TRANSACTIONS 
OF THE 
Nova Scotian Sustitute of Batural Science. 
ArT. I—NotTes oN THE DEBrert Coat FIELD, COLCHESTER 
Co., N. S. By Epwin Givpin, Jr., A. M., F. G.S., 
F.R.S. C., Inspector of Mines. 
(Read 12th Nov., 1883.) 
DurRInG the past few months a good deal of interest has been 
shown in Mining circles over the reported discoveries of coal 
seams, of workable size, on the DeBert River, Colchester Co. In 
this conclusion the following notes of a brief visit to the ground 
may prove interesting to the members of the Institute, and I 
only regret that the attention necessarily directed to mines in 
operation has prevented me from giving more time to the 
problems presented by this practically unknown district. 
The presence of coal beds on the DeBert and Chiganoise 
Rivers has long been known to the geologist. Gesner, one of the 
pioneers of Nova Scotian Geology, writing in 1836, described the 
signs of coal at various points along the north side of the Basin 
of Minas, from Cape Chignecto to Truro, and remarks, page 129 
of his “ Geology and Mineralogy of Nova Scotia,” that “ About 
five miles northward of the Lower DeBert bridge the. coal 
measures of the mountains rise above the gypseous and saliferous 
sandstones, and a beautiful section of their strata is made by the 
river passing over them. Two small veins of coal have been 
intersected, although it is not known what quantity of that 
valuable substance is still hidden in the adjacent rocks.” 
Dr. Dawson, in the second edition of his Acadian Geology,. 
page 264, speaks of the metamorphic slates of the Cobequid 
Mountains being succeeded by conglomerates, and then by “ coal: 
measure rocks, consisting of gray sandstones and dark shales, 
