326 THE CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM. 



Merigomish, show a series of Coal formation rocks not very dissimilar 

 from some parts of the Joggins section. Their dips are to the north- 

 ward, and in their lower part there is a bed of concretionary and 

 laminated limestone, the only fossil in which appears to be the little 

 Spirorbis already so frequently mentioned. Almost immediately above 

 this limestone is a small bed of impure coal, probably two feet thick. 

 These beds are accompanied by some black shales, and succeeding 

 them, in ascending order, is a series of sandstones and shales abounding 

 in leaves of ferns, calamites, etc. The highest beds seen on the south 

 side of Pictou Harbour and at Merigomish are thick bedded gray 

 sandstones, which afford grindstone and building stone, and abound 

 in petrified coniferous wood ; and with these are associated some 

 shales and underclays, with thin seams of coal, one of which in Meri- 

 gomish Island is eleven inches thick. In the continuation of the 

 same series, coal has been found at the loading ground at South 

 Pictou, and near the mouth of the ISIiddle River. 



Northward and westward of Pictou Harbour, which occupies a syn- 

 clinal depression, is a series of rocks, nearly resembling those just 

 described, and generally dipping to the south-east at angles of 15° to 

 25°. In Roger's Hill, six miles westward of Pictou, are thick beds of 

 coarse conglomerate, considerably disturbed, associated with green- 

 stone and hard claystone, and showing in one part a vein of crystalline 

 sulphate of barytes. This conglomerate I believe to be geologically 

 identical with that of New Glasgow. It is succeeded by a great series 

 of deposits, chiefly consisting of reddish sandstones and shales ; but 

 including several thick beds of gray sandstone, affording quarries of 

 valuable grindstone and freestone, and accompanied by gray shales, 

 conglomerates, thin beds of coarse limestone, and thin beds of coal. 

 As there are no very good natural sections in this part of the country, 

 it would be difficult to ascertain the aggregate thickness of these 

 deposits ; it must, however, be great, since they occupy, with general 

 south-east dips, the whole country from the hills last named to the 

 entrance of Pictou Harbour. The principal fossils found near Pictou 

 are Calamites, Lepidodendron, Endofjenites, coniferous wood, ferns, 

 Sternhergia* and carbonized fragments of wood impregnated with 

 iron pyrites and with sulphuret and carbonate of copper. In this 

 series also, and near the town of Pictou, is a bed of sandstone con- 

 taining erect calamites, evidently rooted in situ, and described in a 

 paper by the writer in the Proceedings of the Geological Society for 

 1849. The appearances at this place are so similar to those observed 

 at the Joggins, and they need not be noticed here ; but these and the 

 occurrence of Stigmaria in situ in some of the shales and sandstones 

 * Transversely wrinkled stems, believed to be casts of the pith of plants. 



