208 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. June 



given rise to much speculation as to its origin in that matrix. 

 The following description has been extracted from a letter from 

 Mr. C. Fred. Hartt, to Principal Dawson, on this subject, a copy 

 of which has been kindly famished by Mr. Hartt : — 



" At Corbett's Mills the clay-slates are overlaid unconformably 

 by nearly horizontal beds of grey and red conglomerate grit, and 

 sandstone of the Lower Carboniferous, probably of the age of the 

 lower coal-measures. These are overlaid by a mass of drift of 

 variable thickness, and beds of stratified sand and clay. These 

 conglomerates are not Silurian, for they overlie unconformably the 

 rocks of that age, and they are totally unlike any Devonian rocks 

 occurring in the Province. Lying as they do on the margin of 

 the Carboniferous basin, they agree perfectly with the conglom- 

 erates and sandstones of the Lower Carboniferous group, for they 

 contain a few ill-preserved fossil-plants like those found in similar 

 Carboniferous beds. 



" The under part of the bed of the conglomerate or grit, at its 

 junction with the slates, is highly aurifertras, the gold occurring 

 principally in the form of flattened scales, sometimes a quarter of 

 an inch in diameter, disseminated through the rock. Many frag- 

 ments of conglomerate have been found, not a cubic inch in size, 

 on the surfaces of which from twenty to thirty of the scales could 

 be observed with the naked eye. In the workings now being 

 carried on, levels are driven into the bank at the junction of the 

 two formations ; a foot or more of the under part of the conglom- 

 erate bed is removed, and washed in the common miner's cradle 

 and pan, and yields rich returns. Only one vein of quartz, one 

 quarter of an inch iu thickness, has as yet been discovered in the 

 slates under the Carboniferous beds ; it is highly auriferous, and 

 has a strike of about north and south, and dips to the eastward 

 about 70°." 



No alluvial washings to any extent exist in the Province at the 

 present time. In 1861, the discovery of gold in the sands of the 

 sea-beaches of the peninsula known as the Ovens, in the County 

 of Lunenburg, created great excitement for a time; but this sub- 

 sided as the returns gradually grew poorer, and by the end of 

 the summer of that year the washings were exhausted. The gold 

 found is not to be ascribed to deposition during the drift-period, 

 but is probably derived from the cliffs which form the shores. 

 These cliffs are about fifty feet in height, and are composed of 

 bands of hard and soft laminated slates, with veins of auriferous 



