626 THE LOWER SILURIAN PERIOD. 



River, a stream of no great magnitude, taking its rise not very far 

 from the sources of the Musquodoboit, flowing through a chain of 

 lakes which drain, for many miles on either side, a rugged and 

 wilderness country, and falling into the Atlantic about forty miles 

 to the eastward of Halifax. These discoveries were soon followed by 

 others at Musquodoboit, Laurencetown, and the vicinity of Halifax, 

 Lunenburgh and Wine Harbour ; and arrangements were made by 

 the Government for the allotment of mining areas, and for surveys of 

 the district by Mr Campbell and Mr Poole." 



The principal gold region of Nova Scotia is the long belt of 

 partially metamorphosed rocks extending along the south coast from 

 Yarmouth to Cape Canseau, and, on the grounds which I have stated 

 above, believed to be of Lower Silurian age. The sedimentary rocks 

 of this region, as already stated, are slates and quartzites,* usually 

 in thick bands, and thrown into a great number of abrupt anticlinal 

 and synclinal folds ranging in direction from N.E. and S.W. to 

 nearly east and west ; though, where the band becomes narrow eastward 

 of the St Mary's River, it would seem that the whole of these 

 beds are thrown off from one predominant anticlinal line. The 

 gold occurs in veins of milky and translucent quartz, contained in 

 the beds of quartzite and slate, and almost invariably running with 

 the strike of the beds. It is associated with several other metallic 

 minerals, to be mentioned in the sequel. 



The veins range in thickness from a few inches to eight feet or 

 more, and are not constant in thickness. This is a usual character 

 of such deposits, and arises from their occupying irregular and 

 often shifted or faulted spaces or openings in the beds. The dip of 

 the larger veins usually coincides with that of the bedding, but not 

 unfrequently crosses the slaty structure where this differs from the 

 bedding. It results from this arrangement, that the actual relation 

 of the veins to mining operations is rather that of beds than of 

 veins, and that they dip away from the anticlinals in the same 

 manner with the beds ; one case being known where an auriferous 

 quartz vein folds round the crown of an anticlinal arch. These 

 peculiar characteristics of the auriferous veins will be illustrated 

 in the sequel. It is not easy from mere inspection of the vein-stone 

 ■q to predicate as to its value, since the gold is usually invisible to the 

 eye. It is found, however, that the milky white and colourless 

 varieties of quartz are the least rich, while that which has a gray 

 or leaden colour, and is associated with metallic sulphurets, which in 

 their decomposition cause it to become stained, is the most productive. 

 * The quartzite or bedded quartz rock is locally known under the name of "whin." 



