NEW MINERAL DISCOVERIES IN NOVA SCOTIA. GILPIN. 87 



and near the mouth of the Barasois River, emptying into the 

 Little Bras d'Or. At the latter place the silurian slates are 

 literally soaked in iron oxide, and at several points they present 

 deposits which may on further investigation prove of economic 

 value. 



To the south-west of the railway bridge at Barasois, on aline 

 running towards Eskasonie on East Bay, are several large out- 

 crops of magnetite. As yet little work has been done to test the 

 value of these deposits. Should these deposits prove to be free 

 from titanic acid, they should, judging from the following 

 analysis.be available for the operations of the miner : 



Oxide of Manganese and Alumina CO 



Lime 11 



Magnesia . 10 



O 



Sulphur 05 



Phosphoric Acid 04 



Siiica 2.12 



Volatile 84 



Metallic Iron 67.298 



The question of the amount, quality, and cheapness of iron 

 ore is one of the great problems of the day. The United States 

 are exceptionally fortunate in having in its North-Western 

 States what may be termed the greatest deposits of Bessemer 

 ore yet discovered. The size of these deposits, their purity, 

 their accessibility, and the lavish expenditure for their cheap 

 mining and transportation have combined to build up at Chicago, 

 Pittsburg, and other points, the greatest individual steel works 

 of the world. Without the iron ores of Michigan, the United 

 States would to-day occupy a position much less menacing to 

 the commercial destinies of England and the Continent. It is 

 true that the competition England has had hitherto to meet in 

 the iron industry has come chiefly from the pig iron of 

 Tennessee, but this can be largely met by the English furnace 

 masters building larger furnaces and securing lower local rail- 

 way freights. Although these precious deposits, more valuable 

 than gold and silver mines, were heralded as everlasting already 

 their exhaustion is a question of not many years, as new dis- 



