214 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Duhlin Society. 



There is also a large coal district on the South Saskatchewan, 

 about Medicine Hat ; some of the seams can be seen cropping out 

 almost horizonally, on the banks of the river, a few miles above the 

 latter place. But probably the most important coal deposit in the 

 North- West is that of the " Coal Banks," on the Belly Eiver (one 

 of the main tributaries of the South Saskatchewan), twenty-five 

 miles east of Fort M'Leod and about one hundred and twenty miles 

 south of Medicine Hat. Here the seam is about nine feet thick, 

 and dips at a very low angle to the west. This locality is now 

 being actively worked by Sir A. T. Gault. The coal is taken in 

 barges and steamers to Medicine Hat ; hence it is distributed east 

 and west along the line of railway : it is a fine semi-bituminous 

 coal, containing a little pyrites, and not unlike some Welsh steam 

 coals : it appears to be admirably adapted for steam-engines and 

 domestic purposes, and is being used on the locomotives of this sec- 

 tion of the railway, and also on the steamers plying between Medi- 

 cine Hat and the mines ; it produces a very hot fire, and forms 

 very little clinker or cinder. 



Besides the localities above mentioned many others are known, 

 especially in the district to the north ; to the east, on the Souris 

 plain, the beds are much more lignitic in character than to the 

 west. 



Although it is only quite lately that these coals have been ex- 

 tensively used throughout the country, they have been employed 

 to a limited extent, for some time past by the North- West Mounted 

 Police and by the pioneers of the district ; yet it seems highly pro- 

 bable that, on the development of the mines, and extension of the 

 railway, these coals will not only be almost exclusively used through- 

 out the territory, but that there will be a large export trade to other 

 districts. 



