XXn PROCEEDINGS. 



while if one of the great army of prospectors was singled out by the 

 law of averages, or was smiled on by the fickle goddess Chance, the 

 fortunate one so selected, became in the eyes of his fellows an expert. 



Then it was, too, when the foreign miner criticised the skill of the 

 native : while lavishly praising the richness of the district, singular to 

 say, he forgot to take advantage of his opportunity, apply his vaunted 

 knowledge, and make a fortune for himself. 



Summing up the experience of the first twenty years of mining in 

 the province, in general language it may be said that each pajang lead 

 had yielded but one pay-streak, and when that was extracted, further 

 search had failed to disclose others in the same lead. The work of 

 collecting data relating to the structure of the gold field, and the 

 mode of occurrence of the mineral contents, droj^ped by the local 

 Department of Mines, was taken up by the Geological Survey under 

 direction from Ottawa, and now what patient investigation has 

 revealed is that leads other than those seen at the sui-face may con- 

 fidently be expected to be within reach of shafts snnk on the anticlines, 

 whei'e the saddles of quartz will have their greatest thickness ; and 

 secondly that pay-streaks will be found to have a well-defined relation 

 to one another and to the axis of the anticline, together defining for 

 each gold district a zone of special enrichment. Evidence on both 

 these points has been given in the papers published with illustrations 

 in the transactions of the Mining Society of Nova Scotia, and which 

 explain the maps and sections issued by the Geological Survey' in the 

 meantime, and until the final report on the gold fields has been 

 prepared. 



Mr. Faribault having survej'ed the field, noted the folds and their 

 faulting, and the relation of the pay streaks, with the result that he 

 found a structure after the manner of that at Bendigo, but on a larger 

 scale : a series of saddles of quartz, sitting on the axis of the anticline, 

 one over the other, in the spaces formed between the folded strata. 

 Parallel with the axes, he claims there are inclined zones of enrich- 

 ment, which passing from lead to lead in their coui'ses, leave in each 

 a pay- streak of definite extent. If these conclusions are generally 

 confirmsd in practice, the gold mining industry would be placed on a 

 more secure footing, much of its late restricted aspect removed, and 

 great inducement given to companies of sufficient capital to operate 

 under judicious management. 



