1870. ] HIND—GNEISSOID SERIES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 471 
II. General Sxetou or THE DistRIBUTION or THE SuPposED Huronian 
AND LAURENTIAN SERIES In Nova Scorra. 
In this general sketch of the old gneissic rocks of Nova Scotia 
they are grouped together. In succeeding paragraphs it is stated 
where Huronian or Cambrian gneiss and schist rest on the Old 
Laurentian gneiss as far as known. The country occupied by these 
gneisses is for the most part an uninhabited wilderness. 
The object of this paper is to show that two gneissoid series, 
supposed to be the equivalents of the Huronian and Laurentian of 
Sir W. E. Logan, are exposed over very large areas in Nova Scotia, 
the Island of Cape Breton, and in New Brunswick. 
The outcrop of the Laurentian and Huronian in Halifax and 
Hants Counties has been traced from a point seven miles west of 
Windsor, on the Basin of Mines (Bay of Fundy), to the Atlantic 
coast at Cape Sambro, a distance of forty-eight miles in an air-line, 
and sixty-four miles on the margin of the outcrop. This is the 
north-easterly boundary of an immense area of the same rock-series 
which, from information hereafter noticed, I believe continues with 
variable breadth to the Tusket Islands, near Yarmouth, a distance 
of about 135 miles in an air-line. 
The area above described forms the western development of the 
Laurentian and Huronian gneisses and schists in Nova Scotia. It 
is separated from the eastern development by a narrow profound 
valley, occupied by Silurian strata, whose least breadth is eight 
miles. The outcrop of the south-western boundary of the eastern 
development is not continuous, but, as shown on the map, embraces 
two areas near Grand and Parker Lakes, and an area of unknown 
but very considerable and variable width, stretching (with some 
narrow interruption of Silurian strata which have escaped denuda- 
tion) probably all the way to the Strait of Canso and Chedabucto 
Bay, a distance of 120 miles in an air-line; so that, generally 
speaking, a Laurentian axis, capped here and there by strata of 
Huronian age, occupies Nova Scotia, certainly in one place at least 
forty-eight miles in breadth. 
The existence in Nova Scotia of all formations, from the Trias to 
the Laurentian, with the exception of the Permian*, may now be 
regarded as very probable. Whether the rocks noticed in the 
footnote are of Permian or Triassic age, I am not able to say; but, 
judging from the descriptions given of the relations of the Triassic 
to the Carboniferous by Dr. Dawson, I have hitherto considered 
* Tn Cape Breton, at Jumping Brook, seven miles north-east of Chetican Island, 
on the Gulf coast, and at Trout Brook, five miles north-east above Chetican, 
mottled sandstones and conglomerates rest unconformably on white and mottled 
sandstones and bituminous shales, supposed to be of Lower Carboniferous age. 
These latter rest unconformably, the first on red metamorphic rocks; the second 
are seen in close proximity to red, green, and black corrugated schists, supposed 
to be of Lower Silurian age. In Dr. Dawson’s tabular view of the geological 
formations of the Acadian Provinces (Acadian Geology, p. 19) the Permian is 
stated to be “not represented, unless by the lower part of the sandstones of 
Prince Edward Island.” May not the unconformable patches in Cape Breton 
be a continuation of these Prince-Kdward-Island deposits ? 
