134 HOW — o?; ORES of manganese and their uses. 



geological situation is different from that prevailing here. I may 

 mention that the report gives twelve hundred and fiftv tons as the 

 amount of ore taken account of as raised and mostly sold ; a large 

 but unknown C|uantity besides is mentioned as Jiaving been raised 

 and shipped, and much must have been used in the Pro\-ince, since 

 there were at one time lai-ge chemical works at the Hopewell man- 

 ganese mines in Shepody mountain. 



Canada, it appears, has not yet been found to possess manganese 

 ores in sufficient i^urity or abundance to be of economic importance 

 — (Geology of Canada, y. 751.) The chief supplies of these ores 

 were till lately derived from Germany, but mines have been opened 

 not only here and in Xew Brunswick, but in Spain and Vermont ; 

 and it was from Spain, according to a Report read before the British 

 Association in 1863, that the richest ores were at that time mostly 

 imported into England. A short extract from this report will pro- 

 bably be interesting as showing that Xova Scotia has richer and 

 more accessible ores than Spain : — 



'' Manganese is imported from Germany and Spain ; but it is chiefly 

 from the latter country that the richest ores are now obtained, which are 

 foaud iu hills consisting of schistose rock, which sometimes rise to a 

 height of eight hundred feet above the level of the plain ; but it is also 

 found in " pockets," and, in the latter case, it is quarried by picks, and 

 occasionally srunpowder is used. The cpiality of the ore varies from 

 50 to 90 per cent, peroxide, and to obtain the richer ore men and boys 

 are employed to break and sort it, Avhich is then put into sacks and car- 

 ried a distance of twenty to thirty-five miles, on mules' backs, to the 

 ports of shipment in the Mediterranean. The richest ores are at 

 Calanas, thirty miles north of the ancient Roman fishing town of Huelva. 

 We are indebted to Mr. Gething for this information, who also informs 

 us that he impoi-ted to the Tyne, in 1857, the first cargo of Spanish 

 manganese." 



As regards Vermont, it appears from Dana's Mineralogy that 

 the ores are abundant at several places ; whether they are worked 

 at more than one I have not learned. The locality at which mining- 

 is prosecuted is Brandon ; and from the following interesting infor- 

 mation, communicated to me by Dr. W. H. Weeks, of Dartmouth, 

 it appears that the mode of occurrence of the ore is very different 

 from that at Teny Cape, and by no means so favourable for opera- 

 tions on a large scale : — 



"■ My visit to Brandon. Vermont, was of very short duration ; I spent 

 ^nly a few hours at the works, consequently had not time to study the 

 locality. Tiie manganese is taken out of a gravel bank ; it exists in 



