USEFUL MINERALS. — GOLD. 627 



I had an opportunity, in 1866, of examining one of the most 

 extensively worked deposits in Nova Scotia, that of Waverley, 

 near Halifax, in company with my friend, James Thomson, J2sq., of 

 Halifax, and shall describe it as a characteristic example of the 

 whole. This district is situated in the vicinity of Lake Thomas, 

 about ten miles distant from Halifax. The ore is extracted from 

 a number of openings along the strike of the vein, worked by horse 

 gins. The deepest pit was 225 feet, on the slope of the vein. 

 On descending this pit, I found the vein to consist of compact 

 grayish-white quartz, varying in thickness from four feet to six 

 inches, but having an ordinary width of about two feet. Its strike 

 is S. 50° W. magnetic, and its dip at an angle of 65° to 70° to the 

 north-west. The lower wall, where I saw it, consists of coarse 

 gray slate, with small cross veins of quartz. The upper wall is 

 hard gray quartzite presenting a waved and crumpled surface, which 

 I have no doubt is an original strata plane, and shoAvs that the vein 

 is strictly in the plane of the bedding (Fig. 218). The quartz 



Fig. 218. — Bottom of a Shaft in the Waverley Oold Mine. 



of the vein itself has a laminated or banded appearance, and the 

 gold seems to be most abundant near the walls ; though visible gold 

 is rare in this vein at present, the greater part being in a minutely 

 disseminated and invisible state. The superintendent of one of the 

 mines informed me that the thicker portions of the vein afforded 

 scarcely more gold than the thinner portions, and that the gold 

 is most abundant near the hanging wall. This vein is known as the 

 Tudor vein, and two smaller veins occur in its vicinity. One 



