74 HOXETMAX GEOLOGY OF ANTIGONISHE COUNTY. 



Southward the lower carboniferous limestones extend on the east 

 side of the Ohio River (a branch of West River), that flows on the 

 east of the Ohio Mountains. One of these limestones is of palreon- 

 tulogical interest as containing trilobites(Phillipsia). They reappear 

 at the Lochaber road, having a deposit of beautiful cinnamon 

 coloured ochre. The last of these limestones, as far as we know, 

 is in St. Andrew's Township, where we shall meet them again. 



Saline. 

 The names Saltsprings, Saltpond and Saltworks, are suggestive. 

 These all lie in the gypseous area described. Saltsprings is the 

 name of a settlement on West River. The Saltpond is on the 

 intervale below the Episcopal Church of Antigonishe. The Salt- 

 works are on the intervale below the Town. 



History of the Saltworks. 



Shortly after I directed the attention of the Institute to the 

 existence of the Saltpond, &c, in 1866, Josiah Deacon, Esq. 

 visited me in Antigonishe, in his search after a proper locality for 

 Saltworks. Encouraged by the indications of salt around Antigo- 

 nishe, he commenced operations with a magnificent set of boring 

 apparatus, imported from England. Supposing that Town Point, 

 near the mouth of the harbour, would be a point where the supposed 

 flow cf the saline waters which supplied the Springs and Pond 

 would be tapped, and the salt most conveniently exported, he made 

 a six inch boring, and lined it with iron tubing. At a certain depth 

 in the soil and clay, he entered gypsum — passing through a con- 

 siderable thickness of gypsum. He came to sandstone without 

 finding any indication of brine, and concluded that farther operation 

 in this locality was useless. 



This boring showed that the gypsum bed outcropping on the 

 north or the -skirts of the mountain, and the outcrop on the south 

 side of the harbour, were in all probability the edges of a continu- 

 ous bed of gypsum, and that it was sometimes deposited on the 

 lower carboniferous sandstones without the intervention of the lime- 

 stone seen elsewhere. It also shewed that the harbour was in an 

 excavated bed of gypsum. 





