330 THE PICTOU COAL FIELD — POOLE. 



be an uptlirovv to the eastward and in sympathy with the ^reat' 

 North fault. In spite of the intervening breaks being upthrows, 

 the impression is that the coal of the St. Lawrence pit belongs to 

 the McBean or eight feet seam, and this it may well be since the 

 dip of the strata approaching the North fault increases with the 

 depth from the surface and thus causes the eastward deflection 

 of the outcrop. A broken l^and of red rocks crosses the coal 

 measures at this point, the east corner of the Vale area, and if 

 they can be shewn to overlie the coal measures the question of 

 relation would at once be set at rest 



The section given ly Logan, page 80, begins with the Six Feet 

 seam, which he calls the equivalent of the George McKay seam 

 of the Marsh pit group.* But this is a mistake, the workings of 

 late years have followed this seam dow^n to the bottom of the 

 basin under a cover of GOT feet and also beyon-i^l on a rise of 4^^ 

 to the northward for 600 feet and then meeting with an inclina- 

 tion due W. 9*^. No complete section of the strata above the Six 

 Feet seam has been made, but a partial exposure of some 150 feet 

 of strata occurs in the rock cutting of the Vale railway near the 

 mine, grey arenaceous shales predominating with a band of sand- 

 stone under the highway bridge stratigraphically succeeded at 10 

 feet by 5 feet of black shale overlaid by 85 feet of grey shales 

 and then by another band of black sha'e of equal thickness, with 

 a 6 inch band lying midway between these so-called oil shales. 



On the line of the Six Feet slope the highest strata are under 

 marshy ground and include a seam of coal called four feet thick 

 but consisting of only two feet of coal that is good next the 

 pavement. The seam is also known to be 22 inches thick at 

 Grants, near the North fault where the brook turns sharply to 

 the westward. Here also on the brook are two beds of black com- 

 pact (oil) shales which Mr. McBean recognized as identical with 

 those shewn in the railway cutting and again westward on the 

 highway near the Whitburn school house. Above the oil shales 

 and 100 feet below the four feet seam a coal stratum 8 inches 

 thick has been got by borehole. 



*Logan, pp. 33 and 34. 



