144 MINERALS AND GEOLOGY 



or asphalt, occurs in narrow veins in rocks of various kinds, and in 

 small masses and thin layers or coatings in strata of the Utica and 

 other formations. Occasionally also, it is found in the interior of 

 orthoceratites and other fossil shells. As it differs essentially by 

 these conditions of occurrence from anthracite proper, the name an~ 

 thraxolite has been given to it, but simply as a convenient term for 

 present use. It occurs in narrow veins, associated with quartz, 

 amongst the altered strata of Lotbiniere, in the Eastern Townships ; 

 and also, in regularly banded veins with quartz and iron pyrites, on 

 Thunder Bay, Lake Superior. A variety from the latter district, 

 shewed a sp. gr. of 1.43, and gave the writer: moisture 2.08, addi- 

 tional loss in closed vessel 3.56, ash 0.00, fixed carbon (by differ- 

 ence) 94.36 (Canadian Journal, vol. x. 411). The substance occurs 

 likewise in narrow broken veins, or filling small cracks, per se, at 

 Acton and other localities in the Eastern Townships, as well as on the 

 Island of Orleans, at Beauport and Point Levis near Quebec, and 

 elsewhere in the neighbourhood of the latter city. The variable 

 percentage of volatile matter (exclusive of moisture) is evidently due 

 to the greater or less amount of alteration to which the original 

 bituminous matter has been subjected. 



113. Coal: Black (often with iridescent tarnish) in anthracite 

 and bituminous coal; brown, in brown coal or lignite. H = 1.0 (or 

 less) 2.5; sp.gr. 1.0 1.7. BB, anthracite is scarcely altered ', 

 bituminous coals take fire, and many exhibit a kind of fusion. True 

 coal, in its different varieties, occurs in regular beds or layers, mostly 

 associated with bituminous shale, nodules of iron-stone or impure 

 carbonate of iron, and numerous fossilized plants. Anthracite con- 

 sists almost wholly of carbon (exclusive of a small amount of mineral 

 matter or "ash"). Anthracitic coals contain, in addition, a small 

 percentage of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen ; and in bituminous 

 coals, these components are more largely present. Many coals also 

 contain sulphur, derived in chief part, or perhaps wholly, from inter- 

 mixed pyrites, A thin seam of bituminous coal occurs in the De- 

 vonian sandstones of Gaspe, the only known locality within the old 

 limits of Canada in which true coal has been found.* 



* The great, workable, coal beds of the Dominion of Canada occur at two widely separated 

 geological horizons, namely in the true Carboniferous Formation of Nova Scotia, and in the 

 Cretaceous and Cainozoic deposits of the North-West Territories and British Columbia. Much 

 of this latter coal closely resembles ordinary bituminous coal in general character, and in 

 some places anthracitic varieties occur . 



