east, a distance of
about two hundred and fifty miles, is bordered by a fringe of hard,
slaty rocks,--slate and sandstone in irregular alternations,--sometimes
argillaceous, and occasionally granitic. These rocks, originally
deposited on the grandest scale of Nature, are always, when stratified,
found standing at a high angle,--sometimes almost vertical,--and with a
course, in the main, very nearly due east and west. They seldom rise to
any great elevation,--the promontory of Aspatogon, about five hundred
feet high, being the highest land on the Atlantic coast of the Province.
The general aspect of the shore is low, rocky, and desolate, strewn
often with huge boulders of granite or quartzite,--and where not bleak
and rocky, it is covered with thick forests of spruce and white birch.

The picture is not enticing,--but this is, nevertheless, the true _arida
nutrix_ of the splendid masses before us. The zone of metamorphic rocks
which lines this inhospitable coast varies in width from six or eight
miles at its eastern extremity to forty or fifty at its widest
points,--presenting in its northern boundary only a rude parallelism
with its southern margin,--and comprising, over about six thousand
square miles of surface, the general outline of what may, geologically
speaking, be called the Gold-Region of Nova Scotia.

It will be most interesting hereafter to mark the gradual changes
already beginning to take place in this rich, but limited district. It
is destined throughout, we may be sure, to very thorough and systematic
exploration. For, although it is true that gold is not to be found in
all parts of it, still it is not unreasonable to search for the precious
metal throughout this whole region, wherever the occurrence of true
quartz-veins--the almost sole _matrix_ of the gold--is shown by boulders
on the surface. Back from the coast-line, a large part of the district
named is now little better than an unexplored wilderness; and the fact
that the remarkable discoveries which have been made are in a majority
of cases almost on the sea-shore, and where the country is open and the
search easy, by no means diminishes the probabilities that continued
exploration in the less frequented parts of the district will be
rewarded with new discoveries as important as any which have yet been
made.

The earliest discovery of gold in the Province, yet made known to the
public, occurred during the summer of 1860, at a spot about twelve mi