2/0 THE OLDEST AIR-BREATHERS 



The geology of Nova Scotia is largely indebted to the world- 

 embracing labours of Sir Charles Lyell. Though much had 

 previously been done by others, his personal explorations in 

 1842, and his paper on the gypsiferous formation, published in 

 the following year, first gave form and shape to some of the 

 more difficult features of the geology of the country, and 

 brought it into relation with that of other parts of the world. 

 In geological investigation, as in many other things, patient 

 plodding may accumulate large stores of fact, but the magic 

 wand of genius is required to bring out the true value and 

 significance of these stores of knowledge. It is scarcely too 

 much to say that the exploration of a few weeks, and subse- 

 quent study of the subject by Sir Charles, with the impulse 

 and guidance given to the labours of others, did as much for 

 Nova Scotia as might have been effected by years of laborious 

 work under less competent heads. 



Sir Charles naturally continued to take an interest in the 

 geology of Nova Scotia, and to entertain a desire to explore 

 more fully some of those magnificent coast sections which he 

 had but hastily examined; and when, in 1851, he had occa- 

 sion to revisit the United States, he made an appointment 

 with the writer of these pages to spend a few days in renewed 

 explorations of the cliffs of the South Joggins. The object 

 specially in view was the thorough examination of the beds of 

 the true coal measures, with reference to their contained 

 fossils, and the conditions of accumulation of the coal : and 

 the results were given to the world in a joint paper on " The 

 remains of a reptile and a land shell discovered in the interior 

 of an erect tree in the coal measures of Nova Scotia," and in 

 the writer's paper on the " Coal Measures of the South 

 Joggins " ; l while other important investigations grew out of 

 the following up of these researches, and much matter in 



1 Journal of the Geological Society of London, vols. ix, and x. ; and 

 "Acadian Geology." 



