UNDEVELOPED COAI, FIELDS OF NOVA SCOTIA GILPIN. 137 



miner as containing ores of iron, manganese, barytes, as well as 

 scattered indications of copper and lead ores. In this connection, 

 however, it need not be referred to in greater detail. The same 

 may be said of the Lower or Basal series. This is composed 

 largely of conglomerates and coarse Grits which often rest on 

 Silurian or Laurentian strata, in some cases holding contact 

 deposits of iron ore or manganese. At several points, however, 

 in the province, the conditions of deposition permitted the accu- 

 mulation of more finely comminuted strata, and we have beds of 

 shales, often bituminous or carbonaceous. It is noticed at a few 

 points that the accumulation of carbon matter has been large 

 enough to form impure " coal " beds. Prospectors have spent 

 much time and money with unsatisfactory results in these strata, 

 which often surpass the shales of the productive measures 

 in their various carbon contents. In a few cases these coaly 

 beds have been hardened by metamorphic action into graphitic 

 slates or semi-anthracitic beds. 



As far as I am aware the Upper Coal measures contain only 

 a few thin but remarkably persistent seams running from 

 Merigomish to River John. This set of strata appears to pass 

 by no fixed line into the lower and preceding productive measures. 

 These again are divided by no arbitrary boundary from the 

 Millstone Grit. Coal seams are not infrequent in the Millstone 

 Grit in Nova Scotia as in other countries. We are therefore, in 

 the study of this subject, concerned in the presence of coal in 

 the Productive and the Millstone Grit measures, and they may 

 be considered together. 



In the Sydney coal field the boundary laid down between 

 these systems is based principally on the cessation of thick and 

 abundant coal beds and the presence of seams smaller and not so 

 abundant, as well as on the appearance of strata coarser in texture. 

 Mr. Fletcher of the Geological Survey, however, in continuing 

 his survey of Cape Breton, found that in many places nature did 

 not present coal seams and differing strata conveniently for this 

 purpose, and has grouped the two together. The question need 

 not be gone into here as to the true horizon of some of our coal 



