20 |) 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OP CANADA. 



The ' Surface 

 Seam.' 



Quantity of 

 coal. 



ing; Otriabog Bridge; Clones, on the Headwaters of the Nerepis Eiver; 

 Three-Tree Creek, and Tracy. The deepest of these borings (GOO feet) 

 was made at Three-Tree Creek, while in the Grand Lake area the 

 holes ranged from 170 to 400 feet. In no ease did these bore-holes dis- 

 close the existence of any lower seam of eoal, and it is quite evident 

 that in this area at least this mineral is confined to what is known as 

 the "Surface Seam." The extent of this seam, however, is great. 

 Besides the frequent outcrops along the Newcastle Creek, Salmon 

 Eiver and Salmon Creek, and Coal Creek, which constitute properly 

 the Grand Lake coal area, other exposures, which may be the southern 

 outci'ops of the same seam spreading over a larger area, are found. 

 Among these the most westerly is on the North- West Branch of the Oro- 

 mocto, about one and a half miles above the mouth of the Yoho Stream, 

 where, in the cliff, a seam of four to five inches is disclosed, dipping at 

 a moderate angle to the north-east, and which probably marks its west- 

 ern limit. Further east, a continuation of the same seam is reported 

 on the Mersereau Brook, near its forks with the Oromocto, and again 

 about three miles up in a small branch from the south. It next 

 reappears in Clones, on the head waters of the Nerepis, and has here 

 been proved by the diamond drill, with a thiekness of about 10 inches, 

 though reported in one place at 30 inches. East of the St. John Eiver 

 the only outcrop known is near the mouth of Long's Creek, on Star- 

 Is ej^'s place, where it has a thickness of 10 to 12 inches, but very impure. 

 The Carboniferous beds sweep around the eastern extremity of the pre- 

 Cambrian ridge that extends along the county line of Queens and Kings 

 and fill in a part of the basin or valley of the Kennebecasis ; and at one 

 place at least, Lunsinane, between Penobsquis and Anagance, on the 

 Intercolonial, they contain a seam of impure coal of the usual thick- 

 ness, 18 to 20 inches, and resembling in character many of the outcrops 

 in Queens county. It is probable that all these outcrops belong to the 

 same horizon, and on this supposition this seam, thin as it is, from its 

 spreading over so great an area, would contain an enormous quantity of 

 coal. Assuming the average thickness of the surface seam around the 

 head of Grand Lake at 20 inches, and allowing the available yield of 

 coal for a seam one foot thick to be 1000 tons per acre, we have from 

 the coal basin of Newcastle and Coal Creek, and Salmon Eiver, which 

 may be stated to contain about 100 square miles, a total available yield 

 of coal, due allowance being made for waste, of over 100,000,000 tons for 

 this limited area alone. As this seam is worked, and it is to be supposed 

 profitably, by the present owners of the different mines, at a number 

 of points over the area, it may fairly be presumed that, with economical 

 management and a proper system of working, a large portion of this 

 enormous quantity might be profitably extracted. If we consider also 



