600 



NOVA SCOTIA. 



might accept a settlement on cash basis. Persons 

 conversant with cases of similar character express an 

 opinion that the Government will hardly permit per- 

 sons holding its patent to their homes to be enjoined 

 after twenty years' residence until all measures for 

 their relief have failed. 



Tax Decision. An important decision was 

 lately rendered in the Supreme Court in refer- 

 ence to tax sales : 



The Stutsman County tax case has been before the 

 courts for several years, and involved the question as 

 to whether a purchaser of a tax certificate from a 

 county, at the Treasurer's annual sale, should be re- 

 imbursed by the county in case it should turn out 

 that his certificate was void ; whether he should re- 

 ceive from the county the money he put in for the 

 invalid certificate and the additional usurious inter- 

 est allowed in this class of cases by the laws of the 

 Commonwealth. The case first came before the old 

 Territorial Supreme Court, and that tribunal decided 

 that if a person purchased a certificate from the 

 county, the county was liable to the purchaser for the 

 face of the document and 30 per cent, interest an- 

 nually thereon. From this order Stutsman County 

 appealed. Since statehood the State Supreme Court 

 in the case of Tyler vs. Cass County has had the pre- 

 cise question before it, and in an elaborate and ex- 

 haustive opinion by Justice Bartholomew took the 

 opposite position that the rule of caveat emptor ap- 

 plied that the legal maxim that "he who purchased 

 must beware " was in full force in tax-sale proceed- 

 ings, and the State court accordingly ruled that the 

 purchaser of a certificate that was afterward declared 

 invalid lost his money invested. On the correctness 

 of this decision many a lawyer and the bar of the 

 State have differed. But a decision has been ren- 

 dered by the last court known in the jurisprudence 

 of the United States, and they have declared that 

 the views taken in the opinion by Justice Bartholo- 

 mew are the right ones ; that where a person invests 

 his money in an enterprise that under guise of law 

 gives a rate of interest unknown to any legitimate 

 business, and it is afterward declared wrongfully 

 invested, he loses it. The case involved about 

 $85,000. 



NOVA SCOTIA, with one exception, the small- 

 est of the Canadian provinces; area, 20,907 

 square miles; population, by the census of 1891, 

 450,523, an average of 22 to the square mile, 

 more dense than that of any other province ex- 

 cept Prince Edward Island. It consists of the 

 peninsula of Nova Scotia proper and the island 

 of Cape Breton. Halifax, the capital, with its 

 military garrison. i in population the fourth 

 city of the Dominion. It is the principal naval 

 station of the British North American and West 

 Indian fleet ; is the only garrison town in the 

 Dominion of Canada of which Great Britain still 

 retains actual military possession, and is one of 

 the most effectively fortified posts in the world. 



Mines and Minerals. For its extent, Nova 

 Scotia presents great diversities of geological 

 formation as of mineral resources. If we draw 

 a line upon the map of its peninsular portion, 

 from the most southeastern point on the shore 

 of Chedabucto Bay, nearly due west to about the 

 head of St. Mary's Bay, in Digby County, the 

 tract of country between this line and the Atlan- 

 tic Ocean will be over sixty miles in width in the 

 most western part of the province, while it nar- 

 rows almost to a point as we proceed eastward to 

 Canso. This comparatively large district is au- 

 riferous throughout. The northern and larger 

 portion of Cumberland, a large part of southern 

 Colchester, all northern Hants, northern Pictou, 



southeastern Antigonish. western and south- 

 ern Inverness, western Richmond, the whole 

 eastern section of Cape Breton County, and 

 southern Victoria belong to the carboniferous 

 formation ; and a large proportion of these ex- 

 tensive tracts consists of productive coal-meas- 

 ures. The trap rocks of the new red-sandstone 

 district abound in native gems. Gold mining 

 began in Nova Scotia about 1862, the auriferous 

 area being supposed to be much smaller than it 

 has eventually proved. Since then it has been 

 shown by compilations from sworn official re- 

 turns that, taken throughout, the Nova Scotian 

 auriferous quartz has yielded more gold per ton 

 than that of any other gold-producing country ; 

 that the average net yield of gold per day's labor 

 was higher than that in any other country ; and 

 that the purity and unalloyed character of the 

 gold was unsurpassed by any other gold-mining 

 region, and only equaled by that of the Ural 

 mountains, Russia. The Nova Scotian aurif- 

 erous ores are therefore exceptioriably easy of 

 treatment. The twenty mining districts ex- 

 ploited are widely scattered over the auriferous 

 district, and their average product is nearly the 

 same. The total quantity of gold mined from 

 1862 to 1890, inclusive, was 506.675 ounces. This, 

 at the average rate at which Nova Scotian gold has 

 been selling in London, is in value about $10,- 

 133,501. The gold product for 1890 was 24,358 

 ounces, being equivalent to $487,254.04. Silver, 

 native and in carbonates and sulphides, is most 

 frequently found in the later metamorphic for- 

 mations, but also in the limestones of the lower 

 carboniferous age. Argentiferous ores of a 

 promising character are found at Smithfield. 

 in southern Colchester. Galena has been found 

 about the head waters of the Gold and La Have 

 rivers, Lunenburg County, which gave 100 

 ounces of silver to the ton. In Cape Breton, 

 one quartz vein, fifteen inches thick, afforded 

 39^ ounces of silver to the ton. Galena is in 

 Nova Scotia widely scattered and in rocks of 

 every age. In Gay's River settlement, Halifax 

 County, it is found in crystals disseminated 

 through the limestone drift. In Pembroke, Col- 

 chester County, it is found in like formation, ex- 

 tending over several miles of country. It is also 

 found at Musquodoooit, Caledonia, Victoria 

 County, and near Sydney, Arichat. and Port 

 Hood, and at various other points. These afford 

 a percentage of from 70 to 150 per cent, per 

 ton of lead. 



Tin has been discovered in Shelburne County, 

 associated with decomposed granite ; also at Tan- 

 gier, Halifax County, and Country Harbor, 

 Guysborough County. 



The iron deposits of Nova Scotia, considered 

 with reference to their number, extent, and qual- 

 ity of ores, are immense. On the south of the 

 Annapolis valley there is a belt of Devonian 

 strata from three to five miles in width, and ex- 

 tending eastwardly and westwardly about sixty 

 miles, being nearly equally divided by an in- 

 truded mass of granite. The western of these 

 divisions contains what are known as the Clem- 

 en tsport iron deposits; the eastern, s those of 

 Nictan. At Clementsport two beds have been 

 opened, the uppermost of which varies from two 

 to four feet in thickness, and consists of meta- 

 morphosed specular ore, yielding about 33 



