38 JOURNAL AND PROCKEDINGS. 



THE MINERAL OF OUR LOCAL ROCKS. 



READ BEFORE THE GEOLOGICAL SECTION OF THE HAMILTON 



ASSOCIATION. 



BY COI,. C. C. GRANT. 



My friend, Mr. Neill, President of the Llamilton Association, 

 at a recent meeting of the Geological Section, informed us that he 

 had received from a " well wisher " (anonymously) the very liberal 

 contribution of $20, to be expended in a certain manner that the 

 writer indicates, in order to induce the younger generation to take a 

 greater interest in Canadian Natural History, Minerals, etc. With 

 your permission, gentlemen, I respectfully submit some few notes 

 on local Mineralogy, which may prove of some little assistance to 

 the student, if I rightly interpret the intention of the generous 

 and anonymous donor. I have noticed, more especially of late, 

 quite a number of people here take a far greater interest in Min- 

 eralogy than is generally supposed ; doubtlessly this is owing to the 

 prominence of late given to mines and mining matters in the public 

 press. I remarked, on several occasions, onlookers were attracted 

 to the various rocks, Auriferous Quartz, etc., displayed in city stores 

 on some of our principal streets. Farmers, not unfrequently, bring 

 me specimens of decaying granite boulders, containing veins of 

 golden or silver mica, for examination, and are much disappointed 

 when informed they did not possess the properties of the precious 

 metals ; iron pyrites also are often mistaken for gold. At or about 

 the end of last month I was shown a very fine cabinet specimen of 

 the latter ; its owner concluded there was a copper mine close by 

 somewhere, and did not seem altogether satisfied with what he heard 

 regarding it. It came, perhaps, from a pocket in the Barton 

 Niagaras at Lime Ridge, or may have been obtained from lower 

 beds of limestone nearer Hamilton. The Mineral appears to be 

 rare in both, at least in the Crystalline form. Still rarer a Pseudo- 

 morphus Crystal of Sulphur, one that presents a form which is 



