THE MARITIME PROVINCES. 7 



Edward Island, 2137 square miles. Their population, 

 respectively, being nearly 332,000, 252,000, and 

 81,000. 



To the Geologist, the most interesting feature of modern 

 discovery in a country long famous for its mineral wealth, 

 is the wide dissemination of gold in the quartz veins of 

 the metamorphic rocks, which occur on the Atlantic 

 shore of Nova Scotia, stretching from Cape Sable to the 

 Gut of Canseau, and extending to a great distance across 

 the province. Its first discovery is currently supposed to 

 have been made in 1861 in a brook near Tangier har- 

 bour, about sixty miles from Halifax, and to have been 

 brought about by a man, stopping to drink, perceiving a 

 particle of the precious metal shining amongst the pebbles. 

 This led to an extended research, soon rewarded by dis- 

 covery of the matrix, and general operations accompanied 

 by fresh discoveries in widely distant points, and thus, 

 perhaps, was fairly started gold mining in Nova Scotia. 

 I believe, however, that I am right in attributing the 

 honour of being the first gold finder in the province to 

 my friend and quondam companion in the woods, Captain 

 C. L'Estrange of the Eoyal Artillery, and understand 

 that his claim to priority in this matter has been recently 

 fully recognised by the Provincial Government ; it being 

 satisfactorily shown that he found and brought in 

 specimens of gold in quartz from surface rocks, when 

 moose-hunting in the eastern districts, some time before 

 the discoveries at Tangier. The Oven's Head diggings, 

 near Lunenburg, were discovered during the summer of 

 the same year ; and the sea-beach below the cliffs at this 

 locality afi'orded for a short time a golden harvest by 

 washing the sand and pounded shale which had been 



