ii
t

4
7
i
E
|
{|
i]
#
1
:
4
il
1
si

|
|

24 B GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA

and conglomerate. Certain bands contain fossil shells in abundance, and plant
stems occur in the shales. The rocks are seen in two ledges situated about a
fourth of a mile apart and located on the beach at about half tide. At the more
westerly the dip is N. 75° E. < 15°, but in the more easterly this dip
swings round to N. 40° W. < 25°. The sandstone here carries a bed of
lignite of fairly good quality at the surface, though as the outcrop is seen
only at low water but little can be said as to its actual value, and no ana-
lysis has been made. ‘The thickness of the lignite varies at different points,
but at one place is at least four feet. The bed dips northward and if the
formation is regular should not reappear inland, but from the statement
of the Rey. Charles Harrison of Masset, that lignite occurs in the flat
country south of the beach at this place, it is possible that other deposits
exist or that the bed seen on the beach is repeated by a fault, of which no-
thing definite can now be asserted owing to the absence of rock exposures.

The matter could be tested at small expense by hand boring as the place
is easy of access from Mr. Harrison’s farm, and the whole country in this
direction is low.

The four-foot bed continues along the shore for several hundred yards
with a course of N. 65° E., the average dip of this portion being N. 25° W.
< 30°. At the most easterly point of the outcrop the dip changes, through
gradual curving of the strata, to N. 50° W. < 15°-20°.

Under the mass of Tow hill, which stands at the west side of the mouth
of Hiellaon river, there is at low water a good outcrop of shales, the posi-
tion below the mass of igneous rock which forms the hill being well seen.
These shales are brown and grey and are directly capped by the bedded
trap, the surface of the shales appearing as if denuded before the trap
overflow. They are somewhat altered along the contact, the reddish tint
being changed to grey with a hardening of the contact layers, Ten feet
west of the direct capping of the trap the shales become almost black and
contain a thin band of greyish sandstone and a conglomerate made up of
pebbles of voleanic rock in a gritty paste, interbedded with which there is
a thin sheet of black diabase.

Inland, these rocks have not been recognized, except by Dr. Dawson at a
point on the Mamin river near the extreme head of the inlet and a short
distance west of the Yakoun river. Here, a thin deposit of fine-grained
argillaceous shale occurs, resting on basaltic rocks and holding thin layers
of lignite of no economic importance. The shale has a tufaceous charac-
ter and holds obscure impressions of plants, among which a
coniferous twig was recognized. It was impossible for the writer
to visit this place, but from their character, as described by Dr.
Dawson, these rocks somewhat resemble the lowest beds seen on