148 Geological Society. 



The plants associated with these limestones consist of several 

 species of Lepidodendron, Catamites, and others agreeing with car- 

 boniferous forms. With these Mr. Lyell found in Horton Bluff 

 scales of a ganoid fish, and in the ripple-marked sandstones of the 

 same place, Mr. Logan discovered footsteps, which appeared to 

 Mr. Owen to belong to some unknown species of reptile, constitu- 

 ting the first indications of the reptilean class known in the carbo- 

 niferous rocks. Several of the shells and corals of this group have 

 been recognized by Messrs. Murchison and de Verneuil as identical 

 with fossils of the gypsiferous deposits of Perm in Russia, and it had 

 been successively proposed* to refer these gypsiferous beds of Nova 

 Scotia to the Trias, and to the period of the magnesian limestone. 

 That they are more ancient than both these formations, Mr. Lyell 

 infers not only from their fossils, but also from their occupying a 

 lower position than the productive coal-measnres of Nova Scotia and 

 Cape Breton. In proof of this inferiority of position three sections 

 are referred to, first, that of the coast of Cumberland, near Minudie, 

 where beds of red sandstone, gypsum and limestone, are seen dipping 

 southwards, or in a direction which would carry them under the pro- 

 ductive coal-measures of the South Joggins, which attain a thickness 

 of several miles. 



Secondly, the section on the East river of Pictou, where the pro- 

 ductive coal-measures of the Albion mines repose on a formation of 

 red sandstone, including beds of limestone, in which Mr. J. Dawson 

 and the author found Producla martini, and other fossils common 

 to the gypsiferous rocks of Windsor, &c. Some of these limestones 

 are oolitic like those of Windsor, and gypsum occurs near the East 

 river, fourteen miles south of Pictou, so situated as to lead 10 the pre- 

 sumption that it is an integral part of the inferior red sandstone 

 groups. 



Thirdly, in Cape Breton, according to information supplied by 

 Mr. Richard Brown, the gypsiferous formation occupies a consider- 

 able tract, consisting of red marl with gypsum and limestone. In 

 specimens of the latter Mr. Lyell finds the same fossils as those of 

 Windsor, &c. before mentioned. Near Sydney these gypsiferous 

 strata pass beneath a formation of sandstone more than 2000 feet 

 thick, upon which rest conformably the coal-measures of Sydney, 

 dipping to the north-east or seaward, and having a thickness of 

 2000 feet. 



To illustrate the gypsiferous formation, the author gives a parti- 

 cular description of the cliff's bordering the Schubenacadie, for a 

 distance of fourteen miles from its mouth, to Fort Ellis, which he 

 examined in company with Mr. J. W. Dawson and Mr. Duncan. 

 The rocks here consist in great part of soft red marls, with subordi- 

 nate masses of crystalline gypsum and marine limestones, also three 

 large masses of red sandstone, coal-grits and shales. The strike of 

 the beds, like that at Windsor, is nearly east and west, and there are 

 numerous faults and flexures. The principal masses of gypsum do 



* See Proceedings, vol. iii. p. 712, and vol- iv. p. 125 [or Phil. Mag. S.3. 

 vol. xxii. p. 71 and 545]. 



