262 THE PICTOU COAL FIELD — POOLE. 



one inch thick. This section terminates on the railway leading- 

 from Stellarton to Westville at McAdam's cut, the highest point 

 on the railway, and here a north and south fault crosses. 

 Followed to the south-east the heds of this section change some- 

 what in composition and weather a more decided red. They are 

 again exposed on tlie same railway as it nears Stellarton, and on 

 the small hrook by its side, and again on the west bank of the East 

 river, where all trace of interbedded coal seams has disappeared. 

 The series is continuously exposed on the western 1 ank of the 

 river, and consists of chocolate sandstones, alternating with marly 

 shales weathering red as far up as the Stellarton pumping station. 

 Just before reaching the station a fault crosses the river S. 80° 

 E., and above it the dip of the strata is reduced from 19*^ to 1S°, 

 and even less under the tilter-trenches. This slight inclination 

 probably extends to the head of the intervale, where exposures are 

 renewed, with indications that this course is the axis of a sharp 

 deflection of the strike, the dip on the river being eastward, 

 while exposures on the bank of the intervale dip to the north- 

 ward. The absence of serious dislocation separating these 

 divei'ging dips seems to be proved by the presence in each section 

 of apparently the same bed of black shaly fireclay dipping in the 

 one case N. 5" E., and in the other, only one hundred yards to 

 the eastward, N. 80° E. The axis of the anticlinal apparently 

 lies N. 60° E. towards the point where the continuity of the crop 

 of the main seam was lost just west of the McLeod pit, and pos- 

 sibly it over-rides a spur of the older rock that projects northM'ard 

 from McKay's brook. The bed of black shale appears continu- 

 ous upstream until it is sharply deflected by a fault coursing S. 

 5° E. The fault has thrown the crop to the westward some 150 

 feet, giving the black shale a dip N. 85*-" E. '9*-', which again sends 

 it across the river approximately parallel to the line of contact 

 between the basal carboniferous strata and the unconformable 

 underlying Fishpool beds. Underlying the black are grey shales 

 and near the ford of the river are fine bedded grey sandstones 

 which have fissures holding crystals of calcite and drops of elas- 

 tic bitumen. Then lower strata are shewn in places in the river 

 bed to be lying flat or crumpled with the axes of local sharp de- 



