[amr] SYNOPSIS OF THE GEOLOGY OF CANADA 195 
have been referred to the lower division of the Cambrian and has been 
designated as the “ Atlantic Coast series” or Acadian ‘group’ or 
‘division’ of this system. 
This series constitutes the productive gold belt of the Acadian 
region. Staurolite-schist, mica-schist, andalusite-schist, quartzites, and 
slates, occur in this series in Guysborough, Queens, Halifax, Lunenburg, 
Shelburne, and Yarmouth counties of Nova Scotia. The gold-bearing 
quartz veins and accompanying strata of Nova Scotia have been 
thrown into a series of plications or folds, consisting of anticlines 
and synclines, by a number of important intrusive masses. 
Surrounding these masses of intrusive rocks, the slates and quart- 
zites which still maintain their relative position as lower and upper mem- 
bers of the “Lower Cambrian” appear as two metamorphosed or altered 
series of sediments, and constitute a “ metamorphic series ” according to 
Messrs. H. Fletcher and E. R. Faribault. To the “ quartzite group ” of 
the gold-bearing series of Nova Scotia the designation Guysborough 
formation appears to be appropriate, whilst the term Halifax formation 
is proposed for the “slate group” of the gold-bearing series. A re- 
markable feature in the mode of occurrence of the gold is that it appears 
usually in the axis of the anticlines, and inasmuch as mining in Nova 
Scotia has revealed the presence of many anticlines superimposed one 
upon the other, at different depths and intervals, it is calculated that 
the gold-bearing veins or saddles will be found to hold out and con- 
tinue to a great depth. Deep mining in the gold-bearing rocks of Lower 
Cambrian age in Nova Scotia will thus likely prove of great value and 
importance. The productive gold-bearing deposits of Victoria and New 
South Wales in Australia may be of similar age, and appear to be of 
similar structure to those of Nova Scotia. 
Overlying and newer than the gold-bearing rocks of Nova Scotia, we 
find shales and limestones holding abundance of fossil organic remains. 
Below McAdam’s brook, Escasonie river, near McFees point, Bras 
d’Or river, and along Mira river in Cape Breton, and at Barachois 
(constituting the Mira series or formation), beds referred to the Upper 
and Neo-Cambrian have proved highly fossiliferous. These are now 
undergoing revision and the systematic classification of the various 
formations and zones of fossiliferous Cambrian will no doubt soon be 
made known. 
In New Brunswick, through the researches of Dr. G. F. Matthew, 
the characteristic fossils of the various strata constituting the Cambrian 
system, which was also called the “ St. John group” have been carefully 
described, and include for present purposes the Hicheminian series also. 
At Loch Lomond, in St. John county, on Caton’s island, King’s county, 
