346 



DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY 



fifty yards further, the basaltic bed is overlaid by siliceo-argillaceous shale (No. 404). 

 At some points, it is highly metamorphosed and compact, but on exposure to the 

 weather exhibits its schistose structure. It appears to belong to the same beds as 

 No. 401. Some of the beds resemble altered sandstone, while other beds approach 

 quartzite. 



Three hundred yards above the fall, this rock (No. 404) contains many large 

 nests of minerals. These nests are from one to two feet in diameter, and contain, 

 principally, calcareous spar and sulphate of barytes. The rock at these points 

 seems to have been deposited around an original nucleus, as shown in the following 

 figure. 



Just beyond the place where these nests first show themselves, the strata become 

 nearly vertical, as shown at (8) in the section,* and exhibit the most undoubted evi- 

 dence, in their extraordinary contortions and bendings, of having been subjected to 

 great lateral pressure (Nos. 405, 406). The shales and schists are very thinly 

 laminated, some of the laminae not being over an eighth of an inch thick. 



The rocks gradually become more and more altered, until they are intersected by 

 a dike of trap, sixty feet in width, bearing northeast by north and southwest by 

 south. In the immediate vicinity of this dike, the schists are very compact, and 

 disposed to assume a columnar structure. Here, there is a fall of several feet. 

 Above the ridge formed by the dike, the schists are of a grayish colour, free from 

 flexures, and dip to the southeast at an angle of 20°. Rather more than a quarter 

 of a mile higher up, the stream is crossed by a dike of No. 408, six feet wide, and 

 bearing east-southeast and west-northwest. The shaly rock (No. 409) in contact 

 with the dike is highly metamorphosed. About seventy-five yards further on is 

 another dike, thirty-two feet in width, and bearing north and south. Between 

 these dikes, the shaly rocks are of a yellowish-red colour. Sixty yards higher up 

 is still another dike, fourteen feet wide, and bearing north and south. 



The space between these two last dikes is occupied by shales, so highly meta- 

 morphosed, as to lose almost entirely their distinctive character. The lastrmen- 

 tioned dike carries with it thin seams of calcareous spar and quartz. 



In contact with it on the west side, the rock resembles very much in constitution 

 that of the dike, but a short distance off, it resumes the character of a metamor- 

 phosed shale, and so continues until the beds become thicker, less shaly-looking, 

 and finally compact. The lower beds (No. 410), are exceedingly hard and brittle, 

 and break, without any regularity of fracture, into shapeless fragments. In some 

 places it assumes a columnar structure, and resembles, in all its features, the quartz- 

 ose porphyry of Wisacodc River, and other points further east. Its sedimentary 

 character is conclusively shown by its containing rounded pebbles of other rocks. 

 It is traversed by thin seams of calcareous spar. 



* See Section on the West Fork of Passabika River, (PI. 3 N, Sect. 5.) 



