Notes of the Coal Field of Fictou, 191 



underclay at a small trial pit. The shales and sandstones 

 dip south on the old Glebe and Duff's farm to the north of the 

 Association's reservation ; and at the Burial ground I found by 

 the bank of the East river the measures dipping S.20° E.63°; show- 

 ing ripple marked sandstone, Catamites and Stigmaria : the shales 

 contained Cypris. At the Gondola wharf the shales dip S. 45° E. 

 50°; and by the side of the old quarry road (Eraser Ogg) we sank a 

 pit 15 feet and got one foot of the curly oil coal, dip S. 20° W. 50, 

 but it thinned out in going down and was close on the conglom- 

 erate. 



At the Basin there are several thin seams of bituminous shale. 

 An inch of coal shows about fifteen feet above the shale at the 

 dam, containing fish remains, but it did not appear in the trial pit. 

 The position and thickness of the bed containing the fish remains 

 and Cyiyris corresponds with the upper seam of bituminous shales 

 on the opposite side of the East river. They yield upwards of 60 

 gallons of crude oil of superior quality to the ton ; but are too 

 thin to be worked profitably. 



We are now boring to prove the measures at Mathieson's farm 

 opposite to the Loading ground, and have sunk a pit down 14 

 feet on drift gravel and clay, then 5 feet of soft blue sandy clay 

 with no regular cleavage, full of fossils. I obtained Lepidodeyidron, 

 Lepidostrohus, Calamites, Pecopteris, Neurojjteris, and fragments 

 of other plants, but the clay was soft and crumbled immediately on 

 exposure to the atmosphere so that I could not preserve good 

 specimens : then followed three inches of black friable clay ; then 

 1.3 of good coal yielding water, dip 5° N. 25® E. ; succeeded by 

 strong grey sandstone, through which we are now boring. At 

 Forbes's Point a borehole was put down '75 feet but nothing obtained 

 but red and white sandstone in thick beds. 



At low water an inch of coal and fire-clay is seen to crop out 

 upon Skinner's point but nothing else has been observed along the 

 shore of the Middle River. 



Returning up the East river to Smelt Brook, several seams of 

 bituminous shale and sandstone appear in the bank, also one 

 small seam of an inch of coal, with sandstone bands of different 

 thicknesses and qualities ; the No. 1 and 3 seams of shale are par- 

 ticularly full offish remains and coprolites near the roof, and the 

 large plates appear like Glyptolepis figured in Miller's Testi- 

 mony of the Rocks, page 229 : I also found one or two grooved 

 plates which correspond with the Osteolejns, The roof of No. 1 



