[ells] CANADIAN GEOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE 9 



were separated into three portions, styled respectively the upper Car- 

 boniferous, the Productive coal measures and the lower Carboniferous 

 or Gypsiferous formation. The latter of these Lyell placed in its true 

 position below the coal measures, while the soft red sandstones, now 

 regarded as Trias, he held to belong to an upper series. This visit o£ 

 Lyell was, therefore, of much importance, as determining, with greater 

 accuracy, the horizons of the sedimentary rocks belonging to the Car- 

 bcmiferous period. The results of his investigations appear in his book 

 " Travels in Forth America," published in 18i5. 



Following closely on the visit of Sir Charles Lyell, we find among 

 the early workers in provincial geology the name of Mr. E. Brown, who 

 investigated certain problems of great economic importance, in connec- 

 tion with the structure of the Cape Breton coal fields. Mr. Brown 

 apparently followed the nomenclature for the divisions of the Car- 

 boniferous proposed by Lyell during his visit to this province, and the 

 results of his study of these formations appeared in the Journal of 

 the Geological Society of London in 1843. 



In the same year Gesner presented a paper before the Geological 

 Society of London, in which a somewhat different nomencla- 

 ture was adopted, and the arrangement of the several divis- 

 ions j)resented an aspect more in accord with what prevails 

 at the present day, showing a manifest advance in the science. 

 In this paper the terms Silurian and Devonian or old Eed 

 Sandstone, which had recently come into use on the British 

 Survey, were adopted, as also that of ISTew Eed Sandstone. In the 

 same year also Sir "William Dawson, who had accompanied Lyell in 

 much of his exploration in Nova Scotia, published a paper in the 

 Journal of the same society, in which the rocks of the sandstcne dis- 

 trict were arranged in the order proposed the preceding year, by Sir 

 Charles Lyell, and the terms Productive coal measures and lower Car- 

 boniferous or Gypsiferous formation were thus employed in connection 

 with the geology of the eastern provinces. 



In a second volume by Gesner, on the " Industrial Eesources of 

 Nova Scotia," published in 1849, it will be seen that the nomenclature 

 of the subject has again been advanced several steps. In this work the 

 rock formations are arranged under seven heads, viz.: 1st, granite 

 or hypogene rocks, which include the granite masses of the coast area, 

 syenites, traps, etc.; 2nd, the stratified non-fossiliferous rocks, which 

 were classified as probably Cambrian ; 3rd, the fossiliferous clay- 

 slates, with greywackes, described under the head of Silurian ; 4th, 

 the overlying series to the base of the Carboniferous, which are now 

 regarded as Old Eed Sandstone or Devonian ; 5th, the Carboniferous or 



