The total value of mineral production in 1891 was $4,705,673; in 1892, $5,374,139; in 1893, $6,120,753; in 1894, $6,086,758; in 1895, $5.170,138, and in 1896, $5,235,003. In 1897 statistics of building materials were not collected, and for that year comparison of total products cannot be made. Last year's product exceeds in value any previous year, it being more than in 1891 by $2,508,668, more than in 1896 by $1,959,338, and more than the average of the six years 1891-6 by $1,765,597. The value of metallic products for each of the eight years 1891 8 and the amount of wages paid for labor are shown in the next table:

The value of last year's product exceeds the average value of the seven preceding years by $970,439 or 135 per cent., and the amount of wages paid for labor last year exceeds the average of the seven years by $351,821 or 95 per cent. The wages paid for labor during the eight years is very nearly 50 per cent. of the total value of product.

Three years ago the iron industry of the Province awoke from a long sleep. Early in 1896 the new blast furnace at Hamilton was blown in, and from that time until the end of 1898 it smelted 165,653 tons of ore and 19,847 tons of mill cinder, and produced 100,566 tons of pig iron. The quantity of limestone used for flux during that period was 31,929 tons and of coke for fuel 108,565 tons. Employment was given to an average of 128 workmen, whose aggregate earnings were $148,476, and the total value of pig iron at the furnace was $1,172,697. This Company has been strengthened with the object of establishing steel works in connection with its blast furnace. On January 25 of the present year a new charcoal furnace erected at Deseronto was blown in, and for the first half of the year the two furnaces have produced 30,090 tons of pig iron valued at $409,158, having smelted 14,452 tons Ontario ores, 35,510 tons foreign ores and 5,135 tons mil cinder. The quantity of iron ore mined in the Province during the first half of the present year has been 10,788 tons, valued at its selling price at the mines at $20,604. The Canada Furnace Company, which has been carrying on operations for a number of years at Radnor, Quebec, will soon begin the erection of a charcoal furnace at Midland, in Simcoe county, which will have a capacity of 60 tons per day. The managers of the Company hope to complete it before the close of the year.

Gold mining began in an uncertain way in 1892, and although a number of mines and mills have been worked irregularly since then there are at present only seven which are steady producers of bullion, and three which was years ago there was only one

worked the whole year. During the three years 1892-3-4 the production ranged from $32,776 to $36,900. In 1895 it rose to $50,781, in 1896 to $121,848, in 1897 to $190,244 and in 1898 to $275,078. In the first half of the present year the value of bullion produced is $224,995, and there is a good prospect of the year's production going over $500,000. Last year the number of employés at the producing mines and mills was 580, and the amount of wages paid for labor was $290,919; but of course a large proportion of the cost of labor was for development work. At non-producing mines the number of employés was much greater.

The quantity of nickel and copper ore smelted last year was greater than the average of former years by 56 per cent., and the total estimated quantity of refined metal in the the matte product was 4,567,500 lb. nickel and 8,373 500 lb. copper, worth at the works $782,300. The industry gave employment to an average of 637 men and the amount of wages paid for labor was $315,500. During the first half of the current year the quantity of ore smelted was 88,123 tons yielding 10,741 tons of matte which is estimated to contain 3,224,000 lb. nickel and 3,334,000 lb. copper, and the total value computed at the selling price of matte at the works is $392,093. the most extensive of the works in operation, those of the Canadian Copper Company, between 700 and 800 men are employed this year and five furnaces are in blast.

At

After the Toronto meeting of the British Association excursions were arranged so that British and foreign members of the Association might see more or less of the Dominion and become acquainted with its resources. The excursion of the mineralogists and geologists stopped for a day at Sudbury to permit of a visit to the nickel mines and smelting works of the region, the eminent metallurgist, Professor Roberts-Austen, now Sir William Roberts-Austen, accompanying the party to that point. That he was impressed with the extent and importance of our nickel deposits has been proved by his account of them in lec

The

tures and papers since his return to England. His paper on the " Extraction of Nickel by the Mond Process" is opportune just now, when the question of refining our nickel in our own Province is under discussion. Mond process has been known to chemists since 1895, and the interesting experiment of forming a volatile compound with nickel and carbon monoxide from which metallic nickel could be deposited has been repeated in many laboratories; but to adapt the process for use on a commercial scale so as to compete with other methods of refining the metal demanded a large expenditure of time and money. It is very encouraging to see that so distinguished an authority on metallurgical methods as Sir William Roberts-Austen looks on the process as far enough advanced to justify a careful study and description, with the conclusion that it will compete favorably with any now in use. If the cost of the refined nickel can be materially reduced its valuable qualities as a metal and also in its alloy with steel should bring it into great demand, and give a corresponding impetus to one of our most important mining regions. The paper is reproduced in this Report with the kind permission of the author, and it possesses special interest to us in view of the likelihood of Mr. Mond becoming an extensive owner and operator of nickel and copper properties in the Sudbury region.

A number of amendments made to the Mines Act during the last session of the Legislature will, it is hoped, help in a substantial way to advance the mining industries of the Province. The terms of the Iron Mining Fund have been modified to encourage the use of charcoal or peat fuel, by providing for payment of fifty cents per ton on the product of ores not mined in Ontario when such fuel is used solely in smelting ores; but subject to the condition that in the first period of two years not less than twenty per cent. of Ontario ores is reduced at the furnaces claiming aid, and after two years not less than forty per cent., after four years not less than sixty per cent., after six years not less than eighty per cent., and after eight years not less than a hundred per cent.

Payment on the proportional product of Ontario ores, however, is to be on the basis of one dollar per ton of pig metal. A second amendment provides for staking out mining locations in unsurveyed territory which is shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of Crown Lands to have no value for pine timber. An explorer who has taken out a license, for which the fee is $10, may stake out in any calendar year two locations of forty acres each, and may hold them, without survey or payment of price or rental, for a period of two years, subject to an expenditure of $3 per acre in the first year and of $7 per acre in the second year for actual mining work. Then, if the development is satisfactory, he may proceed in the usual way to apply for and acquire a location. The advantage of this provision of the Ac: is, that the prospector is not required to expend money for survey or purchase until he has had an opportunity of proving the mineral worth of the land. A third amendment fixes a new tariff of prices of lands, which is made uniform for all parts of the Province, dependent only upon the lands being in surveyed or unsurveyed territory and their distance from railway communication. In the case of leased lands, the term is limited absolutely to ten years, and if the yearly rental has been paid and if all the covenants and conditions of the lease have been fulfilled, the lessee will be entitled to a patent for his location; or he may obtain a patent at any time upon pay

ment of rent and performance of the covenants and conditions for the full period of the term. In effect, this amendment affords an easy method of purchase by annual payments at a rate which in the aggregate is but little more than the cash price Some changes have also been made in the provisions of the Act which relate to claims in Mining Divisions, the most important of which are that instead of development work being reckoned at a specified number of days each year it is required to consist of an expenditure of $150 per year, computed at the rate of $2 per man per day, and that when surveys are being made for a patent or lease the boundary lines are to follow the courses of the lines of a claim as originally staked out and recorded, or as they may have subsequently been altered, changed or corrected by the Inspector of the Mining Division Before a patent or lease can be acquired for a claim, however, the yearly working conditions must be completed for four years on a claim of twenty chains square and for three years on a claim of fifteen chains square or less (or the equivalent of these conditions in a less period of time), and the full performance of the necessary working conditions when certified by the Inspector entitles the holder of the claim to exemption from any further working conditions, renewal fee or miner's license to work the claim with or without a patent or lease for the land.