TlIK PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS. 33 



series occur, they become nearly horizontal, and are overlain appa- 

 rently in a conformable manner by the red sandstones of the Trias, 

 which differ very little from them in mineral character. It thus 

 hajjpens that, but for the occurrence of some of the characteristic 

 Carboniferous plants in the lower series, and of a few equally charac- 

 teristic Triassic forms in the upper, it would be difficult to affirm that 

 we have to deal with two formations so different in age. 



In connexion with this, the presumed absence of the Permian, 

 not only here but throughout Eastern America, raises the question 

 which I have already suggested in Acadian Geology, whether the 

 conditions of the Upper Coal formation may not have continued 

 longer here than in Europe, so that rocks in the former region con- 

 stituting an upward extension of the Carboniferous may synchronize 

 with part at least of the Permian. On the one hand, there seems to 

 be no stratigiaphical break to separate these rocks from the Middle 

 Coal formation of Nova Scotia ; and their fossils are in the main 

 identical. On the other hand, where the beds are so slightly in- 

 clined that the Trias seems conformable to the Carboniferous, no very 

 marked break is to be expected ; and some of the fossils, as the coni- 

 fers of the genus Walc/iia and Calamites gigas, have a decided 

 Permian tendency. 



On the whole, in the Report above referred to, I declined to 

 separate the red beds of the lower series in Prince Edward Island 

 from the Newer Coal formation. Prof. Geinitz, however, in noticing 

 my Report,* and also in a private letter, expresses the opinion that 

 the fossils have, as an assemblage, so much of a Permian (or Dyadic) 

 aspect that they may fairly be referred to that formation, more par- 

 ticularly to its lower part, the Lower Rotliliegende. Attaching, as 

 every one must, great weight to the judgment of I'rof. Geinitz on such 

 a point, I determined to re-examine the more instructive sections of 

 the Newer Coal formation on the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, with 

 the view of ascertaining whether any stratigraphical or pahtontological 

 line can be found to divide the Upper Coal formation series of my 

 former papers into two members, or to separate it from the Middle 

 Coal formation. The results of this re-examination and tlicir bearing 

 on general geological questions may be stated as follows : — 



Tlie Carboniferous district of Pictou county, extending for about 

 45 miles along the shores of Northumberland Strait, exposes in that 

 distance, in coast and river sections, the whole thickness of the Carbo- 

 niferous system, arranged in three synclinal forms. 



Tlie Fif^t or eastern synclinal, extciidiiig I'roni the older nictamor- 



• Xeucs Jalubucli, lfi72. 



