OF CENTRAL CANADA PART II. 63 



in quartz or other rock-matters, or in the form of small nuggets or 

 fine grains mixed with sand and gravel. H 2.0 3.0 ; sp. gr. 



15.5 19.5 according to purity : usually about 16 to 17.5. BB, 



easily fusible, but not oxydizable or otherwise affected. Insoluble in 

 nitric acid, but soluble in aqua regia. 



Native gold is always alloyed with a small amount of silver, by 

 which its colour is rendered paler, and its specfic gravity lowered. 

 The average amount of silver in specimens from the Eastern Town- 

 ships is about 12 p. c., or from 10 to 15 p.c In the gold from the 

 Hastings district, it appears to vary from about 2 to 10 p.c. ; whilst 

 in much of the gold from Nova Scotia, it does not exceed 2 or 3 per 



& 

 cent. 



/A As regards Ontario and Quebec, gold occurs in rock formations of 

 three distinct ags. First, in quartz veins or bands in the Lauren- 

 tian Series .* more especially in the Townships of Madoc, Marmora 

 and Elzevir, in the County of Hastings, in Ontario. Secondly in 

 veins mostly of quartz intermixed with ferruginous calcspar or 

 dolomite in the Metamorphic Series of the Eastern Townships of 

 the Province Quebec, south of the St. Lawrence (as well as in altered 

 strata of the same general age in Nova Scotia) ; and thirdly, in gravel 

 and other detrital accumulations of Post-Cainozoic age, or in part 

 apparently of somewhat older date. These latter deposits occur chiefly 

 at the base of the Drift-Formation (see Part Y.) throughout the 

 Eastern Townships and adjacent region generally. They usually 

 yield, by washing, a considerable residuum of black ferruginous sand, 

 with which the gold is intermixed sometimes in nuggets weighing 

 several ounces, but more commonly in very minute grains. The 

 sands of most of the streams and rivers which traverse this district 

 are, thus, more or less auriferous. The St. Francis, Chaudiere, 

 Famine, Metgenuet, Du-Loup, Guillaume or Des-Plantes, and Gilbert 

 or Touffedes-Pins, may be mentioned more especially in this connexion. 

 A good deal of alluvial gold has been taken out of cracks and hollows 

 in the slaty rocks forming the bed of these rivers, as at the Devil's 

 Rapids on the Chaudiere ; also on small streams near Ste. Marie and 

 St. George and elsewhere. The gold-bearing veins of this district 

 have been noticed chiefly in Vaudreuil, Aubert-Gallion, and Liniere, 



* The characters and relations of the various rock groups referred to in this Division, are 

 ully described in Parts III and V. 



