1899] Mineral Resources of the Ottawa District. 21 



ofsuccession, and it was doubtless to a lack of this separation, 

 that much of the failure experienced in the attempt to obtain a 

 first rate fuel in the early days of the industry can be attributed. 

 In the prepartion of the litter after the living green surface 

 with its tangled mass of shrubs has been taken off, the next 

 three feet or so is removed, teased out and dried in the sun or 

 by the application of artificial heat, then carefully baled and is 

 ready for the market. The price of this varies from five to ten 

 dollars per ton. and it is now used in all the largest and best 

 conducted stables in the principal cities in England ancf in the 

 United States. The great merits of the material for this purpose arc 

 that, in the first place it is a wonderful absorbent of all the 

 liquid matters found in the stable, a perfect deodorizer, cleanly% 

 and when it has served its purpose in this capacity provides a 

 large quantity of a most excellent fertilizer for the farm, for 

 which it also is in great demand. As there are in the country 

 between the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence several important 

 areas of this raw material, as well as on the east of the latter 

 river, we have at our very doors an almost inexhaustible supply 

 of mineral wealth, which at no very distant day, will doubtless be 

 largely utilized, that is, after our people have become alive to the 

 fact that there is money in its exploitation. Then when the bogs 

 have been carefully drained and the machinery for the proper 

 compression of the rich underlying peat has been perfected, or 

 introduced after the model of the German machines, which should 

 only be a matter of time and experiment, there is no apparent 

 reason why the fuel supply of eastern Canada should not be sup- 

 plied from these home localities. What that means, in view of the 

 great extension of our railway systems and the constantly increas- 

 ing demand for coal for domestic consumption and for our fac- 

 tories, is very clear to any enquiring mind, so that though it is 

 true that all is not gold that glitters, it is equally true that there 

 is gold in certain substances that do not glitter at all. It is 

 interesting to know that within the last few months there have 

 been many enquiries as to the extent and locationof thesedeposits, 

 and there is evidently a growing intention to utilize their hidden 

 stores of wealth. 



( To he continued. ) 



