Notes on the Coal Field oj Pictou. ,189 



soiitii division line of the Fraser mine. The coal measures dip 

 N. 40° E. 22°, but as there is the appearance of a fault which has 

 thrown up the measures, they will no doubt be found lying flatter 

 when sunk upon to the deep. 



There is here a confusion of seams, consisting of bright bitumin- 

 ous coal, and cannel-like curled oil coal with bituminous shales ; 

 in the latter is an abundance of fossils. I obtained Lepidodendron^ 

 Cordaites, and other markings which I have regarded as similar to 

 the Cardiocarpon acutum of Mantell ; also a stalk, with a head 

 like ryegrass.* One band or more of the shales contains innu- 

 merable Spirorhis and Cyprides, and accompanying them are 

 ganiod fish scales, teeth and spines. Thick plates or scales are 

 also found on the same slab with the Cardiocarpon. Similar 

 plates are found at J. McKay's mine south of New Glasgow, 

 as well as in the bituminous shales near Smelt Brook, and 

 at the basin ; both of the latter places being to the north of 

 the conglomerate ridge. There are appearances of crops of 

 coal and shales in several places on the McCulloch Brook 

 between Robert Culton's farm and the Fraser mine, but they 

 have not yet been examined. 



Proceedinor down the McCulloch Brook to the adit worked in 

 the stellar coal, and at about 200 yards distance south, un- 

 derlying the stellar coal, is the crop of a coal seam about five feet 

 thick, dipping 21° N. 25° W. of inferior quality, with a band of 

 ca|c spar running through it (the same thing was observed in a 

 trial pit sunk to the rise of the oil coal on Duncan McKay's 

 farm) with Sigillaria, Stigmaria and Cordaites in the soft crumb- 

 ing coal, so that specimens could not be preserved ; a thin seam 

 of coal with shales lies about 30 feet below the stellar coal dip" 

 ping IS'^ N. 55°W. 



The stellar coal seam has a black friable clay above the coal, 

 with ironstone balls in the shale above. Lepidodendron and 

 Stigmaria have been found in the coaly bands, and Cordaites in 

 small fragments and one Cardiocarpon? (similar to those at R. 

 Culton's seam), have been found in the clay ironstone ; also a few 

 ganoid scales and nodules full of soft ochreous matter, ot no decided 

 form. The measures here are much disturbed : in the adit on the 

 east side of the McCulloch brook the dip is 13° N. 67° W. ; while 

 on the west side of the brook the stellar coal dips 12*^ N. 45° E. 



* Antholithes P 

 Can. Nat. 4 Vol. V. No. 4 



