The productive coal-measures near Minudie, described in the last Chapter, may be regarded as the middle of the carboniferous series of Nova Scotia; while the strata above them, including the beds with Modiola, h, i, (fig. 19. p. 180.), and the sandstones and shales farther to the south, in the same region, together with a corresponding series near Pictou, and the lower sandstone of Prince Edward's Island, ascertained by Mr. Dawson to contain coal-plants, may be all classed as the Upper Carboniferous division, in which no seams of coal have yet been found. Lastly, we may regard an enormous mass of red and brown sandstones and red marls, the lower portions of which include beds of gypsum, and limestones charged with marine shells and corals, as the Lower Carboniferous or gypsiferous series. In this division grits and shales, with some true coal plants and some thin seams of impure coal are occasionally met with.

Before my visit to Nova Scotia, the group last mentioned had been considered, chiefly, I believe, from its resemblance to the gypsiferous red marls above the coal in Europe, as the uppermost formation in Nova Scotia. Mr. Logan, in his first brief excursion in 1841 to the Windsor district, where the beds are greatly disturbed, had little more than time to collect some of the most abundant fossils; and these, when submitted to several able palæontologists, (to M. de Verneuil among others), were thought to confirm the opinion previously entertained, that the strata were newer than the coal.