276 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and overlies a seam of coal a foot in thickness, which has been altered to 

 s-ome extent along the contact. It has, however, no economic value. 



In the southern part of the province, at Lepreau basin, a seam of 

 graphitic anthracite occurs in Devonian shales. The enclosing shales 

 are nearly vertical, and a large sum of money was spent some years ago 

 in mining this deposit. The amount of impurity in the coal was so large 

 as to render it practically useless as a fuel. Here it would appear that 

 coal and shale originally bituminous, have passed into the state of gra- 

 phitized carbon through heat induced by pressure. The thickness of 

 t;lie so-called bed was in places about four feet, and it was opened by 

 shafts to a depth of more than 100 feet. All work on this area has long 

 since been abandoned. 



Among other sources of fuel supply in this province must be men- 

 tioned the Albert shales and the associated mineral Albertite. Eicli 

 beds of oil shale which by some have been styled Cannelite also 

 occur as interstratified beds in the mass of the shale. The Albert shale 

 formation has a thickness lof over 1000 feet, the strata are usually highly 

 inclined and there are numerous faults and occasional overturns. The 

 Albertite, or Albert coal, as it was often called, occurred in the mass 

 of this shale near the axis of an anticline, as the filling of a true fissure 

 having a width varying from a few inches at the ends to about seventeen 

 feet in the centre, decreasing in depth to the bottom of the deposit about 

 1500 feet from the surface. This vein shewed several faults, the min- 

 eral being thrown from side to side. It was mined to a depth of over 

 1200 feet, below which level the vein assumed a brecciated structure 

 composed of fragments of shale cemented by the Albertite. For some 

 years these shales were regarded as a part of the lower Carboniferous 

 formations, but from their stratigraphical position as unconformably 

 beneath the formation wherever they occur, they are now regarded as 

 a part of the Devoiuian system. 



The shales themselves are highly bituminous throughout. They 

 contain interstratified beds of black and sometimes grey oil-shale in mas- 

 sive bands ranging in thickness from three to nearly twenty feet. These 

 bands are exceptionally rich in oil, yielding by distillation from thirty to 

 eighty gallons per ton. They burn in the grate with a bright flame, and 

 some of the bands are so inflammable as to kindle readily with a lighted 

 match. They can be mined like coal, and should form a valuable fuel. 

 Though the amount of ash is large, varying from 45 to 60 per cent, 

 the shales burn with great heat till the bituminous matter is consumed, 

 and the resulting ash is claimed to possess valuable properties as a fer- 

 tilizer. As a source of supply for oil by distillation these oil bands are 



