IRON AND OTHER ORES OF ONTARIO. 189 



doned the attempt, lie continued it privately, a conclusive way of 

 proving how important he thought it. He found that the only way 

 to secure the information was to interview the parties personally. 



Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, F.RS., etc., etc., formerly President of the 

 Institute of Mining Engineers of the United States and of the 

 Chemical Society of the United States, speaking of the position of 

 things eighteen years ago, stated: "The work of the Survey was, 

 in the first i)lace, to determine the geological relations of coal, 

 iron and copper deposits, and around them the stratigraphical geo- 

 logy of the country grew ui>. There were special memoirs pre- 

 pared on the questions relating to the metal lui-gy of iron and steel, 

 and these were published in the reports of the Survey ; these were 

 of value to Canada in utilizing the iron of the country." 



He explained that in Great Britain the collection of mineral stat- 

 istics is under the control of the Home Office, having until recent 

 years been in the hands of a keeper of Mining Records, Mr. Robert 

 Hunt, F.R.S., who undertook to get mining statistics as volunteer 

 contributions. In France, he stated all these economic questions 

 came in the front rank, there being a regular corps of mining engi 

 neers, part of the civil service, to ins{)ect mining districts and keep 

 the public informed. They visit and report upon the mineral re- 

 sources of other countries, and have published vahiable memoirs 

 respecting Canada. But the State surveys of Ohio, Alabama, Ken- 

 tucky, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were those which Dr. Hunt 

 thought should afford models to the Dominion. He stated that 

 Pennsylvania had of late years been expending " about ^5 0,000 

 annually, in a careful survey of all the points relating to the dis- 

 tribution of its rocks, and the geological relation of its iron deposits, 

 of its salt and petroleum, and of the bituminous and anthracite coal, 

 the results of which have been published in small volumes at tlie cost 

 of paj)er and printing. Each mineral is dealt with in a separate 

 volume." 



Mr. R. W. Henneker, D.C.L., Commissioner of the British Ame- 

 rican Land Company and President of the Eastern Townships Bank, 

 urged the desirability of securing careful and trustworthy statistics, 

 which " would do an enormous amount of good to the country, as it is 

 hard to find out from private sources any information of this kind." 



Mr. William Mcintosh said, "That it would be of the greatest 



