46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [NoV. 2, 



not be traced to the margin of the metamorphic country, except at 

 its extremities, so that in all probability it never extended over the 

 low carboniferous district included within its line of outcrop. This 

 is the more remarkable, inasmuch as the conglomerate has evidently 

 resisted denudation better than any of the associated beds. 3. The 

 conglomerate is full of false stratification and wedge-shaped beds of 

 reddish sandstone, in the manner of ordinary gravel-ridges, and it 

 even presents the appearance of passing into sandstone toward the 

 dip, as if the coarse conglomerate were limited to the vicinity of the 

 outcrop. 4. In the sandstone overlying the Albion measures, as well 

 as in portions of the coal-formation manifestly overlying the great 

 conglomerate, there are small seams of coal corresponding in their 

 characters with those of the Joggins and Sydney, where no similar 

 conglomerate occurs. 5. The supposition that the Albion coal was 

 formed in a depressed space, separated by a shingle-bar from the 

 more exposed flats without, accounts for the great thickness of the 

 deposits of coal and carbonaceous shale, the absence of sandstones, 

 and the peculiar texture and qualities of the coal, as well as the asso- 

 ciation with it of remains of fish and Cypris ; since modern analogies 

 show that such an enclosed space might be alternately a swamp and 

 lagoon without any marked change in the nature of the mechanical 

 deposits. 6. Movements of depression causing the rupture of the 

 barrier, or enabling the sea to overflow it, and perhaps also admitting 

 currents of oceanic water through the valleys of the metamorphic 

 district to the southward, would sufficiently account for the overlying 

 sandstones, as well as for the denudation of the coal-measures sup- 

 posed to have preceded the accumulation of these sandstones. 7. The 

 dislocation extending along the outcrop of the conglomerate is easily 

 explained by the supposition that, in later elevatory movements, this 

 hard and stony bed determmed the direction of fracture of the 

 deposits. 



Large portions of the conglomerate have been removed in the 

 formation of the valleys of the East, Middle, and West Rivers, and 

 gravel-mounds derived from it are abimdant along the course of these 

 valleys, to the northward of the outcrop of the conglomerate, or in 

 the direction of the present drainage. 



The theoretical views in the above paper have not been hastily 

 adopted, and they are now stated as affording at least a natural and 

 probable solution of the peculiarities of the Albion measures. 



For additional facts, localities, &c., I may refer to my paper on 

 the Newer Coal Formation and the map attached to it*. The latter, 

 however, owing to errors in the colouring, does not correctly show 

 the limits of the metamorphic rocks. For this reason I send with 

 this paper a corrected copy of a part of it, and a sketch and section 

 illustrating the probable condition of the district in the coal-formation 

 period and the present arrangement of the bedsf . 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. i. p. 322. See also Paper on the Metamorphic 

 Rocks of Eastern Nova Scotia, ibid. vol. vi. p. 347. 



[t Mr. Dawson has presented a MS. map and section of the geological features 

 of this district, and a sketch-map of the surface-conditions during the Carbo- 

 niferous period, restored in accordance with the above description.] 



