22 L. W. BAILEY ON THE 



tions given of the former he has ever since felt confident that rocks of the same general 

 age and character exist in New Brunswick, and that gold in paying quantity would ulti- 

 mately be found in them. During the summer of 1889 the author had an opportunity of 

 hastily examining a portion of the Chaudière district, and more recently of making a 

 more careful and extended examination of a part of the gold-bearing rocks in Nova Scotia, 

 and he now proposes to state briefly the results of his observations as based upon a com- 

 parison of these three separate regions. 



The portion of Nova Scotia personally visited by the author was that of Queen's and 

 Shelburne counties, in the examination of which, on the part of the Canadian G-eological 

 Survey, he was engaged for a period of two months. In the first named county are situ- 

 ated the extensively worked and promising gold fields of Molega Lake and Whiteburne, 

 and the features of the auriferous rocks here presented, with their associations, are known 

 to be essentially the same as those found throughout the whole belt of gold-bearing rocks 

 which form the southern sea-board of the province. As observed in the counties named 

 the several divisions and the relations of these rocks are as follows, in ascending order : — 



Div. I. Grey quartzite and slate, becoming, when altered, grey micaceous 

 quartzites, mica-slate and gneiss. 



Div. IL Grey and greenish grey, sometimes chloritic slates, becoming, when 

 altered, mica-slate, chlorite slate, etc. 



Div. III. Black, earthy pyritous slate, becoming, when altered, a black pyritous 

 mica-schist. 



Div. IV. Pale-grey, bluish- weathering argillites, sometimes pale-green or purplish, 

 and ribbanded with paler bands. 



Division I. In the interior these rocks are usually simple quartzites, occurring in 

 massive beds, and greatly in excess of the slates, which often form mere partings between 

 them, though sometimes of considerable thickness. The quartzites, commonly known as 

 " whins," are very hard and of uniform texture, but usually a little micaceous, and hold- 

 ing scattered particles or crystals of arseno-pyrite and other sulphurets, together with 

 native gold. This latter is found in white quartz veins, which usually occur between 

 slate and quartzite, conforming to the strike and dip of the latter, though cross veins and 

 veiulets also occur. The width of veins varies from a few inches to three or four feet, 

 but in some instances is as much as thirty or forty feet. The most numerous and the 

 most productive lodes are believed to occur towards the upper part of the whin form- 

 ation, and especially along or in the vicinity of anticlinal folds, though it is not yet cer- 

 tainly known that they do not also occur in the synclinals. As a rule the large veins are 

 not as productive as the smaller ones, and regions of highly inclined beds are more 

 favourable than those in which there is less inclination. Numerous other details referring 

 to the whins and their contained veins are given in the papers and reports of the authors 

 already cited. 



In approaching the coast, almost anywhere within the two counties referred to, the 

 rocks become gradually more metamorphosed, and in many instances highly crystalline. 

 It is, howcA^r, thought that all these metamorphic rocks are identical with the gold- 

 bearing rocks of the interior, the alteration being connected with, if not caused by, the 



