GILPIN IRON ORES IN PICTOU COUNTY. 137 



Neither the Government, the City, nor private gentlemen can 

 make any mistake by encouraging in every way any branch of 

 Natural Science ; but pre-eminent above all I think to dwellers near 

 the sea, is by a thorough study of marine fauna and flora, to feed 

 our people by removing good fish from the list of luxuries, and to 

 keep the balance of trade in our favor. 



Art. IV. — Notes on Specimens of Iron Ores, etc., col- 

 lected in Pictou County for the Philadelphia 

 Exhibition. By Edwin Gilpin, M.A., F.G.S., etc. 



(Read February Utk y 1876.) 



My purpose this evening is not to enter upon an elaborate 

 scientific discussion of the minerals found in the district, but to 

 show the relation they bear to the industrial development of the 

 county. The first resources of a new country and those most 

 readily drawn upon are the products of the waters and the forests, 

 and such minerals as are most easily extracted for exportation in a 

 raw state. These alone are insufficient for the permanent develop- 

 ment of a country, fishing towns and villages grow slowly, and the 

 yield of the forest diminishes in an increasing ratio. The census, 

 our most reliable teacher of political economy, shows the simple 

 fact that wherever coal and iron exist together, there the most 

 flourishing populations are concentrated ; that the commercial 

 prosperity of every country is in direct ratio to the quantity of coal 

 employed within its territory for the smelting and working up of 

 iron and allied minerals. 



Bearing these facts in mind, we will now briefly pass in review 

 the various ores of iron that surround one side of the Pictou Coal 

 Field ; first glancing at the earliest information we have on the 

 subject. 



The indications of iron ore in the vicinity of the East River 

 of Pictou, attracted early attention, and the General Mining Asso- 

 ciation of London, in 1828, or shortly after they opened their 

 Pictou Collieries, endeavored to turn it to practical account. They 



