Mineralogy and Geology of a part of Nova Scotia. 149 



the grindstones unless many occur in the mass, which seldom 

 happens, as they are mostly scattered diffusely through the 

 strata. The fossils which occur in this sandstone, stamp it as 

 a secondary rock, although it is evidently older than the trap 

 rocks recumbent on it along the margin of the Basin of Mines. 

 A few miles south west from the grindstone quarries at the 

 South Joggin, a bed of bituminous coal exists m the sand- 

 stone, accompanied by shale. The bed is about five or six 

 feet thick, and has been wrought to a small extent, but is now 

 abandoned, and the shaft is filled with earth and rubbish. 

 The coal contains an abundance of pyrites, which mjures its 

 quality as an article of fuel. In the vicmity of this bed oc- 

 cur several smaller beds, one of which is covered by a stra- 

 tum of bluish compact limestone, in the upper surface of 

 which Dr. Lincoln observed fragments of shells resembling 

 those of the common muscle. {Mytilus eduUs ?) Many of the 

 vegetable fossils so common in the rocks of the coal series 

 in other countries are found in great abundance here, imbed- 

 ded in the sandstone, which dips at an angle of thirty degrees 

 from the horizon, and includes the coal. Specimens of the 

 phytolithus verrucosus were found by Dr. Lincoln, which ex- 

 actly resemble those represented in the drawings accompa- 

 nying Mr. Steinhauer's article on these fossils in the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Transactions, New Series, Vol. L PI. IV. 

 fig. 1. 2. and 4. Very good specimens of the fossil represent- 

 ed in Parkinson's Organic Remains, Vol. 1. PI. IX. fig. 1. 

 were also found. Substitutes of reeds and of plants resem- 

 bling bamboos and rushes are likewise abundant. Some of 

 the reeds are three or four inches in diameter and as many 

 feet in length. They are invariably found traversing one or 

 more of the strata at right angles with its layers. Some, es- 

 pecially the larger, are cylindrical ; others are flattened and 

 are genera,lly coated externally with a layer of coal ; some- 

 are smooth, others striated longitudinally as represented in 

 Parkinson's Organic Remains, PI. III. fig. 3. Near the prin- 

 cipal coal bed. Dr. Lincoln saw one segment of a trunk two 

 feet long and twenty five inches in diameter, and another 

 about one foot long and eighteen or twenty inches in diame- 

 ter. The external appearance of this petrifaction had led 

 the grindstone cutters to believe it to have been a hemlock 

 tree (Pinus Canadensis.) They say that a few years ago a 

 large part of the trunk was standing erect in the cliff, with 

 some of its branches attached to it. 



