240 AGE OF CONGLOMERATE CAPPING THE 



excessively weathered but angular in shape, and forming a 

 breccia of local and untra veiled fragments. 



All who have seen the contact on the Dartmouth shore have 

 noted the very ragged surface of the slate under the conglomer- 

 ate, how excessively weathered it is, the sharp edges of the 

 ridges standing up in a shattered condition and gradually blend- 

 ing with the mass of breccia filling between them the V-shaped 

 gullies and fissures to a depth of several feet. The lower por- 

 tion of the deposit is undoubtedly local and distinctly brecciated, 

 while the upper part is of fragments more or less water-worn, 

 but still strongly cemented together. There is no gradual pas- 

 sage into the loose condition of ordinary till. In very marked 

 contrast with the weathered surface under the breccia is the 

 eroded and often striated slaty lip of the depression that retains 

 the deposit at this place. 



If a rapid review of the Atlantic coast be made, we have in 

 the extreme west a conglomerate deposit on the slates at Cape 

 Cove which Dr. Honeyman considered Lower Carboniferous. 

 On the LaHave there is one regarded by Mr. Prest as the oldest 

 glacial and of great antiquity ; at the head of Chester Basin are 

 other deposits of conglomerate associated with Lower Carboni- 

 ferous limestone ; at Halifax there are conglomerate outliers of 

 an age now up for discussion, while at the outlet of Kelley's 

 Lake, near Grand Lake, and Gay's River, are deposits hitherto 

 accepted as Lower Carboniferous. Then on the Cambrian and 

 Pre-Cambrian of the seaboard of Cape Breton at Gabarus, Flam- 

 boise, etc., there are, according to the Geological Survey, out- 

 lying patches of Lower Carboniferous strata. 



Most of the known patches of this conglomerate about Hali- 

 fax rest on a highly weathered surface without trace of marine 

 denudation or glaciation ; but of the deposit itself at LaHave 

 Mr. Prest has pointed out that the stones of the upper portion 

 are striated and therefore glacial. Hence, he has concluded 

 that his Bridgewater conglomerate is not Lower Carboniferous 

 but the very earliest deposit of the Pleistocene. 



