44 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



111 Lhe Coball district Ihcic are mail}' veins where you can 

 walk along without taking your feet off of solid silver. Silver 

 is detected througli these veins in threads, in streaks, scales 

 and large masses, and in some cases almost filling up the 

 vein it.self with practically pure silver. 



The Cobalt mining district is about three miles square, and 

 mines are widely distributed. A piece of silver was taken up 

 out of the Ross mine in the summer of 1906, weighing 610 lbs. 

 and worth from $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 ; this piece was 

 practically pure silver. Land that was previously worth nothing 

 became very valuable at once. Various parts of the Cobalt are 

 now worth many thousands of dollars per square inch. The ore, 

 as it comes up from the shaft, contains considerable rock 

 matter, silver and Smaltite. The ore is broken and sorted into 

 two or three different grades, and the rest of it thrown up ou 

 the dump, but any of us would be glad if we had the dump; in 

 some parts of the world it would be mined just for itself. One 

 strange thing at Cobalt is that the actual production of 

 material is in advance of concentrating machinery. Open 

 dredging is a pernicious habit, because the water naturally 

 gathers and prevents them from lowering the shafts into the 

 mine. Mining is going on constantly, and $300,000.00 worth 

 of silver has been taken out of a small mine. 



The geological structure of the country is peculiar, after 

 you get down to the rock the surface is more or less smooth ; 

 the country has been claimed by glaciers. The Gneiss 

 Granite of the Ivaurentian Age are a series of rocks known as 

 Keewatin. These are probably the oldest that we know of. 

 These rocks are more or less green or dark grey in color. A 

 vast period of time must have elapsed before this rock was put 

 down. Then came the period when the Cobalt silver rocks 

 were laid down, the rocks of the Lower Huronian Age. There 

 are indications of large masses of molten material on these 

 rocks at some subsequent time, and I am inclined, very 

 strongly, to think that these huge masses are more or less 

 responsible for all the silver and Cobalt there is in the country, 

 and that when these molten masses came into the country they 



