Section IV., 1906. [ 267 ] Trans. R. S. C. 



XV. — Notes on the Mineral Fuel Supply of Canada.'^ 

 E. W. Ells, LL.D. 



(Read May 23. 1906.) 



In a country of such enormous proportions as the Dominion of 

 Canada, extending from east to west across the thousands of miles 

 between tlie Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and nortliAvards into the ice- 

 laden waters of the Arctic, with its months of severely cold but bracing 

 climate, the question of an adequate fuel supply, as a source of heat, 

 light and power, must always be of paramount importance. To some 

 extent the requisite of power is now being provided by the utilization of 

 the numerous waterfalls with which Canada is so well supplied, whereby 

 practically an unlimited amount of energy can be produced and distri- 

 buted by electric cables to long distances. This electric power will be- 

 fore many years be utilized on our present great railway systems with 

 their thousands of miles of transcontinental trunk-lines and their radiat- 

 ing' net-work of branches, as well as for the motive power of many of the 

 large manufacturing centres ; but it is scarcely probable that our ordinary 

 fuel supplies will be entirely superseded in all kinds of transport or gen- 

 eral industry, while the grand problem of fuel for household purposes 

 alone presents an interesting feature which must be of much general 

 interest. 



Some thirty or forty years ago it was the generally accepted opinion 

 that in the matter of coal supply Canada was to a large extent deficient. 

 The areas in Nova Scotia, more especially those in Pictou county and on 

 the Island of Cape Breton, had long been known, and had been worked 

 to some extent for jnore than a century. In Xew Bruns^nck also' coal 

 had been mined from the small seams of the interior for many years, 

 though the annual output never exceeded a few thousand tons ; but west 

 of that province it was supposed that coal, as a source of fuel supply, 

 was almost entirely lacking. The great deposits of British Columbia 

 were scarcely known, with the exception of the coal basin of Vancouver 

 Island ; and our knowledge of the fertile plains of the Saskatchewan dis- 

 trict, with their enormous deposits of lignite, was practically confined to 

 the information contained in the reports of the Palliser and Hind expe- 

 ditions which nearly fifty years ago traversed a comparatively small por- 

 tion of the plains country. With the further exception of a few who, 

 in the interests of science, and often in the face of great difficulties as 



iPublished by permission of the Director of the Geological Survey. 



