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quarry, and subsequently, before its examination; and secondly, because the more volatile portions had been dissipated in the process of extraction just described.

In assuming 100.00 parts of the rock to hold 4.25 parts by volume of petroleum, we are thus below the truth in the following calculations. A layer of this oleiferous dolomite one mile (5280 feet) square, and one foot in thickness will contain 1,184,832 cubic feet of petroleum, equal to 8,850,069 gallons of 231 cubic inches, and to 221-247 barrels of forty gallons each. Taking the minimum thickness of thirty-five feet, assigned by Mr. Worthen to the oil-bearing rock at Chicago, we shall have in each square mile of it 7,743,745 barrels, or in round numbers seven and three quarter millions of barrels of petroleum. The total produce of the great Pennsylvania oil-region for the ten years from 1860 to 1870 is estimated at twenty-eight millions of barrels of petroleum, or less than would be contained in four square miles of the oil-bearing limestone band of Chicago.

It is not here the place to insist upon the geological conditions which favour the liberation of a portion of the oil from such rocks, and its accumulation in fissures along certain anticlinal lines in the broken and uplifted strata. These points in the geological history of petroleum were shown by me in my first publications already referred to, March and July, 1861, and independently, about the same time, by Prof. E. B. Andrews in this Journal for July, 1861.*

The proportion of petroleum in the rock of Chicago may be exceptionally large, but the oleiferous character of great thickness of rock in other regions is well established, and it will be seen from the above calculations that a very small proportion of the oil thus distributed would, when accumulated along lines of uplift in the strata, be more than adequate to the supply of all the petroleum wells known in the regions where these oil-bearing rocks are found. With such sources existing ready formed in the earth's crust, it seems to me, to say the least, unphilosophical to seach elsewhere for the origin of petroleum, and to imagine it to be derived by some unexplained process from rocks which are destitute of the substance.

* Sill. Jour. II, xxxii, 85. See also papers on the subject by him and by Prof. Evans, Ibid. II, xl. 33, 334; and one by the author, II, xxxv, 170; also Report Geol. Survey of Canada, 1866, pp. 256–257.

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA.

ALFRED R. C. SELWYN, DIRECTOR.

The Report of Progress from 1866 to 1869 is a bulky volume of 475 pages, with five maps, containing the results of a large amount of work ranging over the whole vast territory from Lake Superior to Nova Scotia inclusive. It embraces the following documents:

1. Letter of Mr. Selwyn introducing the Report.

2. Report of Sir W. E. Logan on part of the Coal-field of Pictou, Nova Scotia.

3. Report of Mr. Edward Hartley on part of the same Coalfield.

4. Report of Mr. R. Bell on the Manitoulin Islands.

5. Report of Mr. James Richardson on the South Shore below Quebec.

6. Report of Mr. Henry G. Vennor on Hastings County, Ontario.

7. Report of Mr. Charles Robb on part of New Brunswick. 8. Report of Dr. T. Sterry Hunt on the Goderich Salt Region, and on Iron and Iron Ores.

9. Report of Mr. James Richardson on the North Shore of the Lower St. Lawrence.

10. Report of Mr. Robert Bell on Lakes Superior and Nipi

gon.

11. Reports of Mr. Edward Hartley on the Coals of Nova Scotia.

12. An Appendix, containing lists of Plants by Dr. John Bell, and a Note on the Nipigon Region by Sir W. E. Logan. Out of such a mass of matter it would be almost in vain to attempt to select specimens of each of the separate treaties of which the Report consists. A melancholy interest attaches to that part of it which bears the name of Mr. Edward Hartley, a young man of great ability and information, and high promise, and whose work in this Report would alone be sufficient to give him a permanent place among our scientific men, but who was cut off by death in the midst of his practical and useful labours. From his elaborate survey of part of the great Pictou coal-field, we may extract the part having reference to areas, in which Canadian capitalists are largely interested:

"The Acadia Coal Company own three mining rights, which are as follows:

The Fraser area, south of the General Mining Association's area; the Carmichael area, southwest of the General Mining Association's area; and No. 3 area, lying to the south of the Fraser area.

FRASER AREA.

Workings have been carried on for many years upon the Fraser area; first by the General Mining Association, and more lately by Mr. J. D. B. Fraser, of Pictou, from whose possession it passed by lease to the present company.

Attempts have been made by former owners to work the Deep Seam on the western portion of the area at the McKenzie pit, and a slope has also been driven some distance on the crop of the Third coal seam, both of which workings are now abandoned, and therefore require no special description. The present workings are confined to the McGregor seam and two openings on the Oilcoal.

McGregor Colliery.

In the McGregor colliery the openings consist of No. 1, an adit, No. 2, a slope, and No. 3, a pair of slopes.

Adit No. 1 was opened by the General Mining Association on the left bank of Coal Brook, near the crossing of the Middle River road, and driven N. W. a distance of about 800 yards. The seam was irregularly worked by the General Mining Association and Mr. Fraser, but is, I believe, for the present abandoned.

Slope No. 2 is a single slope to the lower level of No. 3 slopes, and was formerly the working slope, but is now used only as a travelling way. It stands on the left bank of Coal Brook near the mouth of No. 1. Slopes No. 3 are the principal working. Their situation is 170 yards S. E. of No. 2, on the right bank of the brook. Their total depth is 510 feet. Main levels extend 260 yards N. W. and but 20 yards in the contrary direction. The dimensions of the slope are: Drawing slope (a double railway track) 9 feet post, 9 feet cap and 14 feet ground sill. The tracks are all of T iron 25 lbs. to the yard. The second slope, a travelling way for horses and men, is separated from the draw

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.

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Near the western face, the bord and pillar system with incline

gate roads has been commenced.

back-balance system is used.

Elsewhere in the working the

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 will 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:

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