800 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



may be an interesting fact, that the locality where this iron was found is 

 only a few miles from Waterloo, in Seneca county, where a meteorite 

 fell in 1827, as has been stated by Prof. Shepard. 



GOLD DISTRICTS OF CANADA. 



FROM the recent reports of the Provincial Geologists, we derive 

 the following facts relative to the existence and production of gold in 

 Canada : The auriferous district has been found by examination to 

 spread over an area probably comprising between 3,000 and 4,000 

 square miles. It appears to occupy nearly the whole of that part of 

 the Province which lies on the southeast side of the prolongation of 

 the Green Mountains into Canada, and extends to the boundary 

 between the Colony and the United States. Two general lines of 

 exploration were followed, one of them up the Chaudiere and Riviere 

 du Loup and the other from Lake Etchemin to Sherbrooke on the St. 

 Francis. The former, running transverse to the rock ranges measur- 

 ed about forty-five miles, and the latter with them about ninety miles. 

 The transverse line was more closely examined than the other, and 

 traces of the precious metal were met with at moderate intervals 

 throughout the whole distance. They were not confined to the chan- 

 nels of the main streams merely, but those of various tributaries 

 furnished indications sometimes for a considerable distance up. It is 

 not supposed that the limits of the auriferous district have been ascer- 

 tained, but that it very probably extends much farther to the north- 

 east, and attains the valley of the river St. John, while to the south- 

 west it is known to reach Vermont, and to be traceable at intervals 

 through the United States, even, it is said, as far as Mexico. In its 

 breadth, however, it does not appear to cross the range of mountains 

 with which it runs parallel, and no traces of it have been met with on 

 their northwestern flank. The deposite in which the gold occurs is 

 part of an ancient drift, probably marine, and supposed to be of higher 

 antiquity than that which occupies the valley of the St. Lawrence 

 and some of its tributaries. In this, alluded to in various reports as 

 tertiary and post-tertiary, the remains of whales, seals, and two species 

 of fish, and many marine shells of those species still inhabiting the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, are found. These shells on the Mountain of 

 Montreal attain a height of about 470 feet above tide level in Lake St. 

 Peter, which is the greatest altitude known ; none of the remains 

 have yet been found in the Canadian gold drift, and as this appears in 

 its lowest undisturbed parts to be at a height of about 500 feet above 

 the sea, it is probable what is now exposed of it, had emerged from the 

 ocean before the Laurcntian drift was placed, while in lower levels it 

 would be covered up by it. 



I hiring the five months of (he summer of 1851 , the whole amount of 

 gold collected by fifteen men al tin- washings on the River de Loup at 

 its junction with the Chaudiere, was about 1,900 penny-weights. 

 From among a few ounces of fine gold obtained, there were collected 

 small grains both of platinum and iridosmme, the value of the 



