WOODMAN: GOLD-BEADING SLATES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 399 
Jackson and Alger (’32) noted the slates, finding granite pro¬ 
truding through them. The latter are the older, and the sediments 
were laid horizontally upon them. 
Gesner (’36) first mapped the series definitely, giving also a brief 
description. In ’43 he made another map and description, publish¬ 
ing the former in ’45. The lowest of the metamorpliic sediments 
he called Cambrian, and described as graywacke, clay slate, 
becoming micaceous and chloritic in places, and quartz rock. Gen¬ 
eral relations with the granites on the north and south were shown. 
Dawson (’50) called the rocks “ compact and flaggy quartzite 
(often weathering white), mica slate, and clay slate.” He recog¬ 
nized the granites as intrusive, and considered the sediments lower 
Silurian or older. In 1855 he referred to them as lower than the 
Devonian, and perhaps equivalent to the Potsdam, Utica, and 
Hudson Diver beds elsewhere. A general map shows the distribu¬ 
tion of the formation, and calls it “perhaps altered lower Silurian.” 
In ’60 he suggested that it may correspond to the Paradoxides 
zone in Newfoundland, a position approved by Billings (’60). 
The date of the original discovery of gold is unknown. The 
sands of the Avon were panned many years ago as a pastime. It 
is more than a century since Waverly was said to contain gold, 
but no active work was done until ’58 (Gilpin, ’86). A somewhat 
later date has been given by Marsh for the discovery, who stated 
in ’61 that it was first seen in March of that year, in the bed of a 
small tributary of the Tangier River, and soon after in quartz veins. 
In the same pafper he noted the irregularity of strike of the veins 
at Tangier, and the probable obliteration of all fossils in the sedi¬ 
ments by regional metamorphism. Where the slate carries gold, 
the value of the veins is not diminished, and on the whole the 
quartz is less pockety. The metal probably comes from the slate. 
Dawson (’61) considered the veins “strictly a continuation of 
those which run along the eastern Appalachian slope as far as 
Alabama.” 
Campbell (’62) thought the leads true veins, lying mainly in the 
bedding-planes, but occasionally crossing them. Marcou, in the 
same year, referred the rocks to the Taeonic system. Iloneyman 
(’62) described Allen’s and Laidlaw’s property at Waverly. In 
the former mine the veins are nearly vertical, and stratigraphically 
lower than at Laidlaw’s, where they lie Hat, “ somewhat like a 
stratum.” 
