6 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 



enterprise. In all these facts there is promise that the Provincial 

 Government will soon find itself in a position to institute a thorough 

 scientific investigation of the structure and productions of the country, 

 and it is to be hoped that this will be done by competent persons and 

 on a liberal scale ; and not, as has been the case in some neighbouring 

 colonies, in a manner too imperfect to afford trustworthy results. 

 The excellent survey of Canada now in progress under Sir W. E. 

 Logan, is a model to the other provinces in this respect ; and it is to 

 be hoped that, under the new political constitution provided for these 

 colonies, its benefits may be extended to the whole of British North 

 America. 



In the meantime, Nova Scotia may congratulate herself, that the 

 noble monuments of the earth's geological history exposed in her 

 coast cliffs have induced eminent geologists from abroad to- occupy 

 themselves with the more interesting parts of the structure of the 

 province, and have cherished a strong taste for geological inquiry 

 among her own sons ; and that much has thus been effected as a 

 labour of love, which in other countries would have cost a large 

 expenditure of the public wealth. Much, no doubt, still remains to 

 be done, especially in those districts less fertile in facts interesting 

 to the naturalist ; but a glance at the list of publications in the 

 following pages, is sufficient to show how much labour has been 

 voluntarily and gratuitously expended, as well as the importance and 

 interest of the discoveries that have been made. 



But though a large amount of valuable information has been 

 accumulated, it is scattered through the numbers of scientific journals 

 and other publications, inaccessible to the general reader, and not 

 easily referred to by the geological student ; and it is in its nature 

 fragmentary, and incapable of affording a complete view of the structure 

 of the country. These considerations, and the possession of a mass of 

 unpublished notes which had been accumulating for fourteen years, 

 induced the author, in 1855, to undertake the present work, and 

 to believe that, in doing so, he would render an acceptable service not 

 only to his own countrymen and to the inhabitants of the other 

 Acadian provinces, but to those geologists in Britain and America 

 who may be acquainted with his published papers, and may desire 

 a more complete acquaintance with Acadian geology. Ten years 

 have now elapsed since the publication of the first edition of " Acadian 

 Geology." In that time a great additional quantity of geological 

 information has accumulated, — the science itself has made much 

 progress, and a remarkable development of the mineral wealth 

 of the Acadian provinces has occurred. The author has, it is true, 



