LIMONITE AND LIMESTONES—GILPIN. OL 
the existing agencies generally commence their work. At the 
close of the post-pliocene period, and the scooping of the Anna- 
polis Valley, the granite transportation may have been effected. 
Art. VI.—THE LIMONITE AND LIMESTONES OF Pictou County, 
N. S.—By Epwin Girprn, A. M., F. G. 8. 
(Read Feb. 10, 1879.) 
I PURPOSE this evening laying before you a few notes on the 
Limonite or Brown Iron ores of Pictou County, their source and 
relation to the associated Limestones ; and, from the information 
at my disposal, to show that there is a possibility of these ores 
and their derivatives being much more widely spread than is 
generally considered to be the case ; and in connection with the 
supposed sources of these ores, I will briefly draw your attention 
to the great dynamic changes in the district, which have gener- 
ally been overlooked, and which have played an important part 
in the formation of the Limonite. 
The most superficial student of Geology can hardly avoid a 
correct conjecture at the comparative ages of the strata he passes 
over in this county. Were the turf and wood removed from the 
ground, a bird’s eye view would present each formation, colored 
by the hand of the Great Architect, and showing in its covering 
of soil the materials it is composed of. 
The light sandy soil of the Upper, or (as it has been called), 
the Permo Carboniferous, the clays of the Coal measures, the 
reddish loam of the Lower Carboniferous, and the meagre boulder 
laden clays of the Silurian, all mark, with an interval of a. few 
yards, the passage from one set of measures to another. 
In an equal degree, the valley of the East River, above 
Springville, spreads before the traveller the distinctive land- 
scape, marking the contact of two dissimilar rock systems. 
On the one hand the Silurian hills rise abruptly three or four 
hundred feet above the River, projecting here and there in bare, 
weather-worn knolls, or covered with a dense growth of gnarled 
birch and maple, and showing in places farms which have ill 
repaid the husbandman’s labour. On the other hand, the Lower. 
