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yielding good lumber, or lands suitable for farming can be defined by 

 explorations with these particular ends in view. The further question 

 involved in the utilization and working of special local deposits is also- 

 one requiring sagacity and special knowledge, but cannot be considered 

 as within the pi-ovince of a public survey. Like the enquiry as to how 

 many feet of sawn lumber a given tree will afford, or how best to lay 

 out a certain plot of a couple of hundred acres for farming purposes,, 

 this remains to be determined by the person who wishes to utilize these 

 for his own pecuniary benefit. 



Mr. J. Fraser Torrance being called upon, at the suggestion of 

 the lecturer, explained that the heaviest deposits of phosphate in the 

 County of Ottawa lie along the valley of the Gievres. As you move 

 either eastwards or westwards from this river, the deposits usually 

 become more and more intermixed with calcite, until they finally cease 

 to be profitably workable. The methods of mining employed are of the 

 rudest and most elementary kind. The only hoisting and pumping 

 machinery employed (with very rare exceptions) is a tub on the end of 

 a rope swung over the pit by a deri-ick worked with one horse. The pits 

 are almost all quite as wide at the mouth as below and ai-e well calcu- 

 lated to collect all the surface water, snow, etc. The managers have 

 evidently adopted the maxim of Louis XV: " After me the deluge. "^ 

 Deeper sinking will be attended with great diflSculty on account of the 

 quantity of water collected in these shallow pits. 



Almost all of the pits visited by him were neither veins nor beds, 

 but irregular segregations from the surrounding rock. In most cases 

 it was hard to tell where to draw the line between the ore and the waste 

 rock. 



One reason why so little apatite was converted into superphosphate 

 in Canada he believed to be the reckless manner in which the materials 

 were mixed and branded i)i former days by the company at Brock vflle. 

 The farmers had no guarantee that any two barrels of the same brand 

 would be of even approximately equal value for their lands. He hoped 

 these errors had all been corrected sines his visit to Brockville years 

 ago. The Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph is doing good 

 service in convincing farmers of the practical value of such fertilizers. 



