Londonderry, Colchester county, The Steel Company of Canada (Limited), 464a. Rolled axle blank prepared for the hammers, made from puddled iron, squeezed in rotary squeezer and rolled into puddled bar 5 in. wide, thick, and 4 in. wide, thick. Pilled 9 in. wide, 10 in. high. Heated in reheating furnace on a sand bottom. Rolled in an 18-in. train, and subjected to the following tests: Four blows at 9 feet and two blows at 11 feet of a 2,000 lbs. weight, striking midway between solid iron supports placed 3 feet apart. Blank turned over after each blow. The deflection after each blow was found to be as follows: : Taken thence to hydraulic press and bent until the ends came into contact without showing the least fracture, weighing about 300 lbs. d. Samples bar iron-One piece 24 in. square Siemens iron; one piece 3 by 14 ditto; one piece by ditto; one piece round ditto; one piece round tied in a knot; one piece ditto; one piece by Siemens horse-shoe iron; one piece 1 by ditto; two pieces 3 by Muck bar. e. One piece 6 by 1 Siemens iron; one piece 4 by 1 ditto; one piece 1 by ditto; one piece 3 by 1 ditto; 1 piece round ditto; one piece 1 in. ditto, tied in a knot; one piece 14 square; two pieces 1 by 1 ditto link iron, for cars. The latter stood the following tests, viz. Ultimate tensile strength, 53,947 lbs. per square inch; reduction at point of fracture, 31 per cent. ; elongation in 12 diameters, 26 per cent. ; one link 14 by 18 ready for use, one piece Siemens link iron (cold bend). : "f. One piece brown hematite ore from best mine, weighing about 5,000 19 lbs. g. One piece brown hematite from West mine. h. Two pieces specular ore and two pieces red hematite ore from East mine, weighing about 2,000 lbs. i. Three pieces spathic ore from West mine, weighing about 2,000 lbs. ,, j. Two pieces Brookfield limestone, two pieces West mine ditto, one piece ankerite, 1 piece ditto. k. One piece Totten brook ore from East mine, being a mixture of ankerite, spathic, and hematite ores. 7. Bar each Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 pig iron, 1 bar car wheel iron. A most important vein of iron ore occurs in slates and quartzites, supposed to be of Cambro-Silurian age, at Londonderry, on the southern slope of the Cobequid Hills. It has an approximately east and west course, and has been traced for a distance of more than twelve miles. The ore consists for the most part of limonite (brown hematite), which is generally earthy, but sometimes occurs in lustrous stalactitic and mammillary forms. It has evidently been derived from the alteration of spathic ore and ankerite, both of which are in many places found in an unaltered condition. The vein also contains ochreous red hematite, specular iron ore, and small quantities of magnetite. The following analyses (Report of Progress of the Geological Survey, 1873-74, pp. 231 and 233) will serve to illustrate the composition of the limonite : : Mining has been carried on here since 1849. A charcoal furnace was erected in 1853, which was in blast at short intervals for some years. Two improved blast furnaces, with a weekly capacity of from 500 to 600 tons, were subsequently erected, the fuel used being coke, and the capacity of the puddling furnaces being about twenty-five tons per day. In 1873 the property passed into the hands of the Steel Company of Canada. Coke is obtained principally from the Pictou mines, though a considerable quantity is now made on the premises from the Springhill coal. According to the Report of the Government Inspector of Mines for Nova Scotia, the amount of ore smelted in 1884 was 54,155 tons, and 5,799 tons of ankerite were also used, the number of men employed being about 800. A branch railway, three miles in length, connects the mines with the Intercolonial Railway at Londonderry station. Changes in the management and financial difficulties have seriously interfered with the output during the past year.-Cambro-Silurian. Pictou county, N.S. (Cullen area) Compact limonite. Geological Survey. On the banks of a small stream, near the West Branch of the East River, a band of quartzite, intersected by numerous reticulating veins of limonite, is exposed. The veins are for the most part very thin; but, according to Dr. Gilpin, there is one with a thickness of three feet. Judging from the numerous masses of ore scattered over the surface for a considerable distance from the stream there is some reason to suppose that the deposit will, at some point, prove of economic value. (No specimen is exhibited.)—Palæozoic Spathic Iron Ore. Sutherland's River, Pictou county, N.S. 454. Spathic or sparry iron ore. J. H. Bartlett, Montreal, Q. An irregular bed occurring in sandstones of the Millstone-grit formation. The ore is crystalline, and, where unacted upon by the weather, is light grey in colour. The following is an analysis of a specimen which was evidently somewhat weathered. (Report of Progress of the Geological Survey, 1866-69, p. 442):— The bed has been traced for several hundred yards, and where exposed in the bank of a brook has a thickness of about ten feet. According to Dr. Dawson its mode of occurrence is not unlike that of the non-fossiliferous sub-crystalline limestones found associated with gypsum in some parts of the Lower Carboniferous. This bed is only four miles from the Vale Colliery.-Millstonegrit formation, Lower Carboniferous. Souris River, N. W. T. 500. Clay iron-stone. Geological Survey. Clay iron-stone is widely distributed in the north-west territory associated with the coals, lignitic coals, and lignites of the Cretaceous and Laramie formations. Though occurring in some localities in considerable abundance, as nodules and nodular sheets, it is not at present likely to be utilised. The quality of the ore is often excellent. The average percentage of iron in several specimens from near Fort Edmonton is 34.98. A specimen from Dirt Hills contained 41.49 per cent. of iron, 1∙18 of protoxide of manganese, '087 of phosphorus, and 068 of sulphur.-Laramie and Cretaceous. Note.-IRON ORES IN THE NORTH.-It is probable that many additional rich deposits of magnetic iron ore will be found throughout the great Laurentian and Huronian areas of Canada as they become better known. Specimens of a fine variety of magnetite have been brought from what is reported to be a large deposit near the entrance of Black Bay, on the north side of Lake Athabasca. At the narrows of Knee Lake, between Lake Winnipeg and Hudson's Bay, a large deposit of magnetite has been examined. Magnetite is also reported to occur on the north side of Hudson's Straits. At the foot of the Grand Rapids of the Wattagami River, a branch of the Moose, there is a large deposit of clay iron-stone passing into limonite associated with the Devonian limestones and marls. Very extensive deposits of manganiferous spathic iron have been found on the Nastupoka Islands, near the eastern shore of Hudson's Bay. The bedded ore, broken up by the frost, is scattered over thousands of acres on a number of these islands. Specimens examined contain an average of 50 per cent, of carbonate of iron, and 28 per cent. of carbonate of manganese, constituting a valuable ore for the manufacture of Spiegeleisen. Native Copper. COPPER. British Columbia 349. Large nuggets (found loose). Geological Survey. Native copper has not yet been discovered in situ in British Columbia, but loose nuggets which are occasionally found, indicate its existence, probably among some of the ancient volcanic rocks of the province. Native copper, supposed to come from one or other of the rivers of the Alaska coast, has been used from time immemorial by the coast Indians, and was accounted by them of great value. 350a. Specimen of sandstone presented by W. W. Stuart, and polished to show the grains of native copper. These specimens are from the location of the Quebec and Lake Superior Mining Association in the north-western part of Michipicoten Island. This island is formed of a series of igneous and sedimentary rocks, resembling the copper-bearing strata of Keeweenaw Point, on the south side of Lake Superior. On this location a shaft has been sunk to a depth of ninety-six feet on two contiguous copper-bearing beds, which together have a thickness of about three feet, and contain an average of about two and one-half per cent. of native copper. The upper of the beds is a reddish-grey sandstone, with fine particles and filaments of copper, and has a thickness of from one to two feet, while the lower is a bluish grey amygdaloid from eight to eighteen inches thick, with coarser grains of copper, but containing about the same percentage of that metal as the sandstone. The appearance of a section of the upper bed is shown in the woodcut below; the larger irregular black spaces represent the metallic copper. These layers are underlaid by a soft argillaceous ash-bed, six feet or more in thickness, and containing from one-half to one per cent. of copper, and below this is a massive greenstone. The copper-bearing beds are overlaid by massive compact greenstone, succeeded by amygdaloid and conglomerate. These strata dip south-eastward at an angle of 30 degrees, or at the rate of three feet in a fathom. The location was leased and worked by Mr. Hugh R. Fletcher, of Toronto, to whom we are indebted for the facts given above. In 1860, he took forty-five tons of the ore to the Bruce Mines, and there smelted one half of it without dressing, obtaining about three per cent. of fine copper. The balance was hand-dressed, and yielded on smelting seven and oneeighth per cent.-Lower Cambrian, Keeweenaw Series. Drawing showing the mode of occurrence of Native Copper at Michipicoten Island, Lake Superior. |