appendix — summer camp at lepreau basin. 91 



Geological Structure. 



The topographical features of this peninsula are clearly trace- 

 able to its geological conditions in past time. Running through 

 it in a north-east direction are two axes of Laurentian rocks ; 

 one near Lepreau River, consisting of quartz-diorites and gneissic 

 rocks ; the other lying to the south of the main arm of Lepreau 

 Basin, consisting of quartzites and limestones of the " upper 

 series " of the Laurentian area. 



Between these axes is a narrow basin extending through to 

 the Musquash River, filled with sediments of the Little River 

 and the Mispec groups, which have been crushed together and 

 thrown into a number of broken synclinal, anticlinal and mono- 

 clinal folds. The great dislocations which these beds have 

 suffered makes it difficult to trace their structure, and has 

 detracted from the commercial value of the coal beds which they 

 contain, and which are of exceeding interest to the naturalist 

 on account of their unrivalled antiquity. 



Resting upon both the old Laurentian sediments, and these 

 later ones of the Little River and Mispec groups, is a series of 

 conglomerates and sandstones, skirting the eastern shore of 

 Mace's Bay, and extending around Point Lepreau toward Dipper 

 Harbor. Mace's Bay is largely underlain by this series of rocks, 

 which rises to view in Salkeld's Islands, and when the tide is low 

 is seen to extend in wide reefs, miles away from the shore. 



Owing to the calcareous cement binding these sandstones and 

 and conglomerates together, which dissolve on exposure to the 

 rain and weather, they waste away rapidly at the high tide 

 line, and form a line of low cliffs facing Mace's Bay; and to the 

 easy solution of this same calcareous cement is largely due the 

 fertility of the farms constituting the thriving settlement along 

 this shore. 



From the attitude of the slates and sandstones of Lepreau 

 Basin, the histoiy of some of the dynamical movements which 

 have affected the rocks of this district may be inferred. Thus, 

 on the line of the main arm of Lepreau Basin there is a narrow 

 strip of the lower carboniferous conglomerates and sandstones 

 that has been let down among the Little River and Mispec sedi- 

 ments, and is boundedby sharply defined fault lines. So also 

 on the Lepreau harbor, on the north side of the peninsula, there 

 is a narrow belt of these same sandstones and conglomerates, 

 lying between the rocks of the northern axis of Laurentian, and 

 the schist and diorites on the north side of Lepreau Harbor. 



The bands of softer unaltered rocks among the older sedi- 

 ments and igneous rocks, appear to have determined the place of 



