DEEP MINJNG IN NOVA SCOTIA^ — PREST. 423 



Yarmouth Counties ; Nos 6 and 8 on the east shore of Keja-ma- 

 kuja lake ; Nos. 10, 11 and 12 around Lunenburg town ; Nos. 11 

 and 13 on the Sissibou and north of Caribou mines. The thick- 

 ness of the different beds is very variable. A member having 

 a thickness of 2,000 ft. in one district may thin out to 200 ft. or 

 less in another district. While the lower portion containing the 

 greatest thickness consists of tjuartzites and arenaceous slates,, 

 the upper part is composed of argillites, the transition being in 

 the green and purple slates. This vast thickness of argillites, 

 which in other countries often contain great quantities of fossils,, 

 is liere nearly bai-)'en, if not completely so. The supposed fossils 

 before mentioned are found principally in divisions 3 and 4. 

 The Lower C'amlu'ian purple and green slates of Wicklow,. 

 Ireland, contain the fossil plant, Oldhamia ; but whether our 

 purple and green slates resemble the Irish beds in anything but 

 colour, it remains for future research to decide. 



That the highest slate beds once covered the lower strata 

 completely, there is much evidence to show. There is no spot to 

 which we can point and say : " Those undoubtedly were always 

 the highest beds in the gold bearing series." There is no spot of 

 which we can say : "Denudation has been very limited here." 

 No upper series limits the upward reach of the highest beds of 

 the auriferous formation 



Even where the highest strata are seen, indications point to 

 still higher beds. On the Sissibou, at Weymouth Bridge, is the 

 apex of an anticline showing some of the lowest beds in the 

 series. Seven and one-half miles to the south-east are the 

 highest beds in the same series, with a thickness of over 25,000 

 ft. of conformable strata between them. Thus, the centre of this 

 immense ridge, after folding, was many thousands of feet above 

 the trough of slates to the south-east. 



Now is there any place where such a trough has been formed 

 and exists in modern times unfilled with still hisfher beds ? It 

 may be said that the ridge may not at any time have been very 

 high, nor the resulting synclinal trough very deep, as denudation 

 may have kept pace with elevation. But, in this case, it must 

 be remembered that deposition always keeps pace with denu- 



