CARBONIFEROUS DISTRICT OF PICTOU. 327 



of the same neigliboiirhood, serve to indicate the analogy that obtains 

 between the coal-rocks of Cumberland and this part of Pictou. Some 

 of the shales near the town of Pictou are loaded with ferns and Cor- 

 daites; and shells o( a, Xaiadites {N. arenacea) also occur, though rarely. 

 Small seams of coal are believed to occur in this neighbourhood, but 

 their outcrops cannot at present be seen. 



The coast section, westward of the entrance of Pictou Harbour, is 

 for some distance very imperfect. Much red sandstone, however, 

 appears ; and a bed of limestone from two to three feet thick, and a 

 small bed of coal, have been discovered. Some gray sandstones also 

 appear ; in one of which there are numerous fragments of carbonized 

 wood, containing sulphurct and carbonate of copper. This deposit, 

 and others of a similar nature found in this series at various places, 

 have given rise to hopes that valuable deposits of copper may be found 

 in this part of the Coal formation. These ores of cojjper are always 

 associated with remains of fossil plants, and they have no doubt been 

 produced by the deoxidizing effects of this vegetable matter ou water 

 impregnated with sulphate of copper, and probably rising in the form 

 of springs from some of the older subjacent rocks. 



The rocks in the coast section west of Pictou Harbour dip to the 

 south-eastward as far as the mouth of Carribou River, beyond which 

 the same beds are repeated, but better exposed, and dipping to the 

 north. One of the cupriferous beds above referred to, a coarse gray 

 sandstone, appears in Carribou River, and was at one time worked for 

 the copper it contains, but is now abandoned. At the mouth of the 

 river are gray sandstones, red sandstones, and red and gray shales, 

 and associated with these is a bed of coal five inches in thickness, 

 with the usual underclay with Stigmaria rootlets. Beyond this place, 

 as far as the second brook beyond Toney River, there is a great series 

 of beds having precisely the aspect of the Upper Coal formation of 

 Cumberland, and containing one thin bed of non-fossiliferous limestone, 

 and a great thickness of reddish shales, some of them finely ripple- 

 marked and worm-tracked, and with leaves of ferns. The beds then 

 become horizontal, and are repeated with southerly dips (S.S.E.), at 

 first at a small angle, but toward the extremity of Cape John the dip 

 increases, and the rocks at length become vertical. The lowest beds 

 seen at the extremity of the cape are gray coarse sandstones, with 

 Calamites and carbonized trunks of trees. Associated with these are 

 reddish sandstones and shales, and in front of the cape, but under 

 water, is the outcrop of a small bed of gypsum. The northerly dip- 

 ping beds in the above section extend to the westward across River 

 John, and arc continuous Avith those described [vide Cumberland 

 District) as occurring ou the French river of Tatamagouche. The 



