FOSSILS OF THE COAL-FIELD OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 241 



perfect state of preservation, in the greater part of the deposit they 

 are found to be represented only by scattered scales. On the sup- 

 position that the shales themselves represent what may be called 

 vegetable mud, this may have accumulated in water at times sufficiently 

 pure to be inhabited by fishes, while at other times streams or inun- 

 dations of muddy water may have caused the destruction of the fish 

 in certain localities. The conditions may in this way be compared to 

 those represented by the calcareo-bituminous shales at the Joggins. 

 The best exposure tliat I have seen of the Albert shales is on the 

 Memramcook River, where they present a continuous cliff for some 

 distance, exhibiting beds of brownish and black very pure grained 

 shale, all highly bituminous, though of various degrees of richness. 

 The stratification is apparently arched, the crown of the arch being 

 capped with conglomerate, in which are slender asphaltic veins. The 

 thickness of shales observed at this place was estimated at 150 feet. 



Westward of the Albert Mine, it would seem, according to Profes- 

 sor Bailey, that two or more bands of calcareo-bituminous shale extend 

 along the base of the metamorphic hills, or possibly there may be 

 repetition of the Albert shales by folds along parallel lines. Professor 

 Bailey mentions their occurrence at Baltimore, six miles west of Albert 

 Mine, also at Elgin and Pollet River. At the former place, fish-teeth 

 of the Rhizodont type and Lepidodendron corrugahnn were found 

 by Mr Ilartt, giving the character of the fossils here a very strong 

 resemblance to those of Horton Bluff. Still farther westward, the 

 shales occur at Sussex, at Trout Creek, and, lastly, at Norton, fifty 

 miles westward of the Albert Mine. In these more western localities, 

 however, the Albertite has not been found in workable quantities. 

 Springs yielding peti'oleum flow from these rocks in various places, 

 and attempts have been made to obtain the substance in profitable 

 quantities, but hitherto, I believe, without any encouraging amount 

 of success. 



3. Fossils of the Carboniferous District of New Brunswick. 



I give here merely a list of the plants determined by myself, prin- 

 cipally from the collections of IMr G. F. Matthews, Mr C. F. Ilartt, 

 and Sir William E. Logan, with a few animal fossils noticed by Mr 

 Hartt in the Appendix to Bailey's Report on New Brunswick. It 

 will be observed, in coiniexion witli the previous statements, that the 

 plants from Bathurst and Bale de Chaleur arc supposed to belong to 

 tlic lower set of coal-beds in the Middle Coal measures ; those from 

 Grand Lake and Miramichi to the upper set of beds. 



