<>('( TRREXCE OF TIN IN NOVA SCOTIA. P1EKS. 



department. On the way there a snowfall unfortunately 

 occurred which covered all exposures. I visited the deposit on 

 29th November, and found a small pit, about 12 feet long by 

 5 feet wide and 10 feet deep. The hole was nearly three- 

 quarters full of water, and this with the mantling of snow, 

 made it impossible to make a satisfactory examination. From 

 what could be seen under these unfavorable conditions, the 

 country-rock was apparently an ordinary grey granite, consist- 

 ing of quartz, white feldspar and mica. I noted masses of 

 reddish granitic rock, perhaps a half-mile eastward on the Dal- 

 housie road, and it was also reported at Lake Ramsay, but it 

 seemed to have no connection with the deposit at lieeves's. I 

 could not hear of any sedimentary rocks in the neighborhood, 

 the nearest rocks of this kind being about two miles to the north- 

 west towards Wallabach lake. None were associated with the 

 tin deposit. 



It was found that the cassiterite occurred in small quantities 

 in either a dike or. a schlieren of coarse pegmatite, becoming 

 aplitic in parts, cutting or segregated from the ordinary granite. 

 The pegmatite mass apparently had a nearly vertical attitude, 

 and if the length of the hole indicated the strike of the deposit, 

 as it undoubtedly did, it lay in a north-east and south-westerly 

 direction. How far the pegmatite extended in either direction 

 horizontally, or how it change:! in character in those direc- 

 tions could not be ascertained, and I recommended that the 

 surface be stripped at intervals on the strike that this might be 

 ascertained if possible, in preference to continuing to sink for 

 the present in the pit. 



The feldspar in the upper parts of the deposit had decom- 

 posed to kaolinite, some portions of which were of fair quality 

 and colour. In the deeper part of the pit the rock was becoming 

 less altered. In the kaolin and unaltered feldspar were 

 numerous immense crystals of quartz, of a slightly smoky tint, 

 unfortunately not sufficiently transparent to make them of com- 



