220 Coal in Canada. 



With regard to the geological position assigned to the coal of 

 Bowmanville, it appears from the latest statements to be, not the 

 Silurian rocks of the country, but the tertiary clays and sands. 

 This we need hardly say excludes a number of the ways of ac- 

 counting for it above stated, and almost shuts us up to the con- 

 clusion that if a real discovery at all, the coal is a boulder or 

 layer of boulders of coal transported from a distance, no doubt a 

 very unlikely mode of occurrence, when we take into account the 

 usual direction of Canadian tertiary drift from the N. E., and the 

 absence of any known coal within a reasonable distance in that 

 direction. The following is given in a Hamilton newspaner as an 

 authoritative statement of the beds passed through, and it corres- 

 ponds very nearly with a manuscript boring journal which we 

 have seen, and which was furnished by one of the persons employ- 

 ed. 



" A shaft of 60 or 65 feet was sunk last November, then boring 

 for about 90 feet deeper before reaching the coal. The materials 

 were, beginning at the surface. 



" 1. Fine clay, about 25 feet. 



" 2. Large boulders, V or 8 feet. 



" 3. Fine clay, 30 feet. 



" 4. Clean washed lake sand, 20 feet. 



"5. Fire-clay, 30 or 40 feet. 



" 6. The remainder of the distance — nearly 50 feet, a kind of 

 hard pan fire-clay, gravel, stones, and a mixture of clay and sand. 



" 7. One foot or foot and a-half of a hard substance — rock of 

 some kind, I could not say what on account of sand and clay fall- 

 ing in from the sides, but I drew up small pieces of coarse red 

 sandstone. 



" 8. Six feet or six feet and a-half of coal." 



This section is followed by the very naive remark that it shows 

 " no material which ought according to existing theories to 

 be found above coal." This is quite true, inasmuch as the tertiary 

 sands and clays may, like the green sod, cover anything; but it 

 would be quite a different thing to say that they are the materials 

 usually or ever found immediately above a coal seam. On the 

 contrary the occurrence of coal like that sent from Bowmanville, 

 in situ, immediately under or in the bottom of such a mass, with- 

 out any of the usual shales, under-clays, ironstones, or sandstones 

 accompanying the mineral, or any of the fossils of the formation, 

 would if possible be more extraordinary than its occurrence in the 



