104 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 



The lower part of the cliff, on the western side of the cove above 

 mentioned, consists of hard, black, and reddish shales and grits, like 

 some of those seen near Moose River, with a steep dip to the E.N.E. 

 Resting on the edges of these are a few beds of red conglomerate and 

 sandstone with greenish bands, dipping to the south-west, and appa- 

 rently a remnant of more extensive beds. An enormous mass of 

 trap conglomerate forms a high cliff towering above this little patch 

 of sandstone, and is seen a little farther on to contain a wedge- 

 shaped bed of red sandstone, and at its western extremity rests on 

 red sandstone mixed with fragments of trap.* Here the trap con- 

 glomerate seems to be cut off by a fault, and abuts against a great 

 trappean mass, composed, in ascending order, of amygdaloidal trap, 

 a wedge of red sandstone extending over part of the surface of the 

 amygdaloid, a great bed of crystalline trap, and a bed of trap con- 

 glomerate. The western side of this mass rests on an apparently 

 denuded surface of soft red sandstones, with S. S.W. dip. These are 

 overlaid by another trappean mass, consisting of beds which appear 

 to dip conformably with the underlying sandstones. At its western 

 side it abuts against greatly disturbed red sandstones succeeded by 

 other red sandstones dipping to the southward, and extending as far 

 as Swan Creek. 



On the west side of Swan Creek, the soft red and variegated sand- 

 stones are seen to dip to the north at an angle of 30°, and are under- 

 laid by a bed of trap conglomerate, which rests against disturbed 

 strata of a composition different from any previously occurring in this 

 section. They consist of laminated, compact, and brecciated gray 

 limestone, a bed of white gypsum, hard reddish purple and gray marls 

 and sandstones, some of them with disseminated crystals of specular 

 iron ore. I saw no fossils in these beds, but as they are identical in 

 mineral character with some parts of the gypsifercus member of the 

 Carboniferous group, and have evidently been disturbed and altered 

 before the deposition of the overlying trap conglomerate and red 

 sandstone, I have no doubt that they belong to the Carboniferous 

 system, the sandstones and shales of which, with some trappean rocks, 

 occupy the cliff between this place and Partridge Island, five and a 

 half miles distant. The New Red Sandstone in the vicinity of Swan 

 Creek appears to form a small synclinal trough, occupying an inden- 

 tation in the Carboniferous rocks, and probably extending only a short 

 distance westward of the mouth of the creek. The two islands near 



* This section was examined in 1846. When I revisited the place in 1850, the 

 front of this mass of trap conglomerate had fallen, and formed a huge slope of 

 fragments. 



