140 GILPIN IKON OKES IN PICTOU COUNTY. 



There are three great lines of out-crop of this ore, belonging, as 

 far as at present known, to one large bed, thrown into its present 

 form by undulations of the strata. There is moreover a higher 

 horizon of similar ores opened by myself during the two past seasons. 

 The most northerly of these outcrops, beginning near the spathose 

 ore, crosses to about the centre of the west line of the Wentworth 

 grant, extending a long distance as shown by surface indications. 

 No openings have yet been made on it, but from the associated strata 

 its dip would be to the north. The rocks between this point and 

 the summit of Webster's Mountain are much twisted into undulating 

 forms, and the connection between this exposure and those to the 

 south still requires examination. The Webster bed has been care- 

 fully trenched and traced for several miles. It is an enormous 

 deposit varying in width from fifteen to thirty feet, and dips gene- 

 rally to the North, and is found at an elevation of four hundred 

 feet above Sutherland's River. Its position allows of the extraction 

 of millions of tons of ore above water level by the simplest opera- 

 tions of the miner ; and it is worthy of the remark of an eminent 

 engineer, who, when shown its extent exclaimed that it should be 

 called the back bone of Pictou County. 



We now pass to Blanchard, about two miles from the East 

 River, and here we have the third outcrop of this ore, on what Dr. 

 Dawson considers the opposite side of an anticlinal. This has 

 already been referred to as the Blanchard bed, from which the 

 General Mining Association formerly quarried ore, and is now the 

 property of James Hudson, Esq. It has never been traced any 

 considerable distance, but is known to extend about one half mile, 

 varying in width from thirty to one hundred feet, and lies about three 

 hundred and sixty feet above the East River at its nearest point. 



The presence of fossils and of an underlying seam of limestone, 

 affords room for an interesting sketch of the conditions under which 

 it was accumulated, but it would pass the limits of this paper. All 

 these ores resemble each other strongly, and are compact with un- 

 even fracture — the colour varies from steel grey to red and brown. 

 Their composition may be gathered from the following analysis of 

 the Webster ore, by Dr. Stevenson Macadam : 



