CAKBONIFEKOUS DISTKICT OF CUMBEIU.AND. 1,51 



tion seems to abut against the older rocks of the Cobeqiiid Mountains, 

 without the intervention of the Lower Carboniferous, On the western 

 coast of the county, the cliffs fronting Chiegnecto Bay and Cumber- 

 land Basin, and which have been cut and are kept clean and fresh by 

 the same agencies which we have already noticed in treating of the 

 Trap and New Red Sandstone coasts, furnish the best and most com- 

 plete section of the Carboniferous rocks in Nova Scotia, and one of the 

 finest in the world ; and on this account I shall commence with its 

 description, as affording the best guide to the undei-standing of the 

 more obscure and complicated parts of the formation. 



This remarkable section, now well known to geologists as the South 

 Joggins section, extends across almost the whole north side of the 

 Cumberland trough, and exhibits its beds in a continuous series, dip- 

 ping S. 25° W. at an angle of 19° ; so that in proceeding along the 

 coast from north to south, for a distance of about ten miles, we con- 

 stantly find newer and newer beds ; and these may be seen both in a 

 bold cliff and in a clean shore, which at low tide extends to a distance 

 of 200 yards from its base. We thus see a series of beds amounting 

 to more than 14,000 feet in vertical thickness, and extending from the 

 marine limestones of the Lower Carboniferous series to the top of the 

 Coal formation. In the cliff and on the beach, more than seventy seams 

 of coal may be seen, with their roof- shales and underclays, and erect 

 plants appear at as many distinct levels ; while the action of the waves 

 and of the tide, which rises to the height of forty feet, prevents the 

 collection of debris at the foot of the cliflf, and continually exposes new 

 and fresh surfaces of rock. 



In describing this section, I shall take as guides Sir W. E. Logan's 

 elaborate section of the whole coast, including 14,570 feet 11 inches 

 of vertical thickness, and a re-examination of 2800 feet of the most 

 interesting part of the section made by Sir Charles Lyell and the 

 writer in 1852 and 1853, and published in the Proceedings of the 

 Geological Society of London for the latter year, with additional facts 

 ascertained by myself in subsequent visits, and many of which have 

 been published in my more recent papers. I shall proceed in the 

 ascending order, or from the older to the newer beds, and shall inter- 

 pret each new appearance as it occurs. In this way I hope to give to 

 the attentive reader a more accurate idea of the structure and mode of 

 formation of a coal-field than he could obtain in any other way, except 

 by an examination of the actual coast section described. 



The oldest beds of the Lower Carboniferous series do not appear in 

 the coast section, but may be studied at Napan River and other places 

 near Amherst, They consist of sandstones and marly clays, including 



