1865.] PERLEY— GOLD MINING IN NOVA SCOTIA. 201 



any of the slates or associated rocks.* Prof. Dawson favors the belief 

 that they are metamorphic Lower Silurian rocks. It is evident to 

 the observer that they are highly metamorphic, as well as changed 

 from the horizontal position they once occupied, by upheavals 

 which have thrown them into positions almost vertical ; and that 

 at the time of upheaval the innumerable quartz-veins which are 

 now known to exist, must have been formed. 



The general character of the geology of the district may be 

 stated in a few words. It consists of thick bands of slate and 

 quartzite, having a general east and west strike, and highly 

 inclined. In several places, masses of granite project through 

 these rocks, and in their vicinity the quartz-rock and clay-slate 

 are usually replaced by gneiss and mica-slate, or other rocks more 

 highly metamorphosed than usual. The general dip of the strata 

 is about 60°, but it ranges in localities from the vertical to the 

 horizontal. From the examinations of Mr. Campbell of Halifax, 

 it was found that the strata in the metamorphic district have been 

 folded or plicated no less than six times, and that the summits of 

 the folds or the anticlinal axes thus formed, were denuded or 

 abraded during the drift or glacial period. To quote from a report 

 made by Mr. Campbell to the Provincial Government: " In all 

 vertical sections hitherto made out across the rocks of the south or 

 Atlantic coast of the Province, but one line of elevation, or anticli- 

 nal axis, is represented along the centre of a band of strata over 

 thirty miles in breadth.f If this had, in reality, been the strati- 

 graphical arrangement in the south coast-band, there would exist 

 but a poor chance of many of its older strata being brought to the 

 surface in lines of upheaval along the north coast of the Province, 

 where so great an accumulation of newer schistose and Carbon- 

 iferous rocks has taken place; for such an arrangement as one 

 line of elevation in such a broad band of strata, would necessarily 

 imply a vertical thickness of at least ten miles of beds. 



" As it is, however, scarcely two miles in vertical thickness, the 

 beds are brought in section to the surface, for they are brought up 

 in six different lines of elevation or anticlinal axes, instead of one. 



" By referring to the section attached [to the Report] it will 



* Dr. Honeyman has recently announced the discovery of fossils sup- 

 posed by him to be primordial ; but they have not been described. — Eds» 



f This is scarcely correct ; though no attempt had previously been 

 made to work out the details of the numerous folds or dislocations. — Eds, 



