It is evident that the "Holing stone" indicates one of those periods in which the Albion coal area, or a large part of it, was under water, probably fresh or brackish, as there are no properly marine shells in this, or any of the other beds of this coal series. We may then imagine a large lake or lagune, loaded with trunks of trees and decaying vegetable matter, having in its shallow parts, and along its sides, dense brakes of _Calamites_, and forests of _Sigillaria_, _Lepidodendron_, and other trees of the period, extending far on every side as damp pestilential swamps. In such a habitat, uninviting to us, but no doubt suited to _Baphetes_, that creature crawled through swamps and thickets, wallowed in flats of black mud, or swam and dived in search of its finny prey. It was, in so far as we know, the monarch of these swamps, though there is, as already stated, evidence of the existence of similar creatures of this type quite as large in other parts of the Nova Scotia coal field. We must now notice a smaller animal belonging to the same family of Labyrinthodonts. The geology of Nova Scotia is largely indebted to the world-embracing labours of Sir Charles Lyell. Though much had previously been done by others, his personal explorations in 1842, and his paper on the gypsiferous formation, published in the following year, first gave form and shape to some of the more difficult features of the geology of the country, and brought it into relation with that of other parts of the world. In geological investigation, as in many other things, patient plodding may accumulate large stores of fact, but the magic wand of genius is required to bring out the true value and significance of these stores of knowledge. It is scarcely too much to say that the exploration of a few weeks, and subsequent study of the subject by Sir Charles, with the impulse and guidance given to the labours of others, did as much for Nova Scotia as might have been effected by years of laborious work under less competent heads.