As

S instructed by Mr. Archibald Blue, Director of the Bureau of Mines, the Parry Sound Mining region was visited and the more important mines and prospects examined during the latter half of August, and the results of the investigation are given in a preliminary way in the following report. The McGown Mine.

First Discov ery of Minerals in the Region.

The region first attracted attention to its mineral deposits in 1894, when the McGown Imine about two miles east of the limits of Parry Sound was found to contain free gold. In October of that year the present writer was sent to examine the property, and a description of it may be found in the next report of the Bureau of Mines. At that time very little work had been done upon the property, practically only some stripping and the sinking of a pit a few feet deep by the shore of a pond. This disclosed about 100 feet of an irregular bedded vein about three feet wide containing quartz mixed with dark schistose rock and carrying some free gold and copper ores, especially bornite and chalcocite. As the mine was opened for gold, and the amount obtained per ton was small, the owners grew discouraged and little further work was done until a year ago, when the finding of large masses of bornite and chalcocite on the shores of McGown lake a few hundred feet from the original opening once more attracted atten tion to the mine, this time as a copper

1 Bur. Mines An. Rep. 1891, pp. 98-100.

per Mining

deposit. The property passed from the hands of the McGown Gold Mining Company, The Parry consisting of local men, to those Sound Cop- of the Parry Sound Copper Mining Company. Company, formed of capitalists from St. Paul and Minneapolis, the transfer having been arranged by Mr. Robert Forbes, who was appointed manager of the new company. Since then the work of development has been carried on with energy, and under the stimulus of purchases of mining lands by the company prospecting for copper has been carried on extensively, proving that ores of the metal occur at many points in the district.

The writer desires to express his appreciation of the great courtesy shown by the officers of the company, Mr. Forbes, general. manager, Mr. Koren, superintendent of mines, and especially by Dr. Elftman, superintendent of reduction works, during his examination of the properties owned by the company. Without their aid and permission to travel on their steamer the work could not have been done as satisfactorily.

straightened and continued, so that it is now 100 feet long with a vertical depth of 30 feet at the bottom; and a new vertical shaft has been sunk to a depth of 65 feet on the hill between the two lakes. It is 9 by 11 feet in dimensions, has a two-cage department and is excellently timbered. The third opening is a quarry or pit about 50 by 25 feet on the surface and 21 feet deep, now partly filled with water coming from McGown lake a few feet away. bedded vein at the old shaft, but the later opening beside the lake discloses only a few quartz seams, the rich ore which was produced from it having formed bunches and impregnations in the diorite schist. The ore pile shows much bornite, chalcocite and chalcopyrite with some iron pyrites, but very little in the way of gangue minerals except the country rock itself. Six carloads of this ore, 143 tons in all, were shipped to the Orford Copper Company in June and gave returns of 15.68 per cent. of copper, worth at current rates for the metal $7,571.13, and leaving a balance above expenses of shipping and smelting of $5,398.80. Another shipment of about 24 tons of ore made to the same firm in July appears to have contained about the same percentage of copper, with a little less than an ounce of silver and $5 in gold to the ton.

There was a more or less distinct

There are now on the stock pile, as estimated by the company, about 200 tons of selected ore which is expected to run from 25 to 30 per cent. of copper, and 3,000 tons of lower grade ore supposed to contain from 8 to 10 per cent. of copper. All of this ore apparently came from the open pit on the lake shore; and if so the amount seems to have been somewhat over-estimated, since the contents of the pit can hardly have been sufficient for that weight of rock.

The rock coming from the vertical shaft, which is intended to tap the ore bodies far enough below the bottom of the lake to avoid trouble from water, contains some bornite and other copper ores, and from the results of Dr. Elftman's assays is expected to run about 3.1 per cent. of copper; while the rock from the inclined shaft yields from 2 to 6

per cent. of copper and from .19 to .25 oz. of gold per ton.

Extent of

The belt of rock carrying more or less copper is from 250 to 400 feet wide, and its length from the old workings to the Cuprifer- the end of the open pit 800 feet. ous deposit. Traces of copper have been found also 200 feet farther west than the inclined shaft. What proportion of this great mass of rock will contain enough copper to pay for mining cannot be said until the mine has been further developed. The rich ore is very irregularly disseminated through the rock, not as pockets, but rather as in a fahlband, since there are no large bodies of solid ore, and the boundaries of the ore body are very hard to define. Whether other bonanzas of rich ore like that from the open pit will be found can be determined only by mining.

At the time of my visit the foundations of a ten stamp mill were just completed and most of the machinery for it was on the ground. The amount of gold hitherto found in the ore seems too small however to justify putting up a stamp mill at this stage in the development of the property.

The Wilcox Mine.

Next in importance to the McGown mine is the Wilcox property, owned by the same company, and situated in Cowper township, at the head of a long bay

A property in Cowper

Township.

12 miles from Parry Sound as reached by steamer. On August 25 a shaft intended to be 9 by 11 feet was down 22 feet; a few pits had been sunk at other points along the line of strike, and some stripping had been done. The country rock is gray garnetiferous gneiss, with a dip of about 70° to the north; and the ore body is a fahlband of this rock impregnated with copper and iron pyrites, with small amounts of pyrrhotite, bornite, molybdenite and blende. The fahlband, or copper bearing belt, is 30 to 50 feet wide at the shaft and may be traced for about 1,000 feet. Beyond this, half a mile to the northeast, a pit has been sunk on a rusty belt of rock containing pyrites, and another small shaft has been sunk 14 miles

beyond, with several pits between, all showing more or less copper pyrites. It is supposed that the fahlband is more or less continuous for this distance, and that it even reaches the Lafex mine, seven miles from the main shaft of the Wilcox. A large amount of work will have to be done however to demonstrate the continuity of the deposits. In any case there is certainly a large body of copper-bearing rock, and as the ore is simply a band of the gneiss of the country it may be expected to follow the dip to great depths.

Percentage

in the Rock.

The rock is low grade, as might be expected in a deposit of such magnitude; and may have to be carefully selected of Copper so as to provide ore rich enough to treat. There are no sharply defined boundaries to the ore body, which seems to fade off into the adjoining rock; and similar but smaller bands of rusty gneiss carrying some copper run parallel to it. Dr. Elftman's assays show an average copper contents of four per cent. in the shaft, with traces of nickel and of gold.

According to Major Leckie, the Orford Copper Company intends putting up a smelting plant somewhere on Georgian bay, perhaps at Parry Sound; and it is stated that they will purchase copper ore reaching four per cent. or over at current rates less cost of transportation, and that this price will leave a good margin of profit after all expenses are paid. On this basis the property should prove a satisfactory one if the average throughout corresponds to the results of assays from the shaft.

Other Properties near Parry Sound.

The only other property which has been much developed is the Lafex, about two miles south of Parry Sound, where a shaft property is down 65 feet and drifting is

The Lafex

near Parry Soun.

begun. The rock is rusty diorite schist, with a few good seams of chalcopyrite

and some pyrrhotite, but iron pyrites is more common than either of the other sulphides. The extent of this copper deposit cannot yet be said to have been proved The ore body seems much narrower than that of the Wilcox, and differs considerably from the latter

pects, with showings of Ore.

In most cases very little work had been done upon the deposits, and only trifling amounts of ore, bornite or chalcopyrite, were to be seen, while in some cases the only sulphide observed was iron pyrites. Hardly any of the deposits took the form of veins, almost all being larger or smaller bunches of ore with perhaps a little quartz in gray gneissoid rock. In a few cases the cre was contained in pegmatite dikes, and in others the country rock was coarse hornblende schist or diorite. While a few of these deposits look promising, none of them have been sufficiently developed to make their prospects assured, and it will be unnecessary in a preliminary report to take them up in detail. The point of most importance in this connection is the evidence afforded that the McGown and other more developed properties are not isolated deposits, but that copper ores are to be found widely distributed in the district, though perhaps not often in workable amounts.

showing copper and iron pyrites being visited on the way. In the township of McConkey Ores carrying near the shores of Caribou lake, Copper, Iron there are a number of locations

Pyrites and

Platinum.

containing outcrops of a rusty diabase with more or less iron and copper pyrites and pyrrhotite. One deposit on lot 15, con. 4, contains a considerable amount of the mixed sulphides, and furnished a sample which gave an assay a little over one per cent. copper, 1 per cent. nickel and $14 worth of platinum per ton. The assay was made on selected, not average, material; and the ore would appear to be more important for its platinum than for the other metals.

The most interesting deposit in the region is on the shore of lake Messagamasheen in Hardy township; where a shaft has been sunk 30 feet by the Parry Sound Copper Mining Company. It is now partly filled with water, but the ore dump shows considerable quantities of sulphides, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and pyrite, and has a striking likeness to the Sudbury copper nickel ores. There are some thick seams of the ore, but much of the rock on the dump is not highly charged with sulphides. The country rock is coarse diabase, which seems to have penetrated the Laurentian, since pink gneiss shows on the rest of the lake shore.

gerated ideas of the value of their properties; a not unnatural state of affairs when, if current reports are correct, relatively large prices have been paid for farms on which little ore has been found and hardly any development work done. The largest purchaser has been the Parry Sound Copper Mining Company, which is said to own or to have options on 65,0 acres of land; part of this great area being handed over however to subsidiary companies for development. It is evident that the jority of these farms scattered over the district can never have been carefully explored, and have been taken under option in a speculative way. It is much to be desired that the two main properties should be far enough developed to prove their extent and value. They seem promising now, and it may be hoped will fulfil the expectations fo med of them. If this is the case many of the other properties in the district on which traces or small pockets of ore have been found wil be worthy of attention.

It is often stated that the rocks of the Parry Sound region are Laurentian, and hence not likely to contain valuGeology of 1 the Country. able ore deposits. In reality its geology has never been worked out in detail, and it is probable, if not certain, that much of the region corresponds to the Grenville series or Upper Laurentian of Eastern Ontario and Quebec, or to the Keewatin (Huronian ?) rocks of western Ontario. As both these rock series are well known to be rich in metals there is no reason to suppose that the so-called Lurentian of Parry Sound is necessarily barren; and the opinion of many inhabitants of the district tha geologists have coudemned it is not borne out by the facts.