136 CLOSE RELATION BETWEEN THE ROCKS 



1. That where the red conglomerate occurs, light, 

 more or less rich, gravelly, turnip and barley soils are 

 found, so easily worked that the plough cuts its way to 

 the very tops of the hills, and the difficult slopes are 

 preferred by the cultivator to the apparently more easy 

 plains. 



2. Where the limestone comes to day, hardwood ridges 

 or stripes of good wheat-land occur. The soil is often 

 thin, especially where the rock is hard, and where the 

 overlying marl beds have been extensively washed away. 



3. That where either of the above two rocks is seen, 

 a belt of rich red land, more or less broad, occurs, or 

 will be found towards the dip of the beds, and generally 

 at a lower level, or forming a hollow valley. The sur 

 face of this belt will often also be undulated with round 

 knolls and hollows, indicating the presence beneath of 

 deposits or beds of gypsum. Over this surface of gyp- 

 siferous marl salt-springs also occasionally occur. 



4. and 5. The productive coal-measures consist in their 

 lower part of greenish-grey sandstones among which 

 those quarried for grindstones are found which contain 

 some clay, and often weather red. In their middle por 

 tion, where the known coal-beds occur, they present 

 common coal-shales, intermingled with the sandstones. 

 Both of these the lower and middle parts yield soils 

 which, though inferior and stony, yet often possess a 

 considerable degree of tenacity, and, by draining and 

 liming, may be made reasonably productive. 



6 and 7. The upper or barren coal-measures consist 

 chiefly of thin-bedded sandstones, which crumble into 

 sandy soils of a light yellowish colour. They flatten out 

 in many places into broad, impervious, almost horizontal 

 tracts of land, on which the water rests, and over which 

 swamps, bogs, bilberry swamps, scrub-pine barrens, and 

 carriboo plains extensively prevail. 



These relations of the rocks to the soils are universal 



