TRURO TO CAPE d'oR. 105 



Swan Creek are detached masses of trap, resting on or rising through 

 red sandstones, wliich at low tide are seen to extend between them 

 and the shore. The red sandstone and trap, occurring m the section 

 between Five Ishinds and Swan Creek, appears to be a very narrow 

 band, extending parallel to the coast ; and as the section is nearly 

 in the general direction of the strike of the formation, it is probable 

 that some of the trappean masses above described are poi'tions of beds 

 disconnected by faults and denudation. 



Many beautiful crystallized minerals occur in the trap rocks of the 

 sections described. The masses near Moose River contain cavities 

 coated with opaque white varieties of quartz, in stalactitic and other 

 imperfectly crystalline forms. Opposite the Two Islands, the fissures 

 of the trap are lined with fine crystals of analcime and natrolite ; and 

 the fissures and vacant spaces of the trap conglomerate in the same 

 neighbourhood contain a reddish variety of chabasite (Acadiolite) in 

 rhombohedrons, often of large size. 



At Clarke's Head, immediately west of Swan Creek, the Lower 

 Carboniferous rocks are well exposed, including beds of limestone and 

 gypsum, with some igneous rocks of porj)hyritic character, and prob- 

 ably much older than the Triassic period. On the top of the clift', 

 a bed of compact trap is seen to rest on the edges of the dis- 

 turbed lower Carboniferous rocks, over which it has flowed as a 

 lava stream. 



The trap conglomerate or breccia, noticed in describing the above 

 section, is a rock of very singular character. It consists of large 

 fi'agments, often more than a foot in diameter, of amygdaloid, cemented 

 together by a hard brownish substance. The boulder-like fragments 

 of trap which make up this rock have probably been blown out of a 

 volcanic orifice, and then rolled into beds by the sea, and finally 

 cemented by a paste made up of fine volcanic mud or ashes. 



Beyond Clarke's Head, the coast extending toward Cape Chiegnecto 

 is occupied by Carboniferous rocks, for the most part in a very much 

 disturbed condition, and it is only here and there that we meet with 

 a small patch of New Red, and its overlying trap, the remnants of a 

 formation once continuous throughout the whole distance. 



The first of these isolated patches is Partridge Island, a high rock 

 of trap resting at its west side on red sandstone. Though called an 

 island, it is connected with the shore, which consists of Lower Carbon- 

 iferous sandstones and shales in a vertical and contorted condition, by 

 a shingle beach. The island itself presents a high cliff" to the bay, 

 and slopes downward on the land side. In approaching it from the 

 east, we sec a cliff" of columnar trap extending from the shore to the 



