308 Messrs. Jackson and Alger on the 
Speculative geologists may perhaps consider the relations of 
the bed of iron ore to this granite, as of some value in account- 
ing for the origin of veins and beds in transition rocks. They 
would doubtless regard the protrusion of the granite from the 
central regions of our globe, as the cause of the disruption of the 
strata of clay-slate, which was thus raised from the bottom of the 
sea, bearing with it the spoils of the ocean. The layers would 
thus be broken, and their edges thrown up at an angle; and by the 
contraction of the subordinate rocks, the superior strata being 
fixed, or the protrusion having carried the rocks so far as to 
poise the strata in a perpendicular position, a chasm would be 
formed, into which the ore of iron was afterwards poured from 
above by a second submersion. But however this may have been, 
it is evident, from the facts already stated, that the origin of the 
ore and slate must have been very nearly contemporaneous. 
The granite might have been, nevertheless, much older than 
the clay-slate, and constituted the base upon which it was de- 
posited in a horizontal manner. The formation of rocks beneath 
the granite, by oxidation of the metallic bases of the earths 
discovered by the illustrious Davy, according to the views of 
that excellent geologist, Professor Daubeny, (if we do not mis- 
conceive them,) may have caused this protrusion of the granite 
against and through the overlying transition slate, which was thus 
raised from its horizontal position. The Wernerian and Hut- 
tonian theories thus united and modified, appear to account for 
so many facts in geology, that we could not refrain from adverting 
to them on the present occasion, and suggesting their application 
to American geology. 
The granite, as we have said, is the only primitive rock known 
to exist in Nova Scotia. Besides being found on the South moun- 
