620 REPORT— 1897. 



Table VI. — Analyses of Soils — Averages. Surface Soils {Water-free). 



2. Analyses of Some Precarhoniferous Coals.^ 

 By Professor W. Hodgson Ellis. 



The occurrence of anthracite in cavities of the calciferous sand-rock of New 

 York, near the base of the Lo-wer Silurian, -was recorded in 1842 by Vanuxem.- 

 Sterry Hunt ^ subsequently described a similar substance filling veins and fissures 

 an rocks of Silurian age in Quebec and on Lake Superior. Chapman * proposed 

 the name anthraxolite for this substance, to distinguish it from the anthracite of 

 the coal measures, from -which it differs chiefly in its mode of occurrence. Under 

 this name Hoffmann ^ has given proximate analyses of samples from the Cambrian 

 strata of Labrador. 



In the neighbourhood of Sudbury a very considerable deposit of this mineral 

 (has been recently discovered, and has been described by Coleman.'^ 



Mr. William La-wson and the author have published ' an analysis of this 

 Sudbury anthraxolite, and also of another specimen from Kingston, Ontario. Since 

 then the author has had the opportunity, through the kindness of Dr. George 

 Dawson, of analysing three other specimens. One of these is from Cap Rouge, 

 Quebec, and is alluded to in the Report of the Geological Survey for 1863. The 

 other two were collected by Mr. A. P. Low — one at Lake Mistassini, Quebec, and 

 the other from Lake Petitsikapau, Ungava, Labrador. 



The results of analysis were as follows : — 



Taking these with our previous results, it appears that the composition of these 

 Precarhoniferous coals varies as widely as that of the coals proper. In the an- 

 'nexed table these analyses are compared with those of the author's and Mr. Lawson 

 of the Sudbury and Kingston minerals, and also -with the analyses given in Dana's 

 •* Mineralogy ' of a mineral from Lake Onega, Russia, described by Inostransefl', and 



' Published in extenso in the Chemical News, 1897, p. 76, 186. 



^ Geology of New York, iii. 33. ' Geology of Canada, 1863, p. 524. 



* 3Iinerals and Geology of Central Canada, p. 143. 



^ Geological Survey of Canada, 1894, p. 66 K. 



*■ Bulletin No. 2, Ontario Bureau of Mines. 



' Proceedings of the Canadian Institute, February 1897. 



