72 NOTES ON THE SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGY OF 
The southern part of the county is elevated, and is mainly 
covered with forests interspersed with lakes. Vast masses of 
granite form the outcrop. 
GEOLOGICAL HORIZONS. 
The northern part of the county, including the trap ridge and 
the valiey sandstone, is without doubt Triassic, as it conforms to 
the triassic formations in other parts of the continent. This 
was a period when the weakened crust was unable to withstand 
the upward pressure of the molten rock and it burst through 
making long ridges or dykes. The original amount of this 
material must have been enormous, as it can now be found as 
drift extending south over the province to the Atlantic ocean. 
The Cornwallis sandstone, like other red rocks, contains no 
fossils, but its age can be inferred as above from its relation to 
the trap. 
The rock of the South Mountain is a hard shale, for the most 
part often carrying veins of quartz. Quartzite also occurs in 
large masses in the vicinity of White Rock and stretches across 
the Gaspereau, making rapids in that river. In Webster Brook, 
two miles south of Kentville,in fawn-colored slates, Dictyonema 
Websteri is found, probably Cambrian, and on Canaan Mountain, 
one mile further south, Silurian encrinites may be obtained. 
The ridge south of Wolfville contains no fossils, and the moun- 
tain still further south is also barren, but a little to the east- 
ward the brooks running into the Gaspereau show in their beds 
abundance of plants, lepidodendrids, sigillarids and calamites. 
These fossilliferous rocks continue to the extreme east of the 
county, Horton Bluff, and are probably sub-carboniferous, though 
some of the western series may be Devonian. In the eastern 
part of the town of Wolfville, running south froin the dyked 
marsh to the top of the ridge and reappearing on the south of 
the Gaspereau River, is a deposit of varying width known locally 
as “ Wickwire Stone.” It is a coarse friable sandstone or fine 
conglomerate, the sharp grains of quartz being held together by 
a red cement of ferric oxide. It is largely quarried, being the 
principal material used for the foundations of buildings in this 
