274 THE PICTOU COAL FIELD — POOLE. 



conglomercite, still dipping southerly though at a ligliter angle, 

 and here composed of finer material with layers of fragments 

 torn from the strata on which it rests. The unconformable con- 

 tact with a surface of deposition is well exposed above the dam 

 that spans the river at this spot. 



The age of this conglomerate has been a subject of much 

 speculation and is not without interest of a practical character 

 in connection with a possible extension of the Productive Coal 

 Measures beneath it, provided only it can be proved to be of 

 later deposition. Sir W. Dawson in] his papers prior to 1860 

 assumed it to be the base of deposits either later than or con- 

 temporary with the Productive Coal Measures. His arguments 

 are given in full in the second edition of his Acadian Geology, 

 both for the views held prior and subsequent to that date. Sir 

 W. Logan in his portion of the Report tacitly dismisses the sub- 

 ject, apparently accepting Sir W. Dawson's later views.^^^ Mr. 

 Hartley goes more into the matter and is more definite in ex- 

 pressions of opinion, considering the conglomerate as the base of 

 Sir W. Dawson's Middle Coal Formation. Both writers it is fair 

 to assume from the context, presuppose an unconformity between 

 the Millstone Grit and the Productive Coal Measures, and rightly 

 conjecturing that there is to the westward of New Glasgow an 

 unconformity between the conglomerate and its base see no 

 reason to question the horizons assigned. 



But yet when it is proposed to consider the conglomerate as a 

 a beach deposit^-^ contemporary with the beds here classed as 

 Millstone Grit and to place it under Productive Coal Measures as 

 Sir W. Dawson was disposed to do in 1868, it must be remem- 

 bered that there is no recognized unconformity between these 

 two groups in Nova Scotia, and that there are no beds equivalent 

 to the conglomerate known in the south-west part of the field 

 where the Millstone Grit is best exposed in regular sequence 

 under the Productive Coal Measures. Sir W. Dawson seems to 

 have accepted without question what was said by explorers in 



(1) Geo. Report, 1869, pp. 13, 65 last lines. 



(2) Acad. Geol., pp. 322, 343. 



