68 The Apatite Deposits of Canada. 



loss of time, with grass-seed, which, at once taking root, protects 

 the soil from the destructive action of rains, and transforms i in- 

 to good pasture-land. This system, which has been adopted to a 

 considerable extent in parts of Frontenac county, Ontario, is 

 worthy of record and of imitation in other regions. 



The similar apatite-bearing gneisses, which are found to the 

 north of the river Ottawa, a little northeast of the city of that 

 name, are in Ottawa county, Quebec, and chiefly in the town- 

 ships of Buckirgham, Templeton, and Portland. They reproduce 

 nil the characteristics of the first mentioned district, and may be 

 looked upon as a prolongation of it beneath the northwestern 

 limb of the paleozoic basin already mentioned. Later observa- 

 tions, both in Ontario and in this latter district, where mining 

 operations have been carried on within the past few years, have 

 been recorded by Messrs. Broome and Vennor, and by Dr. 

 Harrington, — the latter up to 1878. They have, however, added 

 little to our knowledge of the conditions of occurrence of the 

 mineral beyond what had already been set forth in 1863 and 

 1866. 



I have, within the past few months, examined with some detail 

 many of the apatite- workings in Ontario, which have served to 

 confirm the early observations, and to give additional importance 

 to the fact, already insisted upon in previous descriptions, that 

 the deposits of apatite are in part bedded or interstratifled in the 

 pyroxenic rock of the region, and in part are true veins of pos- 

 terior origin. These gneissic rocks, with their interstratifled 

 quartzose and pyroxenic layers, and included bands of crystal- 

 line limestone, have a general northeast and southwest strike, and 

 are much folded ; exhibiting pretty symmetrical anticlinals and 

 synclinals.in which the strata are seen to dip at various angles, some- 

 times as low as 25° or 30°, but more often approaching the vertical. 

 The bedded deposits of apatite, which are found running and dipping 

 with these, I am disposed to look upon as true beds, deposited at 

 the same time with the inclosing rocks. The veins, on the con- 

 tra 'y. cut across all these strata and, in some noticeable instances, 

 inclu'ie broken angular misses of the inclosing rocks. They are, 

 for the most part, nearly at right angles to the strike of the 

 strata, and generally vertical, though to both of these conditions 

 there are exceptions. One vein, which had yielded many hun 



