142 



their labors have appeared from time to time in some one of the various 

 scientific periodicals either of this country or of England and the United 

 States, the results of which it is, for obvious reasons, impossible to 

 allude to further in the brief limits of a paper such as this. 



Briefly summarized, then, the progress of geological investigation 

 during the last twenty years may be thus stated. In the east, the care- 

 fully detailed maps of Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia have been 

 presented to the public and are worthy of the highest praise. We have 

 also, now, a very good general idea of the structure of the other portions 

 of that province, including the distribution of the great gold-bearing 

 series of the coast rocks from Yarmouth on the west to Guysborough on 

 the east. The structure of the great coal fields of Cape Breton, Pictou 

 and Cumberland have also been carefully studied, and the geological 

 horizons of the ores of iron and manganese, which are of the utmost 

 importance in connection with the future development and progress of 

 the country, have been clearly and satisfactorily determined. In New 

 Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the geological map of both prov- 

 inces has been completed, and the exceedingly complex questions in the 

 southern portion of the former, which for many years were wrapped in 

 profound mystery, have been very thoroughly solved. The outlines of 

 the great Carboniferous basin, occupying an area of over 12,000 square 

 miles in this province, have been carefully determined, and its presump- 

 tive value from the economic point of view established, while some of 

 the most important work in Canada in coonection with the paleontology 

 of the oldest fossiliferous formations has been and is still being carried 

 out with the greatest care. 



In Quebec east, the great problem of the age and stratigraphical 

 relations of the Quebec group, a problem which for more than forty 

 years has engaged the attention of geologists, not only in Canada, but, 

 to some extent, in the United States and Europe as well, has, it is 

 hoped, been placed on a comparatively satisfactory basis of settlement, 

 while to the west and north of the St. Lawrence, the mysteries of the 

 great region of the Mistassini have been clearly solved, and great progress 

 has been made in the study of the Laurentian rocks to the north 

 between Quebec and Montreal. The great wilderness country lying 

 between the Ottawa and the James' Bay has been traversed in all direc- 



