392 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



and gypsum, which appear in a small depression on the north side of 

 the Cove ; but beyond this depression the limestone reappears with 

 a northerly dip. It is then bent into several small folds, and ulti- 

 mately resumes its high dip to the south-east. I found no fossils in 

 this limestone, except at its junction with the overlying marl, where 

 there is a thin bed of black compact limestone containing a few indis T 

 tinct specimens of a small species of Terebratula. In appearance and 

 structure this limestone is very similar to the laminated limestones 

 which underlie the gypsiferous deposits of Antigonish and the Shu- 

 benacadie. 



" (4.) This bed is succeeded by greenish marl, traversed by veins 

 of red foliated and white fibrous gypsum, and containing a few layers 

 of the same mineral in a granular form ; it also contains a few veins 

 of crystalline carbonate of lime. In its lower part it has a brecciated 

 structure, as if the layers had been partially consolidated and afterwards 

 broken up. Near its junction with the limestone it contains rounded 

 masses of a peculiar cellular limestone, coloured black by coaly 

 matter ; and higher in the bed there are nodules of yellow ferruginous 

 limestone, with a few fragments of shells. The greenish colour of 

 the marl seems to be caused by the presence of a minute quantity of 

 sulphuret of iron. When a portion of the marl is heated the sulphuret 

 is decomposed, and the colour is changed to a bright red. 



" (5.) On this marl rests a bed of gypsum, whose thickness I esti- 

 mated at fifty yards. Where the marl succeeds to the limestone, the 

 shore at once recedes, and the gypsum occurs at the head of the 

 Cove. The gypsum is well exposed in a cliff about eighty feet in 

 height ; but, like most other large masses of this rock, it is broken 

 by weathering into forms so irregular that its true dip and direction 

 are not at first sight very obvious. On tracing its layers, however, 

 it is found to have the same dip with the subjacent limestone and 

 marl. About two-thirds of the thickness of the bed consist of crystal- 

 line anhydrite, and the remaining third of very fine-grained common 

 gypsum. The anhydrite prevails in the lower part of the bed, and 

 common gypsum in the upper ; but the greater part of the bed consists 

 of an intimate mixture of both substances, the common gypsum forming 

 a base in which minute crystals of anhydrite are scattered ; and bands 

 in which anhydrite prevails, alternating with others in which common 

 gypsum predominates. It is traversed by veins of compact gypsum, 

 but I saw no red or fibrous veins like those of the marl. In some 

 parts of the bed small rounded fragments of gray limestone are spar- 

 ingly scattered along layers of the gypsum. 



"The exposed part of the mass is riddled by those singular funnel- 



