78 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
as follows: The deposit was found to be placed almost vertically in the 
ground, with a thickness varying from one to fourteen feet, with cor- 
responding convergence or divergence of the walls. The strike of the 
vein was found to vary, while its principal divisional planes were always 
unconformable to the bounding strata, the latter dipping, on each side 
of the vein, in contrary directions, while the material of the vein was 
usually in contact with the broken edges rather than with the bedding 
planes of the contiguous rocks. No proper roof or floor or anything 
of the nature of a true underclay was observed, while, with a general 
absence of vegetable remains, such as usually characterize a seam of 
coal, the associated shales, highly charged with bitumen, were also 
found to abound in the remains of fossil fishes. No parallel lamination 
of the Albertite, such as marks beds of coal, could be detected, the 
divisional planes, if any, being rather arranged transversely, or at right 
angles to the sides, as in the case of the asphalt veins of Cuba. HFinally, 
the main vein was found to give off lateral ramifications, which both 
intersected and were conformable to the bounding shale. 
The report of Mr. Taylor was accompanied by a plan showing 
the general course of the vein, its variation in width, and the fact of 
its occupying a nearly vertical fissure coincident with an anticlinal 
axis. Even the sketches made by Dr. Chas. T. Jackson, the geologist 
opposed to Mr. Taylor, and contained in the report of the former, 
though not intended so to do, really present features much more sug- 
gestive of a vein-origin for the deposit than any other view. 
Among the most important observations of later date bearing upon 
the vein-like origin of Albertite are those which tend to illustrate the 
very widely diverse conditions under which the mineral is found, not 
only as regards its immediate associations, but also as regards the age 
of the rocks in which it occurs. These may be briefly summarized as 
follows :— 
(1) In the so-called Albert shales. These contain the great reposi- 
tories of the mineral, and have usually been regarded as the source 
from which the mineral was derived. In these shales Albertite has 
been observed throughout the fifty or more miles occupied by them 
along the northern flank of the metamorphic hills and about their 
eastern termination, and has never to any great extent been found 
elsewhere. The vein-like character of the deposit as revealed in the 
workings of the Albert mines has already been referred to. 
(2) In Lower Carboniferous conglomerates. In some instances near 
the Albert mines the mineral is in the form of grains, not apparently 
connected with any deep reaching fissure. The softness of the mineral 
would seem to preclude the idea of these grains having been derived 

a 
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——" 
