16 ACADIAN GEOLOGY. 



principal rivers. Its hills are covered with fertile soil, and in their 

 natural state support some of the finest forests in the country ; and 

 it includes valuable deposits of metallic minerals. Its deep ravines, 

 cascades, and fine wood-clothed precipices, afford the nearest approach 

 to picturesque mountain sceneiy that a country so little elevated as 

 Nova Scotia can boast. 



The portions coloured gray or neutral tint and red represent low 

 and undulating districts, stretching in. plains or narrow valleys 

 between and into the higher lands already described. The larger 

 of these, that coloured gray, is the great carboniferous district, 

 including all the valuable deposits of coal, freestone, grindstone, 

 gypsum, and limestone, and having fertile soils over the greater part 

 of its surface. It is therefore the principal abode of the mining, 

 quarrying, and agricultural population. The red district, whieh is of 

 compai-atively small dimensions, represents the New Red Sandstone, 

 a later formation covered by light and productive soil, and containing 

 some of the oldest and finest agricultural settlements. 



The long crimson band, extending along the hilly district on the 

 south coast of the Bay of Fundy, and the isolated patches of the 

 same colour on the opposite side of Minas Channel and Basin, are 

 the most recent rocks in Nova Scotia, being masses of volcanic origin 

 which have been poured through the New Red Sandstone formation. 

 They constitute marked and picturesque features in the scenery of 

 the western counties, and along their flanks and on their summits 

 afford fertile soils and support valuable forests. 



Lastly, the recent alluvium produced by the tides of the Bay of 

 Fundy, and forming marsh soils of almost inexhaustible fertility, is 

 represented by certain limited stripes and patches of a brown colour. 



While, however, each of the geological formations which appear 

 on the map has its special influence on the contour, coast outlines, 

 scenery, and industrial resources of the country, there is a great 

 variety of minor differences within each ; for a geological formation, 

 though it often includes a group of rocks characterized, merely as 

 rocks, by many features in common, is distinguished from others, 

 not so much on this ground, as by the period when it was formed, 

 and the fossils chai-acteristic of that period which it contains ; con- 

 sequently we shall often find very dissimilar conditions and mineral 

 productions in neighbouring parts of the same geological district. 



If we turn to New Brunswick, we shall find there, with some 

 differences of detail, a repetition of the features of Nova Scotia on a 

 broader and more uniform scale. Stretching along the southern coast, 

 from the head of the Bay of Fundy to the frontier of Maine, is a 



