ABRAHAM GESNER REVIEW OF HIS SCIENTIFIC WORK. 41 



Difficulties with his Indian guides prevented Dr. Gesnei 

 from carrying his exploration of the Tobique to a completion.'' 

 He had at this time reached the forks of the Tobique where it 

 parts into four branches; at ihis point one of his Indians had 

 ■de.serted and the rest refused to proceed further into the wilder- 

 ness, with a short stock of provisions and with shattered canoes. 

 He was therefore reluctantly compelled to return. Generally, 

 however, he found the Indians willing and intelligent guides. 



Dr. Gesner's scientific activity did not cease with his work 

 on the Geology of New Brunswick, for about this time he must 

 have written a memoir on the geology of Nova Scotia, accom- 

 panied by a geological map of that province, showing an advance 

 on his earlier work there by the delineation of the crystalline 

 axis of the Cobequid hills. That he was still thoroughly imbued 

 with the belief that the gypsiferous sandstones of these provinces 

 were not Carboniferous is shown by this map, in which the}" are 

 represented as Devonian, or Old Red Sandstone. 



This memoir (or an abstract of it) was puljlished in the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Geological Society of London (Vol. IV, Pt. I, 

 No. 95, 1843), and curiously enough the same number of this 

 journal contains an ai-ticle from the pen of Sir Charles Lyell, 

 "On the Coal Formation of Nova Scotia, and on the Age and 

 Relative Position of the Gj'^psum and accompanying Marine Lime- 

 stones." Both from pala?ontological and stratigraphical con- 

 siderations Sir Charles adduces convincing reasons for placing 

 these gypsiferous sandstones in the Carboniferous system beneath 

 the coal measures. 



Sir Charles also describes a newer red sandstone without 

 fossils on the Salmon river, near Truro, resting unconformal^ly 

 upon the edges of the Carboniferous strata ; this we now know 

 to be of the age of the Red Sandstones of the Annapolis valley, 

 which are universally recognized as Mesozoic. 



Except for the error in regard to the age of the red sandstones, 

 this later geelogical map of Nova Scotia of Dr. Gesner is much 

 in advance of his earlier one. 



* Fifth Report, p. 33. 



