226 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



which they appear only in detached patches, the most western of 

 which, on the coast eastward of St John, are those of Quaco and 

 Gardiner's Creek. On the northern side these beds occupy a broad 

 belt of country, extending along the valleys of the Petitcodiac and 

 Kennebeckasis Rivers, and in part limited on the north-west by another 

 metamorphic ridge, stretching from the great area of such rocks lying 

 on the St John River to the eminence known as Butternut Ridge. 

 The belt thus limited, and which extends for nearly eighty miles, with 

 a breadth of from sixteen to twenty miles, appears to consist wholly 

 of beds of the three lowest divisions of the Carboniferous period. The 

 Lower Carboniferous Coal measures and their associated conglomerates 

 skirt the northern side of the Shepody range, and are succeeded by 

 the marine limestones and gypsums. These appear to be brought up 

 by an undulation in the middle of the valley at Sussex Vale, and they 

 reappear on the north side of the Kennebeckasis, skirting the exterior 

 of the metamorphic belt of the Kingston series to Butternut Ridge 

 already mentioned. 



Doubling around the metamorphic promontory near Butternut Ridge, 

 the Lower Carboniferous outcrop extends in a narrow and somewhat 

 curved band to the west, till it reaches Oromocto Lake and the Maga- 

 guadavic River, near the line of the St Andrew's Railway. It then 

 bends sharply to the north-east, and, in so far as known, runs directly, 

 though with many minor curves and detached outliers, to the Bay de 

 Chaleur, skirting the margin of the broad Silurian area of northern 

 New Brunswick. One of the most important outliers is that on the 

 Tobique River.* In so far as this series has been examined, it has 

 been described by Professor Bailey and his associates-j- as composed 

 of red conglomerates, red sandstones, and red shales, with beds of 

 limestone and gypsum, and in places penetrated and overlaid by 

 trappean rocks, by which some of the beds appear to have been con- 

 siderably altered. These eruptions of volcanic rock I suppose to be 

 of much older date than those of the Trias, and to be similar to those 

 which occur in the Lower Carboniferous of Nova Scotia, and which 

 will be described in the sequel. 



From the above description, it appears that the line of outcrop of 

 the Lower Carboniferous is bent upon itself, forming an angle of about 

 45°, each limb of which extends for about 150 miles to the waters 

 of the Gulf of St Lawrence. The great triangular area thus limited, 

 except where connected with the Cumberland area in Nova Scotia by 

 an isthmus a few miles in breadth, includes an area of nearly 6000 



* Hind's Report, p. 62. 



f Report on Geology of Southern New Brunswick, 1865. 



