282 PHOSPHATE OF LIME ABUNDANT. 



in masses so large, or so readily separable from the 

 common limestone, that it could be economically 

 extracted, and brought in a pure state into the 

 market? If so, it would prove valuable as an article 

 of shipment to Europe, and would provide another 

 available resource to the high-farmed lands of Great 

 Britain. Upon the exhausted wheat-soils of Canada, 

 properly prepared and applied, its- use would be invalu- 

 able. An inquiry into this point is deserving of the 

 attention of the Canadian Legislature, with a view to 

 the good of the province ; and of individual landowners 

 along the outcrop of this rock, with a view to their own 

 individual profit. 



I think it the more likely that some localities may be 

 found in Canada where this mineral phosphate will, 

 present itself in sufficient quantity to admit of being 

 profitably extracted, because, during my subsequent 

 residence in the State of New York, I was assured by 

 Professor Emmons of Albany, one of the State geolo- 

 gists, that he had met with it in several places in that 

 State where he thought it might be so extracted. In 

 the white metamorphic limestones of Essex, Jefferson, 

 and St Lawrence Counties, into which, as I have already 

 said, the Canadian limestone extends, he had so observed 

 it ; and at Rossie, in the last of these counties, he thought 

 a man might in some places pick out a hundredweight 

 a-day. Among the magnetic iron ores also, in the 

 township of Peru, near Lake Champlain, he informed 

 me that it sometimes occurs in equal bulk with the ore 

 itself, and that, by washing or other mechanical means, 

 a ton a-day might be collected in some localities. 



In the interest of general scientific agriculture, inde- 

 pendent of individual or local profit, it is desirable that 

 the accuracy of such statements, and the possible avail- 

 ability of these and similar deposits, should be speedily 

 investigated. 



