128 



The i'0ks of this period, thougli unknown to old Canada, have 

 a, large development in the Lower Provinces, and are of special 

 interest from an economic standpoint as the source of our coal 

 supply. For while from time to time we may read startling reports of 

 the discovery of valuable seams of coal in the provinces of Quebec and 

 Ontario, these famous discoveries on investigation have invariably re- 

 sulted in disappointment to the discoverers. Coal is for the most part 

 confined to the Carboniferous formation. In New Brunswick, how- 

 ever, a small seam of anthracite is found in the Devonian rocks west 

 of St. John, though of no economic value, and in the extremity of the 

 Gaspe Peninsula a small seam from two to three inches thick is seen in the 

 Devonian cliffs which front the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the Territories 

 and British Columbia, however, bituminous coal, lignite and anthracite, 

 occur in great quantities, but for the most part in rocks much newer or 

 later in age than the Carboniferous, viz. : the Cretaceous. As none of 

 these rocks are found in Ontario or Quebec, the reason for the absence 

 of coal in these localities is easily explained. The Devonian of Western 

 Ontario is, however, regarded by many as the source of the oil commonly 

 but erroneously known as coal oil, a name given to it at first from its 

 supposed relation to the coal fields of Michigan and the Middle States, 

 a supposition afterward found to have no foundation in fact, though the 

 name has adhered to the material. 



The Carboniferous time was especially distinguished by the presence 

 of vast swampy forests of tropical aspect, the decay of which afforded th e 

 material from which the immense coal beds were derived. The extent 

 of these swamps and the lapse of time necessary for their growth may 

 to some extent be inferred from the presence of seams of coal from 20 

 to 40 feet thick, the supposition advanced by good authority being that 

 for the pi'oduction of one foot of coal about eight feet of peat swamp 

 was requisite. In these ancient groves also we find the reniains of our 

 first lizards, some of which, from their footprints, must have been of 

 large size. The earliest traces yet known of these are found in the 

 Lower Carboniferous of New Brunswick and in the millstone grit of 

 Nova "Scotia. 



The close of the Carboniferous, or rather of its later portion, the 

 Permian, marks an important geological boundary, viz., the close of the 



