148 M'meralogy and Geology of apart of Nova Scotia. 



Wc shall now advert to the sandstone of Cumberland, and 

 descril)e the quarries of grindstones and the coal district of 

 this region. The sandstone where it emerges from beneath 

 the traj) at Cape D"'Or, and where it comes in contact with 

 it at Cape Chignecto, exhibits the red color noticed at other 

 places in the vicinity of this rock, is more compact, and desti- 

 tute of organic remains. Leaving its Plutonic neighbor fur- 

 ther up Cumberland Bay, it assumes a grey color. It alter- 

 nates with, and passes into a coarse conglomerate. At Ap- 

 ple Riv< r and the South Joggin it is quarried for grindstones 

 and as a building material. The sandstone passes into the 

 province of New Brunswick, and forms the extensive erind- 

 stone quarries of Meringuin and Grindstone Island ; but 

 those places are beyond our limits, and we shall content our- 

 selves with a description of the quarries at the South Jog- 

 gin and Apple River. 



At the former place the best grindstones are obtained and 

 wrought on the shore of Cumberland Bay. They are pre- 

 ferred, when obtained at a considerable depth from the su- 

 peificial strata, and are always taken at low water as deep 

 as possible from the surface. Two or three layers are first 

 removed which make inferior grindstones, and then the best 

 ones are procured. In cutting the stones, the workmen fre- 

 q lently meet with hard rounded nodules which they call 

 " bulls eyes," and which always condemn the stones as use- 

 less. They difler from the surrounding matrix only in being 

 m*>re compact and having less of the argillaceous basis, and 

 breaking with a conchoidal fracture. The bulls eyes differ 

 in size from one to ten inches in diameter, and sometimes in- 

 clude a smaller spheroid as a nucleus within the larger. 



Near the mouth of Appk River, grindstones are also quar- 

 ried in a similar manner to those of the South Joggm ; they 

 are not of so good a quality, but in other respects they are 

 like those already described. The rock of which the grind- 

 stones are made consists of irregularly rounded grains of 

 quartz, which are transparent and colorless or slightly tinged 

 red, green or blue, with a few spangles of mica and grams 

 of felspar interspersed through the mass. The grains are 

 usually minute, and not often exceeding the size of a mus- 

 tard seed. They are united by an argillaceous cement, which 

 exists in a small proportion to the whole. This rock contains 

 numerous remains of culmiferous plants, which lie between 

 the strata and are much compressed. They do not injure 



