quartz lode on Lowhee Creek, containing gold and galena in considerable quantity. Galena is also said to accompany all the "wash-dirt" in the Cariboo district. The sinking gradually becomes deeper as the creeks are followed downwards, and the quantity of water, which is very great, also increases. The Van Winkle claim may be taken as an example of one of the mines. Here the workings are only 72 feet deep. Three 11-inch pumps, worked by an eighteen feet overshot wheel, raise the water into an adit forty feet below the surface, and are kept working day and night. The adit is 3,000 feet long, and was nearly three years under construction. The yield of this claim in May, 1875, averaged 160 ounces per week, @ $17.00= $2720.00. The timbering required is very heavy props from one to two feet in diameter stand in pairs at from six to ten inches apart, with heavy cross-pieces and close over head longitudinal timbering in five feet lengths. The shaft is 300 feet from the creek, on the opposite side of which the bed rock is at the surface and forms steep cliffs. Very few of the claims have sufficiently powerful machinery to work them beyond a limited depth. In the collection there are samples of gold from sixteen creeks in the Cariboo district, and the differences in the character of these samples are very remarkable. The creeks represented are: Williams Creek. Mosquito Creek. Conklin Gulch. Davis Creek. Stouts Gulch. Grouse Creek. Lightning Creek. Antler Creek. Jack of Clubs Creek. Harvey Creek. Lowhee Creek. Cunningham Creek. Keithley Creek. California Creek. Bear River. Valley Mountain. There are also two samples from Omineca, and a small nugget, value $48.00, from Cassiar, sent by the British Columbia Advisory Board. The value of British Columbia gold varies from $16 to $18 per ounce. From carefully compiled statistics by the Deputy Minister of Mines we find :— The average number of miners employed yearly from 1858 to 1875 Average earnings per man per year... Total estimated and actual yield of gold 1858-75 inclusive......... 3,220 $658 .$38,166,970 The following table, compiled by the same person, shows the yield of gold forthe whole province, since its existence was first made known to the world in 1858, up to the present time. Two-thirds of the amounts here given were actually known to have been exported by the banks, &c., while one-third is added in each, year as the amount estimated to have been carried away in private hands: Oppenheimer Bros., Victoria, B.C. 2. Mosquito Creek, B.C.... a. Nugget of gold. 3. Fort Edmonton, Saskatchewan River, N.W.T.......... Geological Survey. Gold may be obtained by washing the sands or gravels of the Saskatchewan at many points from Rocky Mountain House eastward to the Forks. It appears to be most abundant in the neighbourhood of Edmonton, and miners here are said to make about $5.00 a day. Above Rocky Mountain House it has not been found, though frequently looked for by experienced miners. Its origin therefore cannot be the Rocky Mountains, but is in all probability the drift which is spread over the country for hundreds of miles and derived from the crystalline rocks to the northeastward. The gold is always in a finely divided state, showing that it has been transported from a distance.-Alluvion. 4. Location H., near Jackfish Lake.......: a. Nine specimens of quartz with gold. {" W. W. Russell, D. McKellar, and N. Kingsmill. These specimens are taken from an auriferous quartz vein on which a shaft has been sunk by the Shebandowan Mining Company on the above location, lying fifteen miles west of Shebandowan Lake. At this shaft the vein has a width of five feet of solid quartz, which, however, divides into three branches to the northeastward. The vein carries considerable quantities of copper and iron pyrites, galena and silver glance, and is rich in visible gold. Numerous assays of the one which have been made, show very rich proportions of both gold and silver, but it has not yet been tested on a large scale. In the neighborhood of the shaft, this vein is enclosed in soft talcoid slate, which is flanked on either side by chloritic slates. These again are associated with dioritic, argillaceous, siliceous and porphyritic slates, and also with massive diorite, porphyry, slate-conglomerate and granite. There are likewise bands of magnetite and quartzite. On location H. the vein has been proved for nearly half a mile, and its apparent continuation has been traced for about eight miles further, varying greatly, however, in richness. Its general course is about N. 60° E. (ast.), while the slates, which dip northward, at angles varying from 60° to 80°, run rather more easterly, so that the vein intersects them at a small angle and varies in character in crossing the different bands. The above information is condensed from descriptions kindly furnished by Messrs. P. McKellar and W. W. Russell, and from plans sent by the latter. Capt. W. B. Frue, of Silver Islet, is agent for the Company.-Huronian. 5. Partridge Lake Location.... { W. W. Russell and D. McKellar, a. One large and six smaller average samples of veinstone. b. Seven specimens with visible gold from the same vein. Partridge Lake is a small sheet of water a few miles west of the western arm of Lac des Mille Lacs. The vein, which consists of white quartz, averages five feet in width, and runs north-eastward with the strike of the talcoid schists which enclose it. Greenish mica schists with the same strike are met with on the south side of the lake, while granite occurs on an island a short distance to the north of the vein. The vein holds iron and copper pyrites, besides the gold, which occurs in disseminated grains. Specimens assayed in the Geological Survey laboratory contained about $30.00 worth of gold to the ton of 2,000 lbs. No trials have as yet been made on a large scale.-Huronian. 6. Locations 64 Z and 94 Z, S. side upper L. Shebandowan.. JJ. A. Lindsay, Toronto. a. Specimen of gold-bearing quartz. The vein from which this specimen is taken is described as being from three to four feet wide, and said to carry a considerable proportion of copper pyrites. (See paper by Prof. H. Alleyne Nicholson in Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc., 1873.) Specimens assayed by Mr. Wm. Low gave from $37 to $47 gold to the ton.-Huronian. 7. Victoria Cape, Lake Superior..... McKellar Bros., Fort William, L.S. a. Four specimens of gold-bearing quartz from the surface. Victoria Cape is on the west side of Jackfish Bay (opposite to the Slate Islands), Lake Superior. The vein from which the specimens are taken is from 14 to 34 feet thick, and runs N. 55 E. It is heavily charged with iron pyrites, and also holds galena and blende. The country rock is a light red granite with green dioritic slate in close proximity to it. The discovery of gold in this locality was only made last summer, but the vein has been uncovered for a distance of 500 feet and shows a vertical section of sixty feet in a neighboring cliff. An average of assays of the white and the dark parts of the veinstone gave Mr. Charlee Kreissman $27.00 gold and $7.78 silver per ton. A smaller vein a short distance S.E. of the above yielded the same assayer $149.33 gold and $17.62 silver to the ton, and shows free gold.-Huronian. 8. Marmora, O..... Toronto Gold Mining Company, Toronto. a. Gold-bearing arsenical pyrites. b. Seven samples in bottles, illustrating separating process. 1. Crushed ore. 2. Concentrated ore. 3. Tailings left after concentration (worthless.) 4. Ore roasted with nitrate of soda. 5. Paris-green made from the ore (150 lbs. to the ton.) 6. White arsenic from condensed fumes of the roasting ore, (500 lbs. to the ton.) 7. Brown pigment residuum, (600 lbs. to the ton). The ore yields besides the above products $30.00 gold per ton.-Laurentian. Twenty assays made in the Geological Survey laboratory of samples from the Marmora mines have given an average of 1.6367 oz. of gold, equal $33.81 to the ton of 2,000 lbs. Twelve of the samples were from the Gatling Mines, and gave an average of 1.9107 oz. of gold, equal to $39.47 to the ton.--Laurentian. 10. St Francis Beauce, Q...... W. P. Lockwood. a. Model of Kilgour nugget. Weight of nugget 514 ounces. This nugget was found in 1869, on the Gilbert River, lot sixteen, twenty-four feet from the surface. Narcisse Rodrigue, a farmer residing in the vicinity, took out, on lot nineteen, in one day, gold of the value of $1,200, with a pan. On lots sixteen and twenty-one about ten acres have been worked, and the value of the gold taken out is stated to be over $500,000.—Upper Silurian. 11. Eastern Townships, Q.... a. Models of gold nuggets. b. Four samples of alluvial gold. Geological Survey. The auriferous alluvions of the Province of Quebec cover an extended region. In 1852 the Geological Commission had already shown their extension over more than 10,000 square miles. The gravels through which the gold is irregularly distributed are generally covered by a layer of vegetable earth and often by a bed of clay. They repose in part on metamorphic Lower Silurian rocks consisting of talcose, micaceous, or chloritic schists, associated with diorites and serpentines. To the southward these Lower Silurian strata are unconformably overlaid by others of Upper Silurian and Devonian age, which are also covered by auriferous alluvion. Both formations, but especially the Upper Silurian, are traversed by numerous veins of quartz running with the stratification or between N.E. and E. Samples from one of these veins, on lot twenty-one, St Charles, assayed by Dr. A. A. Hayes, of Boston, gave $77.56 in gold and $2.55 in silver to the ton. Other samples are said to have yielded by assay as much as $106 and $136 to the ton.Alluvion. 12. Province of Nova Scotia.... N. S. Advisory Board and Geological Survey. a. Specimens of gold in quartz from veins in various districts. (See labels.) Gold was first discovered in Nova Scotia in 1859, and in 1862 upwards of seven thousand ounces were obtained. Since that time the average annual yield for the province has been over 17,000 ounces, the quantity for the fourteen years from 1862 to 1875, both inclusive, having been 242,072 oz. 14 dwts. 22 grs., according to the figures of the N. S. Mines Department. This was obtained from 325,363 tons (of 2,000 lbs.) of quartz, which would give an average yield of 14 dwts. 21 grs., per ton. Owing to its great purity the gold sells at about $19.50 per ounce. But counting at the official estimate of $18 per ounce, and reckoning 300 working days to the year, the above amount would give an average of $525 a year for each man engaged in the industry. There has, however, been an almost steady increase from $249 per man, in 1862, to $660, in 1875. Twelve steam and eight water-power stamp mills were in operation more or less regularly during the year, but most of these mills are of small capacity, the quartz crushed having amounted to only 14,810 tons for the twelve months. The gold-bearing rocks form a broad belt along nearly the whole Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia proper. They consist usually of compact white-weathering, greenish-grey felsitic quartzite, sometimes approaching in character to sandstone, interstratified with beds of slate, generally of a similar colour to the quartzite ; but frequently the slaty bands are dark grey or nearly black. Several areas of coarse reddish-grey granite of considerable extent occur within the gold-bearing belt of rocks. The gold is found in separate limited districts of which about twenty are known. It generally occurs in thin interlaminated veins of hyalinequartz, accompanying the slaty bands. The outcrops of the veins, in each district, appear to be arranged in concentric lines, approaching the form of elipses, due to domes along anticlinal axes. Occasionally a small productive vein is found cutting the quartzite (locally called "whin") at an angle to the bedding. Sometimes the interlaminated veins are quite large, but in those cases they seldom contain much gold. The richer veins are usually less than two feet thick-oftener only a few inches-but occasionally several of these lie near enough to each other to be worked together, and the slate between them also frequently carries gold. The same vein is generally found to vary much in richness in different parts, as if the gold ran in "streaks" or "shoots" and branches. As a general rule the greater part of the gold contained in the veins occurs as visible grains and nuggets, the latter having frequently been found as heavy as five ounces. The deepest workings are in the district of Waverly, where one shaft is said to be down about 800 feet, and Sherbrooke, where another has been sunk about 600 feet on the slope of the veins. About 300 men are at present engaged in goldmining in Nova Scotia. Owing to the small amount of sand, gravel or clay to be found in the gold region of Nova Scotia, very little alluvial mining has been done, although in several cases the earth at the crops of the veins has been found to be rich in the precious metal.-Primordial Silurian and Cambrian. PLATINUM. Native Platinum. Similkameen River, British Columbia.. Mechanics' Institute, New Westminster. a. Specimen of platinum in fine grains. More or less fine platinum has been found along with alluvial gold in several of the streams of British Columbia, and it has been particularly noticable in the river from which the above specimen comes.-Alluvion. |