Excerpt from The Coal Fields and Coal Trade of the Island of Cape Breton The existence of valuable deposits of Coal in the Island of Cape Breton has been long known, but I am not aware that any account of them has hitherto been published, except in certain scientific works, which are read only by persons interested in the subjects they treat of. The want of a reliable description of the Coal Fields, the capabilities of the mines now in operation, and a history of the rise and progress of the Coal Trade, in a popular form, must often have been experienced by those who have invested their money in the Cape Breton mines, especially by the shareholders of the General Mining Association, few of whom can possibly possess more than an imperfect know ledge of the great extent and value of their mining property. Having had the advantage of consulting the works above referred to, and having also been employed many years in the management of the largest collieries in the Island, I hope the information derived from those sources and my own personal knowledge, submitted in the following pages, will be received with confidence by all who are interested in the Cape Breton mines. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.