270 THE PICTOU COAL FIELD — POOLE. 



strata do not resemble tliose of McLean's brook to which he also 

 ^■ave the same horizon, nor yet those of the Middle river which 

 a,re now considered to be typical of that series. He noted the 

 coincidence of the dip with the overlying- beds of New^ Glasgow 

 conglomerate, but the absence of contact exposures leaves it still 

 unproved whether there be along the base of Fraser's mountain 

 a marked unconformable overlap or no. 



It is possible that the conglomerate escarpment east of the river 

 is slightly oblicjue to the strike of this group, and their assumed 

 but unpro\ed unconformity would account for this, but the ab- 

 sence of contact exposures and the gradual change in the direc- 

 tion of the strike and the flattening of the dip of the underlying 

 beds towards the base of the triangle leave the question still in 

 ■doubt. 



On the west side of the river, however, at Blackwood's dam, 

 the rock lying there exposed unconformably below the conglom- 

 erate appears to belong to this section and to form the very apex 

 of the triangle. The presence at this point also in the conglom- 

 erate of boulders of the black limestone and of " bull's eyes,"* 

 unknown in beds of greater age than these of this field, seem to 

 confirm this view, for here the conglomerate rests on the very lip 

 of the coal measures and has to the southward none of these 

 strata as a source of supply for these characteristic constituents. 

 As to the horizon of this group of beds there is a disposition to 

 assign them to the Upper Coal Measures, there being a greater 

 similarity to the beds of the overlying Permian than of any other 

 pos.sible horizon, a position also more in keeping with the theory 

 here presented in preference to that of clean cut faults of mag- 

 nitude circumscribing the coal fleld. Here it is assumed that the 

 faulting along the north margin of the field arises from the ob- 

 struction to a uniform curvature of strata by protruding older 

 rocks of greater hardness and resistance similar to the condition 

 at High Field farm where the West fault of the Survey has given 

 place to a hill of older rock round which the Coal Measures of 

 Westville have broken. On the high land of Love's, McGlashen's 

 -and Jackson's farms the older rocks, Lower Carboniferous, it 



* Report, p. 10. 



