Mineralogy and Geology of Nova Scotia. 277 
Having finished our account of the trap rocks of the country, 
comprising a complete description of that formation, with the more 
important and curious mineral productions which it includes, 
and having suggested what appears to us the most obvious 
theory of their origin, which, derived from remarkable peculiarities 
of color, structure, and other appearances of contiguous strata, 
appears to account for those phenomena in a more satisfactory 
manner than any other, we shall now pass to the neighbouring 
strata of sandstone and shale, forming the moderately elevated 
and rounded hills of the county of Cumberland, and part of the 
county of Hants, and part of the districts of Colchester and Pic- 
tou. 
It becomes necessary to describe this formation before speak- 
ing of the South mountains on account of its intimate connexions 
with the trap, which we have previously alluded to in describing 
the capes which project into the Basin of Mines. 
The sandstone, constituting so large a portion of the Province 
of Nova Scotia, is of various appearance, differing greatly at dif- 
ferent places. In the immediate vicinity of the trap, as at Cape 
Chignecto, Cape Sharp, and Swan’s Creek it is of a dark brick- 
red color, and consists of irregularly rounded grains of quartz, 
usually very small, rarely exceeding the size of a pepper-corn, ac- 
companied by minute spangles of mica, and united by an argilla- 
ceous cement, containing a large proportion of peroxide of iron. 
When in connexion with the trap, as before observed, the sand- 
stone passes insensibly into the shale, or rather, the two form a 
compound in which the eye can distinguish no line of division, so 
completely are they blended. The shale varies greatly in color, 
and generally, like the sandstone, becomes red in the presence of 
the trap rocks, where it assumes a bright tile-red color, and when 
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