92 THE TRIAS OR NEW RED SANDSTONE. 



We may now consider the relations of the red sandstone of Corn- 

 wallis to the other formations bounding it on the south. Near Kent- 

 ville, seven miles westward of the direct line of section from Blomidon 

 to Horton, the red sandstone, with its usual north-west dip, rests 

 against clay-slate having a high dip to the N.N.E., and belonging to a 

 series of similar rocks apparently equivalents of the Silurian system. 

 In tracing the boundary of the slate eastward of this place, along the 

 south side of Cornwallis River, its junction with the red sandstone is 

 not again observed; and at Wolfville the slates support hard gray 

 sandstones, composed of the materials of granite, with some beds of 

 brownish sandstone. These rocks were observed in one place to' 

 dip to the N.E., and in another to the N.N.W. They are separated 

 from the red sandstones of Bout and Long Island, and Starr's Point, 

 by a wide expanse of marsh, and by the estuary of the Cornwallis 

 River. In Lower Horton, and between that place and Halfway River, 

 gray sandstones, similar to those of Wolfville, are seen to support 

 black shales and dark sandstones, with Lepidodendra and other fossil 

 plants of carboniferous forms, and dipping to the N.E., N., and N.W. 

 These beds continue to the mouth of the Avon estuary, where they 

 form the cliffs of Horton Bluff, at the northern end of which they are 

 seen dipping to the south. They are then concealed by boulder clay, 

 which with marsh forms the shore for nearly a mile. Beyond this, in 

 a small point called Oak Island, are seen a few beds of coarse red sand- 

 stone with some finer red beds and grayish bands. These rocks dip 

 to the N.N.W., and form a continuation, and the eastern extremity, of 

 the New Red Sandstone of the Horton Islands and Cornwallis. 



In describing this section, I have merely copied my notes upon it, 

 and have purposely refrained from drawing any inferences or giving 

 any explanations. To begin with Blomidon — the crystalline trap at 

 its summit, which rises abruptly in huge irregular columns, is an 

 ancient current of molten rock or lava, which has flowed over and 

 cooled upon the surface on which it now rests. It slopes gently 

 toward the north-west, as if it had flowed toward the bay, but there is 

 no volcanic dike or other evidence of the ejection of lava from beneath 

 on that side, and it is more than probable that the orifice from which 

 it was poured forth was to tl^e westward along the range of which 

 Blomidon is the eastern extremity, or northward toward Cape Split. 

 From the appearance of the mountain-top that rises above the vertical 

 cliff, there may have been more than one overflow of the volcanic 

 matter. Before this great bed of basaltic trap flowed forth, the surface 

 on which it rests had been thickly covered with volcanic ashes and 

 scoriae, which, consolidated by pressure and by infiltration of mineral 



