34 HONEYMAN — ON THE GEOLOGY OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



morpMsm, by wliich it acquired its present constitution, was com- 

 plete before it attained its present position ; and that the limestones 

 were formed directly upon the syenite in the bottom of the sea 

 of the carboniferous era. The conglomerates around Antigonishe 

 and Cape St. George have had a good deal of attention given to 

 them. I was long puzzled to know v/hence they derived the most 

 of their pebbles. One large mass on the shore of St. George's Bay, 

 north of Ogden's, contained a boulder of coarse red granite, such as 

 is to be met with at Sherbrooke and Country Harbour, but not nearer, 

 as far as was known or suspected. The grits of Yankee Grant which 

 are used in the construction of the Antigonishe cathedral, are micace- 

 ous in a wonderful degree. The question arose whence came the mica ? 

 The grit in Malignant Brook, to the North of St. Mary's chapel, 

 are equally micaceous, whence comes the mica? The sandstones 

 with carboniferous flora at Graham's Brook, near Cape George, 

 were also very micaceous. In short, the farther the lower carbon- 

 iferous strata became removed from known granitic rocks, the 

 mica appeared to increase in proportion. All was made clear, or 

 nearly so, by the discovery of an interesting series of rocks on the 

 shore of Northumberland Strait, where I had long assumed the 

 existence of a continuation and connection of the conglomerates of 

 Malignant Cove and Cape St. George. This band, which is of 

 considerable breadth, consists of diorites, hornblende rock, ophite, 

 ophiocalcite, black quartzite, with quartz veins, having abundance 

 of crystals of silvery mica. Succeeding these are bands of white and 

 red syenite, having veins of green felspar. These syenites are spa- 

 ringly hornblendic. Without much hesitation I concluded that I had 

 discovered a band of Laurentian rocks, the ophiocalcites particularly 

 leading me to this conclusion. I had never seen the Laurentian 

 rocks of Canada, but I had seen and studied the fine collection 

 of specimens of Laurentian rocks in the Canadian and Newfound- 

 land departments, in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. This collec- 

 tion was exhibited by the Geological Commission of Canada. The 

 part of the collection in the Canadian department was distant from 

 the front of our court only the breadth of the passage, and the 

 Newfoundland part not six feet from the door of my office ; so that 

 the collection and I became somewhat familiar in the course of six 



