HOW - — ON LIMESTONE AND MARBLE. 63 



The presence of phosphoric acid in a manure is vahiable in most 

 cases, and there are Hmestones in which this acid exists in consider- 

 able proportion, as Dr. Dawson mentions in speaking of those found 

 at the Joggius : I have examined one of these, of a black colour, 

 >vhich I obtained from a bed on the beach and can fully confirm his 

 statements ; I found in it a notable amount of phosphoric acid ; he 

 justly says that such would be worth about three times the price of 

 ordinary limestones, and that the richest of the beds found would 

 possibly be sufficiently appreciated on trial to allow them to be 

 profitably worked. 



(I may mention here that a deposit consisting in small part of 

 carbonate of lime, but made up mostly of clay and sand found near 

 Mill Village, Parrsboro', was examined by me some time ago at the 

 request of Eev. W. King, and found to be so rich in phosphoric 

 acid that it ought to prove a good manure). 



Limestone as a flux. — At the only iron worlds now carried on in 

 the Province, viz : the Acadia Iron Works, Londonderry, limestone 

 from the neighbourhood is employed. When the Nictaus works 

 were in operation lim.estone was imported from New Bruns- 

 wick to a port on the Bay of Fuudy and thence conveyed by land 

 carriage some eleven miles to the furnace. The importance of hav- 

 ing a supply of this rock near the works is seen by observing the 

 amount employed. In 1861 the quantity of iron made at London- 

 derry was 1,200 tons, and Mr. Jones, the manager, stated (see these 

 Notes, Part I), that 200 bushels of limestone were required to smelt 

 one ton of ore, so at that time there was a consumption of 240,000 

 bushels of limestone, a quantity more than two-thirds greater than 

 that of all the lime burned in the same year tliroughout the Province, 



Marbles. — These have been long known to exist in various lo- 

 cahties but none of them have been worked, an attempt having been 

 made at one place only to make use of a deposit. A fair represen- 

 tation of the varieties best known was made at the International 

 Exhibition of 1862*, when there v/ere shown thirteen specimens 

 from eleven localities. 



Parrsboro' yields a purplish coloured marble w^ith green spots of 

 serpentine. Onslow mountains furnish a chocolate and a red var- 

 iety, Cheverie a reddish brown with red bands. Pictou Co., afibrds 

 ♦Want of time prevented as good a representation at the Dublin Exhibition. 



