26± THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



the ancient metarnorphic slates of the hills, and enter the Carbon- 

 iferous system, which we find resting on the edges of the slates, and 

 dipping to the south. The first rock seen is conglomerate, in enor- 

 mously thick beds, and made up of fragments of all the rocks of the 

 hills. Passing this ancient beach of the old Carboniferous sea, we 

 find, without the intervention of any marine limestones, coal measure 

 rocks, consisting of gray sandstones and dark shales, with a few thin 

 seams of coal, and abundance of leaves of Cordaites, and a few 

 Catamites and Stigmaria. Succeeding these beds is a great thickness 

 of red and gray sandstones and shale, with a general dip to the south- 

 ward, though broken by so many faults that it is not easy to form an 

 estimate of their aggregate vertical thickness. Finally, we observe, 

 as we descend the river, these same sandstones and shales dipping at 

 high angles to the northward. They are then overlaid by the new 

 red sandstones, and we see no more of the Carboniferous rocks till 

 we approach the mouth of the Folly and De Bert, where we find the 

 Lower Carboniferous limestone, gypsum, and conglomerate, mentioned 

 in our description of the New Eed, and dipping to the north-east. The 

 fossils of this limestone are the same species found at Windsor and 

 elsewhere in beds of the same age. "We have here a broken and 

 disturbed coal measure trough, constructed in the same manner with 

 that of Cumberland, but on a much smaller scale, and probably 

 including only the lower members of the Coal formation. The 

 absence of the Lower Carboniferous limestone near the hills cor- 

 responds with what we observed in Cumberland, and is accounted for 

 by the circumstance that the Cobequids formed the shore of this 

 ancient sea, while the limestones could be formed only in deep water 

 at some distance from the turbid surf and the pebbly beach — an 

 arrangement corresponding exactly with what is observed in the 

 modem coral-reefs of the Pacific. 



We can trace the Coal measure band, of which the Folly River 

 gives us a cross section, all the way from Advocate Harbour, near 

 Cape Chiegnecto, to the upper part of the Salmon River, where it 

 adjoins the Carboniferous district of Pictou. It is everywhere much 

 broken and disturbed ; and though it widens considerably toward its 

 eastern extremity, it nowhere attains a great development, either in 

 horizontal extent, or in the magnitude of its coal-seams. From 

 Advocate Harbour to Partridge Island this belt consists principally 

 of greatly contorted and somewhat altered shales and sandstones, 

 containing a few fossil plants, some scales of fishes, and in places 

 abundance of shells of Naiadites. In a bed near Partridge Island, 

 Dr Harding of Windsor found, several years since, a fine series of 



