About forty-seven feet south from this vein, there is another about twelve inches wide, of which the vein stone is calcspar, with a little quartz, associated with fragments of wall rock. Among these substances are disseminated masses of vitreous copper, accompanied with native silver. The underlie of the vein is N. <60°. These two veins would meet downwards about twenty-five fathoms from the surface, and with a view of testing them, the Montreal Mining Co., to whom the location belongs, in 1846 commenced the sinking of a shaft, about twenty-four feet north of the native-copper vein. It was carried down ten fathoms; a drift from it southward, then intersected the vein at a distance of about twenty feet, thus proving its continuance for a depth of ten fathoms; but the Mining Company, having at that time determined to concentrate all their energy upon the working of the Bruce mine, the experiment was carried no farther. These veins, variously modified, can be traced to the westward for nine miles, along the whole length of St. Ignace Island, carrying native copper and native silver, with the vitreous sulphuret of copper, in greater or less quantity the whole way; and also to the eastward across the northern part of Simpson's Island.—Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

2. Michipicoten Island, Lake Superior

a. Nodules of native copper, from a bed.

b. Gangue, or rock of the bed.

c. Plan of the Quebec mine, by Mr. D. S. Cutting.

Geological Survey.

On the north side of Michipicoten Island, there is a considerable mass of greenstone, several bands of which are of an amygdaloidal character, and some of them are associated with beds of sandstone. Towards the west end of the island, these rocks present a low surface for about 400 or 500 feet, and then rise into a cliff of 200 or 300 feet. In the cliff, the greenstone is marked by crystals of analcime and quartz, occurring in druses. The whole mass lies conformably with the strata, dipping south-eastward. Native copper, associated with a little silver, is disseminated in several parts of the mass, and these more particularly characterise an amygdaloidal bed, two feet thick; which is underlaid by a band of sandstone and has been mined to a small extent by the Quebec Mining Company. In this bed, the copper is distributed in irregular nodular masses of various sizes, from grains no larger than snipe shot, to fantastic forms of five and six inches in diameter; the quantity of metal in the bed being, according to Mr. J. L. Willson, equal to about five per cent. Small nodules of calcspar occur with those of copper. About seven miles to the north-eastward, the bed is cut by a vein, in which copper and silver appear to be associated with ores of nickel, in the forms of a silicate of nickel, containing twenty-five per cent. of the metal, and of a mix. ture of the arseniurets of nickel and copper, containing between seventeen and thirty-seven per cent. of nickel. These ores were detected by Mr. Sterry Hunt in the refuse thrown aside in a crop trial made on the bed, by Mr. Bonner in 1854; and it is said that a considerable quantity of the silicate of nickel was thrown into the lake, after being stamped and washed, for the purpose of extracting from it the native silver.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

3. Mamainse, Lake Superior...........

Montreal Mining Co., Montreal.

a. 450 lbs. of native copper in a single sheet, from a vein.

The promontory of Mamainse consists of various layers of coarse conglomerate, and of greenstone, much of which is of an amygdaloidal character. According to the description of Dr. Dawson, one of the bands of greenstone is intersected by a narrow fissure, running nearly in the strike of the beds, or north and south. Its greatest width is about six inches, and in some places, this is found to be nearly filled with native copper, of which the mass now exhibited is a specimen. An excavation on the vein, twenty-seven feet B

deep, without galleries, yielded about three tons of the metal. Other veins intersect the same rock, and one of these, six inches in width, holds good bunches of the variegated sulphuret. In ancient shallow holes, sunk at intervals along the course of some of the veins of metallic copper, in this part, there are occasionally found the remains of Indian hammers, consisting of small boulders, usually of trap, having shallow grooves worked around them, to receive the withes or thongs attaching the handles; giving evidence of rude aboriginal attempts at mining, many centuries since.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

Smelted Copper.

1. Bruce Mines, Lake Huron....

a. Two ingots of copper.

R. H. Fletcher.

This copper is smelted at the Bruce mines, from the ore of the neighborhood, and from the native copper procured from the two feet bed at Michipicoten Island.

NICKEL.

Sulphuret of Nickel.

1. Orford, lot 6, range 12.....

a. Specimens of the sulphuret of nickel, millerite.

Associated with a band of serpentine, which runs along the east side of Brompton Lake, in Orford, there is, on the lot indicated above, a pale green pyroxenic rock, in which occur druses, lined with large twin crystals of white pyroxene, and with cinnamon-colored garnets. Large masses of calcspar, probably filling a vein, are here met with, sometimes nearly pure white and cleavable, at others penetrated and filled with small emerald-green crystals of a chrome garnet. This mineral also forms granular masses, mixed with calcareous spar and pyroxene, and containing small quantities of the sulphuret of nickel, millerite. Some specimens of the rock have yielded to analyses as much as one per cent. of nickel. The ore does not appear to be confined to the portion of rock mixed with calcareous spar, but to penetrate into more homogeneous strata, probably pyroxenic, running with the serpentine; where, however, the quantity of the nickel seems to be less.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

SILVER.

Native Silver.

1. Prince's Location, Lake Superior................

a. Silver ore from a lode.

Geological Survey.

The rock of Prince's location is clay slate, interstratified with greenstone, and overlaid by a great mass of it with a columnar structure; the whole dipping south-eastward at a small angle. These rocks are transversely intersected by a vein, which is twenty feet thick on Spar Island, and from four to five feet on the main land, running N. W. It is composed of calespar, heavy spar, and amethystine quartz; the latter appearing in druses in the calcspar. With these, are associated the yellow, variegated and vitreous sulphurets of copper in promising quantity, with iron pyrites, blende, galena, and silver; the latter occurring both native and as a sulphuret, in addition to cobalt and arsenic, as well as traces of gold. The location is the property of the British American Mining Company, and in a small trial shaft sunk by them to the depth of between six and seven fathoms, on the main land, where the lode is four feet wide, several hundred pounds of the vein, similar to the specimens exhibited, contained three and a half per cent. of silver.-Quebec group Lower Silurian.

Native Gold.

GOLD.

1. Fief St. Charles, Seigniory of Aubert de l'Isle...

....

Geological Survey.

a. Stream gold in nuggets, nine among them weighing from ten dwts. to 126 dwts. b. Stream gold in dust.

It has long been ascertained that the drift clay and gravel of the south side of the St. Lawrence, in Canada, from Lake Champlain to the Etchemin, and probably to the extremity of the province, in Gaspé, is auriferous; the area being about 15,000 square miles. Gold has been washed from this gravel on the St. Francis in Melbourne, at Sherbrooke, in Westbury, Weedon and Dudswell, and on Lake St. Francis; as well as on the Chaudiere and the Etchemin, and their tributaries, from the sources of these rivers nearly to their mouths. Various companies have made trials of this drift in several places, one of the most important having been on the Rivière des Plantes, in the seigniory of Vaudreuil (Beauce); but of this it is not easy to procure authentic details. In 1851, the Canada Gold Mining Company commenced a trial of the drift along the Rivière du Loup, near its junction with the Chaudière, in the seigniory of Aubert de l'Isle; which continued three years. The specimen exhibited is what was obtained by the workings of this Company in 1852, and the following are the results for the years 1851 and 1852:

The chief part of the gold was obtained in the bed of the river, but some of it on the bank, and the average, thickness of the drift was about two feet. The average daily wages were sixty cents a man. The system adopted for dressing was that used in Cornwall for obtaining tin from alluvial deposits.-Drift.

2. Seigniory of Vaudreuil, Beauce

a. Stream gold, a nugget of eighty dwts. with quartz.

....Geological Survey.

In this specimen the proportion of the gold is sixty-four per cent. It was obtained from the drift of the Rivière des Plantes, a tributary of the Chaudière. Many of the small masses of gold which have been obtained from the drift of the Chaudière valley, being of a character somewhat similar, there cannot be much doubt that the drift gold of the region has been derived from quartz veins, situated probably somewhere not far distant. No quartz so rich in gold as the specimen, has as yet been met with in place in Canada, but the precious metal has been observed in small grains in a quartz vein of between two and three feet thick, which cuts bluish-black slate, and crosses the Chaudière at the St. Francis rapids, about half a mile from their foot, and about three quarters of a mile above St. Francis (Beauce) church.-Drift.

3. Rapids of the Chaudière, parish of St. François (Beauce).... Geological Survey. a. Auriferous blende, galena, arsenical, magnetic and cubic iron pyrites, with quartz and bitter spar; from a vein.

This vein, as just mentioned, is between two and three feet thick, and consists principally of quartz, in which native gold has been observed; although none is visible to the eye in

the specimens exhibited. The quartz is associated with bitter spar; and in the gangue are disseminated small quantities of galona, blende, arsenical sulphuret of iron, often well crystallized; besides cubic and magnetic iron pyrites. In an analysis made by Mr. Sterry Hunt, in 1854, a portion of the galena separated by washing, but still containing a small mixture of the blende and pyrites, gave by assay of 500 grains, sixty-nine per cent. of lead, and thirty-two ounces of silver to the ton of ore. Another sample of 500 grains, more carefully dressed, gave thirty-seven ounces of silver to the ton. The silver contained a small quantity of gold. Another portion of 500 grains, of the sample which gave sixty-nine per cent. of lead, afforded by cupellation, a quantity of silver equal to not less than 256 ounces of silver to the ton. This amount of silver was probably owing to the accidental presence of a fragment of some rich silver ore. 1000 grains of the pyrites, mixed with a little blende, galena, and arsenical pyrites, gave by cupellation 0.15 grains of an alloy of gold and silver. 700 grains of the impure blende gave 0.19 grains of a yellow alloy of the same metals.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

4. Leeds, lot 15, range 14.

.....

a. Grains of gold in bitter-spar.

....

Geological Survey.

On the property of Mr. Nutbrown, of which the mining rights have been purchased by the English & Canadian Mining Company, there occurs a vein cutting a bed of steatite. The vein is composed of a gangue of coarsely crystalline bitter spar, mixed with talc, copper-glance, and specular iron. There is disseminated, principally in the bitter spar, a small quantity of gold in grains, varying in size from mere points to the magnitude of pin heads. Sometimes the metal appears in lamina in the bitter spar, having a diameter of about one eighth or one fourth of an inch. The vein, which is two feet thick, has been mined to a small extent for copper ore.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

Native Platinum.

PLATINUM AND IRIDOSMINE.

1. Fief St. Charles, Seigniory of Aubert de l'Isle...

...Geological Survey.

a. Grains of platinum and of indosmine separated from gold dust. Among the drift gold of the Chaudière there are met with, in very small quantities, grains of platinum, and of iridosmine; the latter being an alloy of the rare metals iridium and osmium, which is very hard, and is used for pointing gold pens. Some of the gold met with on the Chaudière has been found thinly coated with a mercurial amalgam; but no trace of cinnabar, the commonest form of the ores of mercury, has been observed in the drift. Among the substances met with by the Canada Gold Mining Company, in separating the gold from the drift, lead shot of various sizes, from partridge to swan shot, were nearly as abundant as the gold.-Drift.

Loose masses, traced for half a mile, running with the strike of the serpentine, of which the mountain is composed; the largest masses weighing about twenty pounds.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

2. Ham, lot 4, range 2

a. Specimen of chromic iron from a bed.

Geological Survey.

A bed of about fourteen inches thick in serpentine. The bed has been partially worked by the proprietor, Mr. Leckie, of Acton Vale; who obtained about ten tons of ore, with forty-five per cent. of oxyd of chromium, from seven square fathoms in the plane of the bed. The ore forms a lenticular mass in the serpentine.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

3. Bolton, lot 23, range 6

a. Specimen of chromic iron from a bed.

... Geological Survey.

A bed of from twelve to twenty-four inches thick in serpentine, on the property of Mr. L. A. Perkins. The bed dips to the eastward, at an angle of about 80°, and the ore occurs in it in masses of from fifty to 1000 pounds in weight.—Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

4. Melbourne, lot 22, range 6...

a. Specimen of chromic iron from a bed.

Benj. Walton, Montreal.

A bed of uncertain thickness in serpentine, in which the ore runs in lenticular masses of from six to nine inches thick.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian.

Molybdenite or sulphuret of molybdenum.

1. Quetachoo River, Manicouagan Bay, N. shore Gulf of

St. Lawrence....

a. Specimens of molybdenite from a bed.

Geological Survey.

A bed of six inches thick in gneiss, in which the sulphuret of molybdenum occurs in nodules of from one to three inches in diameter, and also in flakes from one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch thick, and twelve inches in diameter.-Laurentian.