38 HONEYilAN — ON THE GEOLOGY OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



tMs yiew in the Geological Society in 1862. Dr. Dawson still 

 maintains Ms position in his Ed. of 1867. Prof. Hind has lately 

 advanced a step farther, and shews the granite to be gneissoid and 

 Lanrentian, and the overlying formations which constitute the band 

 in question to be Cambrian, Huronian and Lower Silurian. 



I have heretofore chiefly appealed to the evidence of fossils, 

 directly or indirectly, in proving geological age or succession. 



In investigating the Nova Scotian auriferous band of rocks, this 

 kind of evidence appears to fail us. I have searched long and 

 diligently among the grits and slates of this series of rocks, for 

 fossils, but hitherto without success. I have found from time to 

 time, above the rocks, or in them, what I considered to be fossils, 

 or possibly fossils, the former turned out to be of carboniferous age, 

 the latter, mineral structure. I am afraid that the experience of 

 other observers has been somewhat like my own. It is then, as 

 heretofore, on other grounds that I regard the rocks in question, as 

 differing from the non-crystalline rocks of Arisaig, and as at least 

 contributing to fill up the gap mentioned. During my term of 

 service in the Geological Survey of Canada, I made what I believe 

 to be a complete collection of the Middle and Upper Silurian rocks 

 of the counties of Antigonishe and Pictou, These are to be found 

 in the Provincial Museum, along with representative specimens of 

 the rocks of the auriferous band collected at Waverly, Wine 

 Harbor, Halifax and Dartmouth, &c. There is no possibility of 

 confounding the two sets of rocks. 



There is no rock in Antigonishe or Pictou that can be mistaken 

 for the pyritiferous and andalusite slates of the N. W. Arm and 

 Point Pleasant — the same may be said of the pyritiferous grit called 

 luhin. The argillites have altogether a different aspect from any 

 of the argillites of Antigonishe or Pictou. The Oneida conglom- 

 erate and the Medina sandstone, unaltered or altered, have no 

 resemblance whatever to the grit or whin. The Clinton altered 

 slates with their iron deposits, and abundance of quartz veins, 

 occasionally slightly resemble some of the auriferous argillites, and 

 have thereby attracted the attention of gold seekers, and given 

 occasion for newspaper announcements of gold discoveries. But 

 the slates cannot for a moment be mistaken for those of the Gold 



