1847.] DAWSON ON THE NEW RED SANDSTONE OF NOVA SCOTIA. 51 
1. Truro and south side of Cobequid Bay. 
In the valley of the Salmon River, four and a half miles eastward 
of the village of Truro, the eastern extremity of the new red sand- 
stone is seen to rest unconformably on hard reddish brown sandstones 
and shales, belonging to the lower part of the carboniferous system, 
and dipping N. 80° E. at an angle of 40°. At this place the over- 
lying formation is nearly horizontal, and consists of soft and rather 
coarse bright red siliceous sandstones. Southward of Truro, at the 
distance of less than a mile, the horizontal soft red sandstone is seen, 
in the banks of a brook, to run against hard brownish grits and 
shales, dipping to the eastward at angles varying from 45° to 50°. 
Westward of this place, the red sandstones extend in a narrow band, 
about a mile in width, to the mouth of the Shubenacadie, ten miles 
distant. This band is bounded on the north by Cobequid Bay, and 
on the south by highly inclined sandstone, shale, and limestone of the 
lower carboniferous series. In the coast section, between Truro and 
the Shubenacadie, the red sandstone presents the same characters as 
at the former place, except that, near the Shubenacadie, some of the 
beds, which like most of the red sandstones of Truro have a calca- 
reous cement, show a tendency to arrangement in large concretionary 
balls. 
West of the mouth of the Shubenacadie, the country as far as the 
estuary of the Avon is occupied by lower carboniferous rocks, similar 
to those seen in the banks of the former river; perhaps with the 
exception of Salter’s Head, and a few other projecting poimts which 
appear to consist of nearly horizontal red sandstone resembling that of 
Truro. 
2. North side of Cobequid Bay and Mines Basin from Truro to the 
Five Islands. 
Northward of Truro the red sandstone meets and overlies uncon~ 
formably the carboniferous grits, shales, limestone and gypsum, of 
the North River and Onslow Mountain, its boundary in this direction 
bemg about three miles distant from the bay. From the North 
River it extends in a belt about three miles wide to the De Bert 
River, where an apparently insulated patch of rocks with characteristic 
lower carboniferous fossils projects through it. This island of car- 
boniferous strata shows general high north-east dips, while the sur- 
rounding red sandstones dip at small angles at the south-west. I have 
represented this arrangement in sect. 1. Pl. V., which extends from 
the metamorphic slates and quartzite of the Cobequid range to the 
shore, and shows the strata as observed along the Folly River and 
part of the De Bert River. 
It may be proper here to remark, in reference to the position of 
the new red sandstone and carboniferous system as seen in this section, 
that the latter forms a long belt, extending along the foot of the Co- 
bequid hills, parallel to the red sandstone; and that in this belt the 
carboniferous rocks, though often much fractured and disturbed, have 
a prevailing trough-shaped arrangement. On the north side of this 
trough, near the base of the hills, the carboniferous rocks consist of 
E 2 
