326 GEOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE 



In 1845, Sir J. W. Dawson described these rocks as follows r 

 " The coal measures of the Albion Mines, on the banks of the East 

 River of Pictou * * * are succeeded, in ascending order* 

 by a great bed of coarse conglomerate, which, as it marks a 

 violent interruption of the processes which had accumulated the 

 great beds of coal, shale and ironstone beneath, and as it is. 

 succeeded by rocks of a character very different from that of 

 these older coal measures, forms a well-marked boundary, which 

 we may consider as the commencement of the Newer Coal 

 Formation. 1 " 



The fossils of this latter, he adds, show the continuance of 

 the coal flora with terrestrial vertebrate animals through a 

 thickness of 5,000 feet or more. 



This description indicates what seems to be the true struc- 

 ture ; yet in 1853 2 he prefers to regard the conglomerate as a 

 gravel beach contemporaneous with the Albion coal measures,, 

 which it "guarded against the disturbing causes which in other 

 localities prevented the continuous accumulation of coal." 



In 186b 8 he argues in favor of the theory that " the New 

 Glasgow conglomerate is to be regarded as an anomalous and 

 peculiar modification of the Millstone Grit, succeeded in ascend- 

 ing order on the south side by the great coal measuress of the 

 Albion Mines, and on the north by a depauperated representative 

 of these beds, graduating upward into the Upper or Newer Coal 

 measures ;" and in 1876 4 again assigns it to "the upper part of 

 the Millstone Grit or lower part of the Middle Coal formation,'* 

 the depauperated Albion mines measures being the 660 feet next 

 overlying, succeeded conformably by the " Upper Coal formation." 



The physical conditions under which a beach of shingle could 

 accumulate 1,600 feet of coarse conglomerate contemporary and 

 in juxtaposition with 5,567 feet of beds of entirely different 

 character, including more than 2,000 feet of black bituminous 



1 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, Vol. I., p. 322. ,Cf. also 

 Trans. N. S. Inst. Nat. Sc., Vol. II., p. 95, Vol. II., Part 3, page 155. 



1 Geol. Jour. X, pp. 42-47 ; Acadian Geology, First Edition, 1855, p. 249. 

 Acadian Geology. Second Edition, pp. 322-326. 

 4 Suppl. Acad. Geol., pp. 34 and 49. 



