82 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vl. 



Throughout the essay of Mr. Home the sand-ore is spoken of 

 as coming from Virginia, a name which in the reign of Elizabeth 

 was given to the whole American coast from Canada to Florida, 

 although in 1643 the name of New England was applied to the 

 region which still bears that name. It appears, however, that 

 the so-called Virginia sand was from the coast of Connecticut. 

 Mr. Elliott's letter to Mr. Henry Home was dated Killingworth, 

 Oct. 4, 1762. Killingworth is a town in the state of Connecti- 

 cut, on the shore of Long Island Sound, twenty-five miles east of 

 New Haven, and was the residence of the Eev. Jared Elliot, D.D., 

 who was not only a divine but a physician, and a naturalist of 

 great repute. It is recorded of him that " some considerations 

 had led him to believe that the black sand, which appears origi- 

 nally on the beach of the sound, might be wrought into iron. He 

 made an experiment upon it in the year 1861, and succeeded. 

 For this discovery he was honored with a medal by the society 

 instituted in London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufac- 

 tures and Commerce." * 



Notwithstanding this successful result, the iron sands seem to 

 have been neglected for the last century, both in America and in 

 Europe. We read, it is true, that such sands are treated in 

 open hearths (bloomaries) at Avellino, near Naples, and within 

 a few years attempts have been made in England to turn to use 

 the iron sands of New Zealand ; but the first successful attempts 

 in this country were on the north shore of the lower St. Lawrence. 

 The great deposits of black iron sand on the beach near the mouth 

 of the Moisie River, having attracted attention, various attempts 

 to reduce it were made. In January, 1867, Mr. W. M. Molson 

 of Montreal, had the ore successfully treated by the bloomary 

 process, in northern New York, and the result proving satisfac- 

 tory, several bloomary furnaces were, in 1867, constructed hj 

 him at Moisie, and have since been in successful operation. 



It will here be well to notice the nature and the composition of 

 the iron sand at Moisie, as observed by myself in the summer of 

 1868. ^ The stratified sands at Moisie, lying about ten feet above 

 high-water mark, penetrated by the roots of small shrubs, and 



* Barber's Historical Collections of Connecticut^ page 531. The Rev. 

 Jared Elliot, who was a grandson of the celebrated John Elliot of 

 Massachusetts, the "Apostle of the Indians," died in 1763, aged 

 seventy-eight years. 



