Mesozoic and Ccenozoic Geology and PaUf ontology. 21 



Blomidon, where a narrow promontory, terminating in Cape Split, ex- 

 tends to the northward. The trap of the North Mountains presents to 

 the Bay of Fiindy, a range of high cliffs, and is bounded on the inland 

 side b3 soft red sandstones, which form a long valley separating the 

 trappean rocks from another and more extensive hilly district, occupied 

 principally by metamorphic slates and granite. The ti'ap has protec- 

 ted the softer sandstones from the waves and tides of the ba}', and 

 probably also from older denuding agents; and where it terminates, the 

 shore at once recedes to the southward, forming the western side of the 

 Minas basin, and affording a cross section of the North Mountains 

 and the valley of Cornwallis. 



At Cape Blomidon, the clitf, wliich in some parts is 400 feet in height, 

 is composed of red sandstone surmounted by trap. The sandstone is 

 soft, arranged in beds of various degrees of coarseness, and is variegated 

 by greenish bands and blotches. It contains veins of selenite and fib- 

 rous g3'psum, the latter usually parallel to the containing beds, but 

 sometimes crossing them obliquely. It dips to the N. W. at an angle 

 of 16 degrees. Resting on the sandstone, and appearing to dip with it 

 to the N. W., is a thick bed of amj-gdaloidal trap, varjdng in color from 

 gray to dull red, but in general of grayish tints. It is full of cavities 

 and fissures; and these, as well as its vesicles, are filled or coated with 

 quartz, in difl'erent States, and with various zeolites, especially heu- 

 landite, analcime, natrolite, stilbite, and apophylite, often in large and 

 beautiful masses of crystals. In its lower part there are some portions 

 which are scarcely vesicular, and often appear to contain quartz sand 

 like that of the subjacent sandstone. Above the beds of am3'gdaloid is 

 a still thicker stratum of crystalline basaltic trap, having a rude 

 columnar structure. 



The columnar trap of Blomidon. inconsequence of its hardness and 

 vertical joints, presents a perpendicular wall, extending along the top 

 of the precipice. The amygdaloid beneath, being friable and much 

 fissured, falls away in a slope from the base of this wall, and the sand- 

 stone in some places forms a continuation of the slope, or is altogether 

 concealed by the fallen fragments of trap. In other places, the sand- 

 stone has been cut into a nearly vertical cliff", above which is a terrace 

 of fragments of amygdaloid. 



Northward of Cape Blomidon, the northwesterly dips of the sand- 

 stone and trap cause the base of the former to descend to the sea- 

 level, the columnar trap, which here appears to be of increased thick- 

 ness, still presenting a loft}' cliff. Southward of the Cape, on the other 

 hand, the amygdaloid and basalt thin out, until the red sandstones 



