247 



of the whole section; and other lines of evidence, all indi- 

 cate that throughout the greater part of the period of 

 deposition, the Sydney area was above sea level though 

 presumably forming part of a low lying coast. 



On palseobotanical, stratigraphical and lithological 

 grounds, the Productive Coal Measures have been corre- 

 lated with the divisions of the same name in the other coal 

 basins of Nova Scotia. The Millstone Grit presents the 

 same general features in all the basins. These two repre- 

 sentatives of the Pennsylvanian, as well as portions of the 

 underlying series, in many ways present a remarkable 

 parallelism with the equivalent horizons of the famous 

 Joggins section 200 miles (320 km.) away. Owing to the 

 encroachment of the sea, the highest beds of the Pro- 

 ductive Coal Measures, if ever present, are no longer 

 visible. In other Nova Scotia coal fields, this series is 

 generally succeeded by strata classified as Upper or Newer 

 Coal formation (Dawson) or Permo-Carboniferous or 

 Permian (Fletcher). 



The Limestone series from which, at Sydney, a compara- 

 tively meagre fauna has been obtained, has generally been 

 regarded as in some measure the equivalent of the Windsor 

 series and therefore of Mississippian age. The Con- 

 glomerate series has not been with any certainty correlated 

 with horizons in the coal basins on the mainland of the 

 province, and, indeed, there are good reasons for believing 

 that under this name, in different districts, entirely 

 different formations have been grouped. 



By some the whole Carboniferous section at Sydney has 

 been described as a strictly conformable series but, 

 Fletcher, who devoted the work of a lifetime largely to the 

 Carboniferous of Nova Scotia, always held that a break 

 existed between the Millstone Grit and the Limestone 

 series but agreed on the other hand, that the divisions 

 between the Millstone Grit and the Productive Coal 

 Measures, and between the Limestone series and the 

 Conglomerate series, were in the main, arbitrary ones. 

 The same authority for a while, was inclined to maintain 

 that the measures of the two lower divisions were, in different 

 fields, in part at least contemporaneous, but at a later date, 

 Fletcher, as he extended his work over the various areas of 

 Carboniferous in Nova Scotia, abandoned this idea and 

 came to regard the Conglomerate series as a distinct 



