220 THE VERMILION IRON-BEARING DISTRICT. 



of showing a sinooth surface of paint rock, projects to the east in several 

 more or less prominent tongues. The horizontal plans of the various levels 

 show that these tongues project farther and farther eastward as the deeper 

 and deeper levels are reached. By the time the eighth level is reached the 

 tongue there shown is relatively narrow. It is possible that it may die out 

 before it goes much farther east, and it is very pi-obable that another small 

 roll will be found to begin north of and en Echelon with it. This irregu- 

 larity in the western foot wall of the Chandler basin is well brought out by 

 the mining operations. The di'ifts which have been put in to open up the 

 west end of the ore body run in the paint rock (altered greenstone), and 

 have been maintained along a course which carries them approximately 

 parallel with the margin of the ore body. As a result they have a winding 

 course. One going through these and keeping his course may see that he 

 follows the tongue to the east, bends around this projection in the paint rock 

 corresponding to the anticline, and then follows back west around the suc- 

 ceeding syncline of ore. Occasionally when the syncliue of ore is very 

 narrow the drift may cut directly across it, and in such instances a small 

 tongue of ore surrounded by the paint rock is shown in cross section. 



The foot and hanging walls of this overturned syncline, as well as 

 the western wall and the bottom of the basin, so far as is known from the 

 mining work, are of paint rock or soap rock. This soap rock is identical in 

 character with the more or less schistose amygdaloidal and ellipsoidal 

 greenstones which occur in such abundance upon the surface in the vicinity 

 of Ely, and are found surrounding the north, east, and south sides of the 

 Chandler basin in the numerous exposures. This greenstone, as has been 

 already stated, is an altered basalt (see p. 152). Where the greenstone 

 lies in contact with the jasper and ore it is almost invariably very schistose 

 as the result of movements which have taken place between rocks of such 

 different physical characters, and which have been more effective along 

 this plane than elsewhere. Moreover, since such plane of contact rep- 

 resents a direction of easy flowage for the percolating waters descending 

 from the surface, the rocks here have been subjected to leaching and have 

 undergone very great metasomatic changes. As a result of these changes 

 the minerals of these rocks have in places been altered to chlorite, the 

 formation of which has produced a soft schistose rock. The soft, soapy 

 feel of the rock causes it to be spoken of by the miners as soap rock or 



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