ср DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF ECONOMIC MINERALS OF CANADA. BY SIR W. E. LOGAN, F.R.S. In this Catalogue the classification of the Minerals is wholly technical, each substance being arranged under a heading connected with some one of its more prominent applications. There is given with each material the place from which it comes, and the name of the exhibitor, the latter in Italics. Beneath these is placed a list of the objects presented by each exhibitor, and a short description of the contribution, which is always terminated with an indication of the geological formation from which the substance is derived; reference being made to its Canadian designation, and in general to the English group or system in which the formation is included. These designations are also in Italics. The headings under which the Minerals are classed, are as follows:: 2. Minerals applicable to Chemical Manufactures, 3. Refractory Minerals, (for resisting fire.) . . 4. Minerals applicable to Common and Decorative Construction, 5. Grinding and Polishing Minerals, 6. Mineral Manures, 7. Mineral Paints, 1. METALS AND THEIR ORES. IRON. Bog Iron Ore or Limonite. 1. Radnor Forges, Batiscan .... ...A. Larue & Co., Three Rivers. a. Three pieces of bog ore of different qualities, ready for the furnace. b. Washed bog ore, ready for the furnace. c. Slag from the smelting. d. Limestone used as flux. e. Sandstone used for furnace hearths. f. Moulding sand of the neighborhood. g. " imported from Waterford, State of New York. h. Charcoal used in smelting. i. Five qualities of pig iron, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. No. 8 with a polished face. m. One section of wheel, showing chill. r. One pair of railway wheels and axle, which have run 150,000 miles. Deposits of bog iron ore, in greater or less abundance, are spread out in patches on the north side of the St. Lawrence, and between it and the foot of the Laurentide Hills, all the way from Ste. Anne des Plaines to Portneuf; a distance exceeding a hundred miles. In this area, the ore seems to be most concentrated in the neighborhood of the St. Maurice and Batiscan Rivers, and iron has been smelted in the neighborhood of Three Rivers for upwards of a century. The St. Maurice Forges were established in 1787, and continued in operation until 1858. They were supplied with ore (all of it limonite), and with charcoal, from the seigniory of St. Maurice, including the fief St. Etienne; which were leased to the Smelting Company by the Crown. In 1881, according to Bouchette, from 250 to 300 persons were employed at the establishment, which had always been celebrated for the excellence of its iron; but the ore and wood becoming exhausted, and the Radnor Forges having been erected in the seigniory of Cap de la Madelaine, on the Rivière au Lard, a tributary of the Champlain River, in a vicinity where the ore and wood are still abundant, the St. Maurice forges went out of blast. The ore with which the Radnor furnaces are supplied, is derived from the seigniories of Cap de la Madelaine and Champlain, where it occurs close to the surface, in a multitude of patches distributed over the country, with a thickness of from three to twenty-four inches. It is brought to the furnaces, partly by the workmen of the Company, and partly by the various farmers on whose lands the ore occurs. The chief manufacture of the Company consists of cast-iron car wheels, the price of which at the forges is 2 cents per lb. A rolling-mill has recently been erected at the establishment for the rolling of malleable iron of superior quality, such as scythe iron, the price of which is 3 cents per lb., and nail-rod iron, the selling price being 5 cents per lb. Limestone, as a flux for smelting the ore, is obtained from the Trenton group, at the works; and sandstone for furnace hearths at the Grès rapids, on the St. Maurice, where it used formerly to be obtained by the St. Maurice Company. This quartzose sandstone belongs to the Potsdam formation, part of the lowest group of the Lower Silurian series of rocks. Being in this locality of a freer texture than the same beds in other parts of the province, it has been found capable of resisting a very strong heat without injury. Blocks of from twelve to fourteen inches thick, four feet long and twenty inches wide, do not require renewal oftener than once in two years. The ore is washed at the smelting works, to free it from soil, and it then contains between forty and fifty per cent. of iron. The quantity used annually is between 4000 and 5000 tons, producing about 2000 tons of pig iron, and the number of workmen employed varies from 200 to 400; a great many hands being required at certain periods, to excavate and bring in the ore, and to prepare and transport the charcoal.-Alluvion. 2. Vaudreuil, County of Vaudreuil............ a. Specimens of bog iron ore. ... Geological Survey. A bed extending over several lots on the Côte St. Charles, in the seigniory of Vaudreuil, at the confluence of the rivers Ottawa and St. Lawrence. The bed is in many places from four to eight feet thick, and there lies beneath it, in some parts, a thin stratum of blue phosphate of iron. This bog iron ore contains about fifty per cent. of iron, but it has never been worked.-Alluvion. 3. St. Vallier, County of Bellechasse a. Specimens of bog iron ore. .... Geological Survey. An interrupted bed extending over an area of ten or fifteen square miles, near the junction of the two branches of the Rivière du Sud, county of Bellechasse. The patches are from one to ten acres in superficies, and from twelve to twenty inches thick. The specimens are from the property of Capt. Morin, and the ore, which has never been worked, contains about fifty per cent. of iron.-Alluvion. Red Hematite or Oligist Ore. 1. MacNab, lot 6, concessions C and D...... a. Specimen of red hematite ore. Geological Survey. An unworked bed of thirty feet thick, containing by analysis about fifty-eight per cent. of iron. The bed rests upon crystalline Laurentian limestone, and is limited, at the top, by a magnesian limestone belonging to the Calciferous formation of the Lower Silurian era. It occurs near the Fall of the Dochart, within a quarter of a mile of the shore of Lac des Chats, an expansion of the Ottawa River.-Laurentian. 2. Sutton, lot 9, range 11 a. Specimens of red hematite ore. Geological Survey. A bed of seven feet thick in chlorite slate, on the property of Mr. L. H. Smith. Different portions of the bed yield from twenty to fifty per cent. of iron.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian. A bed of seven feet thick, occurring in chlorite slate, and presenting, where exposed, the form of an anticlinal arch, which spans a breadth of thirty feet. The ore is much mixed with chlorite, and has yielded to analysis, about twenty-three per cent. of iron. The bed is on the property of Mr. B. Mudget.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian. 4. Brome, lot 3, range 1........ a. Specimen of hematite ore. Geological Survey. A bed in chlorite slate. The thickness of the bed is five feet, but it presents the crown of a sharp anticlinal fold, which doubles it up, and gives it an apparent breadth of ten feet. The ore may contain about forty per cent. of iron. This bed is on the property of Mr. Reed Sweet, and with a neighboring one of eighteen feet, was formerly quarried for ore, which was conveyed a distance of thirty or forty miles to the town of Troy, on the south side of the province line, in Vermont, and was smelted with the magnetic oxyd, procured from the serpentine in that vicinity.-Quebec group, Lower Silurian. N.B.-Ores similar to those of the last three localities, are exposed in a great number of places in St. Armand, Sutton, and Brome, running in a bearing N. 30° E. The exposures are distributed over a breadth of about a mile, and many of them are repetitions of the same beds, through the effect of undulations. The beds are made up of hematitic iron, mixed with grains of quartz and chlorite; in some the oxyd of iron predominates, constituting a rich iron ore, while in others the earthy minerals are in excess, and the rock passes into the ordinary slates of the country. These iron ores often contain a portion of titanium, as rutile, ilmenite, or sphene; in some the peroxyd is mixed with magnetic oxyd of iron. Magnetic Iron Ore. 1. Sutton, lot 9, range 9 . a. Specimen of magnetic iron ore. Geological Survey. A bed of twelve feet thick, consisting of dolomite abounding in small crystals of the magnetic oxyd of iron, which equals in many specimens, about 56 per cent. of the mass; thus giving an iron ore containing about thirty-eight per cent. of metal. The ore is on the east side of a band of dolomite, varying in thickness from twelve to thirty-two yards, on the west side of which there is an irregular bed of red hematite one foot thick. Two other bands of dolomite run parallel with the one mentioned, all in the space of 100 yards, on the property of Mr. Oramel Stutson.—Quebec group, Lower Silurian. 2. Marmora Iron Mine, Belmont, lot 8, range 1.......... a. Specimens of magnetic iron ore. . Geological Survey. A mine commonly known as the Big iron ore bed of Marmora. It appears, however, not to be a single bed, but a succession of them (one measuring 100 feet in thickness), interstratified with thin bands of crystalline limestone and talcose slate, associated with diallage rock, serpentine, and epidosite. The total breadth of the mass is eight chains, and it is interstratified between gneiss and crystalline limestone, with a dip N. W. < 25° — 50°. The ore contains between sixty and seventy per cent. of iron. Many years ago a furnace was erected at Marmora to smelt it, and iron of superior quality was manufactured. More recently, different companies have for short periods renewed smelting operations, with very satisfactory results in respect to the quality of the iron produced; but the distance of the place from a shipping port has proved a serious obstacle to success. At present the furnace is not in blast.-Laurentian. 3. Newborough, S. Crosby, lots 26 and 27, range 6 a. Specimen of magnetic iron ore. .... Geological Survey. A bed of 200 feet thick in gneiss. It is situated on Mud Lake, a part of the Rideau Canal, and is the property of Messrs. G. Chaffey and Brothers, who mine the ore, and supply it at Kingston for 2 dollars the ton, to vessels which carry it as back freight to Cleveland, on Lake Erie; whence it finds its way to the smelting furnaces at Pittsburg on the Ohio, in the State of Pennsylvania. About 4000 tons of the ore were thus exported in 1859.-Laurentian. |