THE 



Canadian Record of Science, 



MONTREAL. 



VOLUME I. NUMBER 2. 



I. The Apatite Deposits of Canada. * 



By T. Sterry Hunt, L.L.D., F.R.S. 



The presence of apatite in the Laurentian rocks of North 

 America has long been known to mineralogists, and within a few 

 years so much interest has been excited by the economic import- 

 ance of deposits of this mineral, found in certain parts of Canada, 

 that a brief history of our knowledge of these deposits may not 

 be unacceptable to the members of the 'American Institute of 

 Mining Engineers. It was in 1847 that the present writer was 

 shown by a local collector of minerals some large crystals, which 

 had been called beryl, found in North" Burgess, in Ontario. 

 These were at once recognized as apatite ; and after a visit to the 

 locality, this was described in the report of the geological survey 

 of Canada for that year as likely to furnish an abundant supply 

 of a valuable fertilizer : the opinion being then expressed that the 

 fact of " the existence of such deposits as these will prove of 

 great importance." 



Specimens of apatite from this locality, collected by the writer, 

 were shown among the economic minerals of Canada at the great 



* Read before the American Institute of Mining Engineers, at Cleveland, Feb- 

 uary, 1884, and reprinted from its Proceedings. 



