HALIBURTON — ON COAL TRADE OF THE NEW DOMINION. 81 



sider that I am warranted in assigning to these strata a devonian 

 age. Our auriferous quartzites and argillites over-lie the 

 granite of uncertain age, and, as I have already observed in 

 the Gay's River Gold Field, the argillite is overlaid unconform- 

 ably with the lower carboniferous conglomerate. So that the 

 age of argillite, &c., cannot be determined by interposition. 



The stratified rocks of our gold fields have marked peculiari- 

 ties, by which they are easily distinguishable from the stratified 

 rocks of the interior of whatever age ; and no one can hesitate 

 on leaving the one and entering upon the other — in maintaining 

 that the formations are altogether difl'erent. I have already at 

 considerable length, directed attention to these formations as 

 they exist in Antigonish county, and I consider that an inser- 

 tion of the Arisaig silurian series and the Lochaber division is 

 sufficient to fill up the breach in succession between the lower 

 silurian argillite and the lower carboniferous conglomerate. 



Art. X. The Coal Trade of the New Dominion. Br 

 R. G. Haliburton, f. s. a., f. r. s. n. a. Secretary of 

 the Nova Scotia Coal-Owners' Association. 

 On glancing at the map of the world, the eye rests on three 

 points as peculiarly adapted to be the gi'eat centres of commer- 

 cial and maritime activity. The first is situated on the eastern, 

 and the second on the western shores of the Atlantic, and the 

 third is to be found on the Pacific coast of America. All of 

 them lying sufficiently far from the tropics to be the homes of a 

 healthy and industrious race, form portions of the British 

 Empire. England, placed between the German ocean and the 

 Atlantic, seems to guard the highway of commerce from the 

 North of Europe with the rest of the world. Nova Scotia, 

 standing far out into the ocean, looks like some vast pier which 

 nature has raised up to intercept the trade of the New and of 

 the Old World, while Vancouver's Island more nearly recalls to 

 us, by its climate and its insular position, the geographical 

 features of the mother country. Yet valuable as a favourable 

 position is to enable a country to lead the van of commerce, 

 there are other scarcely less important elements of national 

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