THE PICTOU COAL FIEIJ) — POOLE. 233 



from the soutli-west it appears conical with steep slopes, while 

 on its north-east side it is backed up with t?dus of considerable 

 raagnitude. 



The tops of the hills in Pictou County are not so rounded as 

 to suggest an erosion at all coniparal:)le to that which gave form 

 to the crests of the Atlantic ranges of slate quartzite and 

 granite, nor as was pointed out in the paper referred to does the 

 general contour of this field indicate that it owes its present form 

 principally to the erosion of this period. Rather that its hills 

 and valleys are the result of long continued preglacial denuda- 

 tion directed by the texture of the measures and the faults which 

 traverse it, the subsequent glacial erosion playing but secondary 

 part. The preglacial water courses seem to have had the same 

 direction as those of to-day, and to have been filled in with till 

 which in many parts still remains as for example in the valley of 

 McCulloch's brook, at lower levels than the beds in wliich these 

 streams now flow. 



In parts the composition of the till is irregular, notably in the 

 neighbourhood of the present streams. Heavy deposits of sand 

 occur in it near the East river and near the mouth of McLellan's 

 brook high a1:)ove the bed of the stream. In the sand are layers 

 and balls of cla}-, boulders of foreign stone and occasionally a 

 pocket of fragments of black shale torn from the adjoining V)anks. 

 In other parts clay predominates and the sand is in streaks and 

 la^'^ers. 



This irregularity has suggested that these deposits may in 

 part owe their origin during the ice age to summer floods 

 having had their strongest flow approximately along the course 

 of the drainage of to-day. With the material of local origin 

 are striated fragments of the neia'ld)oui'ino- Lower Carboniferous 

 and older rocks and occasionally great boulders brought from the 

 Cobequids and even more distant localities. To the south on 

 higher ground, the major part of the deposits is of shattered 

 fragments of local rocks, with sharp edges like the refuse of a 

 quarry. 



Red Rocks : — When after 1858 the mineiai rights other than 

 those reserved to the General Mining" Association were thrown 



