1870.] HIND—GNEISSOID SERIES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 473 
Brunswick Report as occurring on the Nipisiquit, and near Dum- 
barton station, on the New Brunswick and Canada railroad (pp. 147 
and 154), where they are associated with the red slates supposed to 
be the uppermost member of the Quebec group of Sir W. E. Logan. 
The black corrugated slates contain conformable auriferous beds of 
quartz; but no mining is at present carried on in these deposits. 
They are about 3000 feet in thickness, and are conformably under- 
lain by the gold-bearing rocks. 
The Gold-bearing Kocks.—The known gold-bearing rocks of Nova 
Scotia consist of quartzites, sandstones, and grits, interstratified with 
argillaceous slates, and thin conformable beds and intercalated beds 
of auriferous quartz. The portion has an ascertained thickness ex- 
ceeding 9000 feet ; and between the base and a vertical thickness of 
about 3000 feet from the summit, the thin beds of quartz yielding 
gold are found, and are worked in different districts in this Province, 
so that a mass of strata having a thickness of 6000 feet, or more 
than a mile, yields gold from quartz-beds of contemporaneous age 
with the quartzites and slates with which they are interstratified ; 
and it is from these quartz-beds that the greater part of the gold of 
Nova Scotia is obtained*. The total thickness of the gold-bearing 
series, including the corrugated black slates and the brilliant mica- 
ceous schists, is about 12,000 feet. 
TY. Tur Camprian, or Huronran SERIES. 
In some parts of Nova Scotia the known gold-bearing rocks rest un- 
conformably on a gneissoid series, well exposed to view on the Halifax 
and Windsor Railway, between the Stillwater and Mount Uniacke 
Stations (Pl. XXX. fig.1), and near the village of Sherbrooke, inGuys- 
borough County (fig. 4). This series is composed of beds of gneiss, 
interstratified with micaceous schists, schist conglomerate, beds of 
true quartzite, and grits. The gneiss is sometimes porphyritic; and 
the upper beds are almost always conglomerate, holding pebbles and 
masses of schist, grits, and conglomerates, which are found in this 
series. Some of the gneissic strata are granatiferous, as are also the 
micaceous schists. Between Stillwater and Mount Uniacke Stations 
the general strike of the Lower Silurian is N. 80° E., dip N. 80°; 
the prevailing strike of the Huronian is S. 50° E., the railroad-track 
running for two or three miles on the strike of these rocks. Near 
to their junction with the Huronian, the Silurian strata are more 
altered than where remote from them, and hold numerous crystals of 
andalusite. This series has been very extensively denuded, and in 
some places Silurian, Huronian, and Laurentian are seen in close 
juxtaposition. The thickness at Sherbrooke is about 1300 feet. 
When the preliminary Report already referred to was in the 
hands of the printer, I satisfied myself, by repeated observations, 
that a very decided unconformability existed between these supposed 
older strata and the gold-bearing series, also between the older 
* Vide my Report on the Sherbrooke Gold-District for a description of the auri- 
ferous lodes, distinguishing between contemporaneous and intercalated lodes, 
VOL, XXVI,—PART I, 2M 
