202 Mineralogy and Geology of a part of Nova Scotia. 



the btd at the surface is but six feet and a few inches, but if 

 seems to increase rather than diminish, as the mining opera- 

 tions advance. Its direction is similar to that of the bed in 

 the district of Pictou. On removing the stratum of ferru- 

 ginous soil from above it, the surface of the bed is seen cu- 

 riously intersected by seams, which cross it transversely or 

 nearly at right angles with its direction ; — they are sometimes 

 open fissures, and at other times filled up with a substance 

 resembling red ochre. These seams give the ore a tenden- 

 cy to separate into rhomboidal fragments, similar to those 

 into which slate frequently breaks, and much facilitate the 

 labor of raising it. The bed has been opened to the depth 

 of eight or ten feet, and about two hundred tons of the ore 

 boated down the Annapolis River, to the smelting furnace, 

 situated on the southern shore of the Annapolis Basin. The 

 characters of the ore, at this place, do not differ materially 

 from those of the Pictou ore. It is of a slaty structure and 

 fine granular texture. Its color is brownish red and its 

 streak a faint brick red. Its average specific gravity is 4,20, 

 consequently it contains a little more metal than the Pictou 

 ore, the earthy ingredients being nearly the same. It has a 

 slight metallic lustre, and is magnetic, sensibly disturbing the 

 magnetic needle. 



The marine impressions in this ore are, if possible, more 

 numerous, than in that of Pictou ; indeed, the whole bed 

 seems to have been an immense deposit of marine shells, 

 exhibiting every where their remains. The fossils, however, 

 at this place belong exclusively to the genus Anoma, for we 

 did not succeed in finding a single species like those before 

 mentioned, belonging to different genera. The slate also, 

 when in immediate contact with the bed forming its walls, 

 exhibits the same impressions : sometimes one half of the 

 fossil being moulded in the ore, and the other half in the 

 contiguous slate, which is apparently blended with the ore, 

 so that the substance of the bed, must have been introduced 

 into the open fissure of the preexisting rock, before the lat- 

 ter had become completely consolidated, or when it was in 

 a plastic state, otherwise we would ask, would they not lie 

 simply in contact with each other, like applying two surfaces 

 together, the contact of the one not affecting the substance 

 of the other. Werner, on this point, supposing the rock to 

 have been formed anterior to the ore, says that in places 

 where this pecuharity occurs, the rock has had a strong at- 



