oo2 THE PICTOU COAL FIELD — POOLE. 



wardly inclination tlie association of greenish grey and ochrey 

 stained conglomerates with coal hearing strata is a distinctive 

 feature, the conglomerates seem to replace certain of the sand- 

 stone beds on the slopes of the older rocks, and from the presence 

 of surface l)oulders it may he assumed that the sulxstitution ex- 

 tends all the way to Plymouth on the East river, where the pre- 

 sence of grey conglomerates in situ among coal measures has 

 already been noted. In the centre of the field conglomerates are 

 not known, so that they seem to belong only to the skirts of the 

 old rocks and to owe their origin to deposition in littoral waters. 

 This feature tends to throw doubts on the suggestion that the 

 coal field oricfinally extended southward for some distance. 



The underlying workable seam, the McBean, has been proved 

 nearly to the east corner of the Vale area, where it is eleven 

 feet in thickness and is inclined at an angle o-f 40° at the crop- 

 and 46" in the workings in depth. At the surface of the hoist- 

 ing slope the inclination is o2°, down the slope 2000 feet the dip 

 decreases to 28°, and at 3000 feet to 20*^. At a further distance 

 of a 1000 feet the bottom of the basin, proved in the six feet- 

 seam, would have been reached. The thickness of the seam re- 

 duced from 7' 6" at the slope mouth to 6 feet in the lowest levels^, 

 but the quality at the same time greatly improved. To the 

 westward the dip flattens and the levels curve towards the 

 south. The upper levels passed through a fault of some width 

 having the course given to the Lawson fault of the Survey, 

 but this fault thinned and disappeared in depth. They also- 

 crossed the line of the Lawson fault, finding only a disturbance 

 of little moment at the crop, so that the improtance of this fault- 

 discussed on page 36 of Logan's report must be abandoned and 

 and all the conclusions built on it given up. Ten chains further 

 west and the crop is exposed on McLean's brook, and the series 

 given in section 9 is entered on. This series included the 

 McLean seams, regarded as a distinct group, but the differ- 

 ence in quality and thickness which the seams here present may 

 be accounted for by their greater proxminity to the hills and a. 

 continuance of the changes found to occur in the McBean seam. 

 as it was worked to the westward. 



