Coal in Canada. 215 



are, as we shall show in the sequel, certain geological possibilities 

 of the occurrence of coal at Bowmanville, but no indications of 

 these appear in tbe statements which have been made, and all the 

 facts before ns at present point to the conclusion that the very 

 ■common trick of secretly supplying the bore-hole with the mate- 

 rials afterwards obtained from it, has been practised by some in- 

 terested or mischievous person. We give this opinion on the facts 

 which have reached us up to the 1st of June, and we are glad to 

 observe that the Government have very properly thrown the onus 

 of opening the deposit on the proprietors and people of the locality. 



Having pursued the narrative thus far, we proceed to give a few 

 plain statements as to the actual condition of the question. Does 

 Canada contain workable coal ? Many persons are of opinion that 

 geologists, and more particularly those of the Survey, have arrived 

 at the conclusion that coal cannot possibly be found in this coun- 

 try. This is entirely a mistake. To maintain such a sweeping 

 negative would be mere presumption, such as no really scientific 

 man could be guilty of. All that we assert is embodied in the 

 ■expression of Prof, Chapman, that "all known facts are opposed to 

 the idea" that coal occurs here, and therefore that any reported dis- 

 covery should be regarded with distrust and carefully scrutinized. 

 Let us look for a moment at a general statement of the evidence 

 on which this view rests. 



It has been ascertained that nearly all the valuable coal seams 

 known, exist in the coal-measures of a particular geological sys- 

 tem — the carboniferous — readily distinguishable by its relations to 

 other systems of rocks and by its characteristic fossils. In some 

 of the formations overlying or newer than this coal series par ex- 

 cellence^ beds of coal have been found, as for instance in the Tri- 

 assic series at Richmond, Virginia, in the tertiary of Western 

 America ; but these are exceptional cases, and the mineral is for 

 the most part different from the ooal of the carboniferous system 

 or differs in its accompanying fossils. In the formations older 

 than the carboniferous system no workable ooal has been found, 

 and these formations have now been so extensively explored as to 

 render it probable that they are quite destitute of the mineral; 

 though still, geologists do not assert this as a positive conclusion, but 

 merely as the negative result likely to be reached when all the 

 facts are known, and in the meantime as a useful warning against 

 imprudent speculation. 



Now in relation to Canada, the whole province so far as known — 



