1870.] HUNT — ON GEOLOGY OF EASTERN NEW ENGLAND. 203 



More recently Prof. Hind has pointed out that some of the 

 so-called granites of Nova Scotia are ancient gneisses, probably 

 of Laurentian age, and have shown that between these and the 

 gold-bearing slates of that province, there is found, near Windsor, 

 and near Sherbrooke, a series of beds of no great thickness, 

 consisting of imperfect gneisses, quartzites and micaceous schists, 

 which rest unconformably on the Laurentian, and are sometim^^is 

 wanting altogether. These include mica-schists with chiastolite 

 and garnet, and appear identical with those already observed by 

 Dr. Dawson in other parts of Novia Scotia, which I had already 

 recognized as the same with those of the White Mountains, and 

 those of the St. Croix, just noticed. Prof. Hind, in a late paper, 

 has called these, from their position in Nova Scotia, Huronian ; 

 but the Cambrian or Huronian rocks recognized by Messrs. 

 Matthew and Bailey in New Brunswick, where they are widely 

 spread along the north side of the Bay of Fandy, consist of 

 massive diorites and quartzose feldspar-porphyries, with occasion- 

 al sandstones and conglomerates, and are very unlike the gneissic 

 and micaceous rocks in question, which I believe to belong, like 

 those of the St. Croix and the St. John rivers, to the great lerran- 

 ovan series. The micaceous and homblendic schists, with inter- 

 stratified fine grained whitish gneisses (locally known as granites) 

 which I have seen in Hallowell, Au2;usta, Brunswick and West- 

 brook, in Maine, appear to belong to the same series ; which will 

 also probably include much of the gneiss and mica-schist of 

 eastern New England. If this upper series is to be identified 

 with the crystalline schists which in Hastings County, Ontario, 

 overlie unconformably the Laurentian, and yet contain Eozoon 

 Canadense, the presence of this fossil can no longer serve to 

 identify the Laurentian system. To this lower horizon however, 

 I have referred a belt of gneissic rocks in eastern Massachusetts, 

 which are lithologically unlike the present series, and identical 

 with the Laurentian of New York and Canada. To the upper 

 series appear to belong the great endogenous granitic veins so well 

 known to mineralogists as containing beryl, tourmaline and other 

 fine crystallized minerals. 



The fine-grained white granitoid gneisses, often present an 

 apparently bedded structure, which enables them to be removed in 

 large plates or layers, lying at no great angle, and apparently con- 



iutrusive granite. The same view must probably be extended to the 

 granite rocks of the St. Croix. 



