29 
Botany, Conchology and Entomology ? These are a few of many instances that 
might be quoted, but they shew how one branch depends upon the others for 
support. Let us, then, cast our Jot in with the first class, and strive, while 
working up the natural history of our neighborhood thoroughly, to do soin a 
popular manner, intelligible to all. I believe we have it in our power to give 
much happiness to many, by inducing them, by our example and persuasions, to 
study with us Nature. Its wonders are open to everyone, from the young child 
to the aged man ; it offers charms and fascinations to all—for all is wonderful 
and beautiful; and, as nothing makes men so happy as contemplating the beau- 
tiful, I consider nothing is so well calculated to make men good and happy as a 
study of nature? 
Through the kindness of the Rev. Dr. Dawson, Principal of McGill 
University, Montreal, I am enabled to exhibit some beautiful microscopical 
slides, in illustration of some of the points I have brought before your notice this 
evening. 
Mr. W. Hague Harrington.” . 
(GRAPHITE OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY. 
| The first half of this paper, treating in a general manner with the 
composition, mining, manufacture, ete., of graphite in other countries, 
has necessarily been omitted. | 
Turning now to the more special consideration of the deposits of graphite 
found in this section of the Dominion, which is known as the Ottawa Valley, it 
will not be going beyond the limits of the subject if, at the outset, we give a 
momentary glance at the formation and character of the rocks in which they 
occur. ‘ 
The Archean era in geology includes the oldest rocks known to that 
science—rocks which are supposed to have been formed from the original rocky 
crust produced by the cooling of the earth. They are easily seen to be the 
result of the disintegration of an older series, and frequently contain pebbles 
unlike any rocks now known. 
In Canada, where these rocks are very fully represented, they are divided 
into two periods—the Laurentian and the Huronian—the former being considered 
the oldest. The leng chain ot mountains, of which a portion is visible across 
the Ottawa, is composed of the Laurentian rocks, the estimated thickness of 
which is 30,000 feet, consisting, with few exceptions, of metamorphic or crystal- 
line rocks. 
These rugged, broken hills, which lift their stony crests above the pines 
that clothe their sides, contain immense masses of nearly every species of 
mineral. ‘The three at present most worked and valuable are irou, apatite 
and graphite, the latter being most frequent in the limestone. In this series of 
