UNDEVELOPED COAL FIELDS OF NOVA SCOTIA—GILPIN. eye 
miner as containing ores of iron, manganese, barytes, as well as 
scattered indications of copper and lead ores. In this connection, 
however, it need not be referred to in greater detail. The same 
may be said of the Lower or Basal series. This is composed 
largely of conglomerates and coarse Grits which often rest on 
Silurian or Laurentian strata, in some cases holding contact 
deposits of iron ore or manganese. At several points, however, 
in the province, the conditions of deposition permitted the accu- 
mulation of more finely comminuted strata, and we have beds of 
shales, often bituminous or carbonaceous. It is noticed at a few 
points that the accumulation of carbon matter has been large 
enough to form impure “coal” beds. Prospectors have spent 
much time and money with unsatisfactory results in these strata, 
which often surpass the shales of the productive measures 
in their various carbon contents. In a few cases these coaly 
beds have been hardened by metamorphic action into graphitic 
slates or semi-anthracitie beds. 
As far as I ain aware the Upper Coal measures contain only 
a few thin but remarkably persistent seams running from 
Merigomish to River John. This set of strata appears to pass 
by no fixed line into the lower and preceding productive measures. 
These again are divided by no arbitrary boundary from the 
Millstone Grit. Coal seams are not infrequent in the Millstone 
Grit in Nova Scotia as in other countries. We are therefore, in 
the study of this subject, concerned in the presence of coal in 
the Productive and the Millstone Grit measures, and they may 
be considered together. 
In the Sydney coal field the boundary laid down between 
these systems is based principally on the cessation of thick and 
abundant coal beds and the presence of seams smaller and not so 
abundant, as well as on the appearance of strata coarser in texture. 
Mr. Fletcher of the Geological Survey, however, in continuing 
his survey of Cape Breton, found that in many places nature did 
not present coal seams and differing strata conveniently for this 
purpose, and has grouped the two together. The question need 
not be gone into here as to the true horizon of some of our coal 
