GIANTS AND PIGMIES. 



m 



Before I left I found one — Prof. How's specimen, and this is 

 in the Museum. One great reason of our success in finding 

 certain creatures in certain rocks is we go expecting to find 

 them. I could multiply examples. This is not " hap-hazard " 

 work. . Although trihihites disappear at this stage, Cephalopoda 

 still appear and c ntin«'G onward. In the limestones of East 

 River, Pictou, we find Orthoceras of small size. — In the 

 corresponding limestones of Great Britain gigantic Ortlioceras 

 are found which have heen described as "thick as a man's 

 leg." Those that 1 have seen from the neighbourhood of 

 Edinburgh are not much inferior in size to the Trenton Lime- 

 stone Giants of No. 3. In our limestones of Windsor and 

 Brookfield we find an advance among the Ccphalopods, which 

 we call Nautilus. Here we have two species. Mr. J. F. 

 I^'alconer, of Acadia Mines, has presented to the Museum a 

 beautiful specimen ot the BrookfieW limestone, which is used 

 as a flux in reducing the iron oree of Londonderry. The 

 specimen is portable, yet it contains the shells of twelve 

 Nautili. This indicates clearly that this cephalopod abounded 

 in Nova Scotia waters in the time that preceded the formation 

 of our coal-beds. Their frequent appearance ^n the face of the 

 deep, navigating the waters or basking in the warm sunshine 

 tended to enliven the solitude that then prevailed. ""^ 



We have now the successors of the Old Red Sandstone 

 Vertebrates of Restigouche, Fi.«he8 — in Nova Scotia, For a 

 worthy successor of the Asterolepig we will have to go to 

 Cape Breton, iu our next. 



*J, In the Carboniferous limestones of Baddeck, Cape 

 Breton, the remain^ of a giant were disinterred by the late 

 Wm. Kidston and consigned to the late Wm. Barnes, mining 

 engineer, who was engaged by the commissioners of the Nova 

 Sootian Government to make a geological collection for the 

 Exposition Universelle de Paris, 1867. The relic is now in 

 our Museum, and is regarded as one of the interesting speci- 



* The species are Nautilus A vonensii, Dawson, Aud Nautilus Brookfkldi, 

 Hone3'm»n. Trnrn, I. N. S. 1886-7. 



