62 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 



ing slope by a 14 feet barrier of coal ; its height is the same as 

 that of the drawing slope, with 6 feet cap and 8 feet ground sill. 

 A temporary engine is of 14 nominal English horse-power, with 

 a horizontal single cylinder, driving the hoisting drum by shaft- 

 ing with clutch gearing; and also pumping through the Fleming 

 pump pit by a wire rope running over sheave pullies to the pump 

 bob. In working the McGregor seam the upper coal (included in 

 the upper six feet of the seam) is the only portion taken out, the 

 lower bench being unsaleable. The seam is found to rapidly 

 improve going west, as will be seen from the following sections : 



McGregor seanij upper coal. 



At No. 2 slope. At western face. 



Ft. In. Ft. In. 



Good coal 19 2 9 



Arenaceous fire-clay parting. . 10 6 



Good coal 3 4 



5 9 7 3 



Near the western face, the bord and pillar system with incline 

 gate roads has been commenced. Elsewhere in the working the 

 back -balance system is used. 



Oil-coal WorJcings, 



Two slopes have been sunk upon the oil-coal seam, namely the 

 Fraser mine on Coal Brook, near No. 3 slopes, and the Stellar 

 mine on McCulloch's Brook. The principal value of this seam 

 consists in the large quantity of oil contained in the bench men- 

 tioned as oil-coal in the general section, which in former years 

 was extensively worked, the oil-coal or steUarite, as it has been 

 named by Professor Henry How, who first described it, selling 

 for a high price for gas-making and distillation. The present 

 low price of coal- oil from the extensive working of petroleum in 

 this country and the United States, combined with the high 

 tarifi" on imported coal imposed by the United States, have com- 

 bined to render the working of this seam unprofitable, and both 

 workings are for the present abandoned. 



As the quality of this peculiar coal will receive especial atten- 

 tion in the Appendix to this report, I will merely state in conclu- 

 sion that from the large content of oil this seam must at some 

 time prove of considerable value. From pits sunk by the Acadia 

 Coal Company it would appear that the size and quality of the 



