562 THE UPPER SILURIAN. 



think the latter more probable. I am not aware that any masses of 

 true granite occur here. It is, however, quite possible that after or 

 during the cooling of the syenite, veins may have been injected into 

 it from granitic masses below, which have not reached the surface. 



Penetrating further into the range, we find thick beds of dioritic 

 rock associated with slate and quartzite, of a great variety of colours 

 and textures. There appear to be also dikes of greenstone at some 

 points, penetrated by a network of syenitic or felspatliic veins. The 

 general course of the greenstone dikes coincides with that of the range 

 of hills. Toward the southern side of the hills, gray quartzite, and 

 gray, olive, and black slate prevail, almost to the exclusion of igneous 

 rocks. The strike of these beds is nearly S.W. and N. E., with high 

 dips to the southward. On the south they are bounded and overlaid 

 unconforraably by Carboniferous conglomerate and sandstone. 



The structure observed in this part of the chain appears to prevail 

 throughout ; the syenitic rocks forming a broad band on the northern 

 side, and slate and quartz rock with dikes of igneous rock, probably 

 of later date than those on the north side, occurring on the southern 

 ridges. The only exception to this that I am aware of is at the ex- 

 treme eastern end, where the igneous rocks are less massive and the 

 syenite disappears. 



The Cobequid range presents a succession of finely wooded and 

 usually fertile ridges ; and the chain is very continuous, though broken 

 by some narrow transverse ravines. Many of the streams flowing from 

 these hills plunge downward in fine cascades at the junction of the 

 hard rocks with the softer Carboniferous beds. The most remarkable 

 of these waterfalls on the south side is that of the Economy River, on 

 the north side that of the principal branch of Waugh's River. 



Passing from the Cobequid Mountains to the Slate hills of the south 

 side of the Bay^ in King's County, we find slates not very dissimilar 

 from those of the Cobequids, in the promontory northward of the 

 Gaspereaux River. Here the direction both of the bedding and of 

 the slaty structure is N. E. and S.W. ; but the planes of cleavage 

 dip to the S.E., while the bedding, as indicated by lines of different 

 colour, dips to the N.W. These slates, with beds of quartzite and 

 coarse limestone, are continued in the hills of New Canaan, where 

 they contain crinoidal joints, fossil shells, corals, and in some beds of 

 fawn-coloured slate beautiful fan-like expansions of the pretty Dic- 

 tyonema represented in Fig. 196. Very fine specimens of this fos- 

 sil were found by the late Dr Webster of Kentville. It was the 

 habitation of thousands of minute polypes, similar apparently to those 

 of the modern Sertularia. The general strike of the rocks in New 



