BLOMIDON TO BRIAR ISLAND, 91 



ainygdaloidal trap, varying in colour from gray to dull red, but in 

 general of grayish tints. It is full of cavities and fissures ; and 

 these, as well as its vesicles, are filled or coated with quartz, in 

 different states, and with various zeolites, to be noticed hereafter, 

 especially heulaudite, analcime, natrolite, stilbite, and apophylite, often 

 in large and beautiful masses of crystals. In its lower part there are 

 some portions which are scarcely vesiculai', and often appear to contain 

 quartz sand like that of the subjacent sandstone. Above the bed of 

 amygdaloid is a still thicker stratum of crystalline basaltic trap, 

 having a rude columnar structure. 



The columnar trap of Blomidon, in consequence of its hardness and 

 vertical joints, presents a perpendicular wall extending along the top 

 of the precipice. The amygdaloid beneath, being friable and much 

 fissured, falls away in a slope from the base of this wall, and the sand- 

 stone in some places forms a continuation of the slope, or is altogether 

 concealed by the fallen fragments of trap. In other places the sand- 

 Stone has been cut into a nearly vertical cliff, above which is a terrace 

 of fragments of amygdaloid. 



Northward of Cape Blomidon, the north-westerly dips of the sand- 

 stone and trap cause the base of the former to descend to the sea-level, 

 the columnar trap, which here appears to be of increased thickness, 

 still presenting a lofty cliff. Southward of the cape, on the other 

 hand, the amygdaloid and basalt thin out, until the red sandstones 

 occupy the whole of the cliff. It thus appears that the trap at 

 Blomidon is a conformable bed, resting on the sandstone, exactly as 

 in some places on the opposite shore, to be described hereafter. 



The coast section between Blomidon and Horton, as seen near 

 Pereau River and Bass Creek, and at Starr's Point, Long Island, and 

 Bout Island, exhibits red sandstones, with north-west dips at angles 

 of about 15°, and precisely similar in mineral character to those of 

 Blomidon, except that near Bass Creek some of them contain layers 

 of small pebbles of quartz, slate, granite, and trap. The whole of 

 these sandstones underlie those of Blomidon, and resemble those which 

 occupy the long valley of Cornwallis and the Annapolis River, westward 

 of this section. In this valley, the red sandstone, in consequence of 

 its soft and friable nature, is rarely well exposed ; but in a few places 

 in Cornwallis, where I observed it, it has the same dip as on the coast. 

 The comparatively high level of the sandstone, where it underlies the 

 trap, shows that the present form of this valley is in great part due to 

 denudation ; and the trap itself must have suffei'ed from this cause, 

 since fragments of it and of the quartzose minerals which it contains, 

 are frequent in the valley of Cornwallis, and along the base of the slate 

 hills to the southward. 



