘azo ‘1aysaqor10(y 
JO saInstoul [Bos LeMory 
10 Ylt5-OU0YSTIT pus ‘sud 
-dop jo sainsvow [eog 


*SULASO YINOY Jo soreys 
pus souoyspues sedd¢ 


‘uleyiaoun ode {syissoy ou—yst 
DTUBTOA poyBinpuUl uv Surpquios 
Ot Sood poppaq-jory} PVH 


(LGQT ‘roygue ayy Aq 
*sqO ‘92 ‘WAT “OD arg Aq toduq) 
‘uipuepopidery ‘eyeys  ‘ouo4s 
-pUBS OS.1BOD JO SIOAVT OF1]-a10Ys 
pus AV[NSedI1T T0740 OY} LRN 
*ABPO.ALAPUN Youytq pus ‘ayeys snoeod 
-Buogivo ‘ouoyspurs ata ‘o98 
-1OULOTSUOD PUB BUOJSPUBS 98.809 
Avis ‘Ouojzsuoit uryy vB ‘ARpOLap 
-un we ‘suorssotdu snoaovuo0q 
-1vo ‘syuLIdyooy aanosqo ‘soyeys 
pues ssuy snovovorm ye 
‘syuvyd 
jo syuowsnay ‘sojqqed zz1enb 
ITA soovyd ur {(ajzvue1s OF LILA Jo 
SLIQOp) OU0JSpUBS OILY YOU AL, 


“UUM][OD FSB] SB OUUBG 


“u908 JON 


908 JON 


syounsunug “Ay ‘ybnowogsyuy 


“wospural ‘yooug-170T 


“aT qvuL10zu0d 
-UN—Sso}eIS UBLINIG s9dd(y 


CLE8T Ur Loyyne ey} Aq *sqO 
‘6g ‘d ‘ar ‘joa “uanopr “joan 
‘toyyne oy} Aq todvg “pet 'd 
“AL 00g “109K “TOT “Dag Aq 
aadegq) doary Ave ego 
WOPLOTT ‘OT [TAFTOAA — WOJTOFT 
TIMOTT ‘890.19 JOOL ‘SpuLIdyooy 
ueyiydor ‘syoR1o uns ‘sx.eUL 
“Uret pus addict ‘s30v.17 WHOA 
‘vo BIJSOULO}UA ‘SOYSyY ‘spUVTT 

‘OUOJSPUBS Por OUIOS 
qed JaMOT oY} UL pus ‘atO}S 
-pues ov1yM pus Avid ‘ssvy 
snoadvol + Yylwp ‘ouojsaurty 
poyeurmeyl, WLM ‘ayeys snoat 
-BO[BO PUB OTBYS ABD YwVq 


“IOSPUIAA PUG IOATY ABM 
“R71 Jo umsddés pus ‘auoys 
-pues pad ‘Juvu ‘euojsowry 


“u9a8 JON 


“098 JON 


*U0JLOH 


“syI0y 4 


buhjsepuyQ 


“sunspot 
-1009 amor 


*sauojpsaMry 
aunioyy snosaf 
“1UOqL) LanoT 


*Saunspaur 
“1000 21ppLg 


*SadnsDol 
-jp0g9 «addy 


x, SUYASVAJ TVOD UIMO'T SHL JO MATA YVINGVE (‘q) 


APPENDIX, 679 


(E.)—GRAND MANAN. 


This isolated portion of New Brunswick has hitherto been a blank in the 
geological map, and for this reason I insert here a note kindly communi- 
cated to me by Professor A. E. Verrill of New Haven, who, though he 
visited the island for zoological rather than geological objects, has given 
some attention to its structure. 

“The stratified rocks of the island appear to represent at least two 
formations which are unconformable. 

“The one, which is apparently the oldest, occupies the belt of low land 
and the shore cliffs from Whale Cove and Northern Head, along the whole 
eastern side of the island, to Grand Harbour, about the middle of the 
island, beyond which I have also seen outcrops of it in several places, 
but have not examined the whole extent. The same rocks compose Long 
Island, Duck Islands, Rosse’s Island, Whitehead Island (in part at least), 
and nearly all the other small islands off the east side of Grand Manan. 
Inner Wood Island is, however, partly composed of conglomerate and fine- 
grained dark-red sandstone, with an easterly dip, which may belong to a 
higher formation; and Gannet Rock, upon which there is a lighthouse, 
was described to me as composed of conglomerates. The Three Islands, 
which are the most eastern, are in the main composed of rocks similar to 
the eastern shore of the main island, but upon the outer one I found also 
a bed of white crystalline limestone. 

“The series of rocks alluded to are highly altered, much distorted and 
broken, and cut through by numerous immense dykes and masses of trap, 
and consist of talecose and clay slates, mostly grayish, but sometimes black, 
calcareous grits, altered gray sandstones, in one case with vegetable traces, 
but sometimes so indurated as to become quartzites, or, when impure, ap- 
proaching a syenitic character. Included in these gray sandstones and slates 
near Pettee’s Cove, there is a bed of black carbonaceous shale, very fissile, 
as if it ought to yield plant-remains, but I could find none. Included in 
similar rocks near the same place are several true veins of heavy-spar, 
mostly massive and pure, but in one case carrying some galena, copper, 
pyrites, ete. On Rosse’s Island, inclosed in black slates, probably of the 
same age, there are enormous masses of white quartz, conspicuous above 
the general surface, some of them 100 feet or more across, and from 10 to 
40 high. The dip of these rocks is so variable and irregular that no 
general statement can be made. *Where least altered, it was often to the 
N.N.E. 45°, but at other times they were nearly vertical or even inclined 
to the S.W., varying in short distances. 

“ The second series of rocks occupy the northern end of the island to 
the west of Whale Cove. Commencing at this Cove and going west, we 
find first regularly columnar trap for a short distance, and then, apparently 
resting upon it, thick-bedded, regularly stratified massive rocks of various 
composition, but mostly amygdaloidal, trap-ash, and compact quartzoze 
rocks in beds 10 feet or more thick. These occupy the shore for about 
two miles, forming cliffs from 100 to 200 feet high. They are at times 
nearly horizontal, in other places dipping to the W. or S.W. about 10° 
to 20°. The amygdaloidal cavities contain calcites, stilbites, apophyllites, 


680 APPENDIX. 


etc., but seldom affording good specimens. Beyond these rocks, at the — 
N.W. extremity of the island, the cliffs are very high, consisting of trap, 
often columnar, which continues for several miles; but I have been told 
that a stratified sandstone again appears for a short distance on the western 


side, north of Duck Harbour, where I have not been; but, from Duck 


Harbour to the southern end of the island, I found the cliffs to consist of 
trap, from 200 to 400 feet high (by estimate). 

“Concerning the age of these massive stratified rocks, I can only offer 
the conjecture that they are Devonian from their appearance alone. 

. “Whether the red-sandstone of Inner Wood Island and conglomerate 
of Gannet Rock are of the same age is very uncertain.” 

On careful consideration of the above observations of Mr Verrill, in 
connexion with the structure of the neighbouring coast, I think it probable 
that the outer and older series above mentioned is either the equivalent 
of the Acadian or St John series or of the Kingston series, and that the 
traps with the associated sandstones may be Devonian or Upper Silurian. 
The colouring on the map represents one of these conjectures. 


(F.)—New MINERALS FROM Nova ScoriA. 


“Professor How announced in Silliman’s Journal, Sept. 1857, the dis- 
covery, in the great bed of gypsum quarried at Windsor, of the rare 
boracic-acid mineral, Natro-boro-calcite, hitherto found only at iquiga 
in Peru. Its fouls according to Professor How, is— 


Na O 2 BO, + 2 Ca O, 3 BO, + 15 HO. 


With respect to the geological conditions of its occurrence, Professor 
How quotes from Professor Anderson of Glasgow the statement that, 
in Peru, the mineral is found in a district supposed to be volcanic, and 
embedded in the nitrate of soda deposits. He then remarks that, with 
a very few exceptions, boracic acid is found “either in directly volcanic 
regions, most abundantly as such, or as borax; and a well-marked case 
of actual sublimation of the acid from a volcano in the island of Vulcano, 
near Sicily, has been studied by Warrington; or in smaller amount, in 
minerals the products of recent or extinct volcanoes, as Humboldtite from 
ejected blocks of Vesuvius, and zeolites and datholite from trap of Salisbury 
Crags, New Jersey, and other places; or in minerals of purely plutonic 
or metamorphic rocks, as tourmaline, the rhodozite of Roze, and axinite— 
the species which contain it at all being few in number. It may be noticed 
also, that traces of this acid have lately been met with in the Kochbrunnen 
of Wiesbaden and in the waters of Aachen.” 

“Tf we may reason from the character of the majority of its situations, 
we may almost consider the volcanic or at least igneous origin of boracic 
acid so well established as to lead us, by its occurrence in the gypsiferous 
strata, to seek for some volcanic agency as the cause of their production. 
Such an origin has, I find, already been assigned to the gypsum of Nova 
Scotia by Dr Dawson. This formation has been shown to be a member 
of the Lower Carboniferous series, and is assumed to have arisen from 
the action of rivers of sulphuric acid more or less dilute, such as are known 


er 


APPENDIX. 681 


to exist in various parts of the world, issuing from then active voleanoes 
and flowing over the calcareous reefs and bed of the sea.” 

The same able chemist, in 1861 (Silliman’s Journal and Edin. New Phil. 
Journal), described a second boracic acid mineral, which he has named 
Cryptomorphite. It is, like the former, a borate of lime and soda, and its 
probable formula is stated to be :— 


Na 0, 3 Ca 0, 9 BO, + 12 HO. 


Still more recently Professor How has kindly communicated to me a 
notice, shortly to be published, of a third mineral, found under similar con- 
ditions at Brookville and Newport, near Windsor, and which he proposes to 
name Silico-boro-calcite. It contains a large proportion of silica, and its 
formula is given as— 


2 Ca O Si 0, + 2 (Ca O 2 BO,, HO) + BO,, 3 HO. 


These minerals occur in small nodular masses in the gypsum and anhydrite, 
and. are associated with glauber salt, and they have now been found by 
Professor How in several localities, and in some of those in considerable 
abundance. The natro-boro-calcite is said to occur in the ordinary gypsum 
only, while the silico-boro-calcite is found in anhydrite as well. 

Professor How has also detected both the carbonate and sulphate of 
magnesia in the gypsum and associated rocks, though apparently not in 
large quantity. 

Professor How hasalso recognised the mineral Pickeringite or magnesia-alum 
occurring as an efflorescence on the surface of slate at Newport. It is curious 
that this mineral, like natro-boro-calcite, had previously been found only at 
Iquique in Peru. It is also curious that it was found to be associated with 
small quantities of nickel and cobalt. The former metal had not previously 
been found in Nova Scotia, though not infrequent in the Lower Silurian, 
Huronian, and Laurentian, of Canada. 

Professor O. C. Marsh, of Yale College, has communicated to Silliman’s 
Journal (Nov. 1867) a notice of the mineral Ledererite, found by Jackson 
and Alger at Cape Blomidon. Professor Marsh regards this mineral as 
identical with Gmelinite, and attributes its peculiarities to the accidental 
presence of phosphoric acid and of minute crystals of quartz embedded in the 
specimens. 


(G.) Mintnc LAws AND REGULATIONS. 


In Nova Scotia the mines and minerals are under the general supervision 
of the Commissioner of Mines, from whom all necessary information and 
guidance can be obtained; and the laws relating to mines and minerals are 
of such a character as to afford all the encouragement that can be desired 
to legitimate enterprise. 

In the case of Gold, “ prospecting licences” are issued for periods of three 
months, and for areas not to exceed 100 acres. The fee is 50 cents per 
acre up to 10 acres, and beyond this 25 cents. Such licences may be 
renewed at half the above rates. On discoveries being made, the discoverer 


~ established capable of consuming the coal within the colony. It is much 


_ Pictou.—The explorations recently made by Mr Barnes, for the tracing of 


“acres of this great seam, having a vertical thickness of sixteen feet of the 


. of a railway and the opening of the mine by two slopes driven from the 


682 : APPENDIX. 


is entitled to a lease for 21 years, under a royalty of three per cent. on the 
gross amount of gold obtained. Licences are also given for crushing mills, 
All the details as to rights of proprietors of land, and conditions of licences 
and leases, are carefully provided for by the law. . 

In the case of Coal and Other Minerals, licences to explore on tracts of | 
five square miles in extent are granted for 20 dollars. These, however, are 
for twelve months, and may be renewed on application thirty days before 
they expire, and on payment of 20 dollars. The holder of an exploratory 
licence may select an area of one square mile, and secure the right of mining 
thereon on application and payment of 50 dollars to the Commissioner of 
Mines. Licences to work are for a term of two years, within which term 
the holder must commence effective mining operations, and continue the 
same in good faith. On expiry of the licence, the holder may obtain a lease, 
in the case of coal, until 25th August 1886; in the case of other minerals, 
for 21 years, subject to a royalty of five per cent. in the case of all minerals, 
except gold, coal, and iron. The royalty on coal is ten cents per ton of 
2240 lbs. and on iron eight cents per ton. Larger areas than one mile may 
be granted by the Governor in Council in special cases. A variety of pro- 
visions as to details will be found in the law. 


(H.)—ADDITIONAL INFORMATION RELATING TO MINES IN Nova 
Scotia. 


Coal.—According to the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Mines for 
1867, the total yield of coal in Nova Scotia has fallen off from 601,302 tons 
in 1866, to 482,078 tons in 1867. This diminution is attributed solely to 
the derangement of trade relations with the United States, consequent on 
the abrogation of the reciprocity treaty. Unless these relations shall be 
re-established, other markets must be found, or manufactures must be 


to be desired that the attention of British capitalists should be directed to — 
the openings for profitable investment in mining and manufacturing industry 
in Nova Scotia. Under any probable contingency as to the future political 
relations of the colony, such investments would be safe, and would probably 
increase in value. 

1. The“ Drummond Mine” of the Inter-colonial Company, East River of 


the outcrop of the main seam, have proved the undisturbed extension of the 
outcrop for more than half a mile to the south-west of the original opening, 
with every prospect of its still further continuation. According to Mr 
Barnes, there is now immediately available on this property an area of 480 


best quality of coal, and of course a similar or larger area of the underlying 
seams. The Company are now vigorously pushing forward the construction 


outcrop, with the view of shipping on a large scale. 

2. General Mining Association, East River of Pictou.—One of the. two 
new shafts sunk by this company to the dip of the eastern part of their 
workings, is stated to have reached the main coal at a depth of 840 feet. 


APPENDIX. 683 


This is the deepest shaft in Nova Scotia. The coal penetrated by it is 


stated to be of good quality, so that in a short time it may be anticipated . 


that the already extensive workings and large produce of this mine will be 
greatly increased, 

3. Mabou Coal-field.—Professor Hind has recently reported on the areas 
of Coal formation rocks between Mabou Harbour and Cape Mabou, referred 
to at p. 404, supra. I am informed by the proprietors of the mine that the 
Report shows the existence of the ends of two troughs or basins of coal-rocks, 
exhibiting four groups of beds, in two of which the thickest beds are three 
feet in thickness respectively. In the third there is a bed thirteen feet in 
thickness, and in the fourth a bed eight feet in thickness. There is also a 
layer of cannel coal supposed to be valuable. These, with the Coal 
measures of Port Hood on the south, and Chimney Corner on the north, 
show the extension of productive Coal measures at intervals along the 
western coast of Cape Breton, while it still remains to be ascertained 
whether other valuable areas do not exist further inland between the shore 
and the south-west branch of the Margarie River. One peculiarity of the 
Mabou Coal beds appears to be that their outcrops are unusually near to 
those of the Lower Carboniferous gypsum. 

4. Merigomish Coal Company, Pictou.—Reports made by Mr Rutherford, 
Mr Barnes, and Mr Robb, upon the property of this company to the east- 
ward of the East River of Pictou, show that several workable seams of coal 
overlie the main seam in this locality: a fact not apparent on the west side 
of the river. Mr Robb mentions as occurring at a distance of about one- 


third of a mile horizontally from what is regarded as the outcrop of the ° 


main seam, two beds of the thickness of five feet six inches and four feet 
respectively, and about fifty feet apart vertically. Two other outcrops of 
the thickness of four feet two inches and three feet six inches, occurring on 
these areas, are supposed to be a still higher level, though they may possibly 
be the same. They are associated with a bed of oil-coal or earthy bitumen. 
The exact thickness of measures thus overlying the main seam is not certainly 
known, but the facts ascertained would seem to imply an important upward 
extension of the productive Coal measures, which may greatly add to the 
value of the areas east of the East River, and, as will appear under the fol- 
lowing head, may have a bearing on the probable value of the coal beds lying 
to the north of the great conglomerate. 

5. Prospects north of New Gilasgow.—The facts above stated for the first 
time enable me to suggest the probability that valuable discoveries of coal 
may be made in the extensive district lying between the New Glasgow 
conglomerate and the harbour of Pictou. Ifthe upper beds above mentioned 
can be identified with any of those north of New Glasgow, then it is possible 
that these upper measures may there overlap the lower and more valuable 
beds, or that the outcrops of these latter may be concealed by faulting and 
denudation along the line of the conglomerate, The facts at present in my 
possession are not sufficient to warrant any confident statements on this 
point; and while it is possible that very limited explorations might suffice 
to settle the question, it is also possible that great difficulties may be opposed 
to its satisfactory solution, by the nature of the ground and the relations of 
the beds. The subject is, however, one deserving of attention, in view of 


684 APPENDIX. 


the new light cast upon it by recent discoveries. I may add, that on the 
supposition of such northern extension of the productive Coal measures, 
it may be anticipated that, in accordance with the ideal sections on p. 325, 
the beds north of the conglomerate will be less massive than those in 


the southern trough. It must also be observed in connexion with this, 


that the dips in the northern part of the section (Fig. 136) are somewhat 
exaggerated. 
6. Victoria Mine, Low Point, Cape Breton.—This mine, on the south side 


of Sydney Harbour, presents the first instance in Nova Scotia of coal-mining — 


in areas below the sea; though in the North Sydney Colliery, the main 
seam has been pursued for some distance below the Harbour. The suc- 
cessful working of this new mine on a large scale will be an interesting 
© feature in our coal-mining, and may lead to other adventures of similar 
character. 

7. Gold.—The Report of the Commissioner of Mines shows a total yield 
for the year ending September 1867 of 27,583 ounces. This amount gives 
an average of not less than $2, 44c., or about 9s. 9d. sterling per day, for 
each man employed. It is to be observed in connexion with this, that the 
methods of extracting the gold, especially when associated with compounds 
of sulphur and arsenic, are by no means perfect, and that the economy of 
labour is not so great as it might be in workings on a larger scale. These 
facts, with the numerous new discoveries reported, confirm the opinion 
expressed in the text, that the gold-mining of Nova Scotia is capable of 
profitable extension far beyond its present limits. 

In the past year, the Renfrew and Sherbrooke districts have been the 
first in point of production; and among new localities likely to be of 
importance, are mentioned, Musquodoboit, the Middle and East Rivers 
of Sheet Harbour, Mosher’s River, Scraggy Lake, Ship Harbour, Upper 
Stewiacke, and Gold River. 


(I.) SrRUCTURE OF NORTHERN CAPE BRETON. 


I inadvertently omitted in the text to give a summary of the facts in 
regard to this district ascertained by Mr Campbell in his exploration in 
1862, and now quote his general description of the region, which presents 
several points of interest not previously known. 

“To the Gulf of St Lawrence, on its north-west side, it presents a bold 
front of rounded or conical mountains, united at their base, and appearing 
like buttresses supporting the table lands of the interior on their flanks. 
They attain, at some points, an elevation of fifteen hundred feet above the 
sea level; and their general outline is softened and the landscape rendered 


beautiful by a dense covering of hardwood forest, by which they are clothed = 


from their base to their summits. 

“The greater part of the district is encircled by a rampart of similar 
mountains, more or less rounded in their contour; and where they hap- 
pened to be stripped of their covering of forest, by the ravages of fire, they 
appear as naked cones of crumbly red feldspar rock, which is the prevailing 
igneous rock of the district, and that from which the principal part of the 
soil is derived. Hence, no doubt, its extraordinary fertility. 


APPENDIX, 685 


“Viewed from the interior, these mountains appear but little elevated 
above the general level of the country, which in its main aspects appears 
comparatively level, although cut by deep valleys and narrow defiles along 
all its water-courses. 

_ “ Wherever bottom-lands or intervale occurs in the valleys, the soil is 
remarkably rich. This is evident from the heavy growth of healthy-looking 
timber they produce, consisting principally of maple, birch, beech, and elm, 
with occasional oak-trees of large size, and well adapted for staves or ship- 
timber. 

“TI observed some elm trees as much as four feet diameter, and as straight 
and tall as any I ever saw in the forests of Canada or the South-western 
States. 

“ Most of the steep slopes are also heavily timbered; but on the table- 
lands the forest is much lighter, and chiefly composed of spruce, fir, and 
hardwood mixed. The soil generally appears to be good, and comparatively 
free from stones. 

“Considerable tracts of the higher or table-lands are occupied by peat 
bogs, which will, no doubt, some time hereafter, prove of great value, as 
they are capable of yielding an unlimited supply of that description of fuel, 
of the finest quality. 

“The surface of these peat-bogs presents the appearance of gently-sloping 
planes of elliptic form, having deep circular basins at their highest points, 
full to their brim of clear, icy cold water. These basins are no doubt fed 
by springs from below, and they appear indispensable to the accumulation 
of any great depth of peat free from earthy matter. 

“The geology of this district bears a very close resemblance to that of the 
Cobequid Mountains; but the brown feldspar rock, or syenite, which is 
here the predominant intrusive rock, differs from the syenite in the Cobequid 
Mountains, in having much less quartz and hornblende in its composition, 
and it is of a more crumbly and perishable nature. On this account the 
soil of the district is chiefly composed of it. 

“The other intrusive rocks are occasional dikes of porphyry and trap; true 
granite being very scarce if at all present. The prevailing stratified rocks 
are the newer clay-slate, or Upper Silurian rocks, and Devonian, or Lower 
Carboniferous rocks—all metamorphosed to a higher degree, and much 
more disturbed by igneous masses and dikes, than is observed in any other 
section of the Province. 

“ To make out the geological structure of the district on the large scale 
is not, however, a very difficult task, because extensive sections of the 
rocks are exposed along the seashore, and in the channels of some of the 
rivers. The same general arrangement of the strata in parallel folds 
appears to be the most important feature of its structure; but the strike 
of the rock inclines more to the northward and southward than I observed 
anywhere else—being N. 20° E., S. 20° W.; as a general rule the greatest 
amount of inclination 1 observed was, N. 15° E., 8. 15° W. This brings 
the strata obliquely to the Gulf Coast line, which has a general course of 
about N. 40° E., S. 40° W., affording an excellent opportunity for obsery. 
ing the phenomena presented by the different groups along, their lines of 
contact.” 


686 APPENDIX. 


(K.)—FossILs OF THE PAL&OzOIC ROcCKs. 


Classification of Fossil Ferns.—In the text I have not departed from the 
ordinary arrangement, based on form and venation, though I have studied 
with much interest the arrangement of Goeppert and of other German 
Palobotanists, based on the fructification as far as known. SincelI could — 
not, however, apply this system throughout, I have thought it better not 
to attempt to do so in part; and have merely referred to any traces of 
fructification observed. I had hoped, before publishing the lists contained 
in this work, to have had the benefit of Schimper’s revision of the species 
in his forthcoming “ Traité de Palzontologie Végétale ;” but this work has 
not reached me up to the time of writing these lines. 

Carboniferous Shells—Since writing the paragraphs on these, I have 
seen Geinitz’s “ Memoir on the Carboniferous and Permian of Nebraska” 
(Nov., Acta, 1867). Among several identical species and closely allied. 
forms in that distant region, I observed a shell referred to Arca striata, 
Schlot, which closely resembles the young of my Macrodon Hardingi, 
though probably distinct. Mr Meek, however, in a recent criticism of 
Professor Geinitz’s paper, identifies this and neherd of his species with fou 
described by American authors. 

Silurian Land Plants——The oldest land plants as yet found in British 
North America are the Rhizomes of Pstlophyton, referred to in the text as 
occurring in the Upper Silurian (Lower Helderberg) of Gaspé. I observe, 
however, that Professor Geinitz announces the discovery in Germany of 
a Lepidodendron and a Sternbergia, or plants resembling these, in rocks 
believed to be Lower Silurian; and mentions that Barrande has made a 
similar discovery in Bohemia. The specimens would appear not to be of 
a very decided character; but the discovery, if confirmed, is very impor- 
tant, and would modify the statements in the text as to the oldest land 
Flora. 


Fossils from Northern Queen’s County. 


At page 617, I have mentioned the occurrence of fossils in this district, 
and the probability that rocks newer than the Lower Silurian occur in it, 
I have recently been enabled, by the kindness of Mr Poole and of Mr Kelly 
of the Department of Mines, Halifax, to examine a small collection of fossils 
procured by the former gentleman in Brookfield from loose masses. Both 
in mineral character and in the contained fossils, which are, however, very 
obscure, these specimens resemble the Lower Devonian rocks of Nictaux; 
and unless they have been drifted from the northward, would tend to confirm 
my conjecture of 1855, that “more modern rocks than those of the Atlantic 
coast may be expected to occur” in this district, and, consequently, that 
the distribution of the formations in this little known region in the western 
part of Nova Scotia, may be considerably different from that indicated on 
the map. 


(L.) HurontaAn OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 


Mr G. F. Matthew has communicated to me some observations on these 


APPENDIX. 687 


rocks near Quaco, showing that the lower part of this series in that region 
consists of red syenite, felsite, and granulite, not heretofore recognised as 
sedimentary rocks, and that the full series will be as follows, in descending 
order :— 

Red sediments of comparatively small thickness (No. 5 of Mr Matthew's 
paper on these rocks), 

Dark-coloured trap-slate rocks of great thickness, parted about midway 
by a rusty-coloured calcareo-arenaceous band charged with iron and 
manganese (Nos. 2, 3, 4, of paper cited). 

Red felspathic rocks of great thickness resting on the Laurentian 
series, 

Mr Matthew suggests the possibility that the red felspathic rocks in the 
great Lower Silurian band of Northern New Brunswick, marked on the 
map as eruptive rocks, may be really representatives of these Huronian 
beds rising from below the Silurian. 

Mr Matthew has also recognised in the Huronian of New Brunswick 
concretions similar to the bodies from the “ Lower Taconic” of North 
Carolina, described by Emmons under the name of Palcotrochis. 


(M.) Lower CaRBONIFEROUS OF SOUTHERN NEW BRUNSWICK. 


Mr G. F. Matthew has communicated to me the following sectional list 
of the lower Carboniferous beds in Eastern King’s County, New Brunswick, 
in descending order :— 

8. Reddish-brown arenaceous shales and red sandstone. 

7. Upper conglomerate (Kennebeckasis conglomerate), hard and massive 

beds. 

6. Bright red sandstone and brownish-red shales and sandstones (brine 
springs rise from these beds). 

5. Gray sandstones, flags, and dark gray shales (bituminous), Cyclopteris 
Acadica and Lepidodendron corrugatum. 

4. Conglomerate, limestone, gypsum, and dark gray shales (bituminous), 
Terebratula sufflata, ete., Cyclopteris Acadica, Lepidodendron cor- 
rugatum. 

3. Lower conglomerate, hard and massive beds. 

2. Break in section (probably shales). 

1, Basal conglomerate. 

These beds vary considerably in tracing their line of outcrop. More 
especially the lower members thin out toward the west, where the Lower 
Carboniferous bay terminates between the spurs of older rocks, while in 
the same part of the area the upper members become increased in thick- 
ness. ‘Toward the wider Carboniferous area on the east, some of these 
upper members are reduced or change in character. 


cee Eee ee bee Be fee Be ee 


ie ie ee ee ee, a , ee ee 


ACADIA, origin of the name, 1. 
Acadia Coal Company, 338. 
Seatbe Tron Mine, 582. 
oe Quarry, 345. 

Acrolepis, 254. 

Actinoceras, 314. ; 

Agate, 114. 

Agnostus, 655. 

Albert Mine, 231. 

Albertite, 231, 247. 

Albion Mines, 318. 

Alluvial Soils, Marine, 21. 

cence Freshwater, 33. 


Amethyst, “114, 
Amphipeltis, 523. 
Amyg' aloid, 87. 
Analcime, 115. 
Analysis of Marsh Soil, 23. 
Anhydrite, 249, 263. 
Ankerite, 583. 
Annapolis, 95, 563. 
Annularia, 444, 540. 
Antigonish, 346. 

meee Mountains, 559. 
Antimony, 640. 
Antholithes, 459, 460, 477. 
Anthracomya, 203. 
Anthracoptera, 203. 
Anthracosia, 314. 
Apophyllite, 115. 
Apple River, 155. 
Araucarites, 474. 
Area, 304. 
Archibald, C. D., 582. 
Archimulacris, 388. 
Arisaig, 573. 
Aspatogoen, 618. 


cyt of Coal, 221, 333, 339, 396, 411, 


Revespivtiiien, 443, 537. 
Athyris, 2 

Avicula, 604. 
Aviculopecten, 305. 


GENERAL INDEX. 


Bairdia, 206. 
Bakevellia, 301. 


Baphetes 


Planiceps, 328, 359. 


Barnes, Mr J., 210, 314, 320, 340. 
Barrel Quartz, 629. 


Barrens, 


50. 


Barytes, 276, 345, 592, 594. 
Basalt, 94, 98. 
Bass Creek, 90. 


Bathygna 


thus Borealis, 119. 


Beinertia, 449, 485. 
Bellerophon, 308. 
Beyrichia, 256, 312, 608. 


Bibliogra 
Billings, 
581, 59 
Bitumen, 
Bitumino 


wy Geological, 7. 


r, F.G.8., 11, 278, 566, 569, 


4. 
Earthy, 248, 339. 
us Shale, 248. 


Blomidon, 90. 
Boar’s Back, 82. 


Bogs, 365. 


Boulder Formation, 61. 


Bout Isla 


nd, 91. 


Brachio oda, 278, 280, 289, 642. 
Briar Island, 90. 

Brine Springs, 248, 276, 349. 
Brown, Mr R., 7, 357, 402, 406, 


CALAMITES, 194, 441, 536. 
Calamodendron, 440, 476. 
Caleareous Spar, 115. 
Calymene, 607. 

. Camerophoria, 293. 


Campbell, 
Canseau, 


Mr J., 319, 322, 340, 625. 
Cape, 6 


Cape Breton, General description of, 14. 


seenee 


Metamorphic Rocks of, 572. 
County, al formation of, 404. 


Cape d’Or, 107. 


.. John, 327. 
- Dauphin, 402. 
. Porcupine, 559 


. Spli 


Sathonkaaa ie District of Cumberland, 150, 


Bamey, Professor L. W., 7, 108, 227, 245,| sense 


503, 523, 573, 602, 638, 640 


weeeee 


t, 94. 


New Brunswick, 227, 687. 
Colchester, ete., 251. 
Pictou, 315: 

2y 


690 GENERAL INDEX. 


Carboniferous District of Antigonish, 346. 
eaaues Guysborough, 351. 
secre - Margaret’s Bay,etc., 351. 
Soste Richmond, etc., 396. 
Scones N. Inverness and Vic- 
toria, 399. 
“eope Cape BretonCounty,404. 
Carboniferous Limestones, Subdivisions 
of, 147, 281. 
Carboniferous System, General descrip- 
tion, 128, 156. 
Cardiocarpum, 459, 491. 
Cardinia, 304. 
Cardiomorpha, 304. 
Carpenter, Dr P. P., 385. 
Carribou, 327. 
Carribou Cove, 396. 
Caulopteris, 449, 486. 
Cement Water, 351. 
Centronella, 300. 
Chabazite, 114. 
Chaetetes, 288. 
Chester Basin, 351. 
Chiastolite, 620. 
Chiegnecto Mine, 219. 
Chonetes, 595. 
Clare, 563. 
Clarke’s Head, 105, 265. 
Clays, 275, 345, 635. 
Cledophorus, 600. 
Climate of Post-pliocene, 77. 
Clyde River, 82. 
Coal Formation, Upper, 129. 
<an8 Middle, 129, 201. 
Foxes Lower, 131. 
Coal, Structure and Origa, of, 138, 459, 493. 
... Brown, 63. 
... of Joggins, 218. 
.-. of Springhill, 221. 
... of New Brunswick, 245. 
... of Onslow, ete., 275. 
«.. Of Stewiacke and Hants Co., 276. 
... Of Pictou, 329. 
. of Pomket, 348. 
... of Antigonish, 349. 
... of Carribou Cove, 396. 
... of Little River (Richmond), 396, 397. 
... of Inverness and Victoria, 404. 
... of Port Hood, 404. 
... Of Sydney, 406, 410. 
... of Cape Breton, 411. 
... of Lingan or Bridgport, 412. 
... of Glace Bay, 414. 
.... of Miré, 417. 
... of Cow Bay, 417. 
.. of Hillsborough, 231. 
. Prospects of, in Prince Edward 
Island, 123. 
Ditto, Coldbrook, 659. 
Ditto, Conulus, 385. 
Cobequid Mountains, 578, 592. 
Colchester, 251. 
Colours of Rocks, 24, 29, 153, 623. 
Concretionary Structures, 676. 
Conchodus, 209. 
Coniferous Wood, 423, 534. 


‘Eosaurus Acadianus, 382. 


Conoeardium, 304. 
Conocephalites, 646, 649, 651, 653. 
Conularia, 307. 
arnt, Native, 107, 113, 592, 640. 
sate Craly: Sulphuret, 113, 348. 
... Carbonate, 113. 
Oxide, 102, 113. 

... ~ Veins of, 527, 640. 
Cordaites, 188, 456, 490, 544. 
Cornulites, 606. 

Cornwallis, 91. 

Crania, 595. 

Crinoids, 152. 

Cross-stone, 620. 

Ctenacanthus, 254. 

Ctenoptychius, 209. 

Cumberland, Coal formation of, 150. 
ececes Useful Minerals of, 218... 

Cyathophyllum, 287. 

Cycles. Geological, 135. 

Cyclopteris, 252, 448, 481, 547. 

Cyperites, 477. 

Cypricardia, 303. 

Cythere, 206, 256. 

Cytherella, 206. 


DADOXYLON, 423, 473, 534. 
Dalmania, 607. 
Dana, Professor J. D., 20, 137, 262. 
Davidson, Mr T., 11, 278. 
De Bert River, 99. 
Dendrerpeton, 189, 363, 368. 
Dentalina, 285. 
Dentalium, 309. 
Denudation, 61, 72. 
Devonian System, 497. 
eaaeans in Nova Scotia, 498. 
cakes in New Brunswick, 502. 
Diatomacezx, 34. 
Dictyonema, 563. 
Dictyopteris, 447, 483. 
Digby, 95. 
Digby Neck, 95. 
Diluvium, 57. 
Diorite, 612. 
Diplodus, 211, 
Diplostylus, 207. 
Diplotegium, 490. 
Discina, 644. 
Drift, 35. 
... Origin of, 61. 
Drifted sant 35. 
Dunes, 38. 


EARTHQUAKES, 39. 

East River of Pictou, 316. 

Economy, 101. 3 
Edmondia, 303. 

Endogenites, 492. 

Eocystites, 643. 


Equisetites, 443. 

Erect Fossil-trees, Joggins, 28, 181, 182, 
186, 187, 190, 191, 192, 197. 
ooees at Malagash, 216. 


re 3 ees ee I 


0 6.8 gow 4 


GENERAL INDEX, 


Erect Fossil-trees at Port Hood, 400, 
teceee at Sydney, 406. 

Estheria, 256. 

Se eaaihalus, 308. 


Eurypterus, 208, 523. 


FARoeEtitE, 115. 
tm 642. 

elspar compact, 612. 
Fenestella, 288. 
Fern Ledges, ae at, 513. 
Five Islands, 102. 
Fires in Forests, 47. 
Fishes of the Coal formation, 209. 
Flora of the Coal formation, 421. 

+. Of the Devonian, 531. 
Folly River, 100, 263. 
Footprints, Recent, 26. 

waka in Coal Measures, 353, 356, 358. 
Forest Fires, 47. 
Forests, Submarine, 36. 
Formations, Tabular View of, 18. 
Fort Lawrence, 28. 
Fossils of Lower Carboniferous, 285. 
Post-pliocene, 74. 
Trias, 119. 
sees Devonian, 499. 
Upper Silurian, 594. 
ERenss Lower Silurian, 641. 

Fossil Plants of Coal Formation, 241, 421, 


473. 
Lower Coal Formation, 253. 
oo 534. 

«eee Reptiles of ra, 353. 
Fraser, Me £1155,,5 
Fraser, Mr J. a. B., aes 
Freestone, 222, 249, "344, 351, 404. 
Frost, Action of, 64. 
Fundy, Tides in Bay of, 21. 
Marshes of, 22. 


GALENA, 275. 
Gallows Point, 117. 
Ganoid Fishes, 209, 281, 284. 
Geinitz, Professor, 148. 
Geueral Mining Association, 329. 
Gerrish Mountain, 101. 
Gesner, Mr, 7, 32. 
Gilpin, Dr, on Sable Island, 38. 
Glacial Period, 64, 65. 

see. Striae, 62. 
Glaciers, 63, 66, 70. . 
Gneiss, 614 
Gold in Lower Carboniferous, 277. 
in Lower Silurian, 624. 
Mining, 627, and Appendix. 

«.» Produce of, 636. 

Alluvial, 631, 635. 

-.. of New Brunswick, 640. 
Grand Passage, 97. 
Granite, 499, 612, 614, 635. 

“ere Graphic, 616. 
Graphite, 664. 
Granville, 95. 
Gravel, Superficial, 81. 
Great Village River, 100. 


691 


Greenstone, 612. 
Grindstone, 154, 222, 249. 
Guysborough, 350. 
Gypsum of Pugwash, 222. 
Wallace, 222. 
Windsor, 259. 
Hants, ete., 271. 
New Brunswick, 249. 
Shubenacadie, 267, 271. 
East River, 345. 
Antigonish, 347. 
Pictou, 316, 345. 
Plaister Cove, 391. 
Richmond, 399. 
Mabou, 401. 
Cape Breton, 419. 

cece Inverness and Victoria, 403. 
Gypsum, Origin of Beds of, 261, 391. 
Veins of, 266. 


seen 
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eeeee 


Gyracanthus, 210. 
Gyroceras, 311. 
Gyrolite, 115. 


HAuirax, 618. 

Hall, Professor, 602, 607. 

Hamilton, Mr P. 8., 633. 

Hants County, 251. 

Haplophlebium, 386. 

Harding, Dr E. F., 264, 356. 

Harrington River, 102. 

Hartt, Mr C. F., 7, 227, 241, 278, 513, 528, 
532, 637, 641. 

Haut Island, 108. 

Hayes, Mr J. L., 589. 

Hebert River, 82. 

Heulandite, 106. 

Hillsborough, 231. 

Hind, Professor, 639, 641. 

Hitchcock, Professor C. H., 577. 

Holopea, 605. 

Homalonotus, 607. 

Homothetus, 525. 

Honeyman, Dr, F.G.S., 11, 341, 346, 565, 
602. 

Horton, 92, 252. 
Sher Bluff, 252. 

How, Professor, D.C.L. -, 11, 278, 635. 

Howe, Hon. J., 625. 

Hoyt, Mr, 338. 

Hudson, Mr, 318. 

Hunt, Dr F. Sterry, F.R.S., 137, 262, 
576. 

Huronian Series, 659, and Appendix. 

Hylerpeton, 380. 

Hymenophyllites, 449, 548. 

Hylonomus, 370, 376, 378. 


Ice, Ravine at Annapolis, 39. 
Transporting Power of, 64. 

Indian Point, 101. 

Insects, Fossil, 386, 523. 

Intercolonial Coal Company, 340. 

Intervales, 33. 

Inverness, 390, 399. 

Iron Ochres, 345, 351, 583, 584, 590. 

Iron Ore, Magnetic, 113. ' 


692 


Tron Ore, Specular, 113. 

Hematitic, 272, 584, 591. 

of Joggins, 222. 

of Shubenacadie, 271. 

of Pictou, 344, 591. 

of Cobequid Mountains, 582. 

of Cape Breton, 419. 

of Nictaux, 526. 

of West Beach, N.B., 526. 
Deaexe of Woodstock, 641. 

Tronstone, 222. 


eeeeee 


Jackson, Dr, 7 

Jasper, 114. 

Joggins, Coal Measures at, 143. 

Detailed Section at, 156. 
aK Coal Mine, 219. 

Jones, Mr, F.L.S., 356. 

Jukes, Mr, F.R.S., 497. 


eatece 


KENTVILLE, 92. 
Konorria, 490. 


Lakes, Deposits in, 34. 

Margins of, 35. 

Land Shells in the Coal Measures, 182. 

Laumonite, 114. 

Laurentian System, 662. 

Lawrence Mine, 219. 

Leaia, 256. 

Lead, 275, 351, 640. 

Leidy, Dr, 119. 

Leperditia, 256, 609. 

Lepidodendron, 185, 253, 450, 486, 541. 

Lepidophloios, 189, 456, 489. 

Lepidophyllum, 181, 489. 

Leptocoelia, 598. 

Lesley, Professor, 141, 414. 

Leptodomus, 603. 

Life in Coal Lagoons and Estuaries, 202. 
.. in Carboniferous Sea, 254, 285. 

Limestone, Bituminons ofJ oggins,181,222. 

of Minudie and Napan, etc., 
lps. 

see. Of Pugwash, 213. 

.. of Windsor, 258, 271, 

vee. Of New Brunswick, 249. 

of Shubenacadie, 266. 

of West River, Pictou, 315. 

of East River, Pictou, 3465. 

of Antigonish, 347. 

of Guysborough, 351. 

of Plaister Cove, 391. 

of Mabou, 403. 

of Long Island, 419. 
“SE560 of St John, 663. 

Lingula, 599, 644. 

Lithentomum, 525. 

Logan, Sir W. E., F.R.S., 128, 143, 147, 
227, 353, 589. 

Lower Carboniferous Series, 130. 

Lower Silurian of Nova Scotia, 613. 

New Brunswick, 637. 


sects 


Lunenburgh, 617 
Lyell, Sir Charles, F.R.S., 8, 25, 67, 154, | 
156, 232, 278, 362. 


GENERAL INDEX. 


se = 2. 


oa 


» 
Pay 


Masou, 400. 

M'‘Cairn’s Cove, 157. 

Maccan Mine, 219. 

Macrodon, 302. 

Malagash, 216. 

Maliseets, 3, 41, 44. 

Manganese Ore, 113, 250, 272, 345, 641. 

Man, Pre-historic, 41. 

Map, Explanation of, xi. 

Marble, 345, 399), ate, 593. 

Marcou, M. J., 

Margaret’s Ate 351. 

Marshes, Deposition of, 21. 

Marshes, Composition of Mud of, 23. 

Blue or Low, 22. 

Colours of Mud of, 24. 

Extent of, 33. 

Mastodon, 84. 

Matthew, Mr G. F., 7, 108, 227, 503, 523, 
536, 573, 637. 

Megambonia, 603. 

Megaphyton, 449, 486. 

Merigomish, 321. 

Mesotype, 114. 

Metamorphic Rocks, 610. 

Mica Slate, 614. 

Miemacs, 41, 44, 673. 

Microdiscus, 654. 

Millstone Grit, 130. 

Minerals of New Red Sandstone and Trap, 

113, 


eaeeee 


seeeee 


of Carboniferous of Cumberland, 
218. 
of New Brunswick, 245. 
of Colchester and Hants, 271. 
of Pictou, 329. 
of Antigonish, 349. 
of Guysborough, 351. 
of Richmond, ete., 396. 
of Inverness and Victoria, 403. 
oes of Cape Breton, 411. 
Mines, Tenure of, in Nova Scotia, 5. 
... Laws relating to, Appendix. 
Minudie, 152. 
Modiola, 301. 
Modiolopsis,599. 
Montagu Mine, 630. 
Montreal and Pictou Coal Company, 441. 
Moore, Mr, 320. 
Moose River, 103, 501. 
Mosely, Mr, 416. 
Murchisonia, 310, 605. 
Murchison, Sir R. I., F.R.S., 20, 557. 


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NAIADITES, 182, 195. 
Napan River, 151. 
Naticopsis, 309. é 
Natrolite, 114. 2 
Nautilus, 311. 
Neuropteris, 449, 481, 551. 
New Brunswick, General Description of, 16. 
Post-pliocene of, 73. 
Trias of, 108. 
Carboniferous of, 229. 
Devonian of, 502. 
Upper Silurian of, 573. 


GENERAL INDEX. 693 
New Brunswick, Lower Silurian of, 637. | Portapique River, 100. 
hedine Huronian of, 659. Portland, 662. 
nents Laurentian of, 662. Post-pliocene, 56. 
New Canaan, WS i i eee | are eee Fossils of, 74. 
New Glasgow, 321. Pre-historic Man, 41. 
New Red Sandstone, 87. = = = = = = | assess Time, 41. 


New York and Acadia Mine, 219. 
New York and Nova Scotia Coal Com- 
pany, 340. 
Nickel, 641. 
Nictau, 498. 
North Mountain, 90. 
North River, 265, 275. 
Nova Scotia, General Description of, 14. 
Nova Scotia, Post-pliocene of, 60. 
Resece Trias of, 87 
viata Carboniferous of, 141. 
Tite Devonian of, 497. 
aac Upper Silurian of, 557. 
iaeas Lower Silurian of, 613. 
Nuculites, 602. 


Oak IsLAnp, 91. 
Obolella, 644. 
Odontopteris, 447, 482. 
Onslow Mountain, 275. 
Oolitic Limestone, 400. 
Opal, 114. 

Orthis, 599, 644. 
Orthoceras, 311, 605. 
Orwell Point, 117. 
Ovens, The, 631, 635. 
Owen, Professor, F.R.S., 354. 


Packarp, Mr, 85. 

Paleaster, 594. 

Paleoniscus, 231. 

Paleopteris, 449, 485. 

Paradise, 563. 

Paradoxides, 656, 657. 

Partridge Island, 106. 

Peat, 35, and Appendix. 

Peat under Boulder Clay, 60. 

Pecopteris, 449, 484, 534. 

Pereau River, 91. 

Permian Period, 125. 

Petite Passage, 97. 

... River, 89. 

Petroleum, 248. 

Phillipsia, 313. 

Pictou, Carboniferous District of, 315. 

Upper Silurian of, 568. 

Pine, Fossil, of Prince Edward Island, 117, 
Saavas of Joggins, 157, 179, 423. 
eeaese of Malagash, 214. 
at of St John, 534. 

Pinnularia, 445, 541. 

Plaister Cove, 391. 

Plaster Pits, Origin of, 269, 393. 

Platephemera, 524. 

Platyschisma, 309, 

Pleurotomaria, 310. 

Poole, Mr H., 11, 320, 324, 416, 620, 625. 

Poole, Mr H., jun., 278. 

Pomket, 348. 

Porphyry, 593, 612. 


Prehnite, 115. 

Primordial of St John, 641. 

Prince Edward Island, 116. 
fees Fossil Reptile in, 119. 
aneyih Soils of, 119 
idtdss Possible occurrence of Coal 

in, 123. 

Productus, 296. 

Psammodus, 209. 

Psaronius, 449, 486. 

Psilophyton, 543. 

Pugwash, 203. 

Pulmonates, 383. 

Pupa vetusta, 384. 


Quartz, 113. 
Smoky, 593. 
Rose, 616. 
“s Auriferous, 627. 
Quartzite, 615. 
Queen’s County, 616. 


RAIN-MARKS, Recent, 26. 
snieby Carboniferous, 27, 164, 410. 
Ragged Reef, 155. 
Rand, Rev. Mr, 2 2, 42, 44, and Appendix. 
Reptiles of Coal Formation, 189, 353. 
veahneie L LIAB, L0G 
Retzius, 42. 
Rhabdocarpus, 459, 478. 
Rhizodus, 210, 254. 
Rhynchonella, 294, 298, 598. 
Rhyncospira, 597. 
Richmond, 390. 
Rill-marks, 26. 
Robb, Mr C., 227, 340. 
Robb, Professor, 7, 124, 227, 502. 
Rusichnites, 257, 410. 
Rutherford, Mr, 219, 329, 341. 


SABLE ISLAND, 36. 

Salmon River, 88. 

Salt Springs, a 276, 349. 
Salter’s Head, 88 

Sand Hills or Dunes, 36, 39. 
Sandstone, Colours of, 153, 623. 
Sandstone, New Red, 86. 
Sandy Cove, 95. 

Sauropus, 358. 

Savannahs, 36. 

Scolecite, 114. 

Seudder, Mr, 387. 
Second-Growth Woods, 49. 
Sediments, 24, 623. 
Serpulites, 312. 

Shale, 248. 

Sharp Cape, 106. 
Shelburne, 616. 

Shoulie River, 155. 
Shrinkage-Cracks, 26. 
Shubenacadie, 88, 266. 


=: 2. ee wel. ae 


A 
* 
> 
4 


oe a ik A 
694 GENERAL lalla 
Sigillaria, 180, 188, 430, 474, 536. Trap of Dighy Neck, 97. 
Silver, 640.5% 2-6-4), = obey fee te SRB LEIP vane . Briar Island, 98. 
Slate:.593) 615.5 >. yee ere Saw sse<e Five Islands, 101. 

.. Artificial, 590. pocsae =) WAls Creek, 103. 
Smith, Mr T., 48. Sioscaa _ Partridge Island, 105. - 
Soils, Alluvial, 21, 33, 112, 123. «eee. Cape Sharp, 106. 

euPeaty, Ob.) air <<. (Cia E eae el eeesee Cape D’Or, 106. 
Soils of the Carboniferous, 223. «ee. Hog Island, 123. 

...e. Metamorphic Districts, 593,613.| _ ...... - M‘Cara’s Brook, 316. 

AeCBAY Trias, 112, 123. Trees, Erect, 191, 198, 200. 
Solenites, 492. Trematospira, 597. 

Split, Cape, 92. Trias, 86. 

Sphenopteris, 243, 447, 483. Trigonocarpum, 459, 477, 461. 
Sphenophyllum, 444, 480, 540. Truro, 88. 

Spirifera, 251, 298, 499, 596. Tufa, 87. 

Spirorbis, 205, 310. Turbo, 309. 

Sporangites, 459, 491. 

St Croix River, 263. ULODENDRON, 189. 

St John, N.B., 503, 637, 659. Umber, 351. 

St John River, Falls of, 31. Unconformability, 88. 

St Mary’s River, 619. Underclays, 179. 

Staurotide, 616. Upper Silurian, 411, 557, 572. 
SfeCUSErOD. LOC). ee eee ene MER arin of Nova Scotia, 558. 
NICUOpOLay OGL at) ee eo eee MEN sdess : of New Brunswick, 573. 


Sternbergia, 424, 491. 


Stigmaria, 155, 179, 436, 475, 536. 


Stilbite, 114. 
Stone Age, 42. 
Striz, Glacial, 59, 69. 

of Drift-wood, 199. 
Strophomena, 295, 499. 
“« Sub-Carboniferous,” 131. 
Submarine Forests, 28. 
Subsidence, Modern, 31. 
Swan Creek, 104. 
Sydney, Cape Breton, 406. 
Syenite, 612. 
Syringodendron, 475. 


TANGIER, 631. 

Tatamagouche, 217. 

Tellinomya, 602. 

Terebratula, 289. 

Thomsonite, 115. 

Tides of the Bay of Fundy, 21. 

Tormentin, Cape, 124. 

Trap, Mode of Formation, 87. 
Varieties of, 87. 
Blomidon, ete., 90. 


VERRILL, Professor, Appendix. 
Victoria County, 403. 
ates Mine, 219. 


WALLACE, 214. 

Walton, 89, 258. 
Waverley Mine, 627. 
Webster, Dr, 25, 34, 571. 
Westport, 97. 

West River of Picton, 315. 
Williamson, Professor, 424. 
Wilson, Professor, 57. 
Windsor, 258, 279. 
Wolfville, 92. 
Worm-burrows, 256, 410. 


XENONEURA, 525. 
Xylobius, 385, 495. 


YARMOUTH, 616. 
ZAPHRENTIS, 286, 499. 


Zine, 641. 
Zonites, 385. 


THE END. 


PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH. 


SUPPLEMENT 


TO THE 


SECOND EDITION OF 


“ACADIAN GEOLOGY 


CONTAINING ADDITIONAL FACTS AS TO THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE, 
FOSSIL REMAINS, AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF 


NOVA SCOTIA, NEW BRUNSWICK, AND 
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, 


BY 


JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Erc., 


PRINCIPAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF M'GILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL, 


London: 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 


EDINBURGH: OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT. 
HALIFAX: A. & W. MACKINLAY. MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS. 
NEW YORK: VAN NOSTRAND. 


1878. 


"AW 


PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD. 


EDINBURGH 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
INTRODUCTORY, . : , e ; ‘ 7 : : : 7 
CORRECTIONS OF Guidisarie: MAB! | : ; 9 

THe Mopern Pertop—Changes of Laverna hegitiiis Raps ster- 
Beds—Sand Dunes—Shore Ridges—Micmae Remains, . ; 13 

THe Post-PLioceNrE—Climate—Boulder Clay and Glacial eouion Pan 

Ice—Deposits in Prince Edward Island—New Fossils and New 
Localities, . 5 19 

THE Trras—New Facts as to Paints Exiard Tutecnde= Role of the 
Trias, . 2 P é P ; - . 28 

THE PermMo-CarBonrreRous—Development and iagiia3 in Rott Scotia 
and Prince Edward Island, . g ; : 30 

THE CARBONIFEROUS— Recent Discoveries in Different Co: al- failenen wis er 

Members of the Carboniferous—Their Arrangement and Equiva- 

lents—Manganiferous Limestone—New Carboniferous Fossils— 
Origin of Coal, . : : 7 - ; : ; 3 39 

. THE DrEvonran—Its avalapanan in Acadia and North America 
generally—Its Flora, . : , : 69 


THE Upper Srrurtan—Volcanic nae in—The Mase wene Series—The 
Wentworth Series—New Fossils—Restriction of es Silurian 
Areas, oem 7 72 

THE Lower Lea eee Been ty valiande ‘Beds—The 
Cobequid Series and its migra cide oaniee Silurian of sa 
Breton, . ne 78 

Tar CAMBRIAN—The beet Series—The Ganiteiia a Slate Savies of 
the Atlantic Coast—Intrusive Granite and Metamor eer ossils 


—Age of Gold Veins, . *. 81 
THe HurontAn—In New Brunawick Suppose Bquivalents in ion 

Scotia, . ‘ ; : : 87 
THE rae Now Facts as to co Bihari -siaeeed Lau- 

rentian of Nova Scotia, ; ; : ; ; ; 88 


CoMPARISONS of Paleozoic Rocks with tags of other Countries, . . 90 


MINERAL REsouRCES—Coal— Iron—Copper—Antimony—Gold—Man- 
ganese—Lead—-Building and Ornamental Stones—Grindstones-— 
Gypsum, &., : f . : x : . : < 92 

NoTES AND ADDENDA . : 99 

CLASSIFIED INDEX to the Paleontology of the Third Edition of Acadian 
Geology, . “ : : z - : : - 103 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Junction of Granite and Quartzite (Frontispiece) 
Micmac Harpoon, . . 

Sections of Prince Edward ian 2 : : 
Sigillaria Lorwayana, . 
Blattina Bretonensis, 

B. —— Heeri, . 

B. —— sepulta, 

Libellula carbonaria, . 
Markings on Rocks, 
Anthracopalemon Hillianum, 
Carboniferous Myriapods, 
Psilophyton princeps, 

Section on East River, Pictou, ; 5 : : : 
Homalonotus Dawsoni, : 9 : 4 
Section of Cobequid Range, . : : . : - 
Eozoon Canadense, 
Canal system of do., 
Palzoniscus modulus, 


SUPPLEMENT TO ACADIAN GEOLOGY, 


Poe | RODUCTORY, 


Wuen in 1868 it became necessary to prepare a second edition of my 
Acadian Geology, I was surprised to find that the new material 
on the subject had increased to such an extent as to swell the work to 
thrice its original bulk, in spite of all my attempts at condensation, 
and of the omission of many details accumulated in my notes. Now, 
after the lapse of nine years, in writing a supplementary section to 
bring the book up to the present state of knowledge, I find myself 
troubled with a similar superabundance of matter. 

It is so far gratifying to me that I have little to retract in the 
department of theoretical geology. That position of moderate unifor- 
mitarianism, with due allowance for intermittent actions which may 
well be termed cataclysmic, which I have attempted to define 
in the concluding paragraphs of my book, and which pervades 
its general tone and the treatment of the varied subjects discussed, 
may now be considered as the attitude of the great majority of 
geologists. The battle of the glacialists is perhaps hardly as yet 
decided, but victory evidently leans to the side of that eclectic doc- 
trine of marine submergence and ice-drift with local land glaciation, 
which [ maintained in 1868, as I had previously done in 1855. The 
questions relating to the origin of coal and the land conditions of 
the Carboniferous age, presented in 1868, were answered by the 
collection of facts shown perhaps more clearly in Nova Scotia than in 
any other part of the world, and the force of which is now felt 
everywhere, and supported by evidence abundantly obtained in other 
countries. The reality and extent of the Devonian flora, though 
belief in them is still resisted with a pertinacity almost personal by 
some European botanists, are now generally accepted by geologists. 
The extension downward of the Paleozoic fauna in America, as far 
as the Lower Cambrian, and the distinctness of this older fauna from 


8 INTRODUCTORY. 


those which are properly Silurian, due mainly to the labours of 
Matthew and Hartt, but first brought prominently forward in the 
second edition of this work, has been greatly extended in its geo- 
graphical range; and American text-books no longer terminate Palzo- . 
zoic life on the horizon of the Potsdam. . The still greater fact of the 
extension of animal life backward into the Eozoic age, though still 
denied by some, is steadily advancing in acceptance. 

My own work in the geology of the Acadian Provinces, since 1868, 
has necessarily been limited by distance and by other occupations. 
It includes—(1.) A geological reconnaissance of Prince Edward 
Island,* in which I was assisted by Dr B. J. Harrington, and by 
which the subdivisions of the Trias in that island and the existence 
and distribution in it of rocks of the Upper Coal formation were 
first ascertained; (2.) A detailed Report on the Flora of the Upper 
Silurian and Devonian Rocks, published by the Geological Survey of 
Canada in 1871, in which the fossil plants of the New Brunswick 
Devonian were first adequately figured and described, and their 
geological relations discussed ; (3.) A similar Report on the Fossil 
Plants of the Lower Carboniferous and Millstone-grit, in which these 
plants and the beds containing them were correlated with those in 
other parts of America and in Europe; (4.) A Revision of the Post- 
pliocene Geology, in my ‘“‘ Notes on the Post-pliocene of Canada ;”+ 
(5.) Memoirs on the Relation of the Upper Coal Measures of Nova 
Scotia to the Permian; { On the Impressions and Footprints of 
Animals in the Carboniferous Rocks; § On Sigillaria, Calamites, and 
Lepidedendron ; \| On New Carboniferous Batrachians ;{] and on the 
Geological Relations of the Iron Ore Deposits.** I have besides 
given assistance in the determination of fossils and in other ways to — 
most of the other workers who have been in the field, so that my 
connection with Acadian geology has been continuously maintained. 
I may add that, in connection with the preparation of this supple- 
ment, I have twice visited Nova Scotia, and re-examined districts of 
special interest, and that I have in many instances been delighted to 
find how much, previously inaccessible or obscure, had been dis- 
closed by new lines of railway, mining operations, and other changes. 

The extension of the Geological Survey of the Dominion to the 
Acadian Provinces has brought into the field a host of workers, - 
armed with those advantages of ample time and public funds which 


* Report on Geology of P. E. I., 1871. + Montreal, 1872. 
t Journal, Geological Society, Aug. 1874. 2 Am. Jl. Science, January 1873. 
|| Journal, Geol. Socy., May 1873. 4 Am. Jl. Science, Dec. 1876. 


** Proceedings Am. Association, 1874. 


INTRODUCTORY. 9 


are not accorded to those who labour for the mere love of science, 
and thus an immense amount of details not previously accessible have 
been accumulated. In this Supplement I shall have to summarise 
or refer to Reports by Sir W. E. Logan, Mr Selwyn, Dr Hunt, Pro- 
fessor Bailey, Mr Matthew, Mr Robb, Mr M‘Owat, Mr Hartley, Mr 
Scott Barlow, Mr Fletcher, and Mr Ells, embracing in all a volume 
of matter much greater than that of my book. In addition to this, 
local geologists and collectors have not been idle, and more especially 
a number of important papers and reports have been published by Mr 
Poole, Professor Hind, Dr Honeyman, Mr Matthew, Mr Gilpin, Pro- 
fessor How, Professor Chapman, Mr Paisley, and others. 

In dealing with this great mass of matter, I shall first notice the 
modifications required in the Geological Map, and shall then refer to 
the several formations in succession, limiting myself under each to 
those points which seem most important either in local or general 
geology. 

Finding by experience that the general arrangement of my book, 
whereby the notices of fossils and of useful minerals were distributed 
under the heads of the districts in which they principally oceur, has 
caused some difficulty in reference, and has perhaps led to the over- 
looking of important facts by readers, I shall add a classified table of 
contents which may remove this inconvenience, 


2. THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


In the second edition of this work it was stated that the map, though 
greatly improved, ‘is to be regarded as merely a rude approximation 
to the truth ;”’ and though more detailed and accurate maps of certain 
districts have since been published, so much remains to be done, and so 
much uncertainty exists, that I have thought it best not to alter the 
colouring in this edition, but merely to note the changes which up to 
the present time would seem to be indicated by new facts. 

In the map, the limits of the Triassic and Carboniferous forma- 
tions, as they could be broadly indicated by tracing these formations 
on a number of lines of section up to their borders, were taken as 
the dominant boundaries, and little attempt was made to indicate the 
subdivisions of the older Metamorphic series. Even this much in- 
volved a large amount of labour, in time snatched from the intervals 
of other employments, and was necessarily very imperfectly done, yet 
these general limits, as fixed by me in 1868, may be said still to 
remain, the principal exceptions being the extension of the Upper 
Coal formation along the N.-W. coast of Prince Edward Island, 


10 THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


and to Governor’s Island and Gallas Point in Hillsborough Bay; an 
error of the colourist, whereby the tint of the Lower Silurian was 
extended over a part of the Carboniferous near Bathurst, in New 


Brunswick, and some local corrections in Antigonish County and Cape | 


Breton. 

The older formations of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have all 
along been liable to the same difficulties which have made the 
similar rocks of New England the stumbling-block of geologists. 
Originally very different from the sediments of equivalent age in 
that “ New York Series” which has been usually regarded as typical, 
intermixed with anomalous and irregular volcanic beds, much dis- 
turbed and profoundly changed by metamorphic action, and for the 
most part covered with soil or buried in forests, they presented dif_i- 
culties altogether insuperable in 1868, and which even yet have been 
very partially removed. I was, however, able, with the aid of the 
New Brunswick geologists, roughly to arrange them under six dis- 
tinct colours. These were, with their respective numbers, (4.) 
Devonian; (5.) Upper Silurian; (6.) Lower Silurian, including 
Cambrian ; (7.) Huronian; (8.) Laurentian; (10.) Granite, Syenite, ete. 

In Nova Scotia, the only district coloured as Devonian is that on 
the south side of the Annapolis Valley, or the Nictaux and Bear River 
formation. The fossils of this are of Oriskany age, and would now, 
by some geologists, be regarded as Upper Silurian rather than as 
Lower Devonian. The only other area which I could indicate in that 
provinee is a small patch of quartzose rock, holding obscure fossil 
plants, which projects through the Carboniferous between the East 
and Middle Rivers of Pictou, and which is delineated on Sir William 
Logan’s detailed map of that district, but is too small to appear in 
my map. In New Brunswick the Devonian area requires to be 
diminished by the removal of the large patch between Quaco and 
Shepody Bay, which consists of altered rocks of much older date; 
a remark which also applies to the smaller areas indicated on the 
map immediately west of St John. On the other hand, considerable 
portions of the hard, slaty, and arenaceous rocks rising from. beneath 
the Carboniferous on its south-western border, and mapped as Lower 
Silurian, have been ascertained by Messrs Bailey and Matthew to be 
Devonian. 

Mr R. Chalmers, who is engaged in preparing a geological map of 
Restigouche County, reminds me that a limited exposure of sandstone 
and conglomerate near Dalhousie, holding obscure fossil plants, 
and referred by the Geological Survey to the Gaspé sandstones,* has 


* Report of Progress, 1863. 


~ 


‘¥ 

4 

v5 i 
fl 


a 


THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 11 


been omitted on my map. I have also found that these Devonian 
rocks, represented by red and gray sandstones with characteristic 
fossils, come in, in great force, near Casaupseal, on the east side of the 
Metapedia, and just on the northern limit of the map. 

Rocks characterized by fossils of Upper Silurian age skirt the 
southern side of the great crystalline belt extending south-westward 
from Bathurst in New Brunswick, and doubling round the south- 
west end of the Carboniferous area of that province. They are 
coloured in the map as Lower Silurian, and by an error of the 
colourist are extended over a part of the Carboniferous area near 
Bathurst. On the other hand, a portion of the Upper Silurian area 
near the lower part of the St John River, and constituting the 
Kingston group, is regarded asin part at least occupied with older 
rocks. In Nova Scotia, rocks of Upper Silurian age skirt the Cobe- 
quid Hills from Wentworth to New Annan and Earlton, and reappear 
on the East River of Pictou, extending thence to Arisaig and Loch- 
aber Lake. To the westward they reappear and cover considerable 
areas at New Canaan and elsewhere in King’s County, and also in 
Northern Queen’s County. All these districts are indicated in my 
map by the proper colour, but I have included with them large areas 
occupied by non-fossiliferous rocks of various mineral characters, 
and which subsequent observers have been disposed to assign to a 
much older date. The reasons of this will be discussed farther on.* 
In the meantime, I may state that there are some grounds for the 
belief that considerable areas marked as Upper Silurian in Nova 
Scotia and Cape Breton may prove to be Lower Silurian, or even 
older, and that if we confine the colour to those areas in which fossils 
of Upper Silurian age have been actually recognised, its breadth will 
be restricted, both in the east and west, to certain narrow bands in 
the districts so coloured on the present maps. 

Unfortunately, with one possible exception in Cape Breton, no dis- 
tinct fauna of the typical Lower Silurian age has yet been recognised 
in the Acadian Provinces. ‘A few Graptolites found by Mr. Robb in 
the great belt north of the crystalline area already referred to in 
New Brunswick, would seem to indicate equivalents of the Quebee 
group. In Nova Scotia there are stratigraphical reasons to suppose 
that portions, at least, of the remarkable semi-volcanic or ash 
rocks, which underlie the beds with Upper Silurian fossils, may be 
of this age. 

With reference to the great belt of Lower Silurian constituting the 
Gold series on the coast of Nova Scotia, its age was held by me in 


* Under headings ‘‘ Lower Silurian ” and ‘‘ Cambrian.” 


12 THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 


1868 to be properly Cambrian, though in deference to the classifica- 
- tion of Murchison—then almost universally adopted—it was mapped 
as Silurian. Such fossils as have since been found in it by Selwyn, 
Hind, and myself, and those of its extensions in Newfoundland and 
New England, would seem to confirm this conclusion. Mr Selwyn 
has, however, found that in the west the granite and gneissose areas — 
should be much extended, and Prof. Hind proposes to separate por- 
tions of the gneissose rocks as Laurentian and Huronian. These 
points also will be discussed in the sequel. 

The above corrections in the Upper and Lower Silurian districts of 
the map may be summarised as follows:—If the reader will consider 
the blue tint indicating Upper Silurian to cover Lower Silurian as 
well, and the purple tint representing Lower Silurian to indicate Cam- 
brian, the map will be approximately correct, with the exceptions 
already referred to in New Brunswick, and some areas in Northern 
Cape Breton and the western part of Nova Scotia, to be subsequently 
referred to. 

The Huronian rocks of New Brunswick, as marked on the map, 
are still recognised as such; but it has been proposed to join to them 
several other groups, on the ground of mineral character principally. 
As this conclusion is still under discussion, I defer its consideration 
till farther on. 

Messrs Bailey and Matthew have introduced several new areas of 
Laurentian rocks in their recent maps of Southern New Brunswick; 
and large areas in Southern and Eastern Nova Scotia and Cape 
Breton have been referred to this age by local geologists and officers 
of the Survey, whose views on this subject, however, I do not regard 
as established by my own observations. They will be referred to 
on subsequent pages. 

The little island of Grand Manan, at the mouth of the Bay of 
Fundy, has fared very badly in my map. I have not myself visited it, 
and it seems that the information accessible to me in 1868, and given 
in the appendix to my book, had led to very incorrect inferences on 
my part. From recent reports by Prof. Bailey and Mr Matthew, and 
by Prof. Chapman, it seems that the western half of the island con- 
sists of Triassic trap resting on tufa and red sandstone, the eastern 
half of old crystalline rocks, possibly Laurentian. 

The Magdalen Islands, though politically connected with the 
Province of Quebec, fall within the map of Acadia. They are 
represented as Carboniferous; and I can now confirm this from the 
inspection of an interesting series of specimens collected by the Hon. 
Judge M‘Cord, These show that the rocks of these islands belong 


m4 ; 


THE GEOLOGICAL MAP. 13 


to the Lower Carboniferous or Gypsiferous series, and they no doubt 
form a portion of a rim of these rocks, limiting the Carboniferous 
area of the Acadian Bay, and extending from Northern Cape Breton 
toward the Baie des Chaleurs. 

The south-western corner of Newfoundland, extending into the 
map, includes part of the Coal-field of St George’s Bay, and of a 
Laurentian area which bounds it on the east. These formations have 
recently been described by Murray in his Reports on the Geology of 
Newfoundland, and have been represented on his beautiful map of 
the island. Specimens in my possession show that the Carboniferous 
limestone of Newfoundland includes abundance of the characteristic 
fossils of that formation, and that its fossil plants are principally such 
as in Nova Scotia occur in the Millstone-grit.* 


3. THE MODERN PERIOD. 


Changes of Level_—In the surveys for the Baie Verte Canal, made 
by Mr Page under authority of the Dominion Government, I find it 
stated in the Report of Mr Baillargé, that between the Missaquash 
River and Cumberland Creek, to the north of the point where I 
observed the submarine forest of Fort Lawrence,+ stumps of trees 
were seen rooted in earth for more than half a mile along the 
shore, and extending from low-water mark to the bank. They are 
stated to be from 32°8 feet to 22°3 feet below the level of the highest 
tides. The surveyors recognised spruce, beech, pine, and tamarac, 
all in a fair state of preservation, and rooted in a vegetable mould 
underlaid by a sandy subsoil. In my Report on Prince Edward 
Island I have noticed evidence of similar modern subsidence, though 
to aless amount. These facts place themselves in connection with 
the probability that in America, as in Europe, a period of continental 
elevation succeeded the great Post-pliocene subsidence, and has been 
followed by a depression in more modern times. This consideration 
seems to account for some otherwise anomalous facts in connexion 
with the distribution of modern marine animals. I referred to these 
points in my annual address to the Natural History Society of 
Montreal in 1874, and may here repeat the substance of what was 
then said. 

The Acadian Bay in relation to Modern Subsidence.—If we draw 
a straight line from the northern end of Cape Breton through the 
Magdalen Islands to the mouth of the Bay des Chaleurs, we have 

* Report on Fossil Plants of L. Carboniferous and Millstone-grit, 1873, 
t Ac. Geol., p. 29. 


yt THE MODERN PERIOD. 


: ns | nn 
to the southward an extensive semicircular bay, 200 miles in - 


diameter, which we may call the great Acadian Bay, and on the 
north the larger and deeper triangular area of the Gulf of St Law- 


rence. This Acadian Bay is a sort of gigantic warm-water aquarium, - 


sheltered, except in a few isolated banks which have been pointed 


out by Mr Whiteaves, from the cold waters of the gulf, and which 


the bather feels quite warm in comparison with the frigid and often 
not very limpid liquid with which we are fain to be content in the 
Lower St Lawrence. It also affords to the more delicate marine 


animals a more congenial habitat than they can find in the Bay of 


Fundy, or even on the coast of Maine, unless in a few sheltered 


spots, some of which have been explored by Professor Verrill. It 


is true that in winter the whole Acadian Bay is encumbered with 
floating ice, partly produced on its own shores and partly drifted from 
the north; but in summer the action of the sun upon its surface, the 
warm air flowing over it from the neighbouring land, and the ocean 
water brought in by the Strait of Canseau, rapidly raise its tem- 
perature, and it retains this elevated temperature till late in autumn. 
Hence the character of its fauna, which is indicated by the fact, that 
many species of molluscs whose headquarters are south of Cape Cod 
flourish and abound in its waters. Among these are the common 
oyster, which is especially abundant on the coasts of Prince Edward 
Island and Northern New Brunswick, the Quahog or Wampum shell, 
the Petricola pholadiformis, which, along with Zirfea crispata, 
burrows everywhere in the soft sandstones and shales; the beautiful 
Modiola plicatula forming dense mussel-banks in the sheltered coves 
and estuaries ; Cytherea (Callista) convexa; Cochlodesma leana and 
Cummingia tellinoides ; Crepidula fornicata, the slipper-limpet, and 
its variety unguiformis, swarming especially in the oyster-beds; 
Nassa obsoleta and Buccinum cinerewm, with many others of similar 
southern distribution. Nor is the fauna so very meagre as might 
be supposed. My own collections from Northumberland Strait in- 


clude about fifty species of molluscs, and some not possessed by me 


have been found by Mr Whiteaves. Some of these, it is true, are 
northern forms, but the majority are of New England species. 
The causes of this exceptional condition of things in the Acadian 


Bay carry us far back in geological time. The area now consti-— 


tuting the Gulf of St Lawrence seems to have been exempt from the 
great movements of plication and elevation which produced the hilly 
and metamorphic ridges of the east coast of America. These all die 
out and disappear as they approach its southern shore. The tran- 
quil and gradual passage from the Lower to the Upper Silurian 


THE MODERN PERIOD. 15 


- ascertained by Billings in the rocks of Anticosti, and unique in 
North America, furnishes an excellent illustration of this. In 
the Carboniferous period the Gulf of St Lawrence was a sea 
area as now, but with wider limits, and at that time its southern 
part was much filled up with sandy and muddy detritus, and its margins 
were invaded by beds and dykes of trappean rocks. In the Triassic 
age the red sandstones of that period were extensively deposited in 
the Acadian Bay, and in part have been raised out of the water in 
Prince Edward Island, while the whole bay was shallowed and 
partially separated from the remainder of the gulf by the elevation 
of ridges of Lower Carboniferous rocks across its mouth. In the Post- 
pliocene period, that which immediately precedes our own modern 
age, as I have elsewhere shown,* there was great subsidence of this 
region, accompanied by a cold climate, and boulders of Laurentian 
rocks were drifted from Labrador and deposited on Prince Edward 
Island and Nova Scotia, while the southern currents flowing up what 
is now the Bay of Fundy, drifted stones from the hills of New 
Brunswick to Prince Edward Island. At this time the Acadian 
‘Bay enjoyed no exemption from the general cold, for at Campbell- 
ton, in Prince Edward Island, and near Bathurst, in New Brunswick, 
we find in the clays and gravels the northern shells generally charac- 
teristic of the Post-pliocene,—though perhaps the lists given by Mr 
Matthew for St John, and by Mr Paisley for the vicinity of Bathurst, 
may be held to show some slight mitigation of the Arctic conditions as 
compared with the typical deposits in the St Lawrence valley. Since 
that time the land has gradually been raised out of the waters, and 
with this elevation the southern or Acadian fauna has crept north- 
ward and established itself around Prince Edward Island, as the 
Acadian Bay attained its present form and conditions. But how 
is it that this fauna is now isolated, and that intervening colder waters 
separate it from that of Southern New England?  Verrill regards this 
colony of the Acadian Bay as indicating a warmer climate intervening 
between the cold Post-plioeéne period and the present, and he seems 
to think that this may either have been coincident with a lower 
level of the land sufficient to establish a shallow-water channel con- 
necting the Bay of Fundy with the Gulf, or with a higher level raising 
many of the banks on the coast of Nova Scotia out of water. Geo- 
logical facts, which I have illustrated in Acadian Geology, indicate 
the latter as the probable cause. We know that the eastern coast 
of America has in modern times been gradually subsiding. Further, 
the remarkable submarine forests in the Bay of Fundy show that 


* Notes on Post-pliocene of Canada, Canadian Naturalist, 1872. 


16 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


within a time not sufficient to produce the decay of pine wood, this 
depression has taken place to the extent of at least 40 feet, and 
probably to 60 feet or more. We have thus direct geological 
evidence of a former higher condition of the land, which may, when - 
at its maximum, have greatly exceeded that above indicated, since 
we cannot trace the submarine forests as far below the sea-level as 
they actually extend. The effect of such an elevation of the land 
would be not only a general shallowing of the water in the Bay of 
Fundy and the Acadian Bay, and an elevation of its temperature 
both by this and by the greater amount of neighbouring land, but, as 
Professor Verrill well states, it would also raise the banks of the 
Nova Scotia coast, and extending south from Newfoundland, so as to 
throw the Arctic current further from the shore and warm the water 
along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Northern New England. In 
these circumstances the marine animals of Southern New England 
night readily extend themselves all around the coasts of Nova Scotia 
and Cape Breton, and occupy the Acadian Bay. The modern sub- 
sidence of the land would produce a relapse towards the Glacial age, 
the Arctic currents would be allowed to cleave more closely to the 
coast, and the inhabitants of the Acadian Bay would gradually 
become isolated, while the northern animals of Labrador would work 
their way southward. 

Various modern indications point to the same conclusions. Verrill 
has deseribed little colonies of southern species still surviving on the 
coast of Maine. There are also dead shells of these species in mud- 
banks, in places where they are now extinct. He also states that the 
remains in shell-heaps left by the Indians indicate that even within 
the period of their occupancy some of these species existed in places 
where they are not now found. Willis has catalogued some of these 
species from the deep bays and inlets on the Atlantic coast of Nova 
Scotia, and has shown that some of them still exist on the Sable © 
ison banks.* 

Whiteaves finds in the Bradelle and Orphan bank littoral species 
remote from the present shores, and indicating a time when these 
banks were islands, which have been submerged by subsidence, 
aided no doubt by the action of the waves. 

It would thus appear that the colonization of the Acadian Bay 
with southern forms belongs to the modern period, but that it has 
already passed its culmination ; and the recent subsidence of the coast 
has no doubt limited the range of these animals, and is probably still 
favouring the gradual inroads of the Arctic fauna from the north, 

* Ac. Geol., chap. iii. p. 37. 


THE MODERN PERIOD. 17 


which, should this subsidence go on, will creep slowly back to 
reoccupy the ground which it once held in the Post-pliocene time. 

Such peculiarities of distribution serve to show the effects of even 
comparatively small changes of level upon climate, and upon the 
distribution of life, and to confirm the same lesson of caution in our 
interpretation of local diversities of fossils, which geologists have 
been lately learning from the distribution of cold and warm currents 
in the Atlantic. Another lesson which they teach is the wonderful 
fixity of species. Continents rise and sink, climates change, islands 
are devoured by the sea or restored again from its depths, marine 
animals are locally exterminated, and are enabled in the course of. 
long ages to regain their lost abodes, yet they remain ever the same, 
and even in their varietal forms perfectly resemble those remote 
ancestors which are separated from them by a vast lapse of ages and 
by many physical revolutions. This truth, which I have already 
deduced from the Post-pliocene fauna of the St Lawrence Valley, is 
equally taught by the molluses of the Acadian Bay, and by their 
Arctic relatives returning after long absence to claim their old 
homes. 

Oyster-beds or Mussel-beds.—In the bays and estuaries of Prince 
Edward Island, and of the northern coast of Nova Scotia, vast ac- 
cumulations of the shells of the American oyster, Ostrea Virginiana, 
and those of the mussel, Mytilus edulis, have taken place, and must be 
deposits of the modern period succeeding the Post-pliocene. I have 
been informed by Mr W. H. Pope, who has given much attention to 
this subject, that some of these beds are fifteen feet or more in thick- 
ness. They consist of dead shells, and in many places no living 
shells occur even at the surface, the animals having been killed by 
the gradual approach of the beds to the surface of the water, exposing 
them to the action of the frost and ice and to invasion of sandy sedi- 
ment. These beds of dead oyster and mussel shells, with the mud 
filling the interstices, constitute one of the most valuable deposits on 
theisland. Under the name of ‘Mussel Mud”’ this material is taken 
up in great quantity by ingenious dredging machines, worked from 
rafts in summer or from the ice in winter, and is applied as a manure 
to the soil with the most excellent effects. It supplies lime and 
organic matter, besides small quantities of phosphates and alkalies. 

The shells in these old beds are all of the long narrow form (0. 
Virginiana), and Mr Pope informs me that the round form (0. bore- 
alis) occurs at the surface in many places where the long narrow 
form is found only a few inches below. It also appears that the 
modern oysters procured in the upper parts of the rivers and on 


18 THE MODERN PERIOD. 


muddy bottom tend to the long form, while those in more salt water 
and on hard bottom are round. 

Sand-Hills or Dunes of Prince Edward Island.—These mounds of 
drifted sand are extensively developed along the outer or north-west 
shore, where they stretch in long lines across the bays and parallel to 
the coast. In all they extend in length about 45 miles, and are some- 
times more than 40 feet high. Though usually held together by the 
roots of coarse grasses, they are liable to frequent changes, which are 
much promoted by the cropping of the grass by the cattle, or by any 
artificial or accidental breaking of the surface. At St Peter’s I saw an 
old entrance, used in the early French times, quite filled up with the 
blown sand; and I was told that a hill, 40 feet high, had been removed 
within a few years, and had disclosed the remains of an old black- 
smith’s forge under its base. The sand in these hills is derived from 
the waste of the red sandstones; and, when left dry by the tide, is 
blown up by the wind. The attrition to which it has been subjected 
has removed the coating of red oxide of iron from the siliceous grains 
of sand, so that, though derived from red rocks, these sands are nearly 
white. Where the sand-hills run along the coast, a long narrow 
channel often occurs between them and the shore, and they often 
block up streams, forming lagoons, in which deposits very different 
from those of the open gulf are produced, 

Shore Ridges in Prince Edward Island—Mr Pope kindly pointed 
out to me, on a creek near Grand River and on Ives Creek, the 
mounds known locally as “ shooting dykes,” in allusion to their use 
by sportsmen as a shelter in duck-shooting. ‘These are somewhat 
regular banks or dykes of soil fringing the adhe and having almost 
the appearance of artificial earthworks, which ies have indeed been 
supposed to be. Some of them are 6 feet in height and 10 feet wide at 
base. I believe them to be of the same nature with the Lake Ridges 
of Nova Scotia described in Chapter IIL, p. 35, and that they have 
been produced by the expansion or driftage of the ice which forms in 
the creeks in winter. They constitute a sort of “ moraine” deposit, 
which, on a larger scale and in a more hilly country, might. readily 
be mistaken for the work of glaciers. Those that we saw were en- 
tirely composed of soil intermixed with vegetable matter. Some of 
them showed evidence of formation by successive increments of 
material. Their steepest sides were next the land, and they were 
highest opposite the most exposed and widest eee of the creeks. 

Miemac Remains.—Since the publication of Acadian Geology, 
some attention has been given by Dr Gilpin, Mr Gossip, Dr Patter- 
son, and others to the prehistoric antiquities of Nova Scotia, and 


THE MODERN PERIOD. 19 


several interesting papers have appeared in the Transactions of the 
Nova Scotia Institute. The numerous “ Kjékkenmédding” or piles 
of culinary debris occurring on the coast have been in Fig. 1. 
part explored, and have been found to contain shells of 
most of the edible molluses of the coast and bones of the 
ordinary modern mammals, birds, and fishes, with stone 
implements and fragments of rude pottery. All these re- 
mains are probably referable to the Micmaes ; and nothing 
definite seems to have been discovered as to any previous 
race, though Miemactradition, according to Mr Rand, points 
to a previous people, probably of the Tinné or Chippewyan 
stock, and allied to the Red Indians of Newfoundland. 
Chips of stone found at old arrow-making places in 
Lunenburg, Pictou, and Prince Edward Island, show 
that the Micmacs had ransacked all sorts of repositories 
of useful stones, and were in the habit of availing them- 
selves of a great variety of agates, jaspers, quartzites, 
and hard slates in the manufacture of chipped weapons, 
while diorite and hard quartzose slate were favourite 
materials for polished tools. A bone fish-spear or har- 
poon, found by Dr Patterson at Merigomish, is the only 
implement of this kind I have seen (Fig.1). It is 
ingeniously barbed, much after the manner of the modern 
Esquimaux harpoons, or some of those belonging to 
prehistoric Europe. All the earthenware that I have 
seen is of rude manufacture, and the patterns less tasteful 
than in those of the inlaud agricultural nations. The few 
tobacco-pipes found are similar to those of the other 
Algonquin tribes. Tobacco, according to Lescarbot, was 
used by the Micmacs, but they did not cultivate ‘it, 
obtaining their supplies from tribes further to the 
south, and in default of such supplies, using, like other 
northern tribes, native narcotic herbs. The modern 
Micmacs sometimes extemporise a tobacco-pipe in the 
form of an ingeniously twisted cone of birch bark. If 
this habit existed among their ancestors, it would 
account for the comparative paucity of stone pipes. 


4, THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


Climate-—At p. 78, Chap. V., I have remarked on the fact that 


while the climate of Western Europe in the Pleistocene period, as 
B 


Miemae Bone Harpoon. 


20 THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


indicated by fossil shells, was much more severe than at present, com- 
paratively little change has occurred in our American seas. I have 
more fully illustrated this difference in my Notes on the Post-plio- 
cene Geology of Canada, and have shown that it is to be explained 
principally by the distribution of the marine currents. Crosskey and 


others have recently directed attention to it in England, but it receives _ 


less attention than it deserves, in consequence of the tendency to seek 
for causes of an extreme and general glaciation of the northern hemi- 
sphere. It should, however, be regarded as of the utmost importance 
as indicating the value of that different distribution of land and water 
so much insisted on by Sir C. Lyell as a cause of change of climate, 
and to which I still think, as in 1868, that the cold of the glacial 
period is mainly referable. 

In any case, I still fail to find, either in the Acadian Provinces or 
in Canada proper, any indication of a great continental glacier. What 
I do find is the evidence of great depression of the land, accompanied 
with a reduction of the mean temperature to such an extent that the 
hills remaining above water were occupied with local glaciers, and 
formed areas of denudation, while the lower lands, traversed by 
northern currents of ice-cold water, bore floating ice throughout the 
year, and this was steadily pushed by the lower currents from the 
north-east ; while in periods of extreme submergence there was a drift, 
perhaps caused by prevailing winds, from the north-west. In these 
circumstances the boulder clay and the lower part of the Leda clay 
were formed, and are consequently non-fossiliferous, or hold only a 
few Arctic shells. Re-elevation brought shallowness, and consequently 
warmer water, and eventually land surfaces, and introduced the 
modern climate. 

Whatever the cause of this submergence, the fact of its occurrence 
is proved by the marine clays and the high-level sea-beaches. Mr 
Richardson of the Geological Survey has found these terraces 1225 
feet above the sea on the coast of Newfoundland, and the evidence of 
travelled stones would take the sea to the tops of the highest hills in 
Eastern America, 6000 feet above the sea. The drift phenomena of 
the western plains and the Rocky Mountains imply subsidence there to 
the extent of at least 4400 ft.* Now, the existing climates of the North 
Atlantic, as compared with those of the Post-pliocene, point precisely 
to the natural effects of such a submergence, while the action of local 
glaciers, of pack and pan ice, and of drifting bergs, as now actually 
observed, would, if intensified, as they must have been by the causes 
supposed, give all the observed effects of glaciation. There is there- 

* G. M. Dawson, Report on 49th Parallel. 


THE POST-PLIOCENR. 21 


fore no geological necessity to appeal to the varying eccentricity of 
the earth’s orbit and the precession of the equinoxes, or to an imagined 
change of the earth’s axis of rotation, or of the obliquity of the 
ecliptic, or of the energy of the sun’s radiation. If these, or any of 
them, can be proved on other grounds, geologists may fairly be called 
on to allow for their influence; but there is no geological necessity for 
them, other than the exigencies of an imaginary period or succession 
of periods of continental glaciation, of which unquestionably there is 
no geological evidence in Eastern America. Tor facts in support of 
this view, I may refer not only to the chapter on Acadian Geology on 
this subject, but to my subsequently published Notes on the Post- 
pliocene of Canada. It would occupy too much space to repeat 
them here, except in so far as they may come up under subsequent 
heads. 

Boulder Clay and Glacial Erosion—From the views as to these 
subjects, given fully in Chapter V., I have seen as yet no cause to 
recede. Since they were published, the doctrine of continental 
glaciers has waxed and waned, and the greater number of the ablest 
workers in this field are now not very remote from the position 
which I occupied in 1868. Quite recently, the discovery by the 
“Challenger” soundings that a deposit of stones and mud is now rapidly 
forming in the South Pacific by the melting of ice, the observations 
_on the action of pack ice by the recent Arctic Expedition, and the ex- 
position of the action of pack ice on the coast of Newfoundland, given 
by Professor Milne in the Geological Magazine for 1876, have 
strengthened very much the position of those who hold that the glacial 
drift and striation have been mainly due to floating sheets and bergs, 
at a time when the northern seas were much more extensively occu- 
pied with them than at present.* I have very fully discussed this 
subject in my Notes on the Post-pliocene Geology of Canada, 
already referred to, and shall merely quote here a passage on a subject 
referred to in Chapter V., and on which more complete information 
has since been obtained. TI refer to the erosion of the basins of the 
great American lakes :— 

“These have been cut out of the softer members of the Silurian 
and Devonian formations; but the mode of this excavation has been 
regarded as very mysterious; and, like other mysteries, has been 
referred to glaciers. Its real cause was obviously the flowing of cold 
currents over the American land during its submergence. The lake- 
basins are thus of the same nature with the deep hollows intervening 


* See also Professor Hind’s paper in the Canadian Naturalist; 1877, referred to 
further on. 


We, THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


between the banks cast up by the Arctic currents of the present 
American coast, and like those deep channels of the Arctic current 
in the Atlantic recently explored by Dr Carpenter. Their arrange- 
ment geographically, as well as their geological relations, correspond 
with this view.” ; 

“ Another consideration with regard to the great lakes deserves 
notice. Dr Hunt and Dr Newberry have collected many facts to show 
that the lake basins are connected with one another and with the sea 
by deep channels now filled up with drift deposits. It is therefore 
possible that much of the erosion of these basins may have occurred 
before the advent of the glacial period, in the Pliocene age, when the 
American continent was at a higher level than at present. Dr New- 
berry has given in the Report of the Geology of Ohio a large collec- 
tion of facts ascertained by boring or otherwise, which go far to show, 
that were the old channels cleared of drift and the continent slightly 
elevated, the great lakes would be drained into each other and into 
the ocean by the valleys of the Hudson and the Mississippi without 
any rock-cutting, and if the barrier of the Thousand Islands were then 
somewhat higher, the St Lawrence valley might have been cut off 
from the basin of the great lakes.” 

“Tt would thus appear that in the Pliocene period the basin of the 
lakes may have been a great plain with free drainage to the sea. 
Instead of being afterwards occupied by a glacier, this plain and its 
channels leading to the ocean were filled with clay at the beginning 
of the Post-pliocene subsidence; and at a later date the mud was 
again swept out from those places where the Arctic current could most 
powerfully act on it.” 

In Chapter V. I have illustrated the power of coast ice in moving 
boulders. Since this was written I have had the opportunity of 
witnessing similar effects on a much grander scale in the estuary of 
the River St Lawrence, and Professor Hind has described these 
effects, as well as extensive polishing, on the coast of Labrador. He 
says,* with reference to the great sheets of “‘ pan ice :’”— 

‘“‘¢Pan’ ice is derived from bay ice, floes, and coast ice, varying 
from 5 to 10 or 12 feet in thickness, all of which are broken up 
during spring-storms. When the disruption of the ice sheet which 
seals the fiords, the island zone, and the sea itself for many miles _ 
outside, continuously, is effected in June, the resulting ‘ pans,’ as the 
fishermen term them, vary in size from a few square yards to many 
acres in extent. The uniform and unbroken mass of ice in the winter 


* Paper read before the Natural History Society of Montreal, 1877, Canada 
Naturalist, vol. viii. 


TUE POST-PLIOCENE. 23 


months has no lateral motion; it rises and falls with the tide, but is 
unaffected by winds until the warmth of spring softens its hold on the 
islands to which it is keyed. When the pans are pressed on the 
coast by winds, they accommodate themselves to all the sinuosities 
of the shore line, and being pushed by the unfailing Arctic current, 
which brings down a constant supply of floe ice, the pans rise over 
all the low-lying parts of the islands, grinding and polishing exposed 
shores, and rasping those that are steep-to. The pans are shoved 
over the flat surfaces of the islands, and remove with irresistible force 
every ob-tacle which opposes their thrust, for the attacks are con- 
stantly renewed by the ceaseless ice-stream from the north-west, and 
this goes on uninterruptedly for a month or more. Sometimes a 
change in the wind brings the endless sheet back again, and it is the 
middle of July before some of the fiords are clear of ice. Hence 
boulders, shingle, and beaches are rarely seen except in sheltered 
nooks and coves, and the masses, pushed or torn from those surfaces 
where cleavage offers a chance of disruption, are urged into the sea 
and rounded into boulder form by the rasping and polishing pans.” 

“ Here too goes on the process, subsequently referred to, of manu- 
facturing boulder clay, for the deep hollows and ravines at present 
under the sea—the records of former glacial work—are being filled 
with clay, sand, unworn and worn rock fragments, producing a 
counterpart of some varieties of boulder clay.” 

“ But this is not all of the work of pan ice. The bottom of the sea, 
to the depth of 12 or 15 feet, and at all less depths, is smoothed and 
planed by the drifting masses when they pile one on the other, and 
at depths less than 8 feet when the pans are driven before the wind 
or carried by the currents. In sailing from Aillik to Nain or to Cape 
Mugford, the fishermen send a man aloft to look out for “ White 
Rocks.’ These are prominences or swells in the general level of the 
sea-bottom among the islands, from which every particle of sea-weed 
has been removed by pan ice.” 

“During a period of subsidence, the blocks of stone, boulders, 
mud, and sand, pushed to and fro on the shallow sea-bottom by pan 
ice, ultimately accumulate in hollows and ravines below its action ; 
and when the debris is pushed into profound submarine valleys, such 
as exist on the Labrador coast (being probably due to former glacial 
action), the mass will resemble boulder clays, and in a sinking 
marine area it will accumulate to a great thickness; in a rising area 
it would be liable to be remodelled by the action of the waves except 
in the case of very deep valleys. There are not many known narrow 
and profound submarine valleys on the north-eastern coast of Labra- 


24 THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


dor, but those which are known offer precisely the conditions required 
for the accumulation of boulder clays or drift by the action of pan 
ice.” aes 
“The seaward extension of Uksuktak Fiord, which lies a little to 
the south of Hopedale, affords an apt illustration. Commander 


Maxwell’s soundings show a profound submarine ravine between 


clusters of islands for upwards of eight miles, in which the depth 
reaches 124, 126, 123, 106, and 130 fathoms. Between the islands 
of Niatak and Paul, near Nain, the lead shows 71 fathoms. It is 
evident that the material torn from the surrounding islands by pan 
ice, and pushed along the bottom of the sea into these profound sub- 
marine valleys during a period of general submergence, will be pro- 
tected from the action of the waves, and the loose blocks and boulders. 
will have a forced arrangement in the mud, as if they had been 
pushed over a bank, and thus produce the irregular disposition so 
frequently seen in boulder clay deposits. In such narrow and pro- 
found valleys as those instanced, the accumulation of boulder drift 
probably goes on at the present time, and may continue during a 
period of elevation, until large portions of the drift are raised above 
the sea-level and beyond the influence of tle waves, which will attack 
only its sea front. But the agent which gives rise to this hetero- 
geneous mass is pan ice, and the formation of boulder clay is very 
probably a part of its work over a vast area on the Labrador coast at 
the present day, throughout the labyrinth of islands which fringe that 
coast to a depth of 20 miles seawards. If one examines the local 
deposits of boulder clay in various parts of Nova Scotia, with ice- 
worn gneissic rocks close at hand, or underlying the clays, the con- 
clusion that pan ice has been instrumental in accumulating many of 
those deposits is irresistible.” 

Post-pliocene of Prince Edward Island.—On this I had little 
information in 1868, but have since studied it in some detail. 

The Triassic and Upper Carboniferous rocks of this island consist 
almost entirely of red sandstones, and the country is low and undu- 
lating, its highest eminences not exceeding 400 feet. The prevalent 
Post-pliocene deposit is a boulder clay, or in some places boulder 
loam, composed of red sand and clay derived from the waste of the 
red sandstones. This is filled with boulders of red sandstone derived 
from the harder beds. They are more or less rounded, often glaciated, 
with striz in the direction of their longer axis, and sometimes 
polished in a remarkable manner, when the softness and coarse 
character of the rock are considered. This polishing must have 
been effected by rubbing with the sand and loam in which they are 


TUE POST-PLIOCENE. 25 


embedded. These boulders are not usually large, though some were 
seen as much as five feet in length. The boulders in this deposit are 
almost universally of the native rock, and must have been produced 
by the grinding of ice on the outerops of the harder beds. In the 
eastern and middle portion of the island, only these native rocks 
were seen in the clay, with the exception of pebbles of quartzite, 
which may have been derived from the Triassic conglomerates. At 
Campbellton, in the western part of the island, I observed a bed of 
boulder clay filled with boulders of metamorphic rocks similar to 
those of the mainland of New Brunswick. 

Striz were seen only in one place on the north-eastern coast and at 
another on the south-western. In the former ease their direction was 
nearly S.W. and N.E. In the latter it was 8. 70° E. 

No marine remains were observed in the boulder clay; but at 
Campbellton, above the boulder clay already mentioned, there is a 
limited area occupied with beds of stratified sand and gravel, at an 
elevation of about 50 feet above the sea, and in one of the beds there 
are shells of Tedlina Granlandica. 

On the surface of the country, more especially in the western part 
of the island, there are numerous travelled boulders, sometimes, of 
considerable size. As these do not appear in situ in the boulder 
clay, they may be supposed to belong to a second or newer boulder 
drift, similar to that which we find to be connected with the Saxi- 
cava sand in Canada. ‘These boulders being of rocks foreign to 
Prince Edward Island, the question of their source becomes an 
interesting one. With reference to this, it may be stated in general 
terms that the majority are granite, syenite, diorite, felsite, por- 
phyry, quartzite, and coarse slates, all identical in mineral character 
with those which occur in the metamorphic districts of Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick, at distances of from 50 to 200 miles to the south 
and south-west, though some of them may have been derived from 
Cape Breton on the east. It is further to be observed, that these 
boulders are most abundant:and the evidences of denudation of the 
Trias greatest in that part of the island which is opposite the deep break 
between the hills of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, occupied by the 
Bay of Fundy, Chiegnecto Bay, and the low country extending thence 
to Northumberland Strait, an evidence that the boulder drift was con- 
nected with currents of water passing up this depression from the south 
or south-west. Similar local drift occurs in Nova Scotia (see Chap. 
V.), though there the predominant direction is from the northward. 

Besides these boulders, however, there are others of a different 
character; such as gneiss, hornblende-schist, anorthosite and Lab- 
radorite rock, which must have been derived from the Laurentian 


26 THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


rocks of Labrador and Canada, distant 250 miles or more to the 
northward. These Laurentian rocks are chiefly found on the north 
side of the island, as if at the time of their arrival the island formed a 
shoal, at the north side of which the ice carrying the boulders 
grounded and melted away. With reference to these boulders, it is 
to be observed that a depression of four or five hundred feet would 
open a clear passage for the Arctic current entering the Straits of Belle 
Isle to the Bay of Fundy; and that heavy ice carried by this current 
would then ground on Prince Edward Island, or be carried across it 
to the southward. If the Laurentian boulders came in this way, 
their source is probably 400 miles distant in the Strait of Belle Isle. 
On the north shore of Prince Edward Island, except where occupied 
by sand dunes, the beach shows great numbers of pebbles and small 
boulders of Laurentian rocks. These are said by the inhabitants to 
be cast up by the sea or pushed up by the ice in spring. Whether 
they are now being drifted by ice direct from the Labrador coast, or 
are old drift being washed up from the bottom of the gulf, which 
north of the island is very shallow, does not appear. They are all 
much rounded by the waves, differing in this respect from the majority 
of the boulders found inland. I may add here that Laurentian 
boulders have been observed on the north shore of Nova Scotia.* 
Dr Honeyman records their appearance even on the Atlantic coast., 
The older boulder clay of Prince Edward Island, with native 
boulders, must have been produced under circumstances of powerful 
ice action, in which comparatively little transport of material from a 
distance occurred. If we attribute this to a glacier, then as Prince 
Edward Island is merely a slightly raised portion of the bottom of 
the Gulf of St Lawrence, this can have been no other than a gigantie 
mass of ice fillmg the whole basin of the gulf, and without any slope 
to give it movement except toward the centre of this great though — 
shallow depression. On the other hand, if we attribute the boulder clay 
to floating ice, it must have been produced at a time when numerous 
heavy bergs were disengaged from what of Labrador was above water, 
and when this was too thoroughly enveloped in snow and ice to afford 
many travelled stones. Further, that this boulder-clay is a submarine 
and not a subaerial deposit, seems to be rendered probable by the eir- 
cumstance, that many of the boulders of the native sandstone are so soft 
that they crumble immediately when exposed to the weather and frost. 
The travelled boulders lying on the surface of the boulder clay 
evidently belong to a later period, when the hills of Labrador and 
Nova Scotia were above water, though lower than at present, and were 
sufficiently bare to furnish large supplies of stones to coast ice carried 
* Notes on Post-pliocene, 1872, p. 112. 


THE POST-PLIOCENE. 27 


by the tidal currents sweeping up the coast, or by the Arctic current 
from the north, and deposited on the surface of Prince Edward Island, 
then a shallow sand-bank. The sands with sea-shells probably be- 
longed to this period, or perhaps to the later part of it, when the 
land was gradually rising. Frince Edward Island thus appears to 
have received boulders from both sides of the Gulf of St Lawrence 
during the later Post-pliocene period; but the greater number from 
the south side, perhaps because nearer to it. It thus furnishes a 
remarkable illustration of the transport of travelled stones at this period 
in different directions; and in the comparative absence of travelled 
stones in the lower boulder clay ; it furnishes a similar illustration of 
the homogeneous and untravelled character of that deposit, in cireum- 
stances where the theory of floating ice serves to account for it at 
least as well as that of land ice, and, in my judgment, greatly better. 


Subdivisions of the Pleistocene Deposits.—In Chapter V., and in my 
Memoirs on the Pleistocene of the St Lawrence Valley, I have proposed 
a threefold division of these beds into Boulder clay, Leda clay, and 
Saxicava sand and gravel, to which may be added the old peaty 
deposit observed under the boulder clay in Cape Breton. Mr 
Matthew has since recognised in New Brunswick certain beds only 
locally developed in the St Lawrence Valley, and which I have been 
hitherto disposed to regard as depending on the action of streams 
from the land or littoral agencies, but which he regards as marine 
deposits. They are gravels and sands underlying the boulder clay, 
~and as yet destitute of fossils. He suggests for these the name 
“ Syrtensian’’ beds, proposed by Packard for the fauna of the Great 
Bank deposits of the Newfoundland and New England coasts, but the 
application of which to the beds in question depends on a theory 
of their origin not yet certainly established. He also recognises, as I 
have done in the St Lawrence Valley, a lower and upper member of the 
Leda clay — the latter being equivalent in its fossils to the Uddevalla 
beds of Sweden. The complete series of Pleistocene beds in Acadia 
and Canada would thus stand as follows, in ascending order, though 
it is to be observed that the whole series is not to be found 
developed at any one place :— 


(a.) Peaty terrestrial surface anterior to boulder clay. 

(b.) Lower stratified gravels—(Syrtensian deposits of Matthew). 

(c.) Boulder clay and unstratified sands with boulders. Fauna, 
when present, extremely Arctic. 

(d.) Lower Leda clay, with a limited number of highly Aretie shells, 
such as are now found only in permanently ice-laden seas. 


(e.) Upper Leda clay and sand, or Uddevalla beds, holding many 


23 THE POST-PLIOCENE. 


sub-Arctic or boreal shells similar to those of the Labrador 
coast at present. 

(f:) Saxicava sand and gravel, either non-fossiliferous, or with a 
few littoral shells of boreal or Acadian types. 


This table may be regarded as giving a complete statement of the 
series of deposits in the Post-pliocene, not only in the Acadian Pro- 
vinces, but throughout North-eastern America. 

Fossils of the Pust-pliocene. — Since the publication of the second 
edition, the Rev. Mr Paisley has published in the “ Canadian 
Naturalist’ (1872) a list of shells obtained from a railway cutting 
on the Tattagouche River, near Bathurst, in New Brunswick. They 
were found in beds of Leda clay passing upwards into sand and 
gravel. At the Jacquet River in the same district, the bones of a 
small cetacean have been found, and have been described by Dr 
Gilpin and Dr Honeyman.* They are referred by Dr Gilpin to Beluga 
Vermontana of Thompson from the Pleistocene of Vermont. Simi- 
lar bones have been found in the Leda clay of the St Lawrence 
Valley, and have been compared by the late Mr Billings with the 
skeleton of the recent B. catodon, L., of the St Lawrence, with — 
which the so-called B. Vermontana is probably identical, as the speci- 
mens above referred to, and examined by Billings, certainly were. 

In Prince Edward Island I have recorded the occurrence of Post- 
pliocene shells at Campbellton, and Mr Matthew has found Tellina 
Grenlandica at Horton Bluff, in beds probably of the age of the 
Saxicava sand. Mr Matthew has also published + a valuable 
synopsis of the fossils found up to 1876 in the Post-pliocene of New 
- Brunswick, in which the number of species of Mollusca is raised 
to more than thirty. He notes the important fact that the shells 
found on the coast of the Baie de Chaleur are of more northern type 
than those in the Bay of Fundy, which conform more nearly to the 
assemblage found in these deposits on the New England coasts, so 
that the existing geographical regions were already to some extent 
established on the coast of North America in the period of the Upper 
Leda clay. 


5. THE TRIAS. 


The principal addition to our knowledge of this formation is that 
contained in the Report by Dr Harrington and myself published in 
1871.{ In this we separated as Upper Carboniferous, or “ Permo- 

* Trans. Nova Scotia Institute, vol. iii. + Canadian Naturalist, vol. viii. 


¢ Report on the Geological Structure and Mineral Resources of Prince Edward 
Island—Dawson & Harrington. 


THE TRIAS. 29 


carboniferous,” an underlying series of red and gray sandstones and 
shales, holding Carboniferous plants, extending froin near Cape Wolfe 
toward the north point, and a similar series found at Governor's 
Island and Gallas Point in Hillsborough Bay. These are undoubtedly 
extensions of the Carboniferous of Nova Scotia. All the rest of the 
island is occupied with Triassic rocks; in one place, Hog Island in 
- Richmond Bay, associated with trap. The general relations of these 
rocks are seen in the sections. 

The beds of the Triassic series, as seen in Prince Edward Island, 
consist chiefly of soft red sandstone, with some buff-coloured beds and 
red and mottled clays. Associated with them are conglomerates and 
hard calcareous and concretionary sandstones, passing into bands of 
arenaceous limestone, which is in some places a dolomite. The 
following section in Orwell Bay and its vicinity shows the beds 
resting on the Upper Carboniferous of Gallas loint, and may be 
taken as typical. It is in ascending order :— 


Feet. 
1. Bright red sandstones with white bands . : ; a 80 
2. Red shales with white stains and red sandstones with 
cylindrical casts of fucoids . ? 60 
8. Red and purplish sandstones with gray Gants aa lasers 
of ferruginous conglomerate with obscure remains of nee 88 


4. Beach, probably representing soft beds. . 48 
5. Red flaggy sandstone with conglomerate and concretions ae 

red oxide of iron, containing remains of plants ; . , 00 

6. Bright red sandstones and red shale with greenish stains . 30 

7. Marsh, probably soft beds : , 24 
8. Red ale and green bands capped vite bnghe red. part 

stones : : ; ° : ‘ : . a, Vee 

405 


(Here the section is broken by Orwell Bay, which prob- 
ably represents some thigkness of soft beds.) 


9. On the high cliffs near Belfast are very bright red sand- 
stones and shaly beds, with gray blotches and cylindrical 
fucoids—about . : 120 

10. Over the last are seen, in the ancy cat of Belfast, soft i 
sandstones with beds of conglomerate with rounded quartz 
pebbles and arenaceous cement (thickness uncertain) 


525 
As seen in this section, the whole thickness of these beds cannot 
much exceed 500 feet. Of this the lowest 270 feet, being Nos. 1 to 


30 THE TRIAS. 


5 inclusive, of the above section may be referred to the lower divi- 
sion, or “ Bunter,’ and the remainder to the upper division of the 
formation, or “* Keuper.” The dips are so low, and the beds so 
much affected by oblique stratification, that those of the Trias cannot - 
be said to be unconformable to the underlying Carboniferous rocks ; 
and for this reason, as well as on account of the similarity in mineral 
character between the two groups, some uncertainty may rest on 
the position of the line of separation. That above stated depends 
on fossils, or a somewhat abrupt change of mineral character, and 
on a slight change in the direction of the dip. These beds spread 
over the greater part of the island, presenting a nearly horizontal 
attitude, or lying in very flat synclinals and anticlinals. They are 
well seen in the coast cliffs in many places, and several of these 
coast sections are given in the Report above referred to. 

The general sections (Figs. 2,3) show the arrangement of this 
formation and its relations to those of Nova Scotia. 

Fossils are rare in the Triassic beds. Of plants, one of the most 
interesting is a species of coniferous tree distinct from that occurring 
in the Carboniferous beds beneath, and allied to Dadoxylon Keuperi- 
anum of the European Trias. I have described it under the name 
D. Edvardianum. Another is apparently a small cycadean stem, 
which I have described as Cycadeoidea (Mantellia) Abequidensis, from 
the old Micmac name of the Island.* Beside these there are Knorria- 
like stems, a coarsely marked Sternbergia, and impressions resembling 
fucoids. The only animal fossil yet known is Bathygnathus borealis, 
Leidy, described in Chapter VIII. The added knowledge of such fossils 
since that chapter was written, now enables us to refer this animal to 
the group of carnivorous dinosaurs, the highest known reptiles, and to 
regard it as a terrestrial animal, probably provided with large hind 
limbs for leaping, and to enable it to assume an erect position at will. 
That remains of such creatures should be exceedingly few is not 
wonderful, when we consider that at the time when they lived Prince 
Edward Island must have been a submarine bank, on which the car- 
cases of animals living on the neighbouring lands must have been 
very rarely deposited, even if we suppose these lands extensive and 
well peopled with reptilian forms. 


6. THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 


Chapter IX., headed “The Permian Blank,” is devoted to the 
inquiry as to whether any part of the uppermost layers of the Car- 
boniferous may, in part at least, represent this system of formations as 

* Report, p. 45. 


*suoT}ONg oy} [[w uI—duary, orssetsy, (2) *sury, (9) ‘snosajiuoqavy (p) 


31 


‘SQOUSAINOGUV,)) AHL OL GNWIST GUVACWY AONIUG dO SVU], AHL JO SNOLLVIAU AIAVdOUd AHL ONTMOHS ‘NOLLOag ‘Ivaay 


—SSSSS=ZZzZzZzz=aaSS——_s 
SE 
q 
“OO SD YL *JULOG SBI[eY) *spuv[sy poo “JQ puvpoquny}IoN _ “BIJOOgG PAON 
"¢ “SIF 
a 
=) 
cS 
& 
= XOAUJ, TdVO OL NOLVITAIIKVO KOUuT ‘ANWIS]T GUVMGG AONIUG SSOUOV NOILOAG IVUANAY) 
= 2 % 2 —y == 
= a LSSS]SBSSgEeEeSSeae 
: S—SS—_——— SS 
- ———— 
Sc Aug puowrony uo} [joqdure,) 
g ‘pue[sy] Soyy , 
= DZS 
= 
= 
“ISVAIAG OL THU VAY, Nous ‘ANVIS] auyMaGq FONIUg dO IsvOD NO NOLLOAUG IVYANAY) 
Q a 


: ‘SUL “Avg [19MIQ, “qo seytey “Aug [vuMod ‘OSPNL IH PAL 


3% 31g 


32 THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 


developed elsewhere. The information obtained in the survey of 


Prince Edward Island in 1871, and followed up by re-examination of 
the upper members of the Carboniferous in Nova Scotia, has enabled 


me to give in a paper, presented to the Geological Society of Lon- 4 


don in 1874, a more definite reply to this question, and to affirm 


that we have at least a Permo-carboniferous formation closing the 


Carboniferous period, and whose fossils indicate that it represents 
beds of transition between the Carboniferous and Permian. This 
passing of the Coal formation upwards into the Permian is not without 
parallel elsewhere. It is observed both in England and Western 
America, and has led many to regard the Permian rather as an 
upward extension of the Carboniferous than as a distinct group. 
Where best developed, however, as in England and Germany, the 
Permian or Dyas is certainly to be regarded as a distinct formation ; 
and even where its beds are absent, the lapse of long time is indicated 
by the disturbances of the Carboniferous and the entire change of life 
on entering the Trias. For the details of the facts bearing on the 
Permo-carboniferous of Prince Edward Island and Eastern Nova 
Scotia I must refer to the paper above mentioned,* but may give 
here some of the more salient points. . 

The Upper Coal formation was first distinguished as a separate 
member of the Carboniferous system in Eastern Nova Scotia by the 
writer, in a paper published in the first volume of the Journal of the 
Geological Society, in 1845—and was defined to be an upper or 
overlying series superimposed on the productive Coal-measures, and 
distinguished by the absence of thick coal-seams, by the prevalence 
of red and gray sandstones and red shales, and by a peculiar group 
of vegetable fossils. 

Subsequently, in my paper on the South Joggins+ and in Aca- 
dian Geology, this formation was identified itt the upper series 


of the Joggins section, Divisions 1 and 2 of Sir William Logan’s - 


sectional list, and with the Upper Barren Measures of the English 
Coal-fields, and the third or upper zone of Geinitz in the — for- 
mation of Saxony.t 

Still more recently, in the “ Report on the Geology of Prince Edward 
Island,” 1871, I have referred to the upper part of the same forma- 


tion, the lower series of sandstones in Prince Edward Island not pre- 


viously separated from the overlying Trias.§ 
In Prince Edward Island, however, where the highest beds of this 
* Journal Geological Society, August 1874. 


+ Journ. Geol. Soe., vol. x. t Ac. Geol., p. 149. 
@ Report on the Geological Structure of Prince Edward Island. 


{Py 


THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 33 


series occur, they become nearly horizontal, and are overlain appa- 

rently in a conformable manner by the red sandstones of the Trias, 

which differ very little from them in mineral character. It thus 

happens that, but for the occurrence of some of the characteristic 

Carboniferous plants in the lower series, and of a few equally charac- 

_ teristic Triassic forms in the upper, it would be difficult to aflirm that 
we have to deal with two formations so different in age. 

In connexion with this, the presumed absence of the Permian, 
not only here but throughout Eastern America, raises the question 
which I have already suggested in Acadian Geology, whether the 
conditions of the Upper Coal formation may not have continued 
longer here than in Europe, so that rocks in the former region con- 
stituting an upward extension of the Carboniferous may synchronize 
with part at least of the Permian. On the one hand, there seems to 
be no stratigraphical break to separate these rocks from the Middle 
Coal formation of Nova Scotia; and their fossils are in the main 
identical. On the other hand, where the beds are so slightly in- 
clined that the Trias seems conformable to the Carboniferous, no very 
marked break is to be expected; and some of the fossils, as the coni- 
fers of the genus Walchia and Calamites gigas, have a decided 
Permian tendency. 

On the whole, in the Report above referred to, I declined to 
separate the red beds of the lower series in Prince Edward Island 
from the Newer Coal formation. Prof. Geinitz, however, in noticing 
my Report,* and also in a private letter, expresses the opinion that 
the fossils have, as an assemblage, so much of a Permian (or Dyadic) 
aspect that they may fairly be referred to that formation, more par- 
ticularly to its lower part, the Lower Rothliegende. Attaching, as 
every one must, great weight to the judgment of Prof. Geinitz on such 
a point, I determined to re-examine the more instructive sections of 
the Newer Coal formation on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, with 
the view of ascertaining whether any stratigraphical or paleontological 
line can be found to divide’ the Upper Coal formation series of my 
former papers into two members, or to separate it from the Middle 
Coal formation. The results of this re-examination and their bearing 

: on general geological questions may be stated as follows :— 

The Carboniferous district of Pictou county, extending for about 
45 miles along the shores of Northumberland Strait, exposes in that 
distance, in coast and river sections, the whole thickness of the Carbo- 
niferous system, arranged in three synclinal forms. 

The First or eastern synclinal, extending from the older metamor- 


* Neues Jahrbuch, 1872. 


PTs 


34 THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS., 


phic rocks on the eastward and southward to a line running nearly 
east and west through the town of New Glasgow, consists entirely of 
the Lower Carboniferous, Millstone-grit, and Middle Coal formation, 
and contains all the known workable Coal-measures of the county. 
Its northern boundary, the New Glasgow anticlinal, brings up a bed 
not recognised in the other Nova Scotia Coal-fields—the New Glasgow 
Conglomerate, an immense mass, believed in some parts to be 1600 
feet in thickness,* and containing boulders 3 feet in diameter, with 
pebbles of all sizes, many of its largest stones being composed of the 
hard brown or purplish sandstones of the Lower Carboniferous. Its 
stratigraphical position is that of the upper part of the Millstone-grit or 
lower part of the Middle Coal formation; and it is evidently an excep- 
tional bed, representing an immense bar or beach of gravel and stones, 
stretching from the eastern end of the metamorphic chain of the Cobe- 
quid Mountains across the Pictou Coal-field, and protecting those deep 
swamps in which the Pictou main coal, 36 feet thick, and its black shale 
roof, more than 1000 feet thick, were deposited. The theory of this 
remarkable deposit, one of the most singular connected with any coal- 
field, is fully discussed in the second edition of my ‘“ Acadian 
Geology.” I may merely remark that, facing, as this bed does, the 
open sea stretching to the northward in the Coal formation period, it 
is not unreasonable to suppose that it indicates the action of heavy 
ice grounding on the shores behind which grew the Svgillaria forests 
of the Coal-swamps. The arrangement of the beds in the first syn- 
clinal, which is that of the great Pictou Coal-beds, has recently been 
worked out in much detail by Sir W. E. Logan and the late Mr E. 
Hartley. 

The Second or middle synclinal extends from New Glasgow to 
Carribou Harbour, and centres in the deep indentation of Pictou 
Harbour. On its southern side it contains, north of New Glasgow, 
the depauperated equivalent of the Middle Coal formation; and the 
remainder of it is occupied by the Newer Coal formation, whose 
newest beds, however, are not represented in this trough. The low 
anticlinal which separates it from the third trough brings up nothing 
clder than the lower part of the Newer Coal formation. 

The Third synclinal extends from Carribou Harbour to Cape John, 
and, stretching westward through the Cumberland Coal-field, shows 
in its centre the newest beds of the Upper Coal formation, here more 
especially referred to. 

It is to be observed that in these synclinals the north-west sides 


* This is Sir W. Logan’s estimate, and is warranted by the breadth which the bed 
occupies in the section; but there are indications that it thins rapidly toward the dip. 


© 


a) 


Sl) 


THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 


have steeper dips than the south-east sides, and consequently oceupy 
a less breadth on the map. ‘The south-east sides also show the best 
and most continuous sections; and for this reason I shall select the 
section from New Glasgow to Pictou Harbour, and that from Carribou 
Harbour towards Cape John, as typical of the lower and upper parts 
of the Upper Coal format'on. 


Section on the East River of Pictou. 


1. In the river section, below New Glasgow bridge, the conglo- 
merate is succeeded in ascending order by a gray concretionary lime- 
stone 20 feet thick, associated with sandstone and shale, and containing 
in some layers great numbers of the Spirorbis, which I have described 
as S. arietinus,* and whose habits of life were probably not dissimilar 
to those of S. carbonarius, so abundant in the Coal-measures. This 
limestone does not appear in the immediate river section, but on the 
flank of the conglomerate east of New Glasgow. 

2. Above this is a series of black shales and underclays with gray 
sandstones aud some reddish and purple shales, and thin seams of 
bituminous shale and coal. These beds contain Stigmarie, Lepido- 
dendra, Entomostracans, and fish-remains; the fossils and the mineral 
character of the beds alike corresponding with those seen in the upper 
part of the Coal-measures south of the conglomerate. The thickness 
of these beds is about 400 feet. 

3. This series is succeeded by a thick gray sandstone holding 
Calamites, Calamodendron, trunks with aerial roots (Psaronius), ete., 
30 to 50 feet thick. This appears at the mouth of Smelt Brook, and 
in several quarries to the eastward of that place. 

4, Above this is a second series of dark shales and underclays, and 
bituminous shales associated with gray sandstones, and containing 
fossils similar to those of the series below. It especially abounds in 
fish-scales and Cythere; and several of the fishes are specifically 
identical with those of the upper part of the Middle Coal-measures, 
as seen in the southern trough south of New Glasgow. ‘These beds 
are about 200 feet thick. Mr H. Poole has described them in the 
“ Canadian Naturalist’ for August 1860. 

5. The beds up to this point may be considered the equivalents 
of the Middle Coal-measures, or of the upper part of them, and are 
now succeeded in ascending order by thick gray and reddish sand- 
stones, and reddish and gray shales, including, however, thin coaly 


* Report of Geol. Survey of Canada. This limestone may be compared with the 
‘* Spirorbis limestone” of the Shrewsbury, Lancashire, and Warwickshire Coal-fields 
in England. Hull, ‘‘ Coal-fields of Great Britain.” See also Note 3, p. 102. 

Cc 


36 THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 


beds and underclays, and clays with nodular limestone. These may be 
regarded as belonging to the Upper Coal formation; and their aggre- 
gate thickness as far as Pictou Harbour may be 2000 feet. They 
contain Calamites, trunks of Dadoxylon materiarium, Lepidodendron, 
Pecopteris arborescens 2 and Neuropteris. 

The dip of the conglomerate is high; and that this is not alto- 
gether due to false stratification is shown by the fact, that to the 
eastward of New Glasgow the limestone and the Coal-measure beds 
rest on the conglomerate at an angle of 45°; but this rapidly dimi- 
nishes to 20°, and in the greater part of the section it is only from 8° 
to 6°. 

The line of demarcation between the Middle and Upper Coal for- 
mations is not marked here by any great physical break, but merely 
by the cessation of the characteristic beds of the Middle Coal forma- 
tion and the change to sandstones associated with red shales. 3 

At first sight it might appear that as the beds north of the con- 
glomerate dip uniformly to the north, and mostly at slight angles, 
and those south of its outcrop are much more disturbed, there might 
be evidence of unconformability. This, however, is due to a line of 
fault extending along the outcrop of the conglomerate, and to the 
greater relative disturbance of the beds of the southern synclinal. 


Section West of Carribou Harbour. 


This section exposes the south side of the third or northern syn- 
clinal, and may be supposed to begin not far above the base of the 
Upper Coal formation. It extends in ascending order obliquely across 
the synclinal for about ten miles, along a coast in which the beds are 
on the whole well exposed, with uniform dips of about N. 30° E. 
magnetic, or nearly true north, and at an angle of about 10°; and no 
break or evidence of unconformability exists throughout the series, 
which amounts here in thickness to about 2500 feet. 

The lowest beds seen in this section at the mouth of Carribou River 
are red and gray shales, and gray, red, and brown sandstones, includ- 
ing a small bed of coal 5 inches thick, with Stigmaria rootlets in 
the underclay; and at Carribou Island, nearly in the line of strike, 
there is a somewhat thicker bed of coal. The overlying series may 
be described as consisting of indefinite alternations of shales, mostly 
deep red, with sandstones, gray, red, and brown, the latter sometimes 
coarse and pebbly, and occasionally in thick massive beds. Several 
of the beds of shale contain concretions of limestone, in one case 
forming a nearly continuous bed, and with no fossils except a few casts 
of a Cythere. In one of the lower beds of sandstone seen on Carribou 


THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 37 


River there are concretions of gray copper, and fossil trunks of trees 
penetrated by this mineral; and some of the fossil trees found in the 
_ sandstones on the coast are partly mineralized with sulphate of 
baryta. 

The only material difference in mineral character is that red beds 
become more prevalent toward the upper part of the section, where 
the general character of the series is precisely that of the supposed 
Upper Coal formation rocks at Miminigash, Governor’s Island, and 
Gallas Point in Prince Edward Island, and on tbe coast of New 
Brunswick at Cape Jourimain.* 

The following statements, reduced from my sectional lists, will 
serve to illustrate these points of mineral character. 

In the whole section the sandstones, including the argillaceous 
sandstones, are to the shales in the proportion of about two to one 
in vertical thickness, and the gray and buff sandstones are about equal 
to those which are brown and red, while the red and mottled shales 
greatly ‘preponderate over those which are gray. 

In the lower half of the section, extending to the mouth of Toney 
River, the gray sandstone, red sandstone, and shales (mostly red) are 
in the proportions of 44, 3, 64. In the upper half of the section they 
are in the proportions of 43, 54, 3; so that red sandstones become 
decidedly more prevalent in the upper part, where there is also a 
greater proportion of coarse pebbly sandstones and of light-red shale 
with greenish stains. 

If we compare this with the upper part of the Joggins section as 
given in Sir William Logan’s lists, we find a thickness of 2267 feet ; 
and if we regard the Ragged Reef Sandstones as equivalent to the 
heavy sandstones at the base of the Pictou section, it is possible that 
the upper part of the latter is not represented at the Joggins. Taking 
the proportions of sandstones and shales at the latter place, we find 
them to be gray sandstone 12, red and brown sandstone 1, shale 10; 
so that here the proportions of sandstones to shales are not very dis- 
similar to those in the lower part of the Pictou series, but the gray 
sandstones are greatly more prevalent. Like those in the upper part 
at Pictou, some of the upper beds at the Joggins are coarse and 
pebbly, a character not observed in either Coal-field, in the sandstones 
of the Middle Coal formation. 

If, on the other hand, we turn to Prince Edward Island, the geo- 
logical relations, and especially the fact that the outcrops on Prince 
Edward Island correspond with the extension of two of the New 
Brunswick Carboniferous anticlinals, would lead us to believe that 


* Report on Prince Edward Island. 


38 THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 


the Upper Coal formation beds seen at Gallas Point, and amounting 
to about 800 feet in vertical thickness, must belong to the upper part 
of the Pictou series, or may even reach some way above its summit. 
Accordingly, we find the proportions of the several rocks to be, gray 
sandstone 2, red and brown sandstone 4, shales 2, or a still greater 
proportion of red sandstone as compared with Pictou. Ail this accords 
with the idea of a gradual increase of red beds in approaching the 
summit of the formation, so that the Upper Coal formation passes in 
its upper part into beds having more the aspect of some parts of the 
Lower Dyas or Permian. No true dolomite is present in these beds; 
but Dr Harrington’s analyses show that some of the thin beds of 
concretionary limestone are highly magnesian, and the sandstones 
contain concretions of sulphate of copper, while the fossil trees which 
abound in them are often mineralized with sulphides of copper and 
iron, and sulphate of baryta. 

In the paper referred to, lists are given of the characteristic fossil 
plants in the upper beds, and it is shown that the species found, though 
mostly common to these beds and the Middle Coal formation, consti- 
tute a peculiar group, having strong points of resemblance with the 
flora of the Lower Permian in Europe. 

In Prince Edward Island the Upper Carboniferous and the Trias 
are apparently conformable, and may almost be said to pass into each 
other, though in Nova Scotia the Trias rests unconformably on the 
Carboniferous. I believe, however, that this apparent conformity in 
Prince Edward Island, and the resemblance of the two series in mineral 
characters, arises from the almost horizontal position of the Carboni- 
ferous beds, and from the circumstance that the Trias has been in 
part formed from their waste. The Triassic fossils, though few, are 
of species quite distinct from those of the Carboniferous. Further 
details as to the relations of these formations in Prince Edward Island 
will be found in my Report on that island. 

To sum up, it may be said that the beds which overlie the Coal- 
field of Pictou and extend into Prince Edward Island, and which 
constitute the upper part of the Upper Coal formation, have such 
strong points of resemblance to the lower part of the European Per- 
mian, both in their mineral character and organic remains, that they 
may fairly be named Permo-carboniferous, a name already applied to 
certain marine limestones in the West, in which the Carboniferous 
graduates upward into the Permian. They may also be held to some 
extent to bridge over the gap which in Eastern America generally 
separates the Carboniferous from the Trias. 

I may add that in Nova Scotia the Lower Carboniferous beds are 


THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 39 


usually more hardened and altered than those of the Middle Coal 
formation, and the latter more than those of the Upper Coal formation. 
Moreover, there are instances in Nova Scotia of local unconformability 
of the Lower Carboniferous beds ; and the New Glasgow conglomerate 
affords evidence of extensive denudation of the Lower Carboniferous 
before the deposition of the productive Coal-measures. These facts 
indicate the long duration of the Carboniferous period and the extent 
of the physical changes which it included; and it is evident that, 
had unconformability or extensive local denudation occurred some- 
what higher in the system, it might have been regarded as forming 
the base of an overlying Permian series. 

Detailed descriptions and sections of the Permo-carboniferous beds 
as they occur at Gallas Point, Governor’s Island, and Campbellton, 
in Prince Edward Island, are given in the Report above referred to. 


7. THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


With reference to the structure and stratigraphy of the Carboni- 
ferous, a large amount of work has been done by the officers of the 
Geological Survey, principally in the Cape Breton, Pictou, and Cum- 
berland areas, and more especially in the productive Coal-measures. 
Much has also been done by private explorations, and the results are 
so voluminous that I can scarcely do more than refer to the Rerorts 
in which the principal of them are contained. 


Discoveries in different Coal-Felds. 

In the Report of the Geological Survey for 1872-8, Messrs Bailey 
and Matthew have given details of the Coal-field of New Brunswick, 
derived both from surveys and from borings made by Mr Ells. The 
most remarkable general result is the small thickness of this widely- 
extended Coal formation area. The estimate given is as follows, in 
ascending order :— 

Gray sandstones and shales, paunalens of Mill- “200 feet. 
stone-grit . : ; 


Coal-measures containing no known ited fvatcen 200 
than 26 inches . : : ; = ” 


Upper Coal formation . ‘ ; : Hee 0) eee 
600 ,, 


Perhaps there should be added to this a small additional thickness 
for the Permo-carboniferous of the shore of Northumberland Strait. 
But in any case it presents a great contrast to the vast thickness of 


~ 


40 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


the Carboniferous system in the Pictou or Cumberland areas, 
amounting to many thousands of feet, and shows how very unequal 
subsidence and deposition must have been even in neighbouring 
areas not separated by any physical barrier. The facts thus ascer- 
tained do not increase the probability of the discovery of valuable 
coals in this great area. Some of the widely-extended thin beds 
may perhaps admit, at some time, of being worked on a large scale, 
and possibly large beds may exist in the central part of the area 
remote from the older rocks, or on the north-eastern coast. The coast 
between Bathurst and Miramichi River, and that between the latter 
and Buctouche, afford perhaps some of the most promising localities. 

The Cumberland Coal-field has attracted much attention, and more 
especially that part of it in the Springhill district which is traversed 
by the Intercolonial Railway, affording so great facilities for the 
transmission of its produce. Mr Barlow reports* that in the Spring- 
hill areas eight or nine seams of coal have been discovered, the prin- 
cipal one being 11 feet in thickness, and affording coal of very 
good quality. There is an overlying seam 13 feet thick, but 
with two clay partings. Mr Hartley gives as the analysis of the 
Springhill coal :— 


Volatile matter . " : , 35°39 
Fixed carbon. < 3 % 60°46 
Ash . ‘ 2 j ; ; 4°15 

100-00 


So that this appears to be an excellent coal, altogether superior to 
that of which I have given an analysis (Ac. Geol., p. 221), and which 
was an outcrop sample, the only one that I could at that time obtain. 

The Reports of Sir W. E. Logan and Mr Hartley (Geol. Survey 
Reports, 1869) have added greatly to our knowledge of the strue- 
> ture of the Pictou Coal-field, and more especially of the faults 
traversing it, and the distribution of the measures on the east side of 
the East River, and the actual productive limits of the Coal-field. A 
detailed map accompanies the Report, and Mr Hartley has given 
tables of analyses and practical trials of the coals. On the east side 
of the East River, the trough-shaped arrangement already referred to 
appears to continue as far as the left bank of Sutherland’s River. A 
subordinate anticlinal appears, however, to occur in the middle of the 
trough, or rather nearer the East River, and there are a number of 
faults, both parallel and transverse to the axis of the trough. In the 

* Report Geol. Survey, 1866-69. 


~ ye 
¢ 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 41 


western end of this part of the trough, that nearest the East River, 
no important extension of the great seams of the Albion mines appears 
yet to have been distinctly recognised, though these seams, or their 
equivalents, must exist both on the south side towards M‘Lellan’s 
brook, and on the north side near New Glasgow (see the map, Ac. 
Geol., p. 8320). The beds of coal which have been worked near the 
east side of the East River, the Foster and Lawson seams, are 
believed to overlie the great main seam by a thickness of about 1500 
feet. In the eastern half of the trough these upper beds are appa- 
rently represented by the Marsh Brook seam, the George M‘Kay 
seam, and associated beds; and the correspondence of the beds and 
their containing measures, as well as in the quality and structure of 
the coal, seem to establish this equivalency. But here, at a distance 
of 480 yards to the rise, occurs the M‘Bean seam, now worked in the 
Vale Colliery, and associated with other seams, making in all so 
great an aggregate of coal, that they may not unreasonably be 
regarded as the equivalents of the main seam. In this case, how- 
ever, the thickness of the overlying measures must-have diminished 
or been concealed by faults, and on that account it is still possible 
that the real equivalents of the main seam may occur lower down. 
The M‘Lean beds, not yet worked, lying to the westward of the 
explored part of the M‘Bean seams, may in the one case be the con- 
tinuation of the M‘Bean series, or in the other may be much lower. 
There can be little doubt that these M‘Lean beds represent the main 
seam. The great inequality of the original deposits in this Coal- 
field, and the di-turbances to which they have been subjected, with 
the absence of good natural sections, oppose great obstacles as yet to 
the decisive settlement of these questions—the answers to which 
are, however, being gradually worked out by mining explorations. 

In 1868, immediately after the publication of my second edition, I 
had an opportunity to examine some parts of the coast of Cape 
Breton, and more carefully to correlate the Coal-beds of that region, 
as well as to make some important observations on fossil plants. 
These observations have not been published in full, but in the same 
year I sent a note relating to them to the Nova Scotia Institute, 
which was printed in their Transactions, and gives my views on these 
subjects as formed at that time. 

The following section of the Coal formation, as exposed on the 
south side of Sydney Harbour, on the property of the Victoria Mining 
Company, is condensed from observations made with the aid of Mr 
Ross, of the Victoria Mine, and Mr Mosely of Sydney. The order 
is descending. 


42 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 
Vans 4a 
1 SO Carn? Seam —<, 5 : : 4 
Sandstone, Shales, ete., about . 429 
2. “Paint” Seam . : : : 13 4 
Sandstones, Shales, ete., about . 216 
3. “Crandall” Seam . : ; 4 4 
Sandstones, Shales, etc., about . 400 
4. “Ross” Seam . : é 5 Op i 
Sandstones, Shales, ete., about . 325 
5. “ William Fraser’ Seam : 2 
Sandstones, Shales, ete., about . 112 
6. “Number Three” Seam : 4 
Sandstones, Shales, ete., about . 138 
7. “H. M‘Gillivray” Seam. 5 5 
Sandstones, Shales, ete. . of) welioe 
8. “D. M‘Gillivray’”’ Seam . ‘ 2 
Sandstones, Shales, ete., about . 1000 
9. “Fraser” Seam . ; ; 6 


Sandstones ( Millstone-grit series). 


This series of Coal-beds I believe to represent the whole of the 
workable beds known at North Sydney as well as those of Glace Bay 
and Cow Bay. The high angle of dip brings their outcrops nearer 
to one another than is usual in this district, and a good coast cliff and 
beach section enables them to be well studied. This section is the 
best guide I have seen to the vexed question as to the equivalents of 
the several Coal-beds in the different mining areas of Cape Breton, 
but its application is by no means easy. On the south side of Sydney 
harbour the Coal-beds above-mentioned dip about N. 5° E. at angles of 
30° to 45°. On the opposite side of the harbour the corresponding 
beds dip to the north-east at an angle of 10 degrees or less. Conse- 
quently the beds, crowded together on the south side, spread out like 
a fan on the north side. In addition to this, when we measure the 
thickness of the beds intervening between the several seams of coal, 
it is evident that they must vary greatly both in character and thick- 
ness within very short distances. Making due allowance for these 
differences, it would seem that the Paint seam of the above list 
must be the Lloyd’s Cove seam of the North Sydney series. In 
this case the main seam at North Sydney is equivalent to the Ross 
seam. The equivalency of these beds with those of Glace Bay and 
Cow Bay is more uncertain. I was inclined to correlate the Paint 
seam with that known as the Phelan at Glace Bay, and to suppose 
that the lower seams were still to be found there; but different views 


az 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 43 


have been stated by Mr Robb, which would tend to diminish some- 
what the probable importance of the lower beds of coal underlying those 
worked at Glace Bay and Cow Bay. These, however, include the 
equivalents of the Gardiner seam and the M‘Gillivray seams. To 
these points I may add the statement that in my sketch map, page 
413, the strike of the beds at the east side of Sydney Harbour should 
turn a little more to the south, and that the outcrops should be closer 
to each other; and that, by an error in the engraving, the town of 
Sydney is removed from its true position on the southern arm of the 
harbour to the south-west bar. I am indebted to Mr Mosely of 
Sydney for information bearing on some of these points. 

In the Reports of the Geological Survey for 1872-3, 1873-4, and 
1874-5, Mr Robb has gone with great elaborateness into these ques- 
tions, and correlates the Sydney main seam not only with the Ross 
or Victoria, but with the David’s Head seam of Bridgport, the Har- 
bour seam of Glace Bay, and the Block-House seam of Cow Bay. 
Mr R. Brown has stated a similar view of the equivalency of these 
beds in his work on the Coal-fields of Cape Breton.* 

Leaving these local details, I may now refer to some curious fossil 
plants met with in the Coal formation of Cape Breton, and deserving 
of record as additions to our knowledge of its flora. Among the 
rarest of fossil plants in the Coal rocks of Nova Scotia have hitherto 
been the trunks of tree-ferns. The scattered fronds are sufticiently 
abundant, but trunks of arborescent species are seldom found. Mr 
Poole’s collections at Glace Bay enable me to add another fine 
species to the Coal flora of Nova Scotia. It is a large flattened stem, 
a foot or more in diameter, marked with many wrinkles over the 
whole surface, and with large distant oval leaf-sears 1} inch in 
diameter and 3 inches in length, to which large fronds must have 
been attached. It is a near ally of Caulopteris macrodiscus, Stern- 
berg, but has larger and more distant scars, more obtuse above. I 
would name it Caulopteris glacensis. It belongs to the genus 
Ptychopteris of Corda. Another remarkable trunk, which I found 
obscurely preserved in coarse sandstone at North Sydney, appears 
different from anything hitherto described. It seems to have had 
four vertical rows of sears, the form of which could not be made out; 
but I have little doubt that it belonged to an arborescent fern with 
a stem 4 inches in diameter and several feet at least in height. 
Near an abandoned coal-mine at Bridgeport I also founda fragment of 
one of those tree-ferns surrounded with aerial roots, to which the name 
Psaronius has been given, but not admitting of specific description. 


* London, 1871. 


44 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


As I have been able hitherto only to describe four species of 
trunks of tree-ferns, these are considerable additions. Among other 
interesting specimens in the collection of Mr Poole, I also saw the 
curious sigillaroid tree Syringodendron cyclostigma, Brongniart, and a 
species of Sigillaria new to Nova Scotia and allied to S. rugosa of 
Brongniart, though scarcely sufficiently perfect for description. 
Another remarkable form collected by Mr Poole is a flattened 
striated stem about an inch in width, with two rows of punctiform 
marks at the sides, and giving off alternate slightly curved branches, 
at right angles, and in one plane. It may have been the stipe of a 
fern. 

Another interesting fossil observed at North Sydney was an erect 
Sigillaria, with that peculiar bulb-like enlargement of the base 
figured by Sternberg on Plate xxxviil. of his great work, but which 
I had not before seen, the Stgillarie found in Nova Scotia usually 
enlarging regularly towards the base in the manner of ordinary trees. 
This bulb-like appearance seemed to be a natural feature of the 
growth of the plant, which had the markings of S. renzforinis. 
Through the kindness of my friend Mr Brown, of the Sydney col- 
liery, the specimen was carefully taken down from the cliff, and for- 
warded to Montreal; and it now stands, a column five feet in height, 
in the museum of M‘Gill University. 

Since 1868, the Coal-field of Campbellton, an extension northward 
of the Sydney series, lying against the ancient Syenitic ridge of St 
Anne’s Mountain, has been explored, and coal-workings commenced 
in it,* and the extension of workable Coal-measures has been traced on 
the west coast of Cape Breton, north of Mabou, in Broad Cove. These 
have been reported on by Professor Hind. The boundaries of the 
Millstone-grit and Carboniferous limestone in the vicinity of Sydney 
Harbour have also been carefully mapped by Mr Fletcher of the 
Dominion Geological Survey. 


Lower Members of the Carboniferous. 


Turning now to the lower members of the Carboniferous series ; in 
connection with a Report on the Fossil Plants of the Lower Carboni- 
ferous and Millstone-grit Formations,+ I have endeavoured to 
classify these, and to indicate their equivalency with formations 
abroad, a subject at present exciting some controversy among Euro- 
pean geologists. 

Where most fully developed in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 
these formations may be thus subdivided in ascending order :— 

* Report Geol. Survey, 1873-4. + Geol. Sury. of Canada, 1873. 


———- 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 45 


Ist. Zhe Horton Series or Lower Carboniferous Coal-measures, con- 
sisting of hard sandstones and shales often calcareous, associated 
with conglomerate and grit, and in some places with highly 
bituminous shales. They contain underclays and thin coaly 
seams, remains of plants, fishes, and entomostracans, and foot- 
prints of batrachians, but no strictly marine remains. This 
group was first established as a distinct subdivision of the Car- 
boniferous in Nova Scotia, by Sir C. Lyell and the writer in 
1844 and 1847. (See Note 2, p. 99.) 

2d. The Windsor Series or Lower Carboniferous Limestone and 
Gypsiferous Beds.—This is a marine formation holding charac- 
teristic shells and corals of the Lower Carboniferous period, 
and containing in addition to the limestone thick beds of sand- 
stone, marl, and clay, usually red, and of gypsum. First defined 
by Sir C. Lyell in 1843. 

3d. The Millstone-grit Series, consisting of sandstones and shales, 
often red, and conglomerate, associated with dark-coloured beds 
holding fossil plants and Navadites, and with a few underclays 
and thin seams of coal. The name Millstone-grit was first 
applied to these as a distinct group by Mr R. Brown in 1844. 
The group was distinctly indicated in Sir W. E. Logan’s section 
of the South Joggins in 1843, and in my paper of the same 
year on the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Eastern Nova Scotia. 

Above these are (4th) the Middle Coal formation, and (5th) the 
Upper or Newer Coal formation with the overlying Permo-car- 
boniferous Series. 


In some localities the lower member is absent, the marine lime- 
stones resting on the older rocks. In cther localities the marine 
member is absent, or very slenderly developed, and the Lower Carboni- 
ferous Coal measures and Millstone-grit are united together. In this 
case, however, the lower series is usually represented by coarse con- 
glomerates with few fossils. 

The equivalency of these beds with formations abroad is a subject 
of some importance, more especially with respect to the Horton series 
or Lower Carboniferous Coal measures, as errors have been com- 
mitted both in the way of confounding these with the Coal measures 
above and with the Devonian below; and in works of general geology 
very little attention is usually given to them as a distinct group. 
With regard to the marine limestones, their equivalency to the Lower 
Carboniferous limestones of other countries is undoubted. The 
Millstone-grit also admits of very little difference of opinion as to 


46 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


its equivalents. In the following lists I have given the equivalents 
of the Horton series and Millstone-grit series as they appear to me 
to be settled by stratigraphy and fossils :— 


1. EKquivalents of the Lower Carboniferous Coal-Measures or 
Horton Series. 


The Vespertine Group of Rogers in Pennsylvania. 
The Kinderhook Group of Worthen in Illinois. 
The Marshall Group of Winchell in Michigan. 
The Waverley Sandstone (in part) of Ohio. 
The Lower or False Coal-measures of Virginia. 
The Calciferous Sandstones of M‘Laren, or Tweedian Group 
of Tate in Scotland.* 
(7.) The Carboniferous Slate and Coomhala Grits of Jukes in 
Treland. 
(8.) The Culm and Culm Graywacke of Germany. 
(9.) The Graywacke or Lower Coal-measures of the Vosges, as 
described by Schimper. 
(10.) The Older Coal Formation of the Ural, as described by 
Eichwald. 
(11.) The so-called “ Ursa Stage” of Heer includes this, but he has 
united it with Devonian beds, so that the name cannot be 
used except for the local development of these beds at Bear 
Island, Spitzbergen. 


b> 


OS ON 
Or vs 
. . . 
FN i es ee 


(or) 


All of the above groups of rocks are characterized by the preva- 
lence of Lepidodendra of the type of ZL. corrugatum, L. Velthei- 
mianum, and L. Glincanum, and also of the type of L. tetragonum of 
Sternberg (Bergeria of some authors),-+- pines of the sub-genus Pétus 
of Witham, Palewoxylon of Brongniart, and peculiar ferns of the 
genera Cyclopteris, Cardiopteris, and Sphenopteris. In all the regions 
above referred to they form the natural base of the great Carboniferous 


system. 


* Some attention has recently been given to these beds in England and Scotland 
by Geikie, Hull, Lebour, and others, and new names have been proposed, as that of 
‘* Valentian” by Geikie. The name ‘‘ Tweedian” of my old friend Tate should, I 
think, stand. Many years ago, when I was engaged in the study of these rocks, he 
seemed to be the only English geologist who knew much about them. Of late years 
much confusion has been introduced into the geology of these beds by some Euro- 
pean palo-botanists. Stur has, however, worked up their fossils in Silesia, as Eich- 
wald had done in Russia, and in both regions they correspond very closely with the 
flora which I have found in Nova Scotia, and have described in the Report above 
referred to. Meek has also recognised this flora in Western Virginia. 

+ This type of Lepidodendron has been recognised even in Australia, but seems 
there to be referred to the Devonian age. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 47 


2. Equivalents of the Millstone-Grit Series. 
. The Seral Conglomerate of Rogers in Pennsylvania, ete. 
The Lower Coal Formation Conglomerate and Chester Groups of 
Illinois (Worthen). 

3. The Lower Carboniferous Sandstone of Kentucky, Alabama, and 
Virginia. 

4, The Millstone-grit and Yoredale Rocks of Northern England, 
and the Culmiferous of Devonshire. 

5. The Moor rock and Lower Coal Measures of Scotland. 

6. Flagstones and Lower Shales of the South of Ireland and Mill- 
stone-grit of the North of Ireland. 

7. The Jungste Graywacke of the Hartz, Saxony, and Silesia. 


hs 


The vegetable fossils of this group differ from those of the beds 
below the marine limestones, and contain forms resembling or iden- 
tical with those of the Middle Coal formation, into which, indeed, both 
lithologically and as to fossils, the Millstone-grit passes by imper- 
ceptible gradations. 

The distribution of these series in the Acadian Provinces may be 
stated thus :— 

In Gaspé and the Bay de Chaleur and along the northern margin 
of the New Brunswick Carboniferous district, the Lower Carboni- 
ferous formation presents the characters of the Bonaventure forma- 
tion of Sir William Logan, the marine limestones being absent or 
little developed, and the prevailing rocks being conglomerates and 
sandstones with few fossils. (Logan, Report of 1863; Robb, Report 
of 1869; Acadian Geology, p. 227.) 

In Southern New Brunswick the Lower Carboniferous Coal- 
measures are remarkable for the great thickness of bituminous and 
bitumino-caleareous shales which they contain. These rocks hold 
the remarkable vein of Albertite worked in this district. They con- 
tain numerous remains of fishes, and also of the characteristic Lower 
Carboniferous plants. (Bailey and Matthew, Report of 1871; 
Acadian Geology, p. 231; see aiso Note 2.) 

In Southern New Brunswick and North-western Nova Scotia, the 
Millstone-grit is also largely developed. At the South Joggins, 
where this formation and the Middle Coal formation probably attain 
their maximum thickness, the equivalent of the Millstone-grit occu- 
pies in Sir William Logan’s section a vertical thickness of no less than 
5972 feet, and consists of red and gray sandstones, red and chocolate 
shales and conglomerates, with some dark shales, underclays, bitu- 
minous limestones, and thin unproductive coals. It contains species 
of Stgillaria, Lepidodendron, Calamites Dadoxylon, and Cordailes. 


48 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


(Logan, Geol. Survey of Canada, 1845; Acadian Geology, p. 
176.) 

On the south side of the Cumberland Coal-field, the Lower Carboni- 
ferous beds appear to return to the type of the Bonaventure formation, 
and to consist principally of conglomerate and sandstone not rich in 
fossil plants, and these principally of the Millstone-grit horizon. 

Crossing the ancient metamorphic ridge of the Cobequids, we find 
on their southern flanks conglomerates representing the lowest 
Carboniferous rocks. Above these there is a slender development of 
the marine limestones and a great thickness of hard sandstones and 
shales, representing the Millstone-grit and perhaps the lower part of 
the Middle Coal formation. These rocks form a long belt extending 
from Cape Chiegnecto till it unites with the Pictou Coal-field on the 
eastward. Their general arrangement appears to be that of a narrow 
trough much broken by faults. They afford a good representation of 
the flora of the Millstone-grit. (Acadian Geology, p. 263 et seq.) 

On the south side of Minas Basin and Cobequid Bay a very wide 
area is occupied by Lower Carboniferous rocks ; and at the cliff of 
Horton Bluff, and other places in its vicinity, these beds, which, from 
their large development in this locality, may be named the Horton 
series, are very well exposed, and contain abundance of their charac- 
teristic fossils. For their detailed description I may refer to my 
paper of 1858, Journal of Geol. Society, vol. xv., p. 63. (See 
also Acadian Geology, p. 252.) 

Similar rocks are seen and have been described by the author near 
Windsor, at Walton and Noel, and at Five Mile River on the Shube- 
nacadie, in all these places rising up from under the Lower Carboni- 
ferous limestones. (Journal of Geol. Society, vol. iv. p. 59, vol. 
vil. p. 335; Acadian Geology.) 

Further east, on the Salmon River, and on the West, Middle, and 
East Rivers of Pictou, there is a great development of rocks of the 
Millstone-grit series, consisting largely of chocolate sandstones and 
shales, often very hard, and with bands of gray and dark-coloured 
beds holding plants. In this region the marine limestones extend 
upward into the Millstone-grit, so that it is difficult to establish any 
distinct line of separation, and the Lower Carboniferous Coal measures 
seem to be absent. (Journal of Geol. Society, vol. i. p. 26, 1843; 
Logan and Hartley, Reports on Pictou Coal-field, 1869; Acadian 
Geology, p. 316 ef seq.) 

In the Pictou Coal-field there are certain hard sandstones holding 
obscure fossil plants, which come up from beneath the Millstone-grit 
on the Middle River, and which I have regarded as Devonian. It is, 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 49 


however, barely possible that they may represent the Lower Carboni- 
ferous Coal measures, otherwise wanting in this district. 

The great and exceptional conglomerate of the Pictou Coal-district, 
known as the New Glasgow Conglomerate, appears to be a shingle 
bed of the Upper Millstone-grit or Middle Coal formation epoch. It 
stretches with some interruptions from Merigomish to Roger’s Hill 
and Mt. Dalhousie, near the eastern end of the Cobequid Ridge, or 
about twenty miles, and is undoubtedly connected with the different 
developments of the beds of the Coal formation on the south and 
north of this line; and it implies very great and violent denudation 
of the Lower Carboniferous sandstones during the Coal formation 
period, as the fragments contained in it are largely composed of these 
sandstones, and are often of great size. (Acadian Geology, p. 321, 
et seq.; Logan, Report on Pictou, 1869.) 

At the extreme eastern end of the Pictou Coal-field, where it is in 
contact with the Upper Silurian at M‘Cara’s Brook, the Lowest 
Carboniferous beds are conglomerates with interstratified trap, above 
which is marine limestone overlaid by the Millstone-grit series. 
(Journal of Geol. Society, vol. i, p. 329; Acadian Geology, section 
opposite page 125.) 

In the Carboniferous area of Antigonish County we again meet 
with the dark shales and sandstones of the Horton group, holding 
their characteristic plants, and underlying the marine limestones and 
gypsums. I noticed these beds as occurring at Right’s River in 
1843;* and Dr Honeyman, who subsequently traced them further to 
the eastward, has kindly placed in my hands a small but interesting 
collection of their fossil plants. 

The long belt of Carboniferous rocks extending along the west 
branch of the St Mary’s River, has the mineral character and fossils 
of the Millstone-grit series in those places where I have examined 
it, except near Guysboro, where there are Lower Carboniferous 
limestones, and in the Strait of Canso, near Cape Porcupine, where 
the basal conglomerates appear. (Acadian Geology, p. 350.) 

In Cape Breton a well-characterized representation of the Lower 
Carboniferous Coal measures or Horton series is seen in the sand- 
stones, gray and black shales, and conglomerates which underlie the 
limestone and gypsum of Plaister Cove, while the Millstone-grit 
seems to be represented by the thick sandstones underlying the 
Coal-field of Richmond County. (Journal of Geological Society, 
vol. v.; Acadian Geology, p. 390 et seq.) 

In Northern Cape Breton, from the Cape Dauphin section, as 


* Journal Geol. Society, vol. i. p. 329. 


50 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


described by Mr R. Brown, it would appear that the Lower Carboni- 
ferous Coal measures are slenderly represented or concealed by 
faulting. Mr Brown has, however, recognised the Millstone-grit as 
underlying the Sydney and Glace Bay Coal-fields, and attaining to 
a thickness of 1800 feet. It consists largely of gray sandstone, 
and holds Stgillarie, Calamites, and Lepidodendra. (Brown, Journal 
Geol. Society, vol. iii. p. 258; Jbzd., vol. vi. p. 116.) 

From a collection of fossils made by Mr R_ Bell in Western 
Newfoundland, and presented to the Museum of the M‘Gill University 
by Donald Ross, Esq., it appears that the Lower Carboniferous lime- 
stone of that island holds the same fossils with that of Nova Scotia, 
and that it is overlaid by a series of beds corresponding to the Mill- 
stone-grit. This formation, however, contains beds of coal of work- 
able size, abounding in remains of Lepidodendra, so that it would 
seem that in Newfoundland, as in Scotland, the workable coals 
extend farther down in the series than is the case to the southward. 

For the flora of these interesting formations which form the 
lower portion of the Carboniferous, I must refer to the Report 
already mentioned. I may remark here in general terms, that in the 
area of the Acadian Provinces, the close of the Devonian was 
accompanied by great physical changes which removed the Devonian 
flora. In the Lower Carboniferous period, a meagre flora, different 
from that of the Devonian, took possession of the land. This was 
again partially removed by the subsidence leading to the deposition 
of the Lower Carboniferous limestones, and the Millstone-grit lying 
on these, forms, as to its flora, the dawn of the great Middle Coal 
formation. While the local elevation, subsidences, and denudations 
within the Carboniferous period were sufficient to cause some limited 
cases of unconformability, these are not comparable with those 
between the Devonian and the Carboniferous; and the Devonian 
fauna and flora are as a whole quite distinct from those of the Car- 
boniferous, though there are some species of plants common. 

In Eastern America, asin Great Britain, the conditions of coal 
accumulation seem to have set in earlier to the northward. The 
_ Coal-beds of Newfoundland belong to the Millstone-grit series. Those 
“ of Pictou are exclusively in the Middle Coal series, and apparently 
in its lower part. Those of the Joggins seem to be rather higher in 
the series than those of Pictou, and in the United States there are 
workable beds of coal in the Upper Coal measures which are barren 
in Nova Scotia. This connects itself with the fact illustrated in my 
Report on the Devonian Flora (1870), that this flora in North America 
seems to have extended itself from the north-east,—a view which 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. Lay | 


Heer and Professor Asa Gray also entertain with respect to the 
Tertiary floras. Facts now accumulating from the observations of 
recent Arctic explorers, make it more and more evident that the 
peculiar Lower Carboniferous flora was very widely distributed in 
circumpolar lands at the beginning of the Carboniferous period.* 

Mr E. Gilpin, in a paper in the Transactions of the Nova Scotia 
Institute (vol. iv.), has directed attention to the peculiar man- 
ganesian limestone lying at the base of the Carboniferous on the East 
River of Pictou, and very distinct in character from the great bed 
of light-coloured limestone (Lithostrotion Limestone of Acadian 
Geology), lying above, and the still higher gray limestones. In my 
tabular arrangement of the Lower Carboniferous limestones (Ac. 
Geol., p. 281), I have not separated this lower bed, as it has no 
distinctness with regard to fossils; but its wide distribution and 
metalliferous character would now induce me to follow Mr Gilpin’s 
arrangement, and recognise itasa separate subdivision. It reappears 
in Pictou County in New Lairg, and is represented elsewhere by the 
black limestone of Plaister Cove, Cape Breton, the “ Black Rock” at 
the mouth of the Shubenacadie and the manganiferous limestone of 
Walton and Teny Cape. It is not improbable that the manganese in 
these limestones may be derived from the decomposition of volcanic 
debris proceeding from the contemporaneous igneous vents which 
produced the Lower Carboniferous traps. Its origin may thus be 
similar to that to which the manganesian nodules found so abun- 
dantly in the deep-sea dredgings of the “Challenger” have been 
attributed. 


New Carboniferous Fossils. 


In addition to the Report on the Lower Carboniferous and Mill- 
stone-grit plants already referred to, which gives a nearly com- 
plete view of this interesting flora as far as known up to 1873, I 
may refer to a paper on the Relations of Stgillaria, Calamites, and 
Calamodendron, in the Journal of the Geological Society for 1870 ; 
a paper on a remarkable Sigillaria discovered at the Joggins by Mr 
Hill (Proceedings of the same Society, 1877), Mr Scudder’s descrip- 
tions of the five species of myriapods found by me in the Coal forma- 
tion (Journal of Boston Society, 1873); Descriptions of Fossil 
Insects from Nova Scotia, by the same author (Canadian Naturalist, 
vol. viii.), and my own recent papers on a new crustacean (Geolo- 
gical Magazine, 1877), and on a recent discovery of Carboniferous 


* See a summary of the latest of these facts in Geological Magazine, July 1877; 
also Heer, “ Flora Fossilis Arctica,” vol. iv. 
D 


~ 


52 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


Reptiles (Silliman’s Journal, vol. xii., December 1876). I may add 
a paper on Impressions and Footprints of Animals and Imitative 
Markings on Carboniferous Rocks (Silliman’s Journal, vol. v., 
January 1873), and the description of the remarkable footprints of 
Sauropus unguifer found in a quarry in Cumberland County.* It 
would be impossible to give here even the substance of these several 


Fig. 4.—Portion of Bark of Sigilluria Lorwayana, Dn., showing part of one of the 
s y J ’ ; J] 
Bands of Fruit-scars, which occur at intervals of a few inches on the trunk. 


fe 
Ws ee) 
! 


5 


— 


atl 2 


22S 


Z%) 


i =e o/- {< 
~O))F é 
eG “i EA 
=) 
eo) me 
aed 


: f tie 
Q IN 
PEN ) 
/ 
Zones of Fruit-scars at (a, a, @). (b) Leaf-scar enlarged. (c) Fruit-sear enlarged. 


contributions to paleontology, but I may notice a few points likely 
to be of interest to the general reader, or specially new in 
geological science. 

In the Report on Fossil Plants above referred to, the species 
characteristic of the Lowest Carboniferous beds are defined and 
separated from those of the Devonian below and the Millstone-grit 


* Geological Magazine, vol. ix. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 53 


above. Special attention is given to the protean varieties of Lepido- 
dendron corrugatum, and to its Stigmaria roots, this being the 


characteristic Lower Carboniferous Lepidodendron in America, and 


our representative of the widely distributed Z. Veltheimianum and 
its allies in Europe,* and also to the conifers of the Lower Car- 
boniferous and Millstone-grit. A list is also given, for comparison, of 
the plants of the Middle and Upper Coal formation, and some inte- 


Fig. 5.— Wing of Blattina Bretonensis. Fig. 6.— Wing of Blattina Heeri. 
—Sendder. —Seudder. 


resting new species from the former are described—more especially 
Sigillaria Lorwayana, a species showing very beautifully the transverse 
bands of fruit-sears so characteristic of some species of Sigillaria 
(Fig. 4). In the paper on Sigillaria, it was my aim to define the 
true place and structure of that genus, and also to separate Calamites 
from Calamodendron. In connection with this I may mention that 
the Cordaites, whose leaves are so abundant in both the Devonian 


Fig. 7.— Wing of Blattina Sepulta. Fig. 8.—Libellula Carbonaria, 
—Scudder. —Scudder. 


\ 


\ 
\ 


= 


and Carboniferous, and in the latter constitute the substance of some 
thin layers of coal, have recently been shown by Grand ’Eury to 


* I see that in recent descriptions of the Lower Carboniferous plants of Greenland, 
L. Veltheimianum is recognised ; but this is probably LZ. corrugatum, which for want 
of sufficient specimens most European botanists have not yet learned to discriminate, 
nor have the Greenland specimens been yet compared with their American analogues. 
Until this shall be done, we must remain in some uncertainty respecting them, not- 
withstanding the good illustrations in European works, 


54 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


Fig. 9.—Markings on Rocks. 


(a) Protichnites Carbonarius (nat. size), Carboniferous, Nova Scotia. 
(b) P. Acadicus, n “r 

(c) Diplichnites wnigma (reduced), 

(d) Rabdichnites, different form’ (nat. size), _,, 5, 

(e) Carbonized plant with reticulated cracks filled with mineral matter, simulating a reticulately — 
veined leaf (nat. size); a, enlarged section of part of the same. Carboniferous, Nova Scotia. 


be bs 
ye 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 55 


have belonged to trunks of advanced structure allied to that of 
conifers, and to have been gymnospermous plants. This gives them 
a higher position in the vegetable kingdom than that assigned to them 
in Acadian Geology, unless, indeed, there may be two groups 
included in this genus, the one lycopodiaceous, the other gymno- 
spermous. 

Among the new insects described by Mr Scudder (Figs. 6 to 8), that 
which he has named Libellula Carbonaria, and which was found by Mr 
A. J. Hill at the Cossit’s Pit; near Sydney, C.B., is of especial in- 
terest as being the first known example of a Carboniferous dragon-fly 
(Fig. 8). This place, Cossit’s Pit, is of especial interest, because it 
has afforded to Mr Hill a rich and varied flora, containing forms not 
yet described, and some species characteristic of the Upper Coal for- 
mation, while the horizon of this coal is believed to be in the lower 
part of the Middle Coal formation, or even in the Millstone-grit. 

In my paper on Fossil Footprints,* I described from the Car- 
boniferous rocks tracks referable to Protichnites, and which I regard 
as belonging to species of limulus, or horse-shoe crab, a genus 
which, though elsewhere known in the Carboniferous, has not been 
found in Nova Scotia, unless represented by these tracks. Other 
markings on the Carboniferous beds are impressions of worms, refer- 
able to the genus Arenicolites, and of crustaceans (trilobites or their 
allies) referred to genus Rusichnites. A very peculiar and anomalous 
form of large size was placed in the new genus Diéplichnites, and the 
genus Labdichnites was established to contain some markings 
resembling the so-called Eophyton of the Cambrian rocks, and pro- 
bably of similar nature. Illustrations of these are given in Fig. 9. 
Bla elirconites af The curious fossil figured in Pig. 10, the 

Anthracopalemon (Pa- carapace or body shield of a species of Palao- 

lecearabus) Hillianum- carabus, was found by Mr A. J. Hill at the 

South Joggins, and is the first of the higher or 
decapod crustaceans found in our Coal forma- 
tion. Very similar species occur in the Coal- 
fields of Great Britain and [linois. It has been 
described in the Geological Magazine.+ 

The sole species of myriapod recognised by 
me in the original discovery of these animals at 
the Joggins was Xylobius Sigillarie ; but when 
a large number of fragments had accumulated 
in my collection, suggesting diversity of species, 
I placed the whole in the hands of Mr 8. H. Scudder, our best 

* Silliman’s Journal, January 1873, } February 1877. 


56 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


authority on fossil insects, and he was able to discriminate two genera 
and five species. This was stated in a note at page 405 of Acadian 
Geology, and I now give a series of diagrammatic illustrations 
prepared by Mr Scudder, showing the characteristic forms of the 
segments in the several species (Fig. 11.) 


Fig. 11.—Myriapods from the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia.— After Scudder. 


a b c d € 


J 9 
(a) Two Segments of Xylobius Sigillatiw, Dawson, 
(O) ss 5 » X. similis, Scudder. 
(c)=. > A. farctus, 7 
(2) One Segment of Archiulus Dawsoni, Scudder, 
(e) 5 0 » A. xylobioides, y 
(f) Anterior Segments of __,, s 
(7) Antenne, Joints of cf 


The remarkable discovery of Carboniferous batrachians made at 
the South Joggins in 1876, in one of those erect trees which have, 
since 1851, afforded so many similar remains, 1s of so much interest 
in connexion with the species described in Acadian Geology, that I 
make considerable extracts from the account of it published at the time. 

The tree of 1876 was found by me in “the reef,” or extension of 
the sandstone seaward, and near the low-water mark. The upper 
part of the stump, probably filled with sandstone, had been removed 
by the waves, but about 2 feet of the lower part remained. It was 
extracted with as much care as possible by two miners with picks and 
crowbar, and the disk-like fragments, into which it naturally split, 
were carried up to the foot of the cliff, and subsequently numbered 
and dissected at leisure. In the hurry of working against time to 
escape the tide, the men, it seems, left in the hole a portion of the 
lowest layer, and a fragment of an upper one. ‘The former was after- 
wards removed by Mr J. C. Russel, of Columbia College, New York, 
and the latter was found by Mr Hill. Both have been kindly placed 
in my hands by these gentlemen, so that the whole of the material 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 7 


Qn 


has been collected and carefully labelled, in such a manner as to keep 
together the parts belonging to each skeleton. 

This tree was about 18 inches in diameter, and in the lower 
part was partially flattened by lateral pressure, so that its diameter in 
one direction was only a little over a foot. The material filling the 
somewhat thick coaly bark may be described as a more or less 
arenaceous silt or soil, blackened with vegetable matter, and replete 
with fragments of carbonized bark, mineral charcoal, and fine vegetable 
debris. There are also numerous leaves of Cordaites, and abundance 
of the fruits which, from their frequent occurrence in such hollow trees, 
I have elsewhere named Trigonocarpum Sigillarie. In some places 
the sediment was finely laminated, the laminz being often much con- 
torted. In other places the earthy matter existed in patches or 
interrupted layers, nearly free from vegetable matter, and especially 
abundant toward the sides of the trunk. The cementing substance 
is in general carbonate of lime, many portions of the mass effervescing 
freely with an acid, but in some spots there are hard concretions of 
pyrite. The material has evidently been introduced gradually, in 
small quantities at a time, and the earthy matter seems to have run 
down the sides, spreading more or less towards the centre, but in 
general accumulating around the circumference. The number of 
skeletons recovered in a more or less complete state was no less than 
thirteen in all, belonging probably to six species, besides other bones 
contained in coprolites, and several millipedes, and shells of Pupa 
Vetusta, the latter almost entirely in the lowest layers. 

The first animal introduced was a specimen of Hylerpeton Daw- 
sont, Owen, whose bones and scutes, after deeay of the connecting 
parts, had slid down the slope of silt from one side toward the centre 
of the space. Next, after a few inches of filling, came a specimen of 
Dendrerpeton Acadianum, Owen, whose bones lie along the centre of 
the layer and nearly in one plane. Above this a large flake of bark 
had fallen in, forming an imperfect floor over the remains. Then, 
after an inch or two of carbonaceous matter had been deposited, came 
a somewhat flat surface, which seems to have remained uncovered for 
some time, and on this lie the disjecta membra of three skeletons be- 
longing to Dendrerpeton Acadianum, D. Oweni, and a new species of 
Hylerpeton. Above this was a confused mass of considerable thick- 
ness, in which were found another specimen of the new Hylerpeton, 
and remains representing a third animal of the same or an allied 
genus, also four specimens of Hylonomus Lyelli, and portions appa- 
rently of an immature Dendrerpeton. Still higher in position was a 
layer with large portions of the cuticle of a Dendrerpeton, probably 


58 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


the species D. Acadianum; and above this, at the surface of the stump, 
were some remains and impressions of bones probably indicating 
another specimen of Dendrerpeton. Taking these specimens in the 
order above given, we may notice the new facts which they have dis- 
closed on a preliminary examination. 


2. Remains of Hylerpeton. 

The sole species of this genus heretofore known, /7. Dawsont, was 
discovered by me in 1860, and was described by Professor Owen from 
remains so scanty that he expressed considerable doubt as to its 
affinities. I afterwards worked out, from a few fragments of the 
matrix, the evidence that its teeth were simple, without plicated den- 
tine, that it had a large canine or tusk in the anterior part of the 
upper jaw, and that it possessed a walking foot. The present speci- 
men throws much additional light on its structure. It had at least 
twelve teeth in each ramus of the mandible, and they are large in 
proportion to the size of the animal, bluntly conical and somewhat 
acuminate, and faintly striate at the apex. The vomerine bones are 
beset with numerous small blunt teeth. The skull is long, and its 
bones thin and marked merely with delicate incised lines rather than 
wrinkles. The forms of the stout ribs and scattered vertebrae would 
indicate that the body was broad and squat. The skull must have 
been about 2 inches in length, the body probably 4 or 5, and 
there are some small vertebrae which may indicate a short tail. The 
limbs were large and strong, the femur being an inch and a quarter 
long, and its shaft a fifth of an inch in diameter, and with thick bony 
walls. The vertebree are short and biconcave, and with large dorsal 
spines, the belly was protected by numerous imbricated bony scales 
of two kinds, one oblong and narrow, the other broad and obliquely 
shield-shaped. There are indications of thoracic plates of larger size 
than the scales. On the whole, this species was probably a somewhat 
clumsy creature, of toad-like form and slow gait, and with a dentary 
apparatus suited to pierce and crush crusts and shells. It is perhaps 
significant of its habits, in these respects, that the layers of this tree 
in which its bones occur are alone those in which shells of Pupa 
vetusta are found. e 

The second species of [ylerpeton, which I may provisionally name 
HT. longidentatum, was of somewhat smaller size, with the bones of the 
skull thinner and more slender, and the teeth very long and 
sharply pointed, with the apex finely striate, but with no corrugation 
of the dentine. The vomer is covered with minute teeth, and there 
are long and slender anterior teeth, resembling canines. The best 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 59 


preserved mandible shows eighteen teeth, which are strongly inclined 
backward. The scales are very narrow, and there is alarge thoracic 
plate. The general form of body may have been as in the last species, 
but the skull was probably narrower and the feet longer. 

Another species of this genus, or belonging to a genus intermediate 
between it and Hylonomus, is represented by a confused mass of bones 
showing long and narrow jaws, armed with short and blunt teeth, of 
which at least thirty occur on each side of the lower jaws. The 
sculpture of the bones is as in the previous species, but the pulp- 
cavities of the teeth are smaller and their walls stronger, and they 
show no sculpture on the apex; in which respects they resemble those 
of Hylonomus. The vertebre also are more elongated, and the femur 
is a large bone indicating a powerful hind limb. The abdominal 
scutes are very long and narrow, resembling slender semicylindrical 


rods, a point in which this species differs from all the others found 


with it, although it resembles some of those found in Ireland and 
Ohio. This species I would name provisionally, in allusion to the 
form of its teeth, Hylerpeton curtidentatum. 

In all these species of Hylerpeton the teeth are simple, and 
are anchylosed to the bone and placed in linear series in a shallow 


groove. 
3. Remains of Dendrerpeton. 


The remains of this genus will afford additional facts as to the 
differences in individuals of various ages, and as to the details of the 
skeleton in the species D. Oweni, previously known by only one im- 
perfect example. The specimen now found would seem to show that 
it resembled very much the larger species, except in the form of the 
teeth and scales. But the most interesting facts presented by a cur- 
sory examination of the specimens relate to the skin and its appendages. 
It is now evident that in addition to the abdominal and gular scales, 
Dendrerpeton possessed thoracic plates of considerable size, resem- 
bling those of other labyrinthodonts. The large mass of skin found 
in the tree of 1876, taken in connection with the smaller portions 
found on previous occasions, and described in detail in my “ Air- 
breathers of the Coal-period,” enables us to form a very good general 
idea of the appearance and clothing of the animals of this genus. To 
the naked eye the skin presents a shining and strongly rugose surface, 
reminding one of that of modern newts when contracted by immersion 
in alcohol, though on a coarser scale. Under the lens, the surface 
appears granular, and with a higher power the granulation is seen to 
result from minute scales embedded in. the cuticle, and much smaller 


60 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


than those, in previous finds, which I have referred to D. Oweni and 
to Hylonomus. On some portions of it there are delicate transverse 
lines about a quarter of an inch apart, and apparently corresponding 
to those which on the newts and Menobranchus mark the bands of 
subcutaneous muscles. The bony scales of the abdomen have dis- 
appeared, except a few scattered in the matrix. But the most 
remarkable dermal appendages are those triangular lappets or frills 
of which I have in previous papers described detached examples, and 
have compared them with the gular and cervical lappets and frills of 
iguanas, geckos, and Draco; and which also suggest analogies with 
the processes that support the gills in perennibranchiate batrachians, 
and with the lateral folds of the skin in Menopoma. These append- 
ages are flat and of appreciable thickness, about half an inch in length, 
and an eighth of an inch in breadth, terminating in an edge or obtuse 
flat point, which seems to have been horny, while the appendage 
itself must have been flexible. They are marked with small scaly 
oval areoles or projections, placed somewhat in rows, and each with 
a minute puncture in its centre. The markings on both sides are 
similar. These appendages are arranged in series along what appears 
to be the skin of a fore leg, and also in groups apparently on the an- 
terior part of the body, perhaps the neck or shoulder. They appear 
to be closely connected with a series of much smaller angular points 
which extend along the edge of the skin near the supposed leg, and 
probably fringe the sides of the abdomen. The evidence that this 
integument belongs to Dendrerpeton Acadianum is derived from the 
presence in its anterior part of skull-bones having the markings of 
that of this species, and from the occurrence of a jaw and other bones 
in the neighbouring matrix. The specimen to which the skin be- 
longed may have been about a foot in length. Taking it in eonnec- 
tion with what is known of the skeleton, we can reproduce the external 
appearance of the animal. It was lizard-like in form, with a some- 
what flat and broad head, and strong teeth with folded dentine. Its 
back was covered with a shining skin filled with mieroscopie horny 
scales. Its sides were marked with vertical bands separated by delicate 
indented lines. Anteriorly it was ornamented with numerous cutane- 
ous lappets or pendants. The sides were bordered with a row of 
sharp horny points, and the throat, thorax, and abdomen were protected 
by bony scales and plates, the scales of the throat being narrow and 
small, and arranged in a chevron pattern. 

Dendrerpeton Owent probably had the scales of the back and the 
horny appendages larger in proportion, that is, if I have rightly 
referred to that species some similar remains to those above men- 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 61 


tioned, found in 1859. Hylonomus Lyelli had a far more ornate set 
of cutaneous appendages, as evidenced by remains of skin found 
associated with its bones, also in 1859.* ‘The tree of 1876 contains 
no cuticular remains referable to this species. 


4, Remains of Hylonomus. 


The bones of this genus are all, I think, referable to H. Lyell, and 
to specimens about the size of those previously found. They throw 
little additional light on its character, except to indicate that it was 
probably very abundant, and to render it probable that the specimens 
formerly described were adult. Two of the skulls in the tree of 1876 
are better preserved than those previously known, and confirm the 
statement already made as to the smoothness of the bones and the 
greater cranial elevation as compared with other batrachians of the 
Carboniferous period. This is indicated, among other things, by the 
skulls lying upon one side, which is not found to be the case with 
the other species. 

In the admirable Report by Cope on the Batrachians of the Coal 
formation of Ohio,+ he places Hylonomus in the same family, Tudi- 
tanide, with Dendrerpeton, This I think does not express its true 
affinities. The more elongate and narrow skull, with smooth bones, 
the differently formed vertebra, the teeth with non-plicated dentine, 
the different microscopic structure of the bone, the more ornate dermal 
appendages, all separate these animals from the labyrinthodonts, and 
entitle them, as I have formerly held, to a distinct position as an 
order or sub-order, for which I proposed in 1863 the name JMicro- 
sauria. I observe that in the Report on the Labyrinthodonts, pre- 
pared by Mr Miall for the British Association in 1873, and in the 
Tabular View appended to it in 1874, while the group Mrcrosauria 
is retained, Dendrerpeton is placed in it, as well as Hylerpeton 
and Hylonomus. ‘This I think is an error, in so far as the first 
genus is concerned. I may add my continued conviction that 
Hylonomus and its allies present many points of approach to the 
lacertian reptiles, which I hope in future to be able to work out 
more in detail. 

Several masses of coprolite, filled with small broken bones, were 
obtained in breaking up the material surrounding the skeletons. I 
presume these bones belong to one or other of the smaller species of 
Hylonomus ; but I have not yet found any of them to be sufficiently 


* Journal Geol. Soe., vol. xvi., also ‘‘ Air-breathers,” 1863. 
+ Paleontology of Ohio, vol. ii. 


62 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


characteristic to warrant any confident statement on the subject. 
These coprolites must have been produced by Dendrerpeton or ~ 
Hylerpeton, most probably the former. 

In the summer of 1877 Mr Hill kindly extracted for me three 
other trees which had appeared in the reptiliferous bed, but they 4 
proved barren of reptilian remains, though affording some curious 
fossil plants. A fourth, which presented great difficulties in its : 
extraction, being 24 feet in diameter, and embedded in sand- : 
stone to the height of 8 feet, was taken out for me in the same t 
summer. It afforded only one skeleton of Dendrerpeton and de- 
tached bones of Hylonomus, but was interesting as showing on one 
layer the trails and tracks left by a reptile dragging itself around the 
sides of the hollow tree in its efforts to escape. The details of all 
these discoveries I hope to give to the public so soon as I can take 
time to study fully the bones and tecth obtained. 

I think it quite possible that further examination may enlarge the 
number of species above mentioned. I have been guided mainly in 
the reference of the specimens to species by the structure of the teeth 
and the cranial bones; but some of these may yield new points of 
difference on further study. As all the specimens are preserved under 
the same conditions, there is less liability here than in most cases 
to multiply species unduly, in consequence of different states of 
preservation. 

The fact that Cope has been able to catalogue, in his recent Report,* 

39 genera of Carboniferous batrachians, including about 100 specics, 
and that these present so wide a range of size, structure, and general 
conformation, affords a very remarkable illustration of that simul- 
taneous occurrence of many forms of one type, which appears in so 
many other groups of fossil animals; and is particularly striking in 
this first known group of air-breathing vertebrates, which since 1843 
have swarmed upon us from the Coal-fields of both continents, and of 
which we probably know as yet but a small fraction of the species. 
It remains to be seen whether the Devonian, so rich in its land flora, 
and which has already afforded remains of insects, may not disclose 
some precursors of the Carboniferous batrachians. 

Since the publication of the second edition, some very interesting 
discoveries of footprints of Carboniferous reptiles have occurred. 
The most important of these is that originally made by Mr Albert 
J. Till, C.E., at Fillimore’s quarry, near River Philip. At this place 
certain beds of brownish red sandstone hold numerous footprints of a 
large batrachian, now in the collection of the Geological Survey of 


* Paleontology of Ohio, vol. ii. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 63 


Canada, and which has been described by Mr Selwyn and myself.* 
The dimensions of the footprints are— 


Hind foot, breadth . : ; F : 2°71 inches. 


mas; leneth 2 : - ‘ , 4:24 ,, 
Fore foot, breadth . : : ; F 263) ‘55 

pons, teneth’ .. 2 : : i rt it Caan 
Length of stride : bisa" _ 3 
Average distance between the rows of foot- 

prints made by right and left feet : o48 CS, 


These measurements correspond very nearly with those of my 
Sauropus Sydnensis.+ 

The hind foot, it will be observed, is considerably longer than the 
fore foot, and has a sort of plantigrade appearance; and there are 
some indications which show that the legs must have been strong and 
thick. 

The hind foot shows four well-developed toes, the three outer 
stronger than the remaining one. There was also a fifth toe, which 
must have been placed at a higher level than the others, on the out- 
side of the foot. It bore a long claw, which was plunged into the 
mud at each step, and when the foot was raised made a curved trace 
on the surface. It probably corresponded to the thumb-like fifth toe 
of labyrinthodon, and to the detached outer toe of the foot-prints 
figured by Sir C. Lyell. The fore foot is as broad as the hind foot, 
but much shorter, and shows four strongly-marked toes, with more 
obscure impressions of a fifth. 

All the toes of both feet are broad in front, and seem to have had 
claws, but not of great length, except in the case of the detached toe 
of the hind foot above referred to. There is no indication of a mem- 
brane connecting the toes. 

The prints of the hind and fore feet of each side are in a line, and 
the distance between the right and left lines, say 53 inches, indicates 
a body broad in comparison with the length of the legs. 

The impression of the hind foot is either a little way behind that 
of the fore foot, or the impressions are equidistant, indicating a 
walking gait varying somewhat in the length of the stride. 

There are no indications of a tail, and in general the body was 
earried clear of the ground; but in one place it has been dragged along 
the surface, leaving longitudinal furrows, probably indicating that 
the abdomen was clothed with bony scales, as was generally the case 


* Geol. Magazine, vol. ix. + Acadian Geology, p. 358. 


64 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


in the labyrinthodonts of the Carboniferous. On another slab there 
seems to have been a soft place where the legs of the animal have 
sunk deeply into the mud; and it would appear to have been inired, 
extricating itself with some difficulty, and leaving deep marks of the 
body and legs. 

These footprints must have been made on a subaerial surface, prob- 
ably left dry by the recession of the tide, and rain must have fallen 
shortly before the animal passed over it, as indicated by the pitted 
appearance of the slabs. The trunk of the creature may have been 
3 feet in length. Its tail, if it had such an appendage, must have 
been short, or carried in the air without touching the ground. Its 
legs were strong, and bore the body well above the surface when 
walking. The only known Carboniferous batrachian of Nova Scotia 
which could have made these impressions is Baphetes planiceps, 
Owen, discovered by the author in the Coal-field of Pictou. Eosaurus 
Acadiensis of Marsh, from the Joggins, was a creature of sufficient 
size, but probably of different structure, and more exclusively aquatic 
habits. 

The principal distinctive character of the present specimens is the 
peculiar appendage on the hind foot, and from this we may give the 
provisional name Sauropus unguifer to these footprints, until the 
animal which produced them shall be known to us by its bones. 

It is interesting that in three localities in Nova Scotia, and two in 
Pennsylvania, footprints of this general type and of the same size 
have been found, indicating the wide diffusion and abundance of these 
iarge batrachians in the Carboniferous period in North America, and 
also that they were animals comparable in size and development of 
limb with some of their successors in the Mesozoic period. 

One of the slabs in the rooms of the Survey shows a number of less 
distinct footprints of an animal which may have been two-thirds of 
the size of that above described, though possibly of the same species. 
In the Provincial Museum of Halifax there is a slab with a series of 
footprints similar to these. Dr Honeyman has also placed in the 
same Museum a series of footprints, of the Dendrerpeton type, from 
Great Village River. 

On another slab, and associated with the larger footprints, are some 
small trifid impressions which seem to indicate the presence of a still 
smaller animal, with feet of different form from those of the others. 
These small trifid footprints are not dissimilar from those found by 
Sir W. E. Logan, at Horton, in 1841, and which were the first 
indications of reptilian life discovered in the Carboniferous. They 
are also allied to those subsequently discovered by Dr Harding at 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 65 


Parsboro’, and by myself at the Joggins, and referred to in Acadian 
Geology. These smaller footprints, showing marks of three toes, 
and in more distinct impressions of four or five, I have con- 
jectured may have been produced by Labyrinthodonts of the type of 
Dendrerpeton. 


Origin of Coal. 


The readers of recent English popular works on geology will have 
observed the statement reiterated, that a large proportion of the 
material of the great beds of bituminous coal is composed of the 
spore-cases of lycopodiaceous plants—a statement quite contrary to 
that resulting from my microscopical examinations of the coal of more 
than eighty Coal-beds in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, as stated in 
Acadian Geology (page 463), and more fully in my memoir of 1858 
on the Structures in Coal,* and that of 1866 on the Conditions 
of Accumulation of Coal.t The reason of this mistake is that an 
eminent English naturalist, happening to find in certain specimens of 
English coal a great quantity of remains of spores and spore-cases, 
though even in his specimens they constitute only a small portion of 
the mass, and being apparently unacquainted with what others had 
done in this field, wrote a popular article for the Contemporary 
Review, in which he extended an isolated and exceptional fact to all 
coals, and placed this supposed origin of coal in a light so brilliant 
and attractive that he has been followed by many recent writers. 
The fact is, as stated in Acadian Geology, that trunks of Sigillarie 
and similar trees constitute a great part of the denser portion of the 
coal, and that the cortical tissues of these rather than the wood remain 
as coal. But cortical or epidermal tissues in general, whether those 
of spore-cases or other parts of plants, are those which from their 
resistance to water-soakage and to decay, and from their highly 
carbonaceous character, are best suited to the production of coal. In 
point of fact, spore-cases, though often abundantly present, constitute 
only an infinitesimal part of the matter of the great Coal-beds. In an 
article in Silliman’s Journal, which appeared shortly after that above 
referred to, I endeavoured to correct this error, though apparently 
without effect in so far as the majority of British geological writers 
are concerned. From this article I may quote the following passages, 
as it is of importance in theoretical geology that such mistakes, 
involving as they do the whole theory of coal accumulation, should 
not continue to pass current. The early part of the paper is occupied 


* Journal Geol. Society, vol. xv. + Ibid., vol. xxii. 


66 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


with facts as to the occurrence of spores and spore-cases as partial 
ingredients in coal. Its conclusions are as follows :— 

“It is not improbable that sporangites, or bodies resembling them, 
may be found in most coals; but the facts above stated indicate that 
their occurrence is accidental rather than essential to coal aceumula- 
tion, and that they are more likely to have been abundant in shales 
and cannel coals, deposited in ponds or in shallow waters in the 
vicinity of lyeopodiaceous forests, than in the swampy or peaty 
deposits which constitute the ordinary coals. It is to be observed, 
however, that the conspicuous appearance which these bodies and 
also the strips and fragments of epidermal tissue, which resemble them 
in texture, present in slices of coal, may incline an observer, not 
having large experience in the examination of coals, to overrate their 
importance; and this I think has been done by most microscopists, 
especially those who have confined their attention to slices prepared 
by the Japidary. One must also bear in mind the danger arising 
from mistaking concretionary accumulations of bituminous matter for 
sporangia. In sections of the bituminous shales accompanying the 
Devonian coal above mentioned, there are many rounded yellow 
spots, which on examination prove to be the spaces in the epidermis 
of Psilophyton through which the vessels passing to the leaves were 
emitted. ‘lo these considerations I would add the following, con- 
densed from my paper above referred to, in which the whole question 
of the origin of coal is fully discussed :*— 

“(1.) The mineral charcoal or ‘ mother coal’ is obviously woody 
tissue and fibres of bark, the structure of the varieties of which, and 
the plants to which it probably belongs, I have discussed in the paper 
above mentioned. 


“(2.) The coarser layers of coal show under the microscope a 
confused mass of fragments of vegetable matter belonging to various 
descriptions of plants, and including, but not usually largely, 
sporangites. 

“(3.) The more brilliant layers of the coal are seen, when separated 
by thin lamine of clay, to have on their surfaces the markings of 
Sigillarie and other trees, of which they evidently represent flattened 
specimens, or rather the bark of such specimens. Under the micro- 
scope, when their structures are preserved, these layers show cortical 
tissues more abundantly than any others. 

““(4.) Some thin layers of coal consist mainly of flattened layers 
of leaves of Cordaites or Pychnophyllum, 

“(5,) The Stigmaria underclays and the stumps of Stgillaria in the 


* See also Acadian Geology, 2d edit., pp. 138, 461, 493. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 67 


coal roofs equally testify to the accumulation of coal by the growth of 
successive forests, more especially of Stgillaria. There is, on the other 
hand, no necessary connection of sporangite beds with Stigmarian 
soils. Such beds are more likely to be accumulated in water, and 
consequently to constitute bituminous shales and cannels. 

“(6.) Lepidodendron and its allies, to which the spore-cases in 
question appear to belong, are evidently much less important to coal 
accumulation than Szgillaria, which cannot be affirmed to have pro- 
duced spore-cases similar to those in question, even though the obser- 
vation of Goldenberg as to their fruit can be relied on; the accuracy 
of which, however, I am inclined to doubt. 

“On the whole, then, while giving due credit to Prof. Huxley and 
those who have preceded him in this matter, for directing attention to 
this curious and no doubt important constituent of mineral fuel, and 
admitting that I may possibly have given too little attention to it, I 
must maintain that Sporangite beds are exceptional among coals, and 
that cortical and woody matters are the most abundant ingredients in 
all the ordinary kinds; and to this I cannot think that the coals of 
England constitute an exception. 

“‘It is to be observed, in conclusion, that the spore-cases of plants, 
in their indestructibility and richly carbonaceous character, only par- 
take of qualities common to most suberous and epidermal matters, as 
I have explained in the publications already referred to. Such 
epidermal and cortical substances are extremely rich in carbon and 
hydrogen, in this resembling bituminous coal. They are also very 
little liable to decay, and they resist more than other vegetable 
matters aqueous infiltration,—properties which have caused them to 
remain unchanged, and to resist the penetration of mineral substances 
more than other vegetable tissues, These qualities are well seen in 
the bark of our American white birch. It isno wonder that materials 
of this kind should constitute considerable portions of such vegetable 
accumulations as the beds of coal, and that when present in large 
proportion they should afford richly bituminous beds. All this agrees 
with the fact, apparent on examination of the common coal, that the 
greater number of its purest layers consist of the flattened bark of 
Sigillarie and similar trees, just as any single flattened trunk em- 
bedded in shale becomes a layer of pure coal. It also agrees with the 
fact that other layers of coal, and also the cannels and earthy bitumens 
- appear, under the microscope, to consist of finely comminuted particles, 
principally of epidermal tissues, not only from the fruits and spore- 
eases of plants, but also from their leaves and stems. These con- 


siderations impress us, just as much as the abundance of spore-cases, 
E 


68 THE CARBONIFEROUS. 


with the immense amount of the vegetable matter which has perished 
during the accumulation of coal, in comparison with that which has 
been preserved. 

“Tam indebted to Dr T. Sterry Hunt for the following very valu- 
able information, which at once places in a clear and precise light the 
chemical relations of epidermal tissue and spores with coal. Dr 
Hunt says—‘ The outer bark of the cork tree, and the cuticle of many 
if not all other plants, consists of a highly carbonaceous matter, to 
which the name of suberin has been given. The spores of Lycopodium 
also approach to this substance in composition, as will be seen by the 
following, one of two analyses by Duconi,* along with which I give 
the theoretical composition of pure cellulose or woody fibre, according 
to Payen and Mitscherlich, and an analysis of the suberin of cork, 
from Quercus Suber, from which the ash and 2°5 per cent. of cellulose 
have been deducted.+ 


Cellulose. Cork. Lycopodium. 
Carbon, : 5 44-44 65°73 64:80 
Hydrogen, . : 6:17 8°33 8-73 
INO sens sy 0 “00 1°50 6:18 
Oxygen £2 Sh 49°39 24°44 20:29 

100-00 100-00 100-00 


“<This difference is not less striking when we reduce the above 
centesimal analyses to correspond with the formula of cellulose, 
C,, H,, O., and represent cork and Lycopodium as containing 24 
equivalents of carbon. For comparison I give the composition of 
specimens of peat, brown coal, lignite, and bituminous coal.f 


Cellulose, . ‘ : . ~Coz Heo Oso 
Cork, . . ° . e . Co4 Hisy Oe6ds 
Lycopodium, ‘ ‘ : ~ Cos Hioxs NOsiS 
Peat (Vaux), . e 5 A Co4 Hua O10 
3rown Coal (Schréther), : . Cy Hi Oi 
Lignite (Vaux), . ; ; » Cos Hy8; Osrs 
Bituminous Coal (Regnault), . —. CogHio” “Osea 


“¢Tt will be seen from this comparison that, in ultimate composi- 
tion, cork and Lycopodium are nearer to lignite than to woody 
fibre ; and may be converted into coal with far less loss of earbon and 
hydrogen than the latter. They in fact approach closer in composi- 
tion to resins and fats than to wood, and, moreover, like those sub- 
stauces repel water, with which they are not easily moistened, and 


* Liebig and Kopp, Jahresbuch, 1847-48. + Gmelin, Handbook, xy. 145. 
¢ Canadian Naturalist, vi. 253. 


THE CARBONIFEROUS. 69 


thus are able to resist those atmospheric influences which effect the 
decay of woody tissue.’ 

“‘T would add to this only one further consideration. The nitrogen 
present in the Lycopodium spores, no doubt, belongs to the protoplasm 
contained in them, a substance which would soon perish by decay ; 
and subtracting this, the cell-walls of the spores and the walls of the 
Spore cases would be most suitable material for the production of 
bituminous coal. But this suitableness they share with the epidermal 
tissue of the scales of strobiles, and of the stems and leaves of ferns 
and lyecopods, and above all, with the thick corky envelope of the 
stems of Stgillarie and similar trees, which, as I have elsewhere 
shown,* from its condition in the prostrate and erect trunks contained 
in the beds associated with coal, must have been highly carbonaceous 
and extremely enduring and impermeable to water. In short, if 
instead of ‘spore-cases,’ we read ‘epidermal tissues in general, 
including spore-cases,’ all that Huxley has affirmed will be strictly 
and literally true, and in accordance with the chemical composition, 
microscopical characters, and mode of occurrence of coal. It will also 
be in accordance with the following statement, from my paper on the 
Structures in Coal, published in 1859 :— 

“¢A single trunk of Sigillaria in an erect forest presents an 
epitome of a coal-seam. Its roots represent the Sécgmaria underclay ; 
its bark the compact coal; its woody axis the mineral charcoal ; its 
fallen leaves (and fruits), with remains of herbaceous plants growing 
in its shade, mixed with a little earthy matter, the layers of coarse 
coal. The condition of the durable outer bark of erect trees concurs 
with the chemical theory of coal, in showing the especial suitableness 
of this kind of tissue for the production of the purer compact coals, 
It is also probable that the comparative impermeability of the bark 
to mineral infiltration is of importance in this respect, enabling this 
inaterial to remain unaffected by causes which have filled those layers, 
consisting of herbaceous materials and decayed wood, with pyrites 
and other mineral substances.’ ”’ 


8. THE DEVONIAN. 


On the distribution and arrangement of the rocks of this period I 
have nothing material to add to what I have already stated in refer- 
ring to the Geological Map. Though the Devonian does not occupy 
avery wide area in the Acadian Provinces, yet, in connection with 
the neighbouring areas in the province of Quebec, it is of great in- 


* Vegetable Structures in Coal, Jour. Geol. Soc., xv. 626. Conditions of Accumu 
lation of Coal, #b., xxii. 95. Acadian Geology, 197, 464. 


70 THE DEVONIAN. 


terest, as showing perhaps more of the land life of the period, and 
more especially of its flora, than the Devonian of any other part of the 
world. In connexion with this, it is to be observed that the vast 
development of this formation in the great Lake Erie district shows 
mainly its marine conditions. Yet it is satisfactory to know that 
Professor Hall finds erect trunks of tree-ferns and abundance of 
remains of fern fronds and Psilophyton in the Chemung sandstones of 
New York, and that in the marine limestones of Ohio Dr Newberry 
has discovered trunks of conifers and beautifully preserved stems of tree- 
ferns. The vague notions which many European geologists still enter- 
tain as to the importance and extent of the Devonian period would be 
at once corrected could they study the American developments of it. 

The following table will show the nature and distribution of the 
formations referred to :— 


Devonian, or Erian of America. 


| 
Sunaivisione, | PT SOR A | game, | Sue NOT eee 
Upper Devonian | Chemung Group. Upper Mispee Group. 
or Erian. Sandstones. Shale, Sandstone, 
Long Cove, ete. and Conglomerate. 
Sandstones _ near 
Middle R., Pictou ? 
Middle Devonian | Hamilton Group. Middle Little R. Group (in- 
or Erian. Sandstones. cluding —Cordaite 
Bois Brule, shales and  Da- 
Cape Oiseau, etc.| dexylonSandstone). 
Lower Devonian |Corniferous and Lower Lower Conglo- 
or Erian. Oriskany groups.*| Sandstones. merates, etc. 
Gaspé Basin, Nictaux and Bear 
Little Gaspé, ete. River Series 
(Oriskany). 


These rocks in the Acadian Provinces overlie the fossiliferous beds 
of the Lower Helderberg or Ludlow group, and underlie the Lower 
Carboniferous, to the peculiar flora of which I have already referred. 
From these beds, thus limited, I have described or catalogued 125 
species of fossil plants,+ of which the greater part are specifically, and 
some generically, distinct from those of the Lower Carboniferous. 
A very considerable proportion of these plants have been derived 

* On the evidence of fossils, Hall now regards the Oriskany as Silurian. It is 
really a group of transition, and in Canada its physical relations are with the Devonian, 
and it introduces the fauna and flora of that age. 

+ Report on Fossil Plants of Devonian, etc., Geological Survey of Canada, 1871. 


THE DEVONIAN. TT 


from the rich plant-bearing beds near St John, New Brunswick, so 
admirably explored by Messrs Hartt and Matthew. It is proper, 
however, to explain that, in Acadian Geology, I have restricted 
myself to these species, not noticing, except incidentally, those from 
the Devonian of Gaspé, New York, ete. It is also to be observed that 
several of the species mentioned in that work are much more fully 


Fig. 12.—Psilophyton princeps.—Restored. 


HALATTTMANILENAT 


MLN 


il 
— HH fi 
: 


ll 


Inu 


a, Fruit, natural size; 6, Stem, natural size; c, Scalariform tissue of the axis, highly magnified 
In the restoration, one side is represented in vernation, and the other in fruit. 


illustrated and described in the Report above referred to. More especi- 
ally is this the case with the remarkable genus Psélophyton, the fructifi- 
eation of which was not distinctly known when my last edition was 
published, but will be found fully described and figured in the 


tz THE DEVONIAN. 


Report. The restoration given in Fig. 12 will better show the precise 
character of this curious plant, which, while allied to the club-mosses 
in structure and habit, has remarkable peculiarities in its fructification. 
In the case of P. elegans, in which* the fructification is said to 
consist of “oval scales,” these should be understood as flattened 
spore-cases, not scales. Cyclopteris Jacksoni would also now be 
placed in my new genus Archwopteris ; and, as previously stated 
under the head of Carboniferous, a higher place in the vegetable 
kingdom might now be assigned to the genus Cordaites on the evi- 
dence furnished by M. Grand ’Eury. 

The disposition which prevails among European palzobotanists to 
refer our Devonian flora to the Lower Carboniferous, proceeds, as 
already pointed out, in part from their imperfect acquaintance with the 
development of this system of formations in America, and also from 
the superior richness, so far, of our flora, But there is not improb- 
ably another reason. Just as the modern genera of plants seem to 
have appeared in full force in Ameriea in the Cretaceous, while in 
Europe they scarcely attain a similar development till the Miocene 
Tertiary, we may have had an earlier introduction of the Palzozoie 
flora. This is, I think, now rendered probable by the later publica- 
tions of Stur and Heer. In any case, however, our Devonian flora is 
markedly distinct from that of the Lower Carboniferous, as may be 
seen by reference to the Reports on those floras already referred to. 


9. THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


In the Acadian Provinces, as in some other parts of Eastern 
America, the great igneous outbursts, evidenced by the masses and 
dykes of granite which cut the Lower Devonian rocks, make a strong 
line of distinction between the later and older Paleozoic. While the 
Carboniferous series is unaltered, except very locally, and compara- 
tively little disturbed, and confined to the lower levels, the Upper 
Silurian, and all older series, have been folded and disturbed and 
profoundly altered, and constitute the hilly and broken parts of the 
country. Further, in the Upper Silurian and the older periods, there 
seems to have been a constant mixture with the aqueous sediments 
in process of deposition of both acidic and basic volcanic matter, in 
the form of ashes and fragments, as well as probably outflows of 
trachyte and dioritic rock, so that all these older formations are 
characterized by the presence of felsite, and porphyry, and _petro- 
siliceous breccia, and of diorite. Further, since these voleanie and 


* Ac. Geol., 543. 


THE UPPER SILURIAN. 73 


tufaceous rocks, owing to their composition, are much more liable to 
be rendered crystalline by metamorphism than the ordinary aqueous 
sediments from which the bases have been leached out by water, and since 
they are usually not fossiliferous, the appearance is presented of erystal- 
line non-fossiliferous rocks alternating with others holding abundant 
organic remains, and comparatively unaltered. The voleanic members 
of these series are also often very irregular in distribution, and there is 
little to distinguish them from each other, even when their ages may 
be very different. These circumstances oppose many difficulties to 
the classification of all the pre-Devonian rocks of Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick, difficulties as yet very imperfectly overcome. My 
own attempts to unravel these intricacies have as yet been only 
partially satisfactory to myself, and I have seen quite as little reason 
to be satisfied with many of the arrangements which have been 
suggested by others. We shall, however, endeavour to ascertain 
what new facts are available, and to what extent they contradict or 
modify the views given in the text of Acadian Geology. 

Messrs Bailey and Matthew have devoted much time and labour 
to the rocks which crop out from under the Upper Devonian beds at 
Perry in Maine, and extend thence eastward into New Brunswick, 
where they have been named the ‘ Mascarene series.” I studied 
these beds in 1862, as they occur at Pigeon Hill and elsewhere near 
Eastport, and referred them to the Upper Silurian period,* but the 
tracing of their extension in New Brunswick, and the full establish- 
ment of their age, belongs to the gentlemen above named.+ 

These rocks are extensively developed in the south-western part 
of New Brunswick, and their thickness has been estimated at 2000 
feet. The following section, in ascending order, taken from the 
Report of the Geological Survey for 1875-6, shows the general 
structure of the formation in Queen’s County. 


Division 1. Gray clay slates, mostly of pale colour and 

generally somewhat calcareous. Darker- 

gray clay slates, some of which are carbo- 

naceous, . é , 3 5 about 400 feet. 
Division 2. Black and dark-gray argillaceous or silicious 

clay slates, with very regular sedimentary 

bands, é : : ‘ ; about 600 _,, 
Division 3. Dark-gray and greenish-gray earthy sand- 

stones, the lower part compact, the upper 


* Paper on Precarboniferous Flora. 
+ Reports, Geol. Survey, 1875-6. 


74 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


part more slaty, greenish-gray, calcareous, or 

black and fissile, é : ‘ about 600 feet 
Division 4. Ash-gray and greenish-gray schistose beds, 

generally chloritic and calcareous, sometimes 

amygdaloidal and dioritic, . : about 300 ,, 
Division 5. Alternations of gray and dark-gray 

felsites (often porphyritic), with com- 

pact dark-gray feldspathic rock, clouded 

with green and purple, and with beds 

of dark and pale-green chloritie schist. 

There is a mass of felsite about 150 

feet thick near the base, and a breccia 

conglomerate at the summit,. about 800 feet or more. 


These rocks, with the same general structure, are widely distri- 
buted in Southern New Brunswick, but, as might be expected, they 
vary in detail, more especially in the upper members. They also 
present a general resemblance to the belt of Upper Silurian rocks 
already referred to as extending towards Bathurst, and rocks of this 
type are known to occur in the Upper Silurian districts of Nova 
Scotia. 

The fossils found in the lower members of this series near East- 
port are a Lingula allied to ZL. centrilineata of the Lower Helder- 
berg, and also very near to some Hamilton species, and to that found 
in the Lower Devonian of Gaspé, though probably different from that 
occurring in the Upper Silurian of Wentworth, Pictou, and Arisaig. 
There are also species of Modiomorpha, and a species of Loxonema, 
with a small Beyrichia of Upper Silurian type. Elsewhere in New 
Brunswick these beds have afforded species of Strophomena, Orthis, 
Rhynchonella, Pterinea, and corals of Upper Silurian genera. There 
can thus be no doubt as to their general age, though we have not 
sufficient evidence to assign them to any particular horizon in the 
series of Upper Silurian beds known in Nova Scotia. 

The Kingston group, referred in Acadian Geology to the Upper 
Silurian, is now regarded as in great part of older date, though 
fossils apparently Upper Silurian have been found in some of its 
beds. From the sections given by Bailey and Matthew, and the 
specimens I have seen, it is apparent that its rocks somewhat 
resemble in mineral character those of the Mascarene series. 
They, however, also closely resemble the series of beds which, in 
the Cobequid Mountains and East River of Pictou, is seen to emerge 
from beneath the Upper Silurian series, and which is probably 


THE UPPER SILURIAN. 75 


Lower Silurian, and to which I shall in the sequel give the name of 
the Cobequid series, already applied to it in the Table of Forma- 
tions in Acadian Geology.* 

The cuttings of the Intercolonial Railway have enabled Dr Honey- 
man to recognise at Wentworth, on the north side of the Cobequids, 
the extension westward of the Upper Silurian rocks mentioned in 
Acadian Geology, and also in an earlier memoir on the Metamorphic 
rocks of Eastern Nova Scotia,t as flanking the crystalline rocks of 
these hills in New Annan and Earlton. Dr Honeyman was dis- 
posed to regard these beds at Wentworth as possibly as old as the 
Cincinnati group of the Lower Silurian ; but the fossils which I have 
collected in them seem to me to indicate that they are probably of the 
age of the Lower Arisaig series,{ or about that of the Clinton of New 
York. They also much resemble in mineral character the Lower 
Arisaig beds, as well as those of similar age near Cape Gaspé, and on 
the Matapedia. The more characteristic fossils in my collections are :— 


Graptolithus Clintonensis, Tall. 
Climacograpsus and Retiograpsus (?) sp. 
Atrypa reticularis, Dalman. 
Strophomena rhomboidalis, Wahl. 
Lingula oblonga, Hall. 

Orthis tenuiradiata, Hall, or allied. 
Orthis elegantula, Dalman, or allied. 
Rhynchonella neglecta, Hall, _,, 
Leptoccelia intermedia, Hall, _,, 
Tentaculites distans, Hall, a 


As usual in the shales of this series, the finer markings of the shells 
are not well preserved, so that it is not easy to assign them to their 
species. I think, however, that I cannot be wrong in referring them 
to the lower part of the Upper Silurian. 

At Wentworth the dark shales holding these fossils are traversed 
by diabase dykes,§ in the vicinity of which the shales have assumed 
a gray colour, and have been hardened so as in places to resemble 
felsites. It is probable that the fossiliferous beds may be uncon- 
formable to the hard slates, felsites, and porphyries underlying them, 
but the shales must have participated to some extent in the move- 
ments to which the older rocks have been exposed. 

* Page 20. + Journal Geological Society, vol. vi. 

¢ I use the term “ Lower Arisaig” in the sense attached to it in Acadian Geology, 
namely, for the lower fossiliferous series at that place, in the main equivalent to the 


Clinton and Medina groups of New York— Llandovery of England. 
2 See Note lV. in Appendix. 


76 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 


Farther eastward, at French River and Waugh’s River, the repre- 
sentatives of the Wentworth series contain coarse limestone and 
hard sandstone as well as shale, but hold some of the same fossils, 
and at Earlton loose pieces contain fossils of a somewhat higher 
horizon equivalent to the Upper Arisaig series. 

Passing from the eastern end of the Cobequids across a bay of the 
Pictou Carboniferous area, we find well-characterized Upper Silurian 
rocks with fossils of the Upper Arisaig (Lower Helderberg) age. 
These rocks have recently been somewhat carefully examined in 
connexion with explorations of the great deposits of iron ore asso- 
ciated with them. It would seem that the upper half of the Upper 
Silurian is here quite as well developed as at Arisaig, and includes 
the great bed of fossiliferous hematite which is so characteristic of this 
region (Fig. 13). From below these beds arise thick beds of ferru- 


Fig. 13.—Ideal Section, showing the general relations of the Iron Ores of the East 
iver of Pictou. 


1. Great bed of Red Hematite. 

2. Vein of Specular Iron. 

3. Vein of Limonite. 
(a) Older Slate and Quartzite series, with Felsite and Ash Rocks, ete. 
(4) Lower Helderberg formation and other Upper Silurian Rocks. 

(¢) Lower Carboniferous of the East Branch of East River. 


ginous quartzite, and of imperfectly crystalline diorite and slaty and fel- 
sitic breccias, which would seem to be lower members of the Upper 
Silurian, and which are less indurated than the rocks of similar composi- 
tion referred to the Lower Silurian and older series in the sequel. These 
latter rocks, which also appear in the vicinity of the East River, are 
breccia, felsite, quartzite, slates, and hydro-mica schists, which bear a 
close resemblance to the Cobequid series, and pass to the southward 
and westward of the newer rocks, no doubt forming in this region 
the continuation of that formation. In the central parts of the hills, 
at the head-waters of the East River, these beds are seen, as in the 
Cobequids, to be invaded by great masses of an intrusive red syenite. 

Eastward of the East River the continuation of the Upper Silurian 
rocks has been traced by Dr Honeyman all the way to Arisaig, 
where their characteristics are fully described in Acadian Geology ; 


and beyond this as far as Lochaber Lake, where at least the lower 
members occur. 


TNE UPPER SILURIAN. 77 


One of the most interesting fossils recently found in the Upper 
Silurian of Eastern Nova Scotia, is the complete specimen of 
Homalonotus Dawsoni, Hall, figured here (Fig. 14), and which was 


Fig 14.—Homalonotus Dawsoni.—Hall. Half natural size. 


(a) Margin of Segment. 


found on the East River of Pictou by Mr D. Fraser, who has col- 
lected many of the characteristic fossils of this district while exploring 
its iron deposits. 

We have to inquire under the next head as to those regions 
coloured in the map as Upper Silurian, but which subsequent inves- 
tigations have relegated with some probability to older periods. 

I have said nothing above of the areas of Niagara, Lower Helder- 
berg, and Oriskany in the western counties, because I have not re- 
visited them since the publication of my edition of 1868, and have no 
further facts to present. Farther study of the fossils formerly col- 
lected has not materially modified the conclusions stated in Acadian 
Geology, pp. 498, 499, and 571; but much remains to be done in 
this district. 


78 THE LOWER SILURIAN. 


10. THE LOWER. SILURIAN. 


In the second edition of Acadian Geology, following, though under 
protest, the Murchisonian nomenclature, then current both in England 
and America, and adopted by the Canadian Geological Survey, I 
included under this head all the fossiliferous rocks older than the 
Upper Silurian. If, however, we restrict the term Lower Silurian to 
that geological group of which the great Trenton formation in America 
and the Bala in England are the main and typical members, and which 
contains what Barrande has called the ‘‘ second fauna,” then we have 
as yet no certainly determined fossiliferous group of this age in 
Acadia; and there seems little doubt that the great Lower Silurian 
fossiliferous limestones are absent, as they appear also to be in New- 
foundland.* If, therefore, there are any representatives of the Lower 
Silurian, we have to look for them in those rocks underlying the 
Upper Silurian series, and which are largely of the nature of voleanic 
or trap-ash deposits. 

In New Brunswick the band of old rocks lying on the north of the 
erystalline belt extending south-west from Bathurst, and composed of 
greenish felsites, quartzites, and slates of various kinds, is usually 
referred to the Lower Silurian. The evidence of this is, first, its 
appearance from under the Upper Silurian beds in the same manner 
with the rocks of the Quebee group on the north; and, secondly, the 
occurrence of a few graptolites, found by Mr Robb, but as yet only 
in loose stones. Lithologically these rocks may be regarded as cor- 
responding somewhat closely with portions of the Quebee group, and 
also with the contemporaneous Skiddaw and Borrowdale series in 
England. According to Messrs Bailey and Matthew, similar rocks 
occur also in several places in the south-west of New Brunswick, and 
underlie the Upper Silurian of that region. If this view of their age 
is correct, then it would follow that the mixed aqueous and voleanie 
deposits so characteristic of the Huronian recurred in the Lower 
Silurian, and again in the deposition of the Upper Silurian Mascarene 
series. On the evidence of minéral character, as well as of relation to 
the Upper Silurian series, there seems some reason to suppose that the 
Kingston group of Messrs Bailey and Matthew, occupying the penin- 
sula between Kennebecasis Bay and the St John River, and extending 
south-westward to the coast, may also, as stated above, be of this age. 

Crossing over to Nova Scotia, we have in the Cobequid Mountains 
a great series of slates, quartzites, and voleanic rocks, evidently under- 


* Murray’s Geological Map, 1877. 


THE LOWER SILURIAN. 79 


lying the Wentworth series, but destitute of fossil remains. These, 
with their continuation in the district extending eastward from the 
Cobequids to the Strait of Canso and into Cape Breton, were character- 
ized by me in 1850* as consisting of “ various slates and quartzites, 
with syenite, greenstone, compact felspar, claystone, and porphyry,” 
and were named in Acadian Geology the ‘‘Cobequid group,” and their 
age defined as intermediate between that of the lower Arisaig fossili- 
ferous series and the Gold series (Cambrian) of the Atlantic coast. 
As they had afforded no fossils, and as there seemed to be a litho- 
logical and stratigraphical connection between them and the lower part 
of the Upper Silurian, they were placed with that series as a down- 
ward extension, or, in part, metamorphosed members of it. 

The arrangement of these rocks in the central part of the Cobequids, 
and also between the East River of Pictou and the east branch of 
the St Mary’s River, may be stated thus. There is a central mass of 
red intrusive syenite or syenitic granite, usually having a large pre- 
dominance of red orthoclase, with a moderate quantity of hornblende 
and quartz. This sends veins into the overlying beds, and is itself 
penetrated by dykes of diabase. On this central mass rests a great 
thickness of felsites, porphyries, felsitic agglomerates, and diorites, 
evidently of volcanic origin. Upon these are gray, black, and red- 
dish slates and quartzites, with a bed of limestone, and penetrated 
by metallic veins. ‘I'he lower volcanic portions and the upper more 
strictly aqueous parts might perhaps be separated as a Lower and 
Upper Cobequid series; but the difference appears to depend rather 
on mode of deposition than on any great difference of age. 

Along the northern side of the Cobequids, and between Pictou and 
Arisaig, these beds are seen immediately to underlie the Upper 
Silurian rocks, which have been disturbed with them, and are 
penetrated by the same igneous dykes. Dr Honeyman appears to 
have observed the same relation on the Lochaber Lake and in other 
parts of Antigonish County. This somewhat constant association would 
seem to indicate that the rocks in question immediately underlie the 
Upper Silurian, and are therefore themselves of Lower Silurian age. 
On the other hand, their similarity in mineral character with the 
Huronian series of New Brunswick, with rocks observed in Cape 
Breton to rise from under Cambrian deposits, and with the Huronian 
rocks of Murray in Newfoundland, might induce us to assign them to 
an earlier date. There are, however, some differences in mineral 
character ; as, for example, the greater prevalence of olive, black, and 
micaceous slates, and of highly felspathic rocks in the Cobequid series, 


* Journal of Geological Society, vol. vi. 


80 THE LOWER SILURIAN. 


which, while they ally this series with that of Northern New Brunswick 
and of the Kingston peninsula, separate it from the typical Huronian. 
I am therefore inclined to believe that it will ultimately be found that 
there are three barren series of mixed volcanic and aqueous deposits 
in the Acadian Provinces, separated by fossiliferous deposits, viz., 
(1) The Huronian, over which lie the fossiliferous Cambrian (Acadian) 
beds; (2) The Cobequid series, over which lie the fossiliferous Middle 
and Upper Silurian; (3) The Masearene series, belonging to the 
Upper Silurian. In some districts, as in Southern New Brunswick 
and Cape Breton, where these series, or some of them, approach 
closely to each other, and are much disturbed, it may be difficult to 
disentangle these deposits; but I believe the distinction will be found 
to hold good, and will no doubt be facilitated by the discovery of 
additional fossiliferous beds. 


Fig. 15.— General Structure of the Cobequid Range. 


(a) Massive Syenitic Granite. 

(b) Lower Cobequid Series, Felsite, Porphyry, Agglomerate, &c. 
(c) Upper Cobequid Series. Ferriferous Slates and Quartzite. 
(a) Wentworth Fossiliferous Beds —Upper Silurian. 

(e) Carboniferous. 

(f) Triassic. 

(x) Veins of Syenite and Diabase. 


In the meantime, I have no doubt of the identity of the greater 
part of the altered and volcanic beds of the hilly country extending 
through Pictou and Antigonish counties, and underlying the Upper 
Silurian, with the Cobequid series. Further, large suites of specimens 
placed in my hands by Albert J. Hill, Esq., leave no room to doubt 
the similarity of the greater part of the rocks in the district extending 
from St Peter’s to Scatari in Cape Breton to the Cobequid deposits ; 
though, as will appear in the sequel, there is reason to believe that 
older rocks occur both in this district and in Northern Cape Breton. 

Mr Selwyn, who has studied these rocks in Southern Cape Breton 
and in Eastern Nova Scotia, but has not yet published his results, 
takes, I believe, similar views of their probable age, and compares 
their lithological character with that of the contemporaneous trap-ash 
beds and similar voleanie deposits in South Wales. Their resem- 
blance to the Borrowdale and Skiddaw series in England, as described 
by Ward in his Report on these formations, is also remarkable. 


——- 


THE LOWER SILURIAN. 81 


If the above views are correct, it will follow that in the Lower 
Silurian period the area of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was the 
theatre of extensive and long-continued volcanic ejections, producing 
a series of rocks entirely dissimilar from those deposited at the same 
period in the interior continental region, though in some respects 
resembling those of Great Britain and those of the regions in Quebee 
and the United States lying east of the great Appalachian line of 
disturbance. 


11. THE CAMBRIAN. 


Under this head I would now place the interesting “ Acadian 
series’ of St John, so well characterized by its fauna, that it may be 
considered as the typical representative in Eastern America of that 
Middle or Lower Cambrian formation known in England as the 
Menevian, and of Barrande’s étage C of the Primordial in Bohemia. 
The true horizon of these beds was, of course, perfectly recognised at 
the time of the publication of my last edition, but they were then, 
in accordance with prevailing classification, placed as Primordial 
Silurian. Nothing new can as yet be added to the almost exhaustive 
examination of their fossils at that time made by Professor Hartt, 
nor has the area of beds holding these fossils in the Acadian Pro- 
vinces been considerably extended.* In Newfoundland+ and New 
England, however, beds of this age seem to have a large extension ; 
and in certain conglomerates of the Quebee group on the Lower St 
Lawrence there are fragments holding the remains of a fauna which 
has been termed by Billings Lower Potsdam, and must be near to 
the age of the Acadian group. 

The great Atlantic coast series of Nova Scotia, which is the 
auriferous formation of that province, and includes in ascending 
order the so-called Quartzite and Clay-slate formations, in which 
these rocks respectively predominate, I believe to be likewise Cam- 
brian or Primordial, a view which Mr Selwyn and Professor Hind 
have also advocated. It is, however, noteworthy that in mineral 
character this very widely extended formation does not precisely 
resemble the Acadian series of New Brunswick, and it is therefore 
to be presumed that it represents some other part of that great 
system of formations. 

The evidence of fossils in determining the precise age of these 
rocks is unfortunately as yet somewhat imperfect. Mr Selwyn has 
recognised in the Slate formation at Lunenburg linear markings of 


* Note VI. + Murray’s Reports and Map. 


82 THE CAMBRIAN. 


the nature of those which in Sweden have been named Euphyter 

and have been described as land plants. They are, however, of very 
doubtful origin, and in my judgment more akin to those trails of 
aquatic animals which I have named Rhabdichnites. This conclusion 
I arrived at after a careful examination of a very complete suite of 
Swedish specimens in London in 1870. Still, these markings are 
very characteristic of certain Cambrian beds. They are, for example, 
abundant on the surfaces of the slates of the Acadian group at St 
John. Professor Hind has also discovered in the quartzites of this 
group certain nodular bodies and markings which Mr billings 
referred with doubt to the genus Hospangia and to casts of Orthis. 
The latter I have not seen, but Professor Hind has very kindly 
guided me to a bed near the Waverley Gold Mine, on the surface of 
which there are great numbers of the former fossils. As appearing 
on the weathered surface of the rock, they consist of little oval 
depressions surrounded by a raised ridge from which radiate a 
number of raised lines sometimes bifurcating. These lines appear to 
represent radiating plates or lamella rather than rods. They are of 
various sizes, from an inch to six or seven inches in diameter, only 
the larger ones having the rays well developed. ‘They present no 
structure or evidence of organic matter, except that the centre 
has a brownish colour, as if from the oxidation of iron, and that in 
some specimens, differently preserved from the others, the rays also 
show a rusty colour. The most natural interpretation of these forms 
would seem to be that they consist of a central axis or central cavity 
surrounded with vertical radiating plates, sometimes splitting into 
two toward the circumference. The central axis seems to have been 
the original structure to which the radiating plates were afterwards 
added. Some specimens seem to indicate that the larger specimens 
were ultimately broken down into irregular groups of plates and 
separate plates. The material would seem to have been organic, and 
probably very perishable. These objects are no doubt those which 
Billings referred with doubt to his genus Eospongia; but they have 
no structures warranting such a reference, though they might well 
be compared with the problematical object from the Eophyton sand- 
stone of Sweden described by Linnarson under the name Astylospongia 
radiata. To me they appear to be fucoids with radiating fronds, allied in 
form at least to Hall’s Phytopsts from the Bird’s-eye Limestone, or to 
Linnarson’s Scotolithus from the Eophyton sandstone. Similar objects 
are abundant on the surfaces of the sandstones of the Quebec group at 
Metis, and they are there associated with a spiral Arenicolites allied 


* Report of Geological Survey, 1870. 


THE CAMBRIAN. 83 


“x4. spiralis of Torell, but distinct specifically, and with forms 
allied to Eophyton. In any case they may be regarded as forms 
of Cambrian and Lower Silurian type. In the meantime, that we 
may have some name wherewith to designate them, I would propose 
to call them Astropolithon,* and the Waverley species, in honour of 
its discoverer, A. Hindii. 

The only other fossils known to me are specimens resembling 
the tubes or perforations known as Scolithus, and very characteristic 
of the Potsdam sandstone in Canada. These I found near the 
mouth of St Mary’s River in loose blocks, which must have been 
derived from a neighbouring ledge of quartzite. In so far as the 
above fossils give any indication of age, they serve to confirm the 
supposition that the Gold series of the Atlantic coast is to be referred 
to the Cambrian period. Within that period its fossils have strong 
points of alliance with those of the beds known as Fucoidal sand- 
stone and Eophyton sandstone in Sweden, and which underlie the 
equivalents of our Acadian series. They may, therefore, be regarded 
as probable equivalents of the Lower Cambrian or Longmynd series 
of Europe. 

Professor Hind has given a good description of the characters and 
structure of the more important parts of the Gold series in his 
Reports to the Department of Mines in Nova Scotia.- He states 
the entire thickness of the series at 12,000 feet. Of this the Lower 
or Quartzite and Slate division, which includes in its middle and 
upper part the productive gold veins, comprises about 9000 feet, 
and the Upper or Ferruginous Slate division 3000 feet. The whole 
is thrown into a series of somewhat sharp anticlinals, which, as might 
be expected, are much faulted. The steepest sides of the anticlinals 
are usually to the north, though in some eases, as at Sherbrooke, to 
the south. The courses of these anticlinals are approximately east 
and west. The gold has been found to be most accessible in the 
sides and near the summits of the anticlinals, while in the synclinals 
the upper unproductive slates usually appear. It is also to be 
observed that the productive gold veins are best developed in the 
vicinity of the great masses of eruptive granite which traverse this 
formation, and in connection with which it has locally been 
much metamorphosed. 

The gold veins, as stated in Acadian Geology, run for the most 
part parallel to the bedding, but cross courses and branches traversing 


* Star-like stone. 
+ Report on Waverley District, 1869; Sherbrooke, 1870; Mount Uniacke, Oldham 
and Renfrew, 1872. 
F 


og 


84 THE CAMBRIAN. 


the beds are very frequent,* and there is no proof that these are less 
ancient than the conformable veins or “leads.’’ Though occurring 
in the Quartzite division, the auriferous veins usually follow bands of 
slaty rock included in the quartzite, a circumstance which much 
favours their profitable working. 

In my Acadian Geology, I associated with the Atlantic coast 
series the extensive deposits of mica slate and micaceous gneiss 
found in the peninsula ending in Cape Causo, and also very exten- 
sively in the west, more especially in Shelburne County. I also 
regarded all the true granite of this district as intrusive, and on 
the evidence of the fossiliferous rocks cut by it on the Nictaux River, 
as of later date than the Oriskany period. It has, however, lately 
been customary to regard much of the granite as gneiss, and to 
speak of this and the associated schistose rocks as Laurentian and 
Huronian. Aware that many new exposures had been made in 
recent years by mining and roadmaking, and being desirous to 
satisfy myself as to whether any change was required, I revisited 
the district around Sherbrooke and the St Mary’s River, and was 
so fortunate as to find what seems to me conclusive evidence of the 
correctness of my former views. 

Eastward of Sherbrooke, the beds of the Gold series run endwise 
against the great mass of granite rock extending from near the St 
Mary’s River beyond Indian Harbour, and given in my Acadian 
Geology as a typical illustration of intrusive granite... At a place 
near the Upper Indian Harbour Lake I found the granite and 
quartzite in contact, the line of junction running about south-east, 
and the quartzite dipping north-east at an angle of 70°. At the 
junction the quartzite is slightly changed in character, having 
apparently minute hornblende and mica crystals developed in it; but 
the granite sends numerous veins into the quartzite, and in these 
becomes coarser in texture, and presents beautiful aggregations of 
plumose mica. This is, I believe, the character of the junction 
everywhere, except that where the slaty bands approach the granite, 
they are more altered than the quartzite. (See Frontispiece.) 

At Cochrane’s Hill, near the forks of the St Mary’s River, a new 
gold mine has been opened on quartz veins said to be richer in 
visible gold than usual, and included in beds which must belong to 
the upper part of the Quartzite series. These beds lie, however, in 
the line of the great intrusive granite belt extending from Cape 
Canso along the south side of Chedabueto Bay, and they are pene- 


* I have observed and sketched examples of this at Uniacke and Sherbrooke. 
+ Page 619, and plate, p. 613. 


JUNCTION OF INTRUSIVE GRANITE AND QUARTZITE IN CLIFF NEAR 
INDIAN HARBOUR LAKE. (P. 84.) 


THE CAMBRIAN. 85 


trated by numerous granite veins, which in the vicinity of the 
mine were seen to vary from six feet to less than an inch in thick- 
ness. In these circumstances, the gold-bearing slates and quartzites 
have experienced a metamorphosis equal to any observed elsewhere 
in this coastal series. The slates have become perfectly crystalline. 
Mica-schists, or micaceous gneisses, with crystals of chiastolite and 
staurolite, have been developed in them, and they are absolutely un- 
distinguishable from the rocks of the Cape Canseau peninsula and of 
Shelburne and Barrington, as described in Acadian Geology. This 
I consider a perfectly conclusive vindication of the views held by me 
in 1868, and I have reason to believe that it will apply to all other 
localities. I would not, however, maintain the negative conclusion 
that nowhere in this district do Laurentian or Huronian rocks 
penetrate the Gold series; though the only locality where I have 
seen any rocks which appeared likely to be of this kind, is in the 
extreme west, in the vicinity of Yarmouth, where certain epidotic, 
felspathic, and chloritic rocks appear, of a very different character 
from those of other parts of the coast, and which may be Huronian 
(Ac. Geol., pp. 616, 620). Mr Selwyn has recently examined these 
rocks more in detail than I have been able to do, and regards 
them as probably older than the Gold series.* 

The apparent relation of the granite veins and auriferous quartz 
at Cochrane’s Hill suggests an interesting question with respect to 
the age of the latter. It would seem that the quartz veins cut or 
disturb those of granite, and hence are newer. Now, if the intru- 
sive granite is of Upper Silurian or Devonian age, this would limit 
the age of the gold veins on one side, just as the occurrence of drift 
gold in the Lower Carboniferous conglomerate of Gay’s River limits 
it on the other. In this case the movements of the Cambrian rocks 
which opened up the gold veins must have taken place in the 
Devonian age.- There is, however, some reason to believe that all 
the gold veins are not precisely of one date, and this conclusion may 
apply only to the later of them.{ Perhaps, taking this in connection 
with the fact already stated, that the gold deposits seem richer in 
the vicinity of the granite, we may be justified in affirming that the 
granite intrusions and gold veins are “roughly contemporaneous.” 
This is the conclusion at which I arrived in 1868, and stated in the 
second edition of Acadian Geology.§ 

Mr Selwyn has ascertained that the granite and gneissose rocks of 


* Report, Geol. Survey, 1870. t+ Acadian Geology, p. 631. 
¢ Mr Poole mentions to me a case of granite apparently ‘‘ capping ” a quartz vein. 
@ See Acad. Geol., pp. 665, 666. 


86 THE CAMBRIAN. 


the south coast in Shelburne, are probably continuous inland with 
those of Annapolis, and thus occupy a much greater area than that 
represented in my map.* 

I am indebted to Henry S. Poole, Esq., Inspector of Mines for 
Nova Scotia, for some notes on the distribution of granite bands in 
the Gold series of the eastern coast. He informs me that granite 
crosses the Post road from Musquodoboit, five miles from the 
junction of Pictou, Halifax and Guysboro’ counties, It also occurs 
at Liscomb Lakes, south of the west branch of St Mary’s River, and 
in the hills west of Mooseland, between Mooseland and the shore. 
It appears to extend from Mooseland to the north-eastern corner of 
Ship Harbour, and also occurs at Sheet Harbour. Mr Poole agrees 
with me in regarding the granites as intrusive, and mentions the 
tongues or veins extending into the gneiss, the fragments of slate and 
quartzite caught up in the granite, and the development of chiastolite 
in the vicinity of the granite masses, as corroboration of this. 

It may be well to explain here that in designating the granite as 
igneous and intrusive, I by no means wish to declare myself against 
those theories of its origin which would regard it as consisting of 
indigenous rock fused by aqueo-igneous agency in place, or nearly 
so. I have referred to this question in Acadian Geology, pp. 
500, 501, and my views regarding it still remain the same. 

I may further remark that, independently of the stratified character 
of gneiss, Plutonic granite has always, in so far as my experience 
extends, a different texture, quite manifest to an experienced eye, and 
dependent, I believe, chiefly on the more regular forms and inferior 
density of the crystals of felspar in granite as compared with gneiss. 

Mr Fletcher, of the Geological Survey, has discovered, in certain 
beds near St Andrew’s Channel, Cape Breton, fossils which probably 
belong to the Cambrian series, and are apparently newer than 
the Acadian or Menevian group. They consist, according to Mr 
Billings, of an Obolella, Orthisina, and Dictyonema, and a trilobite 
of Primordial type; and the beds holding the Lingula or Obolella 
are very like the Lingula shales of St John. The series is charac- 
terized as consisting of a purple, red, and green slate, sandstones 
and limestones, with beds of felsite.t It thus differs in character 
from the Acadian group, as developed at St John, and also from the 
Cambrian of the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia. It rests on the 
erystalline rocks of the Boisdale Hills, referred to under next head, 
which must thus be Lower Cambrian or Huronian. 


* Report of 1870. 
+ Report, Geological Survey, 1875-76. 


THE CAMBRIAN. 87 


Mr Fletcher has still more recently (1877) procured fossils, not 
yet described, from the vicinity of Miré River, where beds similar 
to those of St Andrew’s Channel are extensively developed, and which 
include an Agnostus and other trilobites of primordial type, but 
specifically distinet from those of the Acadian group; and also a small 
Orthis, apparently allied to O. Evadne, Billings, from the Quebee 
group, or to O. lenticularis, Dalman, of the British Upper Lingula 
flags. ‘These fossils I regard as indicating a position probably 
Cambrian, but later than that of the Acadian beds of St John. The 
beds containing these fossils are associated with the volcanic ash 
series of Southern Cape Breton, but I have no information as yet 
with reference to their precise geological relations. It is interesting 
and instructive thus to find the Upper Cambrian series appearing in 
Cape Breton. With the Acadian or Menevian, and the probable 
Longmynd series of the coast of Nova Scotia, it serves to complete 
the representation of that system of formations in Acadia. I may add 
that Professor Bailey informs me that in the belt of old rocks, north 
of the central Coal-field in New Brunswick, there are portions, appar- 
ently older than the Silurian rocks of that region, and resembling the 
Nova Scotia coast series, like which they are auriferous. 


12. THE HURONIAN. 


The Coldbrook series of Messrs Bailey and Matthew, rising from 
beneath the Cambrian fossiliferous slates, was referred to this age in 
my second edition; and this view has been still further confirmed and 
extended by recent observations of Professor Bailey. From these it 
appears that the Coldbrook or Huronian series rests unconformably 
on the Laurentian, and that pebbles of the latter are included in its 
conglomerates. On the other hand, the Acadian or Menevian beds 
lie unconformably on the Coldbrook series. Further, the Upper 
Huronian is now identified with the ‘‘ coastal series” of former reports, 
and thus greatly extended, more especially to the eastward of St John. 
There would also appear to be indications of unconformity between 
the upper and lower members of the Huronian itself. It thus appears 
as a distinct formation, or group of formations, between the Laurentian 
and Acadian groups, and connected with neither. The study of a 
series of typical specimens, kindly furnished by Mr Matthew of St 
John and Mr Murray, director of the Geological Survey of Newfound- 
land, enables me to affirm a remarkable similarity in mineral character 
between the rocks described as Huronian in these two regions, while 
their relations to the Laurentian below and Menevian above are the 


88 THE HURONIAN. 


same. The peculiar fossils, however, Aspidella and Arenicolites, allied 
to A. spiralis, discovered by Murray in the Upper Huronian of New- 
foundland and described by Billings, have not yet been recognised in 
New Brunswick. 

The Coldbrook series is remarkable for the abundance in it of 
felsites, felsitic breccias, porphyry, diorite, and other crystalline or 
cryptocrystalline rocks, which, though stratified, are evidently of 
voleanie origin, and if such rocks are to be considered as everywhere 
of this age, the classification of the older rocks of Acadia would be 
greatly simplified. It is evident, however, that we must separate 
the Mascarene series, and other rocks of this character, with Upper 
Silurian fossils; and there is no good evidence that the Cobequid 
series and its equivalents in Pictou and elsewhere are older than the 
Lower Silurian. There seems, however, good reason to class as 
Huronian, or at least as Lower Cambrian, the rocks of the Boisdale 
Hills in Cape Breton, which Mr Fletcher finds to underlie the fossili- 
ferous Cambrian of that region, and which are more quartzose and 
micaceous than the rocks of the Cobequid series. It is not impossible 
that rocks of this age may also occur in the vicinity of the Cambrian 
beds found at Miré. We may also conjecturally class as Huronian 
the chloritic rocks of Yarmouth. 

I may repeat here my conviction, founded on the comparison of 
large suites of specimens from Newfoundland, and from Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick, as well as from the typical localities in Lake 
Huron, that voleanic and trap-ash rocks of various composition were 
in process of deposition from the Huronian to the Upper Silurian 
inclusive, and that they cannot be distinguished in hand specimens. 
It is only by considerations based on stratigraphy and fossils that 
these rocks can be ultimately classified with certainty. Unfortunately, 
in many cases, decisive evidence of these kinds is not easily obtained, 
and in the meantime our classification has to remain to a great extent 
conjectural. 


13. THE LAURENTIAN. 


These rocks, as they occur near St John, New Brunswick, have 
been arranged by Messrs Bailey and Matthew, in their recent 
Reports, in a Lower and Upper series.* The former consists, in 
ascending order, of gray gneiss, red and gray gneiss, and dark-gray 
gneiss, with chloritie gneiss and diorite. The latter consists of 
limestone, with graphite and serpentine, gray quartzites and diorite, 
gray slates and limestones with diorite. In one of the Upper Lime- 


* Ceol. Reports, 1871, ete. See also Note VI: 


« 


THE LAURENTIAN. 89 


stones I have recognised somewhat obscure structures, which appear 
to indicate the presence of fragments of Eozoon.* In consequence of 
this discovery, I reprint here some illustrations of the structure of the 
typical Canadian Eozoon, as guides to observers searching for them 
in the Laurentian of the Lower Provinces (Figs. 16 and 17). Full 
descriptions and other details will be found in my work, “ Life’s 
Dawn on Earth.’’ + 


Fig. 16.—Eozoon Canadense. 


(1) Weathered specimen, natural size. 

(2) Casts of Acervuline chambers. 

(3) Surface of a flat chamber. 

(4) Section showing casts of flat chambers. 

Dr Hunt seems, in recent publications, inclined to doubt the Lauren- 
tian age of the upper part of these rocks, and to refer them, with the 
Hastings group of Ontario, to a somewhat later though pre-Cambrian 
age. 

Dr Honeyman and Professor Hind have suggested the Laurentian 
age of certain rocks at Arisaig, in the Cobequids, and associated with 
the coast Metamorphic series, but I do not regard the evidence of this, 
either from fossils, mineral character, or superposition, as conclusive, 
andmust refer for it to the memoirs of these gentlemen in the Trans- 


* Proceedings, American Association, 1876. + London, 1875. 


90 THE LAURENTIAN. 


actions of the Nova Scotia Institute, and the Journal of the Geological 
Society of London. I must, in hike manner, decline to receive as of 
Laurentian age the felsitic and other rocks of Cape Breton, referred 
to this system by Mr Fletcher in the latest Report of the Geological 
Survey. I would except those of St Anne’s Mountain, the litho- 
logical resemblance of which to the Lower Laurentian of Canada is 
indisputable, and the evidence that they may be of this age has 
certainly been much strengthened by the recent observations of Mr 
Fletcher.* Specimens, and the observations of Mr Brown and Mr 
Campbell and others, induce me also to believe that in the little island 
of St Paul’s, and in some parts of Northern Cape Breton, we may have 


Fig. 17.— Canal System of Eozoon— Magnified. 


a continuation of the rocks referred by Mr Murray to the Laurentian 
in Newfoundland. With these exceptions, I have not seen in Nova 
Scotia, unless in travelled boulders, any rock that I could believe to 
be lithologically equivalent to the Laurentian of Canada, nor have I 
found any stratigraphical evidence of the occurrence of such rocks. 


14. COMPARISONS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES. 


The new facts above stated in relation to the older formations, 
somewhat modify the statements made in Acadian Geology as to the 


* T observe, in some recent papers on this subject, the statement that I had held 
these old rocks of Cape Breton to be intrusive syenites newer than the Carboniferous 
age. On the contrary, I have held that the Metamorphic region of northern Cape 
Breton formed ‘‘a rocky island in the seas of the Carboniferous period.” The only 
foundation known to me for this statement is my reference of the somewhat altered 
limestones of Low Point, in Eastern Cape Breton, to the Lower Carboniferous. I 
believe that later investigations would indicate that they are older. 


| 
? 


Pee’ 2 O° 


COMPARISONS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES. 91 


geological history of the region now included in the maritime pro- 
vinees. They establish what I could then only indicate as probable, 
that the great igneous outbursts of the Devonian age, accompanied 
with profound alteration of the older sediments, with much disturb- 
ance of these beds, and the introduction into them of mineral veins, 
were preceded by a long series of emissions of trachytic lavas and 
voleanic ashes and breccias, now represented by the felsites, porphyries, 
and agglomerates of the Huronian, Cobequid, and Mascarene series. 
Beginning with the Huronian age, these eruptive actions were inter- 
rupted in the Cambrian, but recurred with great intensity in the Lower 
Silurian, and extended into the Upper Silurian age. For this reason, 
the rocks of these periods in the Acadian area present a marked 
lithological contrast to those which were accumulating at the same 
time in the great quiet sea areas of the interior of the continent, and 
it becomes extremely difficult to correlate these deposits in detail. 
The peculiar characters of the Quebec group of Eastern Canada, and 
of the rocks called Taconic by Emmons further south, are no doubt 
connected with the great igneous actions of the Lower Silurian age. 
We may ultimately find that in the Silurian period the Atlantic coast of 
America was the theatre of igneous activity comparable with that 
which has prevailed in later periods on the Pacific coast, and that the 
relations of the coastal and interior rocks are similar to those between 
the Mesozoic porphyrites and trachytes of British Columbia, and 
the contemporaneous shales, marls, and sandstones of the interior 
plains.* 

It is to be observed here that the character of the older deposits 
in the Acadian area has been modified not only by contemporaneous 
igneous action, but by the action of the Arctic currents in drifting 
along the Atlantic border earthy matter set free by frost and 
aqueous denudation in the north; as well as by the metamorphic 
influence connected with the subsequent igneous ejections of the 
Devonian. 

It is further to be observed, that the peculiar features above re- 
ferred to ally the rock formations of the Silurian age in Nova Scotia 
and New Brunswick with those of Great Britain, in which also there 
are great series of bedded volcanic rocks and ash rocks both in 
Cumberland and Wales. A rough equivalency may, indeed, now 
be traced in these rocks on the two sides of the Atlantic, as repre- 
sented in the following table :— 


* See on this subject a paper by Mr G. M. Dawson, On Mesozoie Volcanic Rocks 
of British Columbia, Geological Magazine, July 1877. 


92 COMPARATIVE TABLE. 


COMPARATIVE TABLE. 
ENGLAND, ETC. Nova Scorra AND New Brunswick. 
Upper Silurian. 
Ludlow, Wenlock, and Llandovery or Upper Arisaig Series, Mascarene 
Mayhill. Series ; Lower Arisaig, New Canaan, 
Wentworth, and Restigouche Series. 


Lower Silurian. 

Caradoe and Bala, with Snowdon Upper Cobequid Series, Slates, Fel- 
Felsites and Ash Beds, Coniston sites, Quartzites, and Greenstones. 
and Knock Series. 

Great Felsite and Trap Ash Series of Lower Cobequid Series, Felsites, Por- 
Borrowdale (Ward). phyrites, Agglomerates, and massive 

Syenite of Cobequids, Pictou, and 
Cape Breton. 


Lower Llandeilo Flags and Shales, Graptolitic or Levis Series of Quebec 
Arenig Series, Skiddaw Slates, ete. and North New Brunswick, peat of 


Cape Breton Series ? 


Cambrian. 


Tremadoc Slates and Lingula Flags. Miré and St Andrew’s Channel Series 

in Cape Breton. 

Menevian Series. Acadian Series of St John, New 

Brunswick. 

Longmynd Series, Harlech Grits, and Quartzite and Slate of Atlantic Coast 

Llanberis Slates. of Nova Scotia. 
Huronian. 

Pebidian and Dimetian Series (Hicks), Huronian Felsites, Chloritie and Epi- 
containing Felsite, Chlorite Schist, dotic Rocks of St John, Yarmouth, 
and Serpentine. and of Cape Breton in part. 

Laurentian. 

Older Gneisses of Scotland and of Gneiss, Quartzite, and Limestone of 

Scandinavia. St John, Portland Group, Gneiss 


of St Anne’s Mountain ? 


This table may at least serve to suggest comparisons, even though 
some of its correlations should be shown, by further examination, 
to require correction. In any case, the facts exhibited illustrate the 
general truth, now well established, that throughout geological time, 
the formations on the borders of the great oceans have been different 
in character from those of the continental plateaus and from those of 
the abysses of the sea. 


15. MINERAL RESOURCES. 


Coal, §c.—The Report of the Inspector of Mines for Nova Scotia 
for 1876, shows 24 collieries in operation. Their total produce was 
709,646 tons, but this is far below their present capacity, the trade 


MINERAL RESOURCES, 93 


being in a very depressed condition. All these mines are in the Cum- 
berland, Pictou, and Cape Breton Coal areas. In New Brunswick, 
according to the report on the exhibits at the Centennial Exhibition, 
the only coal-mine in operation was that at Grand Lake, Queen’s Co., 
the annual production being only 3000 chaldrons. Beside this, there 
is the remarkable Albertite of the Albert Mines, Albert County, a 
vein of altered bitumen in the Lower Carboniferous rather than a Coal 
deposit. This yielded in 1874, the latest report I have seen, 7000 tons. 
A new mining enterprise (the Beliveau mine) has recently been com- 
menced near the Petitcodiae River, in search of this valuable mineral. 

There are, in the Carboniferous of New Brunswick and also of Nova 
Scotia, immense deposits of pyroschist or bituminous shale, capable 
of yielding as much as 63 gallons of oil, or 7500 feet of illuminating 
gas, per ton. Owing to the great cheapness of petroleum, little atten- 
tion has been paid to these shales for some years, but it is likely that 
they will before long again be in demand. 

The Coal areas now worked in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are 
undoubtedly those most accessible and promising, and the question of o 
working those beds of less thickness, or less accessible, or those con- 
cealed under the beds of the newer Coal formation, is not likely to 
be raised for some time. That large available areas of these kinds 
exist there can be no doubt; but should present commercial relations 
with the United States continue, the first great stimulus to the coal 
industry must arise from the development of the iron ores, so abundant 
in the vicinity of the principal Coal-fields. 


Devonian Anthracite—At Point Lepreau in New Brunswick, a 
remarkable discovery has been made of anthracite in a horizon 
referred by Mr Matthew to the upper part of the Dadoxylon sand- .. 
stone. Iam informed by Mr Matthew that it occurs in a vertical bed 
from 6 to 10 feet in thickness, in olive-coloured sandy shales. It is 
of a granular texture, and may be regarded as an anthracite, as it con- 
tains only about 5 per cent. of volatile matter. A specimen analysed 
by Dr Harrington gave 35°8 per cent. of ashes; but possibly this may 
not represent the general quality of the Tec Whether of eco- 
nomical value or not, it is of interest as the only example of Devonian 
coal in North America, except the little bed, 2 inches thick, occurring 
in the Gaspé sandstone.* 

Tron.—The only extensive works at present in operation in Nova . 
Scotia are those of the Steel Company of Canada at Londonderry— 
formerly the Acadia Company. These works depend on the great | 
veins of iron ore on the south side of the Cobequid Mountains (Ac. ~ 


* Report on Fossil Plants of Devonian, pp. 7, 8. 


O 


94 - MINERAL RESOURCES. 


Geol., p.582). The supplies of ore are at present almost entirely derived 
from extensive veins of limonite, constituting part of the great vein of 
specular and spathic ore which was first worked at this place, but is 
now neglected, owing to the greater cheapness and more ready reduc- 
tion of the limonite ; 15,274 tons of ore were mined in 1876. 

In a recent visit to this mine, I was pleased to see an admirable 
smelting establishment with two blast furnaces of the most improved 
construction, and a beautiful village, where, in my former visits, had 
been a wild forest ravine. I found that the extensive adits now 
worked at Martin’s Brook are in the same veins which I originally 
described, and that the change in the chemical quality of the ore 
depends on the fact that the mine has penetrated into portions of the 
vein where the ankerite and carbonate of iron have been decomposed 
and oxidized by water, owing to the more open and permeable char- 
acter of the containing rock. 

The iron deposits in the Silurian rocks on the East River of Pictou, 
and their associated deposits, have recently attracted some attention ; 
but no smelting operations have yet been undertaken. The ores here 
consist of—(1.) A bed of red hematite in the lower Helderberg slates. 
It has a percentage of 43 to 54 of iron, and varies in thickness from 10 
to 30 feet. Its outcrop has been traced for several miles over ground 
where it is very accessible, and not more than 12 miles distant from 
the great Pictou collieries. (2.) A vein of crystalline specular ore, 
whose geological relations are similar to those of the Londonderry 
vein. It has been traced for a mile or more, and in some places has 
a thickness of 20 feet of pure ore. Masses of magnetite occur in parts 
of the vein, and also quantities of spathic iron and ankerite. (3.) Veins 
of limonite, which occur in many places on the East River of Pictou; 
some of them are of large dimensions, and associated with subordinate 
veins and concretions of pyrolusite or manganese ore. (4.) In the Lower 
Carboniferous, on Sutherland’s River, there is a remarkable vein of 
crystalline spathic iron ore or carbonate of iron, which will no doubt 
eventually be worked in connection with the other deposits. 

In Cape Breton, extensive discoveries of hematite are reported on 
the East Bay of the Bras d’Or, and in other localities not distant 
from the collieries of the east part of that island. Valuable deposits 
of limonite are reported at Brookfield and Old Barns, in Colchester 
County, and further discoveries of magnetic ore have been made 
in the bed of iron ores associated with the Oriskany formation at 
Nictaux and Moose River. 

Beds of clay ironstone, which occur in the Carboniferous of Nova 
Scotia, have naturally attracted little attention in the presence of those 


MINERAL RESOURCES. 95 


great deposits of rich erystalline ores lying unused in the immediate 
vicinity of the Coal-fields. The latest discovery of this kind is on the 
French River, Pictou County, where beds of nodular clay ironstone 
from 6 inches to 4 feet thick are reported, the ore containing 35 per 
cent. of iron. 

In New Brunswick the beds of red hematite occurring at Jackson- 
town, near Woodstock, in beds believed to be of Upper Silurian age, 
are not now worked, though formerly successfully mined and smelted. 
These beds are numerous, and from 6 inches to 8 feet thick. Their 
geological characters seem to resemble those of the great Pictou 
hematite already referred to. Bog iron ores, believed to be of com- 
mercial value, are found at Burton, Sunbury County, and at Maryland, 
York County. 

Iron ochres, used as “mineral paints,’’ abound in connexion with 
the deposits of iron ore as stated in Acadian Geology, and have been 
worked on a limited scale at various points, as has also the umber of 
Chester. 

Copper.—Though many indications of copper have been observed, 


it is only recently that veins of workable dimensions have been 


found in Nova Scotia. <A locality at Polson’s Lake (Ac. Geol., p. 
692), which has attracted some attention for many years, has at 
length revealed an apparently continuous vein of spathic iron holding 
rich copper pyrites. A neighbouring area near the Lochaber Lake 
exhibits several apparently rich veins, said to be 2 to 6 feet in 
width. There can be little doubt that the former place will soon 
become the seat of an important mining industry. The ores occur in 
a slate formation associated with quartzite, and which I believe to be 
equivalent to the Cobequid series. 

Attempts have recently been made to work the native copper in 
the Triassic trap of Cape D’Or, and the nodules of gray copper in 
the Carboniferous sandstones of New Annan, but with little success. 

In New Brunswick, ores of copper in veins, and disseminated 
through slaty rocks, have been found in several places of the south 
coast, in rocks of very similar character with those holding the 
Nova Scotian ores above mentioned. The attempts to open them 
profitably have hitherto been unsuccessful. Vitreous copper ore is 
also found in connexion with the Triassic trap of Grand Manan, but 
I have no definite information as to its economic importance. 

Manganese.—The peroxide of manganese, or Pyrolusite, occurring 
in veins and “pockets” in the Lower Carboniferous limestone is 
worked profitably at Markhamville, New Brunswick, and at Teny 
Cape in Nova Scotia, where it occurs under similar conditions. This 


c 


96 MINERAL RESOURCES. 


mineral has also been found in profitable quantity on Onslow Moun- 
tain, in Colchester County. It is associated with limonite on the 
East River of Pictou, and its occurrence has been reported in several 
other places, though in uncertain quantity. 

Lead.—A vein of galena has been worked on in Caledonia, 
Guysboro’, though as yet the results are uncertain. A vein of 
argentiferous galena, yielding 135 lbs. lead and 2°95 ounces of silver 
to the ton, is also reported on the North River of St Ann’s Bay, Cape 
Breton. This vein is stated to be five inches in thickness. The 
deposit of galena in Lower Carboniferous limestone at Gay’s River 
(Ac. Geol., 275) has also attracted some attention, but I believe has 
not been worked on a large scale as yet. 

Antimony. — Stibnite, or antimony glance, occurs in veins in a 
gangue of quartz, in rocks believed to be of Upper Silurian age, at 
Prince William, York County, New Brunswick. The ore is mined 
and smelted with profit, and is also made into the alloy named 
* Babbit Metal.” | 

Gold.—In Nova Scotia thirteen gold districts are reported as 
being worked in 1876. The total yield was 12,038 ounces, nearly 
half of this being from the Sherbrooke district, and the next most 
important being those of Oldham, Waverley, and Wine Harbour. 
All the gold mines at present worked are in the Cambrian Quartzite 
formation of the Atlantic coast, with one remarkable exception. This 
is the Carboniferous conglomerate of Gay’s River, referred to in 
Acadian Geology (p. 277) as an instance of a gold alluvium of 
Lower Carboniferous age, and as a proof that the gold veins are of 
older date than the Carboniferous. It is stated in the report of the 
inspector that in one area the conglomerate was worked along a run 
or depression of the slates for 500 feet. 

The gold is obtained by breaking up the conglomerate and 
panning the debris; and, as in most modern gold gravels, the 
richest part of the deposit seems to be near the bed rock. 246 
ounces were obtained from this deposit in 1876. Professor Hind 
states* that a similar instance of the occurrence of gold in a Car- 
boniferous conglomerate occurs in the peninsula opposite Baddock in 
Cape Breton. Here, however, it is near the summit of a thick con- 
glomerate, implying peculiar circumstances in its deposition. 

The gold-mining industry is believed at present to be in a healthy 
state, though reduced in amount from the times of early excitement ; 
and it is likely gradually to extend. 

Silver.—The sulphide of this metal, and also argentiferous galena, 


* Paper on Gold-Mining, Society of Arts, May 1870. 


. 
a 
. 
> 


MINERAL RESOURCES. 97 


occur in a vein in Metamorphic rocks at Watchabuckt in Northern 
Cape Breton, and the occurrence of drift fragments of these ores in 
the streams in that district indicate that there must be other deposits 
in this, as yet, little explored region. 

Freestone and Grindstone.—The export of these materials from 
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick still continues to be large. The 
celebrated Lower Cove quarries at the Joggins, alone, exported in 
1876 grindstones and whetstones to the value of 35,847 dollars. 
Large and prosperous quarries of a stone, quite equal to that of 
the Joggins, exist at New Bandon, or Clifton, Gloucester Co., New 
Brunswick. Considerable quarries of building-stone are also in 
operation at Wallace and Pictou, Nova Scotia; at Dorchester and 
Hopewell, New Brunswick, and many other places. 

Other Building and Ornamental Stones.—The cutting and polishing 
of red syenite and granite are carried on at St George, Charlotte 
County, New Brunswick. The stone produced is equally beautiful 
with the red granite of Scotland. Marble of varied hues, and favour- 
ably situated for quarrying, has been discovered at Marble Moun- 
tain, on the Bras D’Or Lake, Cape Breton. 

Gypsum.—This mineral is still extensively exported from Nova 
Scotia and New Brunswick. The exports from Nova Scotia in 1876 
are stated at 80,920 tons, and no less than 129,000 tons are stated 
to have been quarried at Hillsboro’, New Brunswick, in 1875. A 
large portion of this was ground and calcined at the quarries. 

According to Dr How, anhydrite or anhydrous gypsum is 
worked at Cheverie, Hants County, and exported for agricultural 
purposes. It is, of course, harder to grind than common gypsum, and 
cannot be used for moulding or plastering, but for land it may be 
regarded as more valuable than the hydrous variety, as wanting the 
water, which amounts to about 20 per cent. of the weight of the 
latter. 

Barytes.—The sulphate of barium or heavy spar is mined in small 
quantity at Five Islands (Ac. Geol., 592), and is known to occur at 
many other places. 

Dr How, in his Report on the Mineralogy of Nova Scotia,* also 
directs attention to the numerous Brine Springs issuing from the 
Lower Carboniferous rocks, and the working of which has been 
attempted on a large scale at Antigonish. He also notices important 
discoveries of Jron-Pyrite or sulphur ore; and mentions Titaniferous 
Tron Ore as occurring at Sable River, Shelburne County, and in 
sand at Digby Cove. This Report, as well as that of the Geo- 


* Halifax, 1868. 


98 MINERAL RESOURCES. 


logical Survey of Canada, those of the Inspector of Mines of Nova 
Scotia, those of Professor Hind on the Gold Fields, and those made on 
behalf of private mining corporations, contain a large amount of 
detail respecting the resources and mining industries of the Acadian 
Provinces, which it is impossible to summarize here. The above notes 
are intended merely to supplement the more extended notices given 
in Acadian Geology. 

The great coal and iron industries of the Acadian Provinces, and 
with these indirectly all other mineral industries, are at present 
much depressed, not only by the general depression of trade in these 
minerals, but also by those artificial restrictions and arrangements 
which shut out their produce from the largest American market, 
while they give no preference or protection at home. It is creditable 
to the intelligence and industry of these Provinces, and at the same 
time an indication of their great mineral wealth, that under these 
circumstances they have been able to do so much as appears from 
the Report of the Inspector of Mines for 1876. 


— 


wae 


NOTES AND ADDENDA. 


1. Lignite from the Trias of New Brunswick. 


Jackson and Alger, in their memoir on Nova Scotia Geology, mentioned 
the occurrence of lignite at Cape Blomidon in the Triassic sandstones, 
but I have not succeeded in discovering it. Last summer Mr Ells, of the 
Geological Survey, obtained a specimen in the sandstones of the opposite 
side of the Bay of Fundy at Martin’s Head. This specimen proves to be 
a coniferous wood with one row of large disks in the cells, and of the same 
type with silicified wood found at Quaco, and referred to in Acadian 
Geology, p. 108. It is also of the same type with Dadoxylon Edvardianum, 
referred to above as characteristic of the Trias of Prince Edward Island, 
and is similar to fossil wood which I have received from the Mesozoic 
of Virginia. 

2. Lower Carboniferous Fishes of New Brunswich. 


The recent sinking of a shaft on the property of the Beliveau Albertite 
and Oil Company on the Petitcodiac River, has exposed a new and interest- 
ing deposit of fossil fishes in the rich bituminous shales of that district, 
which contain the remarkable deposits of Albertite, described in Acadian 
Geology, p. 231 et seg. The bed affording these fossils is a dark-brown 
bituminous shale, and, I am informed by Mr E. B. Chandler, to whom I am 
indebted for an interesting collection of the fish remains, is from four to 
five feet thick. The specimens thus presented, with those previously 
in my collection and one kindly given to me by Mr F. Adams of this 
University, and the valuable memoirs recently published by Dr Newberry 
in the Ohio Report and by Dr Traquair in the Journal of the Geological 
Society, enable me now to give a revision of the fishes of this locality, as 
described by Dr Jackson in his Report of 1851 on the Albert mine, which 
I was unable to do in my second edition, owing to the small number of 
specimens at my disposal. 

In the collections in my possession I recognise, in all, five species—three 
of them very small, and two of larger size. Of these, one, which is un- 
usually well preserved, and is the smallest of the whole, appears to be new, 
and I shall begin by describing it. 

Paleoniscus (Rhadinichthys) modulus, s.N.—Length, five to six centi- 
metres; greatest breadth, 15 to 17 millimetres—the proportion of length 
to breadth being about five to one and a half. Head, oval and obtuse ; 
details not preserved, except that the bones are sculptured with fine waving 
lines. Body gracefully curved, and upper lobe of tail long and slender. 
Pectoral fins small, with stout, unjointed rays. Ventral not distinctly 
preserved, but apparently small and nearer to pectorals than to anal. 
Dorsal and anal of moderate size and opposite each other. Caudal very 
heterocercal, with the lower lobe sharply pointed. Fins with well- 
developed fuleral spines especially large at the base of the caudal. Scales 

G 


100 NOTES AND ADDENDA. 


of the sides rhombic, coarsely toothed on the posterior edges, and elabor- 
ately sculptured with flat, scaly ridges, corresponding to the teeth of the 
edge. The ridges are arranged in an upper and lower series, the latter 
oblique to the former, so that each scale has the appearance of being com- 
posed of two distinct portions. Lower surface of scales smooth, with a 
few furrows corresponding to the ridges above, and the posterior edges 
apparently serrate. Caudal scales narrowly rhombic, pointed, and with a 
few central lines. The back is protected with about ten large oval scales 
between the head and the dorsal. They are sculptured with waving lines, 
curving with the edges, and are apparently truncate and serrate behind. 
The fish figured by Jackson, Pl. H., Fig. 5, but not named, probably belongs 
to the above species. 


Fig. 18.—Paleoniscus modulus, s.n. 


(a) Outline, natural size. 

(b) Series of Scales enlarged, seen from inside. The lower row are those on 
mesial line. 

(c) Surface of exposed part of scale from side and from upper lobe of tail, 
showing sculpture, enlarged. 

(d) One of the dorsal scales, enlarged. 


This beautiful and elaborately ornamented little fish is a perfect model 
in miniature of that type of lower Carboniferous Palzeoniscids to which it 
belongs, and which has recently been separated by Dr Traquair in the 
genus or subgenus Rhadinichthys. For this reason I have given it the 
specific name modulus. To the same genus belong the two next species, 
described by Jackson, of which I shall give merely distinctive marks. 

P. Alberti, Jackson, is larger than the preceding. The scales have more 
numerous striz. The dorsal scales are rounded posteriorly. The posterior 
edge of the anal fin approaches nearly to the caudal, and extends consider- 
ably behind the posterior edge of the dorsal. 

A specimen collected by Mr Ells, of the Geological Survey, indicates a 
fish of the same general form with P. Alberti, but-about 6 inches long. 
The details are not sufficiently preserved to show if it differs in these from 
the above-named species. 

P. Cairnsii, Jackson.—About the same size with the last, but more 
slender, and the head less obtuse in front. Scales thick and with few 


NOTES AND ADDENDA. 101 


striz, and less numerous serrations. Dorsal scales pointed posteriorly. 
Anal fin somewhat remote from caudal and opposite dorsal. 

The next species, and perhaps the last, may belong to the genus Elonichthys 
of Giebel. They are much larger than the preceding. 

P. (Elonichthys) Brownii, Jackson, is deep in form, with large dorsal and 
anal, the latter reaching almost to base of caudal. Scales of body broad and 
with numerous fine horizontal striato-punctate furrows, which turn abruptly 
upwards at the anterior side of each scale. A nearly perfect specimen, 
collected by Mr Ells, is 10 inches long and 3} inches wide, the breadth at 
the dorsal fin being about equal to that at the shoulder, andsuddenly dimi- 
nishing to the tail. The crystalline lens of the eye is preserved in this 
specimen in calcite, and shows its structure, which is on the same plan with 
that of our modern ganoid Amia ocellicauda. It is the firstinstance known 
to me of the preservation of the structure of the eye of a Paleozoic fish. 

P. Jacksonii, 8. N.—A species figured, but not described, by Jackson, is 
represented by several fragments in my collection, and by a cast obtained 
from Mr Matthews of St John. It is the largest of these fishes, reaching a 
length of 15 inches. It may be distinguished from the last by its more 
slender form, its small anal fin, more remote from the caudal, and by the 
character of the scales, which are marked with numerous horizontal striz, 
and have in the broader ones a few deep and strong serrations posteriorly. 

The whole of these fishes have been preserved entire ; their bodies being 
perfectly flattened, and thrown into attitudes which imply that they were 
embedded when living or immediately after death. The material in which 
they are contained is shown, by its microscopical and chemical characters, 
to have been a vegetable muck or mud, and the fish were either over- 
whelmed by it in the manner of a bursting bog, or were stifled by the non- 
oxygenated water mixed with this mud, and suddenly killed and embedded 
in the accumulating sediment. That they occur in this perfect state, and 
in a limited thickness of the deposit, may imply that at certain times they 
were overwhelmed by the irruption of the fetid organic mud into the water 
in which they lived. The bed is low down in the Lower Carboniferous 
series, being the equivalent of the Horton series of Nova Scotia; so that 
these fishes are among the oldest that we know in the Carboniferous 
system; but we know, from the Horton beds, that many far larger and pre- 
daceous ganoids were their contemporaries. No remains of these have, 
however, as yet been found in the Albert or Beliveau beds, which were 
probably deposited in limited fresh-water basins, perhaps not ordinarily 
accessible to the larger fishes. 

Sir Philip Egerton* and Dr Traquairt have both remarked on the 
similarity of these fishes to those found in the Lower Carboniferous of 
Scotland, and Dr Newberry has described very similar species from the 
Carboniferous of Illinois and Ohio. 


3. New Spirorbis. 
Spirorbis arietina, referred to at page 35 above, is figured in the Report 
of the Canada Geological Survey for 1866-69, p. 14. It is spiral, sinistral ; 
* Journal of Geological Society, 1853. 
+ Report on Illinois, vol. ii.; Paleontology of Ohio, vol. i. 
t Journal of Geological Society, 1877. 


102 NOTES AND ADDENDA. 


whorls four, the first three regularly spiral and not flattened for attachment, 
except at the apex; the last whorl diverging from the others irregularly in 
the manner of a Vermetus. Length about 3 millimetres. The surface un- 
even, with obscure wrinkles on the last whorl, and microscopic lines of 
growth on the others. Shell thin, with delicate tubular structure, much 
finer than that of S. carbonarius. I have not recognised this shell elsewhere 
than in the limestone of Fraser’s Mountain, near New Glasgow, except in a 
few rare and doubtful examples at the Joggins. It was probably attached 
by a narrow space at the apex to submerged plants, in the manner of the 
modern Spirorbis porrecta; and, being broken from its attachment, or the 
vegetable matter being removed by decay, remained loose and unattached, 
as it appears in this limestone, some portions of which are crowded with 
specimens. 
4, Cone-in- Cone. 


Mr H. Poole informs me that the figure of this curious concretion, at page 
676 of Acadian Geology, should be inverted; as, in the beds from which the 
specimens were obtained, the conical ends of the concretions were below 


and the flat sides above. 
5. Diabase. 


The dark-coloured dykes of igneous rock occurring in the Cobequids 
have usually been regarded as diorites; but two specimens, one from a 
dyke traversing the Upper Silurian beds at Wentworth, another from a 
dyke in the older Felsite series, which were kindly examined by Dr 
Harrington, proved to contain pyroxene instead of hornblende; and as they 
contain hydrous silicates as well, probably products of decomposition, would 
be included in the group now usually named Diabase. It is not improbable 
that other so-called diorites of the Cobequid series, in the county of Pictou 
and elsewhere, may be really of the nature of diabase. Some of the more 
coarsely crystalline igneous rocks occurring in this formation undoubtedly 
contain hornblende, and are true diorites and syenites. The term Felsite 
is used in this supplement for rocks composed chiefly of compact 
Orthoclase Feldspar, usually with excess of Silica and sometimes 
porphyritic. These rocks are usually termed “Compact Felspar”’ 
in Acadian Geology. 


6. New Brunswick Geology. 
Jy 


Professor Bailey informs me that rocks similar in character to the 
Laurentian have been recognised in York County, in the interior of New 
Brunswick. He also mentions an additional outcrop of the Acadian group, 
flanking the Huronian rocks on their northern side, and constituting the 
fifth parallel belt of this formation now known in Southern New Brunswick. 
He also states that the Lower Carboniferous Albert shales are found to 
underlie unconformably the remainder of the Lower Carboniferous forma- 
tion,—an effect, probably, of local crumpling and partial denudation in con- 
nexion with the changes which introduced the deposition of the coarse rocks 
which succeed these shales. The details of these discoveries will be found 
in Professor Bailey’s and Mr Ells’s forthcoming Reports to the Director of 
the Geological Survey of Canada. 


REFERENCE TO PALAONTOLOGY 
In the Third Edition of ‘Acadian Geology.” 


MopeErn-—Rain-marks, etc., ‘ : : : : ; ; : 27 
Diatomace, . q ‘ : : : i : : : air 
Micmac Heads, . 3 ‘ P : ; : : : 40 
Implements, ete., . ; A ; : : : 43 
PLEISTOCENE—Shells of Mollusca, etc., : ‘ : : F 74 
Mastodon, . : F F : ; : 84 
TriAs—Fossil Reptile (Bathygnathus), : : : : ; 119 
(See also Supplement for Plants, ) 
CARBONIFEROUS—Plants of Coal Formation, . : ; : - 421 
(See also pp. 180, 192, 194, 242, “406, also Supplement.) 
Plants of Lower Carboniferous, . F j : - 253 
Land Animals of Coal Formation, . . ; . 9853 
(See also pp. 189, 328, 495, and @ Supplement.) 
Footprints, ete., : ; 856 
(See also pp. 256, 410. o 
Aquatic Animals of Coal Formation, : : ; - 202 
Do. of Carboniferous Limestone, : 289 
Do. of Lower Carboniferous Coal Meseiecss - 254 
DEVONIAN—Plants, . : : : ; 3 : ‘ 531 
Crustaceans and eee : ‘ . c - ; . 523 
Marine Animals, . : : j 3 : 499 
Uprer Sinur1IAN—Mollusca, etc., of ae g group, : : : ~~ 594 
Do. of East River a Pictou, ; P : #599 
Do. of Western Counties, ; ‘ : 563; fu 
Do. of New Brunswick, . ; : 51%, 009 
LowER Situr1AN—(See Supplement.) 
CAMBRIAN—Fossils of Acadian Group, . ; : : : : . 648 


(See also Supplement.) 
LAURENTIAN—(See Supplement.) 
(See also Index to figures of Fossils at page xxi.) 


iH 


ee) 


QE Dawson, (Sir) John William 
190 Acadian geology 
D28 3d ed. 
1878 
Physical & 
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