306 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



sawing- disks out of fairly round timber-trees, and 

 boring a hole in the middle for the axle. To the south 

 the Cove is bordered by Canalaway Settlement whither 

 a pretended silver mine drew me out of my way. Two 

 miles from Canalaway Creek, near Stillwell's, was the 

 place where the work was carrying on. In the east 

 side of a hill they had sunk a shaft six fathom deep 

 which was already drowned out and they were at this 

 time engaged in drawing- off the water through a deep 

 ditch, which cuts through a heavy bed of coarse, black 

 slate, containing spath-veins and flecks of marcasite. 

 The real promoter of this work, one Christopher Bran- 

 don, was absent ; the owner of the land, Robertson, a 

 smith, who foots the cost, seemed a good deal vexed 

 at the continued failure of the ingots Brandon had 

 been a long time promising him. Six men were work- 

 ing there. They brought me some spath-crystals which 

 they called amber because, warmed or rubbed, they 

 said straws were attracted to them, but the experiment 

 did not succeed with me. This spar crackles in the 

 fire, but does not burn to gypsum, and seems rather 

 to be a talky spar or cauk. Here and there on the 

 surface of the hill there lay a sort of weathered, soluble 

 spar in the form of a hardened powder ; this they 

 called, on Brandon's authority, the leader, and on it 

 grounded all their hope of finding silver. The hill 

 runs from north-east to south-west, and consists of 

 the blue limestone breaking in thick scales. Over both 

 slate and limestone there is a thick stratum of iron 

 ore which at one time was soft, for iron tree-roots are 

 dug out of it ; that it to say, where this iron-ore in its 

 soft state had permeated such tree-roots, hardened 

 about them, and, after the roots had rotted, filled up 



