THE PICTOU COAL FIELD— POOLE. 299 



worked eastward to the small fault already spoken of. Beyond 

 the fault the coal was got at 16 feet, dipping N., 40 E., 12°, and 

 at the hridge in the same direction 18°. 



Going eastward past the Purves slope the next openings are 

 the present extensive operations which lie to the deep of the crop 

 levels that w'ere in old times driven westward from Coal hrook, 

 and locally knowai as " Stinking Tom." Immediately east of the 

 brook the seam was found to rapidly deteriorate so much so that 

 a trial pit 35 chains east found only two and a half feet of coal. 

 Red water on the East river bank is supposed to mark the 

 position of this seam which is last seen in a brook at Miller's 

 below the road on the opposite side of the river. The 

 most castwardly exposure of the Third seam was by trial 

 pit on the East river. On coal brook the crop w^as at one 

 time on fire, and a small slope w^as there made in 1881. 

 The present workings found a deterioration to occur both 

 to the east and west of the main slopes, the extreme dis- 

 tance apai't of the level faces in the best coal being about one 

 mile. Marked improvement in all the coals takes place in depth 

 accompanied by a thickening of the seams. And in this locality, 

 as the workings proceed in depth, it is found that the levels in 

 the lower curve more quickly than those in the upper seams over 

 the prolongation of the anticline, which is barely noticeable in 

 the top levels. The axis of this anticline is not opposite, nor is 

 it a continuation of the ridge that was proved by the Foord pit 

 west levels to cross at Tupper's the main syncline of the field. 

 The ridge in question seems rather to be a lateral of the hill 

 range to the north. 



To the west of the Back Mines, the measures between the 

 seams are in some cases thinner than at this point, for exam- 

 ple between the Deep and Third seams the thickness is reduced 

 from 82 feet in the stone drifts to 45 feet over the pillar working 

 in the Third seam, where fire came through in 1888, and where 

 the explorations of 1850, mistaking the seams, gave 158 feet. 



In early days, but at what time is unknowm, there was driven 

 from the Burnt mines workings, which were closed in 1839, a 

 tunnel in a south-wcstwardly direction to prove the underlying 



