HONEYMAN — ON THE GEOLOGY OF NOVA SCOTIA. 39 



Fields, by the practised eye, and the search for gold in these veins 

 of quartz has been a vain one, and the reported discoveries have no 

 foundation in fact. Arisaig, East River, Irish Mountain, Suther- 

 land's River, and Antigonishe, have all had a short-lived reputation 

 of this kind. Cape Porcupine belongs to the same category except 

 that its reputation has assumed a permanent form, having been 

 perpetuated in the pages of the progress volume of the Geological 

 Survey of Canada, 1869. We read thus, page 745, *' In Nova 

 Scotia although the gold occurs throughout the coast series, it is 

 also said to be found at Cape Porcupine in rocks of the same age 

 as these upper slates (Silurian or Devonian.) This probable iden- 

 tification of a part of the gold formation of Nova Scotia, with the 

 altered Upper Silurian and Devonian strata of Eastern Canada, 

 gives an additional economic interest to these rocks whose metal- 

 liferous character has already been commented upon on pages 711 

 and 734." 



One of the best sections of the Clinton argillites of the regions 

 referred to, is on the line of railway from Pictou to Truro, com- 

 mencing near the Gairloch station and proceeding onward tovv^ards 

 Truro. A passing observer can easily distinguish the difference 

 between the argillites there exposed and the argillites of the Gold 

 Fields seen in sections on the Railway from the Grand Lake towa^rd 

 the Junction and Still-water between Mount Uniacke and Windsor. 

 I v/ould yet advance another reason, which I regard as shewing the 

 priority in time of the rocks of the Gold Fields. These rocks 

 e. g.t between Freshwater and Point Pleasant, exhibit a higher 

 degree of metamorphism than those of the Arisaig Middle and 

 Upper Siliu"ian series, (metamorphic,) with flexures and contor- 

 tions which the others do not exhibit, such as are to be seen in the 

 Lower Silurian of the Highlands of Scotland and in Wales. 



This appears to me to be at least presumptive evidence of 

 unconformability existing between the Arisaig series and the Gold 

 Fields. It would have been more satisfactory if we had had the 

 one set of rocks directly superimposed on the other. This, I 

 have been altogether unable to find. It may be considered that 

 I have been here labouring to prove what is universally taken for 

 granted. I have already stated that the opinion has been main- 



