Mesozoic and Ccenozoic Geology and Paleontology, 151 



eastern outcrop of the basin, and within 500 yards of the granite. 

 The measures passed through above the 8 feet bed of coke, are 110 

 feet thick, including a conformable bed of blue basalt, IG feet thick. 

 The shale immediately below the trap is white for 11 feet, and then 

 25 feet of dark, leafy shale succeed, below which comes the bed of 

 coke, resting on white shale; and lower down, coal-measures with two 

 seams of inferior coal, each about 4 or 5 feet thick. The shale, 47 feet 

 thick, interposed between the basalt and the coke, exhibits so many 

 polished surfaces or slickensides, and is so much jointed and cracked, 

 and in some places disturbed and tilted, that we may probably attri- 

 bute the change from coal to coke, not so much to the heating agency 

 of the intrusive basalt, as to its mechanical effect in breaking up the 

 integrity' of the beds, and rendering them permeable to water or the gases 

 of decomposing coal. In some places, in the same district, where the 

 upper part of a seam is coke, the lower is coal, and there is sometimes 

 a gradation from the one to the Other, and sometimes a somewhat ab- 

 rupt separation. 



In the same year, C. J. F, Bunbury* described, from North Carolina, 

 Ifeuropteris linncBifoUa, PecoiHeris bullata, Filicites Jimhriatus, and 

 Zamites gramineus. And Prof. Hitchcockf described, from Massa- 

 chusetts, Brontozouni moodi,, and B. paralleluia. He also discussed 

 the Trap Tuff or Volcanic grit of the Connecticut valle}', with the 

 bearing of its history upon the Trap Rock and the Red Sandstone. 



In 1848, Prof. J. W. DawsonJ describsd the New Red Sandstone 

 of Nova Scotia, which extends on the north side of Cobequid bay, 

 from Moose river to the point at the mouth of North river, and on 

 the south side, from the mouth of Shubenacadie to the mouth of 

 North river. It rests upon carboniferous strata, and, in some places, 

 presents cliffs rising to an eminence of 400 feet. It is also extensivel}'^ 

 developed at Blomidon, in the valle}' of Cornwallis, on the south side of 

 the Bay of Fundy, and at other places. This sandstone appears to 

 have been deposited in an arm of the sea, somewhat resembling, in 

 its general form, the southern part of the present Ba}^ of Fund}-, 

 but rather longer and wider. This ancient ba}' was bounded by dis- 

 turbed Carboniferous and Silurian strata. The evidences of volcanic 

 action are numerous, and in some places showing great quantities of 

 melted rock brought to the surface, without altering the soft arenace- 

 ous beds through which it has been poured, and whose surface it has 



•'•'■ Quar. Jour. Geo. See, vol. iii. 



t Am. Jour. Sci. and Arts. 2d Ser., vol. iv. 



I Quar. Jour. Geo. Soc, vol. iv. 



