VIII. — GeoLtocicaL NoMENCLATURE IN Nova Scotia.— By 
Hucu Fietcuer, Esq., B. A., of the Geological Survey 
of Canada. 
(Communicated on the 14th May, 1900.) 
THE DEVONIAN. 
In the summer of 1876,a great series of metamorphic rocks, 
cut by masses of granite and trap, was separated in Cape 
Breton from the overlying Carboniferous conglomerate made 
up of their detritus. These rocks were then traced from Loch 
Lomond to St. Peters, through Isle Madame and into Guysboro 
and Antigonish’ counties, as recorded in the reports of the 
Geological Survey between 1877 and 1881. 
Localities were described at which the Carboniferous, com- 
paratively unaltered, comes in contact with and contains pebbles 
of these metamorphic rocks; several sections indicating a thick- 
ness of at least 10,000 feet were given in detail and mention 
was made of carbonized plants, fish remains, Ostracods and 
other fossils found in many of the beds, the plants including 
forms like Psilophyton, a characteristic Devonian genus. 
Above them lies a formation, several thousands of feet in 
thickness, containing marine fossils of the Carboniferous Lime- 
stone series of England and characterized everywhere from 
Newfoundland to the western boundary of New Brunswick, a 
distance of 450 miles, by the occurrence of thick beds of 
gypsum ; while at their base lie about 3,000 feet of limestones 
and other beds of marine origin, shown by Dr. Honeyman, 
in one of the finest pieces of combined stratigraphical and 
paleontological geology yet done in Nova Scotia, to range at 
Arasaig from Medina to Lower Helderberg. 
Rocks in this position, precisely similar in_ lithological 
character, had been called Devonian in New Brunswick, New- 
foundland, Gaspé and on Logan’s map of the Pictou Coal field, 
and this name was accordingly applied to them in Cape Brecon. 
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