atid Geology of Lake Ontario. 13 



of Mr. Hayes. This stream is about fifteen miles long, and 

 holds generally a S.S.E. course. It leaves Crow Lake (oval, 

 one mile and a half long) at its S.W. end. This lake at its 

 upper extremity receives the River Belmont, three miles and a 

 half long, issuing from Belmont Lake*, which lies north and 

 south, and receives two considerable streams ; one from the 

 north, and the other from the west. The northern stream com- 

 municates by portages with the Mississippi of the OttawaRiver. 

 The Movin River, formerly called Myer's Creek, enters 

 Quinte Bay at a marshy spot nine miles below the Trent. The 

 thriving village of Bellville is placed a little within its mouth 

 on the left bank, where it is rocky and dry, and overlooked by 

 an eminence of sandy soil, on whose summit is a church. The 

 river is about fifty yards broad, and so continues for several 

 miles, undergoing at intervals petty descents. In the township 

 of Marmora, twenty-five miles from Bellville, I found it much 

 smaller ; but still of considerable size, and traversing rapidly 

 a wilderness of rocks and pines. Its source is still further 

 north in Hog Lake. 



left eminence, which has also an upper platform forty or fifty feet above 

 the river, partly supported by a clifF. On these two levels are placed in a 

 convenient manner two large furnaces, thi-ee coal-houses, a forge with two 

 forge hammers (four fires, and eight workmen ; the weekly produce being 

 about five tons), grist and saw mills, tannery, counting-house, storehouses, 

 blacksmiths' shop, stables, eight double houses in a row for workmen and 

 their families, three dwelling-houses, school-house, casting-house, carpen- 

 ters' shop, pot ashery, &c. The average number of men employed at the 

 works in the summer is one hundred; but in winter one hundred and fifty 

 may find employment. Each furnace is thirty-five feet in height, and at 

 the top of the boshes eight feet in breadth. Each will carry a charge of 

 about seventy-two hundred weight of ore and five hundred bushels of char- 

 coal in twenty-four hours, yielding about two tons and a half of good iron. 

 [The ore is prepared for the furnace by burning it in kilns and pounding. 

 The principal flux made use of is limestone, which is found on the spot.] 

 The peculiar properties of the metal are toughness and softness. The 

 castings consist of potash kettles, mill-irons, hollow ware of all sorts, and 

 pig-iron for the forges. Opposite the works there is a small cascade occa- 

 sioned by a descent in the river, and by its contraction and obstruction by 

 two oval islets. A dam has been thrown across here; raising the upper 

 part of the river a foot, and increasing the descent of the cascade to fifteen 

 feet, so as to form two mill races on the left side, the one^ working the 

 forge and furnaces, and the other turns the grist-mill. 



The gentlemen superintcndant (to whom, and principally to Mr. Smith, 

 I am indebted for the above information) have a commodious house in the 

 rear of the works, near the top of the hill. That of Mr. Hayes is on tlie 

 upper platform, not quite a quarter of a mile south-cast. The clearances 

 in the vicinity amount to two hundred acres, and there are nearly a hun- 

 (Ired agricultural settlers within ten or twelve miles of the works (1824). 

 'I'his extensive establishment has been built for the purposes of working 

 the beds of magnetic iron-ore mentioned in the section on the geology of 

 Lake Ontario. 



• As far as I know, its true situation is not represented on any man. 



The 



