ing slope by a 14 feet barrier of coal; its height is the same as that of the drawing slope, with 6 feet cap and 8 feet ground sill. A temporary engine is of 14 nominal English horse-power, with a horizontal single cylinder, driving the hoisting drum by shafting with clutch gearing; and also pumping through the Fleming pump pit by a wire rope running over sheave pullies to the pump bob. In working the McGregor seam the upper coal (included in the upper six feet of the seam) is the only portion taken out, the lower bench being unsaleable. The seam is found to rapidly improve going west, as will be seen from the following sections: McGregor seam, upper coal.

Near the western face, the bord and pillar system with incline gate roads has been commenced. Elsewhere in the working the back-balance system is used.

Oil-coal Workings.

Two slopes have been sunk upon the oil-coal seam, namely the Fraser mine on Coal Brook, near No. 3 slopes, and the Stellar mine on McCulloch's Brook. The principal value of this seam consists in the large quantity of oil contained in the bench mentioned as oil-coal in the general section, which in former years was extensively worked, the oil-coal or stellarite, as it has been named by Professor Henry How, who first described it, selling for a high price for gas-making and distillation. The present low price of coal-oil from the extensive working of petroleum in this country and the United States, combined with the high tariff on imported coal imposed by the United States, have combined to render the working of this seam unprofitable, and both workings are for the present abandoned.

As the quality of this peculiar coal will receive especial attention in the Appendix to this report, I wili merely state in conclusion that from the large content of oil this seam must at some time prove of considerable value. From pits sunk by the Acadia Coal Company it would appear that the size and quality of the

Oil-coal bench improves towards the east, the greatest thickness (1 foot 10 inches) being procured in a pit sunk at the corner of Grove street and Pennsylvania avenue in Acadia village, which coal produced 120 gallons of crude oil to the ton; the average obtained from the Fraser mine being about from 60 to 65 gallons per ton.

CARMICHAEL AREA.

For many years no workable coal was known to exist to the west of the McCulloch-brook fault, on which the Albion coal seams are lost; and though many attempts were made to ascertain the position of these seams no coal was found until the 18th April, 1865, when Mr. Truman French, in prospecting for the Nova Scotia Coal Company, discovered the fine seam of coal now known as the Acadia seam, and presumed to be equivalent to the Main seam of the Albion mines. The first opening of this seam was on the area under consideration, near its western boundary, from which point it was traced north and south, as described in treating the general distribution of the coal seams.

Acadia Colliery.

The Acadia colliery, locally known as the Acadia west slope, is situated near the south-western corner of the Carmichael area, and within the village of Westville. Two slopes, corresponding in dimensions to the No. 3 McGregor slopes, have been sunk on the Acadia seam to a depth of about 140 yards from the crop. The section of this seam and the strata immediately overlying, as measured in the air shaft of this colliery, is as follows:

Above the section given, no details for a column of strata can be procured, no record having been preserved of the numerous pits in the overlying measures. The remains from these pits, however, will enable me to state that at this colliery the seam is overlaid with a great mass of barren measures, consisting of black and brown carbonaceous and argillaceous shales, with occasional bands of dark arenaceous shale, and at least two thin bands of thinly laminated sandstones of a general white colour, with black partings, as in the sandstones described in the Foster pit section. Under the seam there is a yellowish-drab Stigmaria underclay of at least four feet in thickness. The measures are then concealed for forty-two feet, at which point a heavy bedded sandstone appears, of a light brownish-drab colour, containing, where exposed in a quarry near the Acadia slope, large Stigmaria roots well preserved, as well as occasional stems of Lepidodendron.

At this colliery the seam has been proved to be without fault, by the main level, which now extends about 500 yards south and 400 yards north, the exact direction across the area being N. 41° W., (or N. 18° W. magnetic) corresponding to the dip of the seam, N. 49° E. (or N. 72° E. magnetic), which varies only in inclination, being 19° at the surface and about 23° at the lowest level. The under-ground workings are on the counter-balance system, and are remarkably regular and well laid out. Counterbalances are driven 15 feet wide and 100 yards apart, throughout the workings. An air course 8 feet wide is also driven up at 10 yards to the left of each counterbalance. Working bords are 15 feet in width, with 15 feet of pillar, 75 feet of barrier being left above the main level.

Machinery.

They

The platforms at the head of the slope are roofed in. extend from the mouth of the slope to the banks, and also to the shutes over the railway track. At this mine the fine slack is not sold, being carefully screened out, the rest of the coal being divided into two sizes, round and chesnut. The drawing engines were built in New York, and are fair specimens of the best type of American engines, being compact and easily handled, with none of the slightness of design usually observable in American machinery. They are horizontal high-pressure connected engines, 16 by 48 inch cylinders, working by a 24-inch pinion into a 16feet spur-wheel on a 14-feet drum. The engine house is of brick

and cut stone, with a corrugated iron roof. Pumping is effected by a small donkey engine, which is also arranged to hoist bank coal to the screening platform, the quantity of water in this mine being so insignificant that a two-inch column-pipe is sufficient to

deliver it.

Second Seam.

The discovery of the Acadia seam was followed by the discovery of a second seam, underlying at about 160 feet, by Capt. Blacker of the Acadia colliery. At the pit sunk by him the following thickness was found:

The bench known as good coal seems, from the specimens I have seen, to be of a shaly character, and none that has come before me would be saleable. On the Carmichael area this is opened by only one trial-pit, now filled up.

AREA NO. 3.

Upon the No. 3 Acadia area no coal has been found, but from the presence, as proved by trial-pits, of the black shales overlying the Main seam, it is probable that the representatives of this and underlying seams occur beneath a portion of this area to the west of the McCulloch-brook fault. Of the size or character of the coal no information can be obtained without extensive prospecting. The only opening which is near this area is the Culton adit, and from the strike of the Culton seam at that point, it may be presumed that it will continue on to No. 3 area.

Railway.

The Acadia Coal Company have built a fine single-track railway of about three and a-half miles in length, the main line extending from the west slope to the track of the government railway at a point near Coal Mines station, and passing through the Acadia village near the McGregor colliery, with which it is connected by sidings. From the junction at the railway station the coal is conveyed over the government railway to the Acadia loading ground at Fisher's Grant, on the east side of Pictou harbour, near the entrance. The shipping wharf extends into the

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harbour 850 feet to 26 feet of water at low tide. It is a wellbuilt structure, 20 feet in height, with shutes at both sides and end, empty trains being made up on a centre track.

Buildings.

Thirty double houses have been provided for miners and labourers at the Acadia village, which is very tastefully laid out in regular streets and avenues, the houses being very substantially built, and of a much better class than it is usual to provide for like purposes.

The rest of the plant at both slopes, including the blacksmith and machine shops, office building and overmen's houses, is very complete.

INTERCOLONIAL COAL MINING COMPANY OF MONTREAL.

Two mining areas are owned by this company, the Bear Creek area to the south of the Carmichael area of the Acadia Coal Company, and the Sutherland area, which lies to the north of the area of the General Mining Association.

BEAR CREEK AREA.

The Acadia seam was opened upon this area soon after its discovery in 1865, at a point known as Campbell's pit, near the north line of the area, and from this pit, as worked by the then owners of the area, and subsequently by the agents of this com pany, a considerable amount of coal was taken for consumption in the immediate neighbourhood. After a careful survey by Mr. William Barnes of Halifax, a competent mining engineer (which survey will again be alluded to) the company decided upon the location of the present colliery.

Drummond Colliery.

The erection of buildings and machinery at this colliery and the first work at the present slopes was commenced about November, 1867, since which time works of considerable importance have been erected, a railway has been built, and a large amount of coal (about 70,000 tons) has been shipped.

The section of the Acadia seam at this point is as follows, the measurement being taken in the air shaft of the colliery :