1862.] 



99 



[Lesley. 



nowhere in the clifiF a true coal, but rather a black fire-clay, 1 inch thick 

 with black shales above and below ; plenty of fish-scales, but no ferns. 



(k.) This becomes solid coal, 6 inches thick. 



(1.) Is nipped out at water-level. 



(m.) A great mass of sandstone thrown up at a steep angle not by any 

 general structural movement but by original oblique deposition, has here 

 resisted the wearing action of the waves, and left a curious and instructive 

 promontory. 



(n.) Burns well. Plenty of fish- 

 scales. 



(o.) The profile of this mass is 

 one of singular architectural 

 beauty. 



(p.) Form bold, beetling cliffs 

 over the breakers. 



(q.) The centre streak is char- 

 acteristic, for it appears in the 

 outcrop of the same bed at the 

 New Bridge. 



(r.) Local false bedding dips form the point. 



(s.) The two lower members are variations seen further south. 



(t.) Beautifully false-bedded, scalloped in all directions like the blocks 

 and faces of No. X (Upper Devonian) at the viaduct on the Conemaugh, 

 in Cambria County, Penna. 



(u.) Sometimes li feet thick, but will not average more than 10 or 11 

 inches. It forms a long i-eef into the sea, in the exact line of the distant 

 headland. 



(v. y.) The appearance of these fire-clays, crowded with nodules of iron 

 ore, is very striking ; their gnarlly, knobby outcrops form long reefs visible 

 by lines of breakers far out to sea. 



The above section was obtained in August, 1862, From the cliffs 

 between Lingan and Great Glace Bays, on the east coast of Cape 

 Breton, from sixteen to twenty miles east of Sydney. Part of it 

 was made out by means of a rope and ladder let down from the upper 

 edge of the cliffs, where these overhung the sea, or occupied intervals 

 between the short sand and gravel beaches. At the upper limit of 

 the section, a square headland projects into the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, along the axis of a synclinal basin, with sloping sides of 4° or 

 5°* From this headland southward, the section was made out by 

 an examination of each layer as it emerged from the sea, past the 

 mouth of Little Glace Bay (where the new harbor is constructing, 

 under the skilful and energetic direction of Captain William P. Par- 

 rot, Civil Engineer, of Boston, Mass.) as far as to the mouth of 

 Great Glace Bay. 



