242 AGE OF CONGLOMERATE CAPPING THE 



tion of a cycle of conditions which terminated in the disruption 

 of the conglomerate deposit and its transportation in the moraine 

 matter that came along the edge of the granite from the north- 

 westward. Also in excav^ations in mounds on the north side of 

 Tower Road, Halifax, where rusty and cemented slate fragments 

 form a distinct layer over the dark blue slate debris which 

 rests directly on the uneroded slate surfaces. 



The generally accepted supposition that the conglomerate 

 outliers are all of one age, may be met by an assumption that 

 among the basal conglomerate of the Lower Carboniferous some 

 may have been glacial deposits. This is no new view, but the 

 evidence so far obtained is said to be inconclusive. In this pro- 

 vince we have on the Cambrian rocks conglomerates associated 

 with plaster and limestone of unquestioned Lower Carboniferous 

 age as at Chester Basin. Mr. Fletcher's report on Cape Bre- 

 ton, <^^ speaks of scattered patches of conglomerate, etc., resting 

 on pre-Silurian felsites — many of which he has no doubt are of 

 Carboniferous age. To that horizon also are placed the con- 

 glomerates resting on the Cambrian rocks at Gay's River, etc. 

 It. seems, therefore, reasonable at least to suspect some of the 

 conglomerate outliers on the Cambrian in the same range of 

 country, may be also older than the Pleistocene. 



In the paper already cited, Mr. Brest puts forward the 

 importance of these deposits and the bearing they have on the 

 study of auriferous washings, and it is to be regretted that 

 other records have not been made in the same thorough way 

 when tracing float or auriferous drift to its source in the near- 

 by solid lead. 



However much observers may differ as to the age of this 

 lowest of the unconformable deposits on the Cambrian rocks, 

 all must be agreed that the physical features of the province, 

 as we now have them, were already rough hewn before the 

 deposition of the lowest of the Carboniferous, and that what- 



(1.) Rept. Geol. Surv. Can., 1877-8, F., p. 23. 



