282 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



With regard to the second point above referred to, the age of these 

 limestones and their equivalency with those of other countries, it is 

 necessary to relate the history of the question, and then to state the 

 peculiarities of these beds which have caused so various opinions to 

 be entertained in regard to them. The earliest statement as to their 

 age was that of Mr R. Brown, in Haliburton's " Nova Scotia." He 

 correctly regarded the limestones of northern Cumberland as Lower 

 Carboniferous, on the evidence of their stratigraphical position, as 

 underlying the Cumberland Coal-field. At the same time, in the 

 central part of the province, where the relation to the Coal formation 

 was not clear, and the physical aspect of the rocks was peculiar, these 

 beds were assigned to the New Red Sandstone. Messrs Jackson and 

 Alger and Dr Gesner continued to hold this last view, and the latter 

 extended it to the Cumberland beds previously placed in their true 

 position by Mr Brown. Sir William Logan, in 1841, visited Horton 

 Bluff and Windsor, and finding that the beds at the former place, 

 which he supposed to be the Coal measures, were lower than the 

 Windsor limestones, naturally supposed the latter to be of Permian 

 age. Mr Lonsdale, after a hasty examination of the fossils, concur- 

 red in this view. Sir Charles Lyell, in his examination of the province 

 in 1 843, saw good reason to doubt this ; and, with the aid of the 

 writer, explored with care the sections in the East River of Pictou and 

 the Avon. His results were published in his " Travels" in 1845, aud 

 were subsequently fully confirmed by more extended observations 

 made by the writer and by Mr R. Brown. The Carboniferous date 

 of these beds is now established on the surest grounds, both strati- 

 graphical and palreontological. In regard to the former, the fact 

 that in the sections at Cape Dauphin, at the East River of Pictou, and 

 in Cumberland, the marine limestones underlie the productive Coal 

 measures is indisputable, and these limestones contain the fossils of the 

 upper beds of the Windsor series. In regard to the fossils, Davidson, 

 the best authority on the subject, affirms them to be Carboniferous; 

 and in so far as the Brachiopods are concerned, many of them identical 

 as to species with those of the British Carboniferous limestone. De 

 Koninck, the celebrated Belgian palaeontologist, confirms this view ; 

 stating, as quoted by Davidson, that this fauna " completely recalls 

 that of the Carboniferous limestone of Vise in Belgium." Yet it is true 

 that the rocks themselves, the limestones, the red sandstones, the marls, 

 and the gypsums, have much the aspect of Permian rocks, and that the 

 fossils, though Carboniferous, have, in the upper beds especially, an 

 unusual number of forms common to the Carboniferous and Permian ; 

 while on the other hand, as has been observed by Mr Hartt, they do 



