ATLANTIC COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA, 617 



breadth, and produces a very stony and barren country, encumbered 

 with large boulders. This rocky surface, at the distance of about ten 

 miles from the coast, gives place to a fine undulating wooded country, 

 supporting populous agricultural districts, and traversed by the Liver- 

 pool and Port Medway, two of the largest rivers in the province, with 

 numerous and large lakes at their sources. The source of the Liver- 

 pool River is in the high lands near Annapolis, not more than ten 

 miles from the shores of Annapolis Basin ; and the distance in a direct 

 line from its source to its outlet is more than fifty miles. Lake Ros- 

 ignol, one of the many fine lakes that stud its course, is twelve miles 

 in length, and five in its gi'eatest breadth. 



The prevailing rock in this noi'thern district of Queen's County is 

 clay slate, having a general south-west strike, and almost everywhere 

 polished and marked with diluvial strife. This inland slate district 

 appears to be continuous with that of Lunenburgh on the east, and 

 that of Yarmouth on the west ; so that in this part of the province 

 the granitic rocks appear to be confined to the vicinity of the Atlantic 

 coast, and to the inland hills near the Annapolis Valley, while a fine 

 undulating slate country, diversified with numerous lakes, occupies 

 the interior. In such a situation, more modern rocks than those of 

 the Atlantic coast may be expected to occur. I searched in vain, 

 however, for fossils in the northern district of Queen's, but obtained 

 from a gentleman resident there a fragment of hard quartzose rock, 

 which he believed to have been found in situ, and which contains some 

 fragments of fossil shells, not cei'tainly determinable, but apparently 

 resembling Upper rather than Lower Silurian forms.* 



On the eastern side of Queen's County, the quartzite and mica slate 

 are associated with granite, and beyond this they give place to clay 

 slate, which occupies the county of Lunenburgh as far as Cape Aspa- 

 togoen, and inland as far as I have any acquaintance with its structure. 

 The country here has much of the aspect as well as the agricultural 

 value of that of Northern Queen's, and presents in these respects a 

 favourable contrast to most other parts of the Atlantic coast. The 

 slates of this county are usually blue or black, and often charged with 

 iron pyrites, which, when weathered, gives them an intense rusty 

 yellow colour. This appearance is especially prevalent in some places 

 in the western part of the county. Their strike is S.W. and N.E. 



It is on the margin of this slate district of Lunenburgh, and at the 

 bottom of a deep bay penetrating into it, that the limited tract of 

 Lower Carboniferous rocks, already noticed as occurring at Chester 

 Basin, appears. These Carboniferous beds dip at a moderate angle 



* Poole, Report on Gold-fields, 1862, mentions similar fossils, and gives many- 

 additional facts as to geological structure. 



