1852.] REVIEWS. 



quarter of a mile below tlie parish church, and the other three are ou 

 the right. The lowest of them is about two miles below the church ; 

 the next about the same distance above it ; and the fourth is the 

 Riviere des Plautes, about half a mile farther up, and near the south- 

 eastern boundary of the seigniory. In Vaudreuil Beauce they were 

 discovered ou the GuiUaume, much further up than previously stated, 

 and on the Bras opposite to it. On this and some of its tributaries the 

 metal was traced to tlie centre of tlie township of Tring, a distance of 

 about twelve miles. Three other streams wliich yield it in Vaudreuil 

 Beauce have hei'etofore been ineutioned : they are the Ruisseau Les- 

 sard, Ruisseau du Moulin, and the Touffe des Pius, on which it was 

 first discovered. In Aubert d'Isle it was found on the Famine and 

 traced to Rarbottles Settlement, and beyond the seigniory into Water- 

 ford, a distance altogetlier of about ten miles. Some particles were 

 obtained ou the Ruisseau d'Ai'boise, about a mile above the Famine, 

 and it was followed about tliree miles up the brook coniniunly called 

 Pozer's Stream, in Aubert Gallion. On the Riviere du Loup, in addi- 

 tion to its occurrence in a multitude of spots, — in fact almost continu- 

 ously from its mouth across Jersey and Marlow, — it was found iu 

 nearly all its tributary brooks, such as the Ladyfair, the Grande 

 Conde, the Metgermet for four miles up, the Travellers Rest, the 

 Portage, Kempt's Stream, Oliver's Stream for four miles up, and 

 another stream between it and tlie boundary of the Province. Above 

 tie Loup, ou the Chaudiere, it occurred at successive intervals in 

 twenty places iu sixteen miles, as far as the south-western boundary of 

 Dorset Township. 



"The localities of its observed presence on the other line of explora- 

 tion were on Lake Etchemin, and along the Famine in Aubert d'Isle, 

 and Pozer's Stream in Aubert Gallion, towards Tring, and again ou 

 the St Francis, in Dudswell, in Westbury, and near the joint corners 

 of Westbury, Stoke, Eaton, and Ascott, as well as in this last township 

 near Sherbrooke. 



" It is not supposed that the limits of the auriferous district have been 

 ascertained, but that it very probably extends much farther to the north- 

 east and attains the valley of the river St. John, while to the south-west 

 it is known to reach Vermont, and to be traceable at intervals through 

 the United States, e^en, it is said, as far as Mexico. In its breadth, 

 however, it does not appear to cross the range of mountains with which 

 it runs parallel, and no traces of it have been met with on their north- 

 western flank. The deposit in which the gold occurs is part of an 

 ancient drift, probably marine, and supposed to be of higher antiquity 

 than that which, from the extent to which it occupies the valley of the 

 St Lawrence and some of its tributarie.s, Mr. Desor, who has recently 

 bestowed much attention on the detrital deposits of North America, is 

 disposed to give the name of Lawrenciau. Iu this, alluded to in 

 various Reports as tertiary and post-tertiary, the remains of wliales, 

 seals, and two species of iish — the capeling and the lump-sucker — and 

 many marine shells of those species still inhabiting the Gulf of St 

 Lawrence, are found. The shells on the Mountain of Montreal attain 

 a height of about 470 feet above tide level in Lake St. Peter, which is 

 the greatest altitude known to me. None of the remains have yet been 

 found in the Canadian gold drift; and as this appears in its lowest 

 undisturbed parts to be at a height of about 500 feet above the sea, it 

 is probable what is now exposed of it had emerged from the ocean 

 before the Lawrenciau drift was placed, while in lower levels it would 

 be covered up by it. 



"In the localities iu which the gold occurs, the coarser materials of 

 the di'ift are made up iu a large degree of the debris of rocks similar 

 to the clay slates and interstratitied grey sandstones on which it rests ; 

 but these are accompanied by fragments and pebbles of line con- 

 glomerate, talcose slate, and serpentme, which with magnetic, specular, 

 chromic, and titaniferous iron (none of them absent when the gold is 

 present), are derived from the mountain range, bounding it on the 

 north-west ; pebbles and fragments of white quartz are abundant) 

 which may be derived from veins of the mineral prevailing in the 

 mountain range, or from others ou the south-east of it With these 

 materials there occasionally occur in the vaUey of the Chaudiere and 

 its tributaries large boulders of limestone conglomerate, similar to the 

 beds of St Giles and St. Mary ; and more rarely of gneiss, identical in 

 character with known kinds of the rock on the north side of the St. 

 Lawrence. Not only is the gold absent from the drift on the north- 

 west flank of the mountain range, but also are the clu'omic iron and 

 the serpentine, notwithstanding that the two have been traced in asso- 

 ciation 135 miles, constituting a marked band accompanying the range 

 from Potton to Cranbourne. On the north-west flank, however, 

 boulders of northern gneiss are frequent ; and a few of limestone have 

 been met with even pretty high up on the hills : showing by their 

 fossils their derivation from the Trenton limestone, the nearest 

 exposures of which are on the north side of the St Lawrence. In fact, 

 in respect to the drift of the whole country, it may be said, that on 

 southem foundations are found resting the ruins of northern ; but no 

 northern rocks are met with overlaid to any extent by debris derivable 



113 



exclusively from southern. The auriferous drift shows no exception to 

 this ; and there is little doubt that causes connected witli northern cur- 

 rents, when the rocks were beneath the surface of an ocean, have 

 placed the whole. Ever since the surface however has risen fi-om 

 beneath this ocean, causes similar to those now in operation in the dis- 

 trict have been working in a contrary course. The rivers of the 

 district emptying into the St. Lawrence, flow north : iu so far, there- 

 fore, as their forces modify the distribution of the drift, the materials 

 of which it is composed are earned in that direction. This, no doubt, 

 has some effect ou the finer and lighter materials, and occasionally, 

 with the assistance of ice and great freshets, on some of the coarser 

 and heavier ; but the streams, washing away the former in larger pro- 

 portions than the latter, concentrate these in the valleys and channels ; 

 the gold, being the heaviest sub.stance, is moved the least It may 

 occasionally be pushed along the bottom when this is smooth, but it 

 seeks every hole and crevice in its course, and when it has once 

 obtained shelter there it remains protected. Where the edges of the 

 slates come to the surface, the plates have all been moved by super- 

 ficial forces, and they therefore lie more or less loosely ou one another, 

 and the fine particles of gold gradually work themselves down between 

 them, reaching sometimes as deep as three feet. 



" Although it is probable the whole of the drift on the south-east ol 

 the mountain range — both that iu high and that in low places — may 

 be auriferous, it appears certain that the metal will be most concen- 

 trated in the valleys and the channels of streams ; and the larger the 

 stream, — the more frequently it has broken down its banks, — the 

 oftener and more extensively it has changed its courae, — the more 

 important the auriferous deposit is likely to be ; and it is probably 

 only in some such situations, if any where, that it will be worked to 

 advantage. From the combination of the materials associated with the 

 gold in the drift, there appears a strong probability that the metal is 

 derived from quartz veins situated in the mountain range, through the 

 agency of some southward-moving causes ; and even if traces were 

 found north of tliis range in the channels of the main streams, such as 

 the Chaudiere and the St Francis, the circumstance would not militate 

 against the supposition, as ti'aces iu such positions may be expected 

 from the fluviatile remodification of the drift ; but with the exception 

 of one vein in talcose slate near Sherbooke, no auriferous quartz veins 

 have yet been discovered ; and in this one there was merely a trace 

 of the metal, so that the facts of this gold district as yet ofi'er no con- 

 tradiction to Sir Roderick I. Murchison's theory that the gold, when it 

 was originally placed in the veins, occupied only that part of them 

 which was towards the then existing exterior of the earth's crust ; and 

 that this part, having been subsequently worn down by various 

 destructive causes, the productive portion of the veins has been wholly 

 or in a gi'eat degree removed, leaving only their more quartzose con- 

 tinuation behind iu situ ; while the gold, the vein stone, and tlie rociv 

 enclosing it have been carried away to form the drift. In this way it 

 is his opinion that the drift wiU always be more productive than the 

 veins ; but whether this is to be borne out by the facts of California 

 and Austialia, remains yet to be proved. 



"The object of this examination has not been so much to ascertain 

 the quantity as distribution ; but an effective experiment being now in 

 operation on the Riviere du Loup, under a letter of license from the 

 Government, — one condition of the lease being that a correct return 

 shall be made of the quantity obtained, — I am iu hopes by the end of 

 tlie present season to have a few such facts as will afford some 

 criterion to determine whether there is reasonable ground for supposing 

 the deposit in that vicinity can be worked advautageously." 



Mr. Mun'ay's investigations, during the latter part of 1850, were 

 carried on over a very large area. The determination of the bounda- 

 ries of the several formations by which the Western Peninsula is 

 underlaid, their geographical disti'ibution iu the interior, and the 

 nature of the economic materials the various deposits contained, were 

 among the chief objects of his laborious investigations. 



Mr. Murray considers the whole of the Western Peninsula to be 

 equal, if not to surpass, in its capabilities of soil and climate, any other 

 part of British America, " as the rapidity with which it has been 

 settled, the annual increase of its products, and the gr..wth of its 

 numerous towns and villages abundantly testify." Valuable economic 

 materials are abimdantly distributed throughout the part of the 

 country visited by Mr. Murray, namely, the valley of the upper portion 

 of the Grand River, the Speed, the Saugeen, &c., and their affluents. 

 In the seventh concession of Nassagaweya there is a vertical precipice 

 ofeucrinal limestone, varying from eighty to one hundred feet in 

 height ; and in Eramosa a branch of the Speed runs between vertical 



