Coal in Canada. 217 



tions of Bay St. Paul and Murray Bay however show no carbon- 

 ized vegetable remains whatever, and the only plants they pre- 

 sented at all, were a very few obscure fucoids, the forms of which 

 were replaced by peroxyd of iron. The bitumen of the limestone 

 may possibly be derived from the soft tissues and gelatine of the 

 marine animal remains which have been buried in the deposit, 

 and supporting this opinion, indurated bitumen has been found in 

 the interior of some of the fossil testacea, of the same limestone 

 at Beauport ; but the calcareous material of the harder part of 

 such remains, so predominates over the carbon of the softer, that 

 coal seams could not be expected as the result of the mixture. 



" There being not the remotest doubt whatever of the geologi- 

 cal age of the limestone of Bay St. Paul, supposing the specimens 

 were really derived from the strata, and that the species of plants 

 should at the same time be ascertained to be identical with some 

 of those of the carboniferous period, it would prove that all evi- 

 dence up to the present time has been imperfect, and that the 

 flora of this period is of hitherto unsuspected antiquity. But even 

 in such a case, or supposing the plants were different in species 

 from those of the true coal era, the paucity of vegetable remains 

 being such that scarcely a trace of them is found in so great and 

 so clear a development of the strata as occurs at Cap au Rets, the 

 probability, amounting almost to certainty, would be, that the 

 specimens were derived from some local patch so thin and cir- 

 cumscribed, as to be altogether worthless in an economic point of 

 view." 



All Sir William's early reputation as a geologist was gained in 

 the coal-fields, no more competent mining surveyor for coal 

 could be found, and no one would be more rejoiced at the oppor- 

 tunity of reporting on a coal-field in Canada. But for this very 

 reason, he is too cautious to hazard any conjecture as to the pro- 

 bability of the occurrence of fossil fuel in a country where facts 

 palpable to the geologist, have inscribed everywhere a negation of 

 its presence. 



Not having this public responsibility weighing upon us, we may 

 venture to mention certain possibilities as to the occurrence of 

 coal in Canada, which would furnish the only means of account- 

 ing for the Bowmanville discovery should it prove a reality. The 

 fundamental rocks of Canada are as we have said below the carbon- 

 iferous, and therefore unlikely to contain workable coal. But 

 Canada may in this respect prove an exception to other countries. 



