APPENDIX. 141 



FIELD EXCURSION, 1865. 



The Institute held a Field Day at the Wavei-ly Gold Mines, on Satur- 

 day the 1st July. 



The members assembled at the Steamboat wharf, Dartmouth, where 

 carriages waited to convey them to the Mines, about twelve miles distant. 



The village of Waverly is one of those new places in Nova Scotia, which 

 owe their existence to the discovery of gold. It comprises a cluster of houses 

 at the head of Lake William, which is there connected with L.ake Thomas by 

 a drawbridge ; there are also a number of scattered dwellings and shanties 

 in the vicinitj' of the various shafts, and Avithin a circuit of about five miles. 

 The country around is hilly and rocky, wild and desolate, much broken by 

 mining operations, the debris of which is seen on all sides, and especially 

 where shafts have been sunk, or excavations made. The scenery, however, 

 has some redeeming features. It has all the components of natural beauty, 

 and is rich in hill and valley, Avood and Avater. It is also recommended by 

 the charm of novelty ; and is besides a prolific study to the geologist and 

 botanist, and to naturalists generally. 



The party first visited the " barrel quartz," so called, a few rods east of 

 the village, near the summit of Laidlaw's hill. Let the reader suppose a 

 series of trunks of willow trees some eighteen inches in diameter, unstripped 

 of bark, laid side by side, close to but independent of each other, and he will 

 have some idea of the appearance which the " barrel quartz" formation 

 would present if fairly exposed; but the barrels or trunks are pure quartz, 

 encased in " whin" rock, which is a highly indurated quartzite, and very 

 different in appearance from the clay slate walls which in general enclose 

 the quartz found in other districts. When first Avorked the " barrels" 

 proved rich in gold, and led to much speculation, the hopes of which have 

 not been realized, and the work is for the present suspended. 



Various opinions have been hazarded as to the origin of this curious 

 formation. It has been thought to be the summit of an anticlinal which has 

 been greatly eroded and denuded of the overlying rock. There is ground 

 for the supposition, inasmuch as the rock covering the quartz is plainly mark- 

 ed Avith glacial strise which foUoAv the usual N. W. and S. E. course, a fact 

 which proves also, that here as Avell as every other part of Nova Scotia, there 

 has been no geological change since the glacial era. Others suppose the 

 quartz to have been deposited from super-silicated rocks, acted upon by 

 chemical solvents. The containing rock, named " whin" by the miners, is of 

 a grey colour inclining to light blue, and is usually compact and hard. The 

 igneous theory is also brought to bear upon this peculiar formation ; and 

 hypotheses in connection therewith are hazarded, in an excellent paper by 

 Colonel Sinclair, which was read in the afternoon, and Avill be found in its 

 proper place further on. 



Several shafts were visited. At one a ventilator was in use, the air in 

 the pit being impure. The Taylor Company had sunk a shaft 150 feet, from 

 which much valuable quartz had been extracted, and had then di-iveh a con- 



