GILPIN PICTOU COAL FIELD. 91 



Intercolonial Coal Company are approached. This undulation of 

 the measures, aided by the fault, obscured the crop of the Main 

 seam most thoroughly ; and it was long believed that it was thrown 

 out of reach. 



The results of the Geological Survey, however, afford ground 

 for the opinion that the crop of the seam known as the Culton, is the 

 continuation of the Main seam — its strike to the westward being 

 intercepted obliquely by the great West fault which it finally leaves 

 for a distance, and is worked under the name of the Acadia seam 

 by the Drummond, Acadia, and Nova Scotia Colleries. This view 

 is supported more by the relative positions of the seam and associ- 

 ated strata, than by any similarity in the coals themselves. The 

 Acadia, Culton, and Main seams have no coal beds immediately 

 overlying them, while coal seams are found beneath them all at 

 equivalent depths. The importance of this conclusion is evident, 

 as the greatly increased extent of the Main or Acadia seams, as well 

 as of the underlying seams, is at once shown. 



At present mining operations are confined to the Main or Acadia 

 and the Deep seams, but from practical trials it is known that many 

 of the lower beds are workable, and the amount of coal thus avail- 

 able may be gathered from the fact that there are over 1 00 feet of 

 coal in the seams of the Albion group, the lowest as yet known in 

 the Pictou Coal field. 



The dip of the Culton seam on McCullock's Brook, and the 

 anticlinal structure of the measures of the south-east part of the 

 Acadia area above described, form what is known as the Bear 

 Creek synclinal of the report of the Geological Survey of the Pictou 

 Coal field. This synclinal is continued up to the west side of Mc- 

 Cullock's Brook, at which point we leave it at present. 



Following the crop of the Main seam, which as it is the highest, 

 may be taken as the exponent of the Albion group, from the 

 Foster pit to the eastward we find it crossing the East River and 

 gradually turning to the east and south, until cut by the McLeod 

 fault. The course of the Main and Deep seams as far as this point, 

 is well ascertained by underground workings, and the pits and 

 boreholes on the Pictou Company's area. The McLeod fault being 



