IS THERE COAL UNDER 1'. E. ISLAND ! — POOLE. 7 



ditions exist. Was the Gulf in any part an upland region 

 during the coal measures period ? 



We do know from a study of the Pictou coal field that 

 there were limits and parts where no workable coals were laid 

 down.* In Cumberland County, also, the Geolo,£;ical Survey has 

 demonstrated the gradual and final substitution of i on-bituminous 

 for bituminous deposits. A close study on the western coast of 

 Cape Breton, it is believed, will show like conditions there, — 

 basin-shaped districts which never were parts of one coal sheet 

 continuous over the Gulf area. The districts of coal measures 

 now found isolated above the shore line, were in some cases prob- 

 ably not separated by faults, but further exploration is necessary 

 to prove this. An examination of the admiralty charts suggests 

 that a surmise may fairly be made of the rock structure which 

 underlies part of the Gulf. The islands tell us something, and we 

 know that a well dttined anticline, bringing to the surface Carbon- 

 iferous Limestone strata, extends from Shepody Mt., at the head of 

 the Bay of Fund}', towards Wallace, ]3arallel with the Cobequid 

 range and the series of great folds in tlie gold-bearing rocks of the 

 Cambrian. This Wallace anticline is not seen to the eastward, but 

 its continuation, hidden under Permian strata, is suggested by the 

 presence of an elevated ridge shown by soundings to range east 

 of Pictou Lland and southeast of Cape Bear of Prince Edward 

 Island. I venture to go still further a-field and to regard that the 

 basal rocks of the Magdalen Island, also of Carboniferous 

 Limestone age, and which, in comparatively recent times, were 

 much more extensive than they now are, extended, as indicated 

 by the soundings, parallel to the Cape Breton coast near to 

 Prince Edward Island, owing their origin to a folding con- 

 temporary with the Wallace anticline. Within the shelter of 

 these ridges possibly were the conditions alone favorable for 

 the accumulation of coal in seams of workable thickness. 



Prince El ward Island and the major part of the Gulf area 

 lie outside the fold. 



»Tlic Pictou Coal Field, Trans. N. 3. Inst. Sc, vol. 8, 1893. 



