96 IIALIBUKTON OX EXPLORATIONS IX PICTOU COAL FIELD. 



His section is consistent with his previous statement before 

 the Mines Committee, that the coal seams are half a mile deep 

 at New Glasgow ; and there can be no doubt that if they become 

 still deeper beyond New Glasgow through a downthrow lault, the 

 conglomerate must not only overlie them half a mile, but even 

 more, according to the extent of the supposed downthrow fault, 

 ^vhich he assumes runs along its southern edge. Practical 

 explorations have entirely disproved this assumption, and have 

 established that the Pictou coal measures are not more than one 

 third as thick as Dr. Dawson infers, and that a pit twelve hun- 

 dred feet deep Avould reach the lower seams in the very centre 

 <jf the basin. They have also proved that the so called Pictou 

 coal basin really constitutes two distinct l)asins, the one, which 

 I may call the southern or Albion basin, lying to the southward, 

 iind the other to the northward of the conglomerate which 

 underlies the productive measures. It is manifest that if the 

 conglomerate were an upheaval since the coal v^^as formed, we 

 should have the Albion Mine& recurring to the northward unless 

 they had ])een aftected by subsequent denudation. But so far 

 we have no equivalents of the southern coal measures in the 

 northern basin, and must assume that they were always distinct 

 basins, and now differ, from their measures having been formed 

 under different circumstances. 



In October 1865 operations Avere commenced on the East 

 E,iver colliery, which was purchased for the purpose of working 

 some upper seams of excellent quality which had already been 

 tested. Finding while I was proving a small seam known as 

 " the Eichardson seam," near New Glasgow, that it dipped 

 almost the reverse way to those of the Albion Mines, and that 

 its underlying strata rested on the conglomerate, and that the 

 conglomerate itself near New Glasgow dipped to the southward, 

 and various dips on the west side of East River having indicated 

 that the coal measures must come to the surface or crop near 

 New Glasgow, I prepared the plan now exhibited, showing the 

 supposed course of the northern crop of the main seam at the 

 town of New Glasgow, and also on the west side of the river. 

 We felt so assured of the fact that the Albion scams, instead 

 of being half a mile deep at New Glasgow, must come to the 



