GEOLOGY OF HALIFAX AND COLCHESTER CO'S—HONEYMAN. 45 
beginning of the Lower Carboniferous Period. How far back in 
Pre-Carboniferous time is now the question. Another opinion 
has been advanced, viz., that the gold existed in the Archean has 
granite (Laurentian Gneisses) and that the gold deposits are beds 
derived from these granites with gold, converted into auriferous 
quartz by the metamorphism to which the strata has been sub- 
jected. This makes the auriferous quartz to be of Lower Cam- 
brian age. This opinion has not met with much acceptance. 
The generally received opinion is that the odes or beds are true 
veins, and therefore formed subsequent to the formation of the 
strata which contains them. 
Our researches in the west—Annapolis and Digby—have 
led us to the conclusion that the metamorphism of the gold- 
bearing rocks was chiefly effected previous to the Middle 
Silurian Period, i. e. during Upper Cambrian and Lower 
Silurian time, and hence the term “Cambro-Silurian ( Lower)” 
was applied to the rocks in question—Vide Paper Trans. 1884, 
This view of the age of the gold would still, in a sense, accord 
with the Murchinsonian view of the Age of Gold, or with 
another view that gold might be viewed in the light of a 
“ Lower Silurian Fossil.” 
Thus much for the “age of the gold.” 
When I examined the so-called “Barrel quartz,” 22 years ago, 
much of it lay exposed by the removal of the overlying quartz- 
ite bed. It lay in an almost horizontal position on a soft bed of 
unctuous green argillite, which much resembled a talcose schist. 
It lay like a number of branchless hemlock trunks, or as others 
described it like a “ washing board.” The miners regarded it as 
an “overflow” of melted igneons rock, and expected some time 
to find the vent or dyke. It was never found, and after the 
“barrels” were removed the mining was done. The general 
opinion was that the veins were of igneous origin, and came up 
from the molten interior in the manner of lava. One difficulty 
in the way seemed to be that the rocks containing the quartz 
veins had not sufficient solidity to furnish open rents (vents) 
for the passage of molten material. If the veins had been in the 
granites the case might have been otherwise. Some of the most 
