52 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
be at the base of the lower Carboniferous series, it was decided by Bailey 
and Matthew, in 1870, to place the rocks of the Perry sandstone group 
as developed in Charlotte county also in the lower Carboniferous as 
representing its lowest member. The stratigraphical evidence and the 
plant remains however more closely relate these rocks to the Devonian 
than to the Carboniferous. 
Unconformably beneath the Perry group come the shales and sand- 
stones of the Fern ledges. These are well developed about the city of 
St. John and along the north side of the Bay of Fundy west of that 
place, and on the shores of Lepreau Harbour these slaty shales of Devon- 
ian age contain a seam of graphitized coal which has been mined to some 
extent. 
The southwest extremity of the great Carboniferous basin in Char- 
lotte county is underlaid by a series of sandstones and shales which in 
places contain plant remains and are regarded also as of Devonian age; 
but along the northern margin of the basin the Devonian is frequently 
absent and the underlying rocks are for the most part slates which are 
older and probably represent in part the Cambro-Silurian and the Cam- 
brian systems. On the lower part of the Nepisiguit River the rocks 
directly beneath the lower Carboniferous are red granites. 
If then we regard the coal-bearing rocks of the interior of the pro- 
vince as belonging to the Millstone-grit formation which now seems 
probable, the true Productive measures as seen at Spring Hill in Cum- 
berland county in Nova Scotia, with its great thickness of strata and 
heavy coal beds, and further east in Pictou and in Cape Breton, are 
probably lacking in New Brunswick. At least it may be said that their 
presence has not yet been definitely ascertained. The similarity in the 
sediments throughout the entire area is very marked, and the thickness 
apparently not great. Unless therefore borings made in some of the 
apparently shallow synclines of the eastern part of the province should 
reveal a much greater thickness of strata at some point the probability 
of finding thicker and more workable beds of coal cannot be considered 
as very great. 
An interesting point in this connection is found at Dunsinane, in 
Kings County, in a small side basin near the Intercolonial railway. A 
seam of coal with a thickness of about one and a half feet has been 
known to exist at this place for many years, similar in character to that 
found in the central basin. Recent borings in the area have been made 
and a seam reported as three and a half feet thick was passed through. 
If this record is correct the possibility exists of finding other and 
thicker seams in the central basin which may be local developments of 
some of those already known to exist, but which may prove to be more 
profitably worked. 
