GEOLOGiCAL AHEAS OF CANADA. 119 



Ifonstofle nodules. They dip, generally, towards the coast, and their 

 coal beds are worked in some instances tp a considerable distance 

 beneath the sea. The area thus evidently forms a portion of the 

 western margin of a great sub-marine coal basin, the eastern or north-^ 

 eastern edge of which outcrops in places on the opposite shore of 

 Newfoundland. A fine section of these strata is exposed on the north- 

 ivest shore of Sydney Harbour and around Cranberry Head. The beds 

 at this locality dip towards the K. E. (or more strictly, N. 60° E.), at 

 an angle of 7" j and they contain a great abundance of sigillarife with 

 attached roots, and other examples of characteristic coal-plants ^ 

 Although num.erous seams of coal occur v/ithin the area, the actual 

 seams of workable thickness do not appear to exceed sis or seven in 

 number. These have been brought up, however, at various points 

 by a succession of undulations ; and outcrops of the same seam on 

 different properties have thus been regarded in many instances as 

 distinct seams, and special names have been bestowed upon them.* 

 These Workable seams vary in thickness from about 4 feet to 10 feet — 

 the average thickness being about 5 J to 6 feet. The average dip is 

 from 5 to 6 degrees, or about 1 in 10 or 12, but the beds flatten 

 greatly, as a rtlle, in descending. In some places, however, the dip 

 is much higher. The Victoria (Eoss) seam, for example, dips at an 

 angle of 3S° or 39° ; and the McAulay seam, near Cow Bay, dips on 

 one side of a sharp synclinal at an angle of nearly 45°, whilst on the 

 opposite side the slope is only about 7° or 8°. The principal mines 

 are situated more or less immediately along the coast, in a curved 

 line extending from Boulardrie Island, across the Little Bras d'Or 

 and Sydney Harbour, by Lingan and Bridgeport, to beyond Glace 

 Bay and Cow Bay, in the south-east. The coal throughout this area 

 is a bituminous caking coal, containing, as a rule, a very low amount 

 of ash. 



12. The Northern Area of Cape Breton. — This division includes 

 the more northern portions of the Counties of Inverness and Victoria, 

 forming the great northern peninsula of Cape Breton. Very little is 



♦ The writer made a rapid examination of tlie Sydney Harbour coal country in 1873, and 

 publislied commercial reports on the Collins' coal property immediately east of the Little 

 Bras d'Or, and on the Campbell property near Glace Bay. He found no indications of faults 

 at these localities ; and he is informed by Mr. Hugh Fletcher (one of hia old students, now oc 

 the staff of the Geological Survey) that late investigations have failed to detect their presence 

 within the coal district proper, the repetition of the seams ar different spots being entirely due 

 to a series of folds, as stated in the text above. Mr. Fletcher, partly alone, and partly in 

 conjunction with Mr. Charles Robb, has mapped and examined the entire coal area of this pari 

 of Cape Breton. See the Survey Report for 1875, and that for 1876 now under preparation, 



