Abstract

This formation was first distinguished as a separate member of the Carboniferous system in Eastern Nova Scotia by the writer, in a paper published in the first volume of the ‘Journal of the Geological Society,’ in 1845—and was defined to be an upper or overlying series superimposed on the productive Coal-measures, and distinguished by the absence of thick coal-seams, by the prevalence of red and grey sandstones and red shales, and by a peculiar group of vegetable fossils.

Subsequently, in my paper on the South Joggins and in my ‘Acadian Geology,’ this formation was identified with the upper series of the Joggins section, Divisions 1 & 2 of Sir William Logan's sectional list, and with the Upper Barren Measures of the English Coal-fields and the third or upper zone of Geinitz in the Coal-formation of Saxony.

Still more recently, in a ‘Report on the Geology of Prince Edward Island,’ 1871, I have referred to the upper part of the same formation the lower series of sandstones in Prince-Edward Island, not previously separated from the overlying Trias.