1863.] 255 [Dawson, 



cultural Department, Washington, March 16th, and the St. 

 Louis Academy, March 17th, 1863. 



Donations for the Library were received from Mr. Edward 

 Miller, the Bureau of Mines at Paris, the London Meteoro- 

 logical Society, Royal Geographical Society, and Society of 

 Arts, the Scottish Antiquarian Society, the Laval University 

 at Quebec, Mr. Henry Hall, of Rutland, Vermont, the New 

 Bedford Free Public Library, Silliman's Journal, the Frank- 

 lin Institute, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, and the 

 Cincinnati Young Men's Mercantile Library Association. 



Professor Lesley read the folloAving communication from 

 President J. W. Dawson, of McGill College, Montreal. 



Note on Mr. Lesley's Paper on the Coal-measures op 

 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 the part of the group to the east- 

 ward. 



(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 sepa- 

 rate areas on their sides. 



(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 compara- 

 tively small distance. A fortiori detailed comparisons with Penn- 

 sylvania 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 



VOL. IX. — w 



