94 Leport on the Coal said to have been found 
bituminous slate, having a cleavage across the plane of 
stratification, and breaking in wedge-shaped fragments— 
hard, but yielding slightly to the nail a whitish brown streak, 
and in a common fire burning with a long white flame and a 
crackling noise. With these occur a white gritty sandstone, 
the relative position of which I could not ascertain. . 
For upwards of 100 yards higher along the stream, the 
Coal beds are concealed under fragments of a very hard 
siliceous and siliceo-ferruginous conglomerate, which then 
stretches 7 s¢tw across the course of the stream, and rises 
on the western bank, with a nearly perpendicular face, into 
hills of considerable elevation, having some appearance of 
stratification, with a slight inclination to the southward. It 
does not therefore appear to be conformable with the Coal 
series below. Lower down the stream, the banks which rise 
into steep rounded hills on the eastern side are composed of 
consolidated and nearly horizontal beds of a soft yellowish 
and schistose clay, probably of date long posterior to that 
of the Coal. 
In the channel of a tributary of the Don River, about a 
mile higher up and on its eastern side, where the surface has 
again become comparatively even, fragments of a bituminous 
Coal occur over the schistose clay rock just mentioned, indi- 
cating the upheaval of the Coal beds, and their intersection 
by the rivulet at a still higher level. 
Vague reports reached me of the existence of Coal at 
various points other than those now stated; but I found that 
they were not to be depended upon. With respect to the 
economical value of the Coal beds at the Don River—the 
quality of the Coal appears to be of the character of that of 
the West of England, bituminous, but not caking. The seams 
appear to be too thin, and far too much inclined, to be worked 
profitably : but they are unexplored, and need to be proved 
