26 EDWIN GILPIN ON THE FAULTS AND 



millstone grit, from the debris of which it is chiefly formed, and dipping to the north, at 

 an angle of about thirty degrees. It presents its basset edge to the coal field in a long 

 steep ridge. Borne up on its crest are measures, lying conformably on it, which, gradually 

 lessening in dip, are repeated in gentle undulations until they pass under the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. They represent strata succeeding the productive measures, the lower portion, 

 resting on the conglomerate, being possibly representative of the highest beds of the coal 

 field as now known, or of the sequence immediately following them. These measures 

 show no signs of the great faulting and folding to which the coal measures have been 

 subjected, and presumably these movements took place at or near the close of the deposi- 

 tion of the productive coal-bearing strata. It may be remarked that the consolidation of 

 the millstone grit must have been followed by changes of level permitting the accumula- 

 tion of the immense mass of the conglomerate referred to above, in places 1,600 feet thick. 



Presumably, therefore, an ideal restoration of the coal field would present it extending 

 not only far to the south, but also some distance north of the village of New Glasgow, 

 standing on its northern edge. This portion, now isolated by the protrusion of the con- 

 glomerate, possibly exists in a northern basin lying between New G-lasgow and Pictou. 

 The consideration of this point is more speculative than practical, for whatever productive 

 measures may exist there, they are deeply covered by the mantle of later Carboniferous 

 and Permo-Carboniferous, with its southern skirt resting directly on the conglomerate. 



It is suggested that the coal field formerly extended westward, but was covered 

 by newer strata, as to the north of New Glasgow ; but the grounds for assuming any 

 great extension toward the east are not apparent. If the magnitude of the coal beds be 

 any measure of the extent of the district in which they were formed, this must once have 

 rivalled the largest coal field now known. 



Regarding for a moment the boundary faults which have " let down " this patch of 

 coal measures among millstone grit and Pre-Carbouiferous, there is presented an immense 

 mass of strata, planed away, until now there is but the usual rolling country of the Lower 

 Provinces, which little shows the force which lifted some 5,000 feet of strata into swelling 

 hills, and marked its way with faults of equal magnitude. Was this wasting mass of 

 sediments carried to the south or to the north? If in the former direction, it must have 

 moved beyond our observation into the Atlantic, or succeeding forces have swept its 

 debris from the Silurian and Cambro-Silurian ledges now outcropping everywhere between 

 it and the southern shores of the province. Possibly its ruins contributed to the later 

 formations lying to the north of New Glasgow, and the drainage was in the same direc- 

 tion as in the present day. From the report of Mr. Fletcher, of the Geological Survey, on 

 the Island of Cape Breton, it would appear that there, from the singular manner in which 

 the Carboniferous run up the glens of the St. Ann's and Baddeck Elvers the drainage 

 was then in the same direction and through the same channels as at the present day. In 

 more recent times the East River and its tributaries have worn away the strata until 

 the coal measures lie as a valley between the Pre-Carboniferous on the south and the 

 millstone grit on the north. 



The " boundary " faults of the district already alluded to consist essentially of one 

 running east and west between the conglomerate and the coal measures, and bringing 

 the upper beds of the latter into contact with the various divisions of the former, and 

 with Pre-Carboniferous strata. A parallel fault brings up millstone grit. Lower Carboni' 



