350 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



made, under the superintendence of Mr J. Deacon of Halifax, near 

 the harbour landing-place, to the depth of 154 feet, the rock penetrated 

 was gypseous marl with thin bands of limestone. After passing 

 through about 122 feet of this material, and a bed of limestone 1 foot 

 2 inches thick, a bed of gypsum was reached from which a flow of 

 strong brine entered the bore hole. The gypsum has been penetrated 

 to the depth of eighteen feet, and is probably one of the thick beds 

 above referred to. The brine is said to be copious and rich in salt. 



Carboniferous District of Guysborough. 



This district is separated from that last described by a narrow belt 

 of metamorphic country forming a range of low elevations. Part of these 

 altered rocks may belong to the Lower Carboniferous series itself, but 

 the greater part of them are of higher antiquity. On the south side 

 of this ridge, we find a belt of Carboniferous rocks, extending from 

 the Strait of Canseau along the north side of Chedabucto Bay. 

 Westward of the head of this bay, the Carboniferous rocks extend in 

 a narrow band, separating the inland metamorphic hills from those of 

 the Atlantic coast, almost as far as the sources of the west branch of 

 the St Mary's River, fifty miles west of Chedabucto Bay. 



North of the town of Guysborough, andjnot very far from the meta- 

 morphic rocks, is a bed of blackish laminated limestone. I could find 

 no fossils in it, but it has the character of the lowest Carboniferous 

 limestones as seen elsewhere. It has some of its fissures filled with 

 micaceous specular iron, and is associated with conglomerate and 

 sandstone somewhat altered. This limestone dips N. 60° W. at a 

 high angle. Limestone re-appears with a high easterly dip on the 

 opposite side of the harbour, and near it are altered shales nearly in a 

 vertical position. Southward of the town of Guysborough, limestone 

 again appears in thick beds, and between it and the town are reddish 

 sandstones and conglomerates dipping S. 60° E. Some of these beds 

 are evidently made up of the debris of the granite-hills to the south- 

 ward, proving that these older hills were land undergoing waste in 

 the Carboniferous period. 



The whole of the beds near Guysborough Harbour are much disturbed 

 and in part altered ; and, immediately to the westward of the town, a 

 spur of porphyritic and trappean rock extends from the hills to the 

 northward, nearly across the Carboniferous valley : the eruption of 

 these igneous rocks has probably occurred in the Carboniferous period, 

 and effected much of the baking and other alteration which the rocks 

 of that period have experienced. 



Beyond this ridge of igneous rock, the long valley extending to 



