CANADIAN ROOFING SLATE. 359 



net gains amount to upwards of £100,000. This quarry was 

 opened about fifty years ago. It employs 2,500 men in the 

 various operations connected with its working, and produces 

 13,000,000 slates a year. The Lanberris quarry employs 2,000 

 men and returns a net annual profit of about £70,000. The 

 Welsh Slate Company's quarry, owned in part by Lord Palmer- 

 ston, employs 400 men, and yields an annual profit of about 

 £25,000. The Rhewbryfair Slate Company's quarry, gives 

 employment to 350 men, and affords an annual net profit of 

 £13,000, or fifty per cent, on the original capital. A quarry 

 belonging to the Festiniog Slate Company is now being further 

 developed, and it is proposed to make it furnish 50,000 tons per 

 annum at a profit of £37,000 and a minimum dividend of from 

 30 to 40 per cent. These and other quarries, employing from 250 

 to 300 men, and yielding equally great returns, in proportion to 

 their production, are situated on a slate band or " vein," as it is 

 locally termed, in the Festiniog district in North Wales. There 

 are besides, about a dozen other quarries in operation in Wales, 

 all making the most satisfactory returns, when judiciously worked; 

 although some of them have to contend against great difficulties, 

 arising from the unfavorable underlie of the cleavage for work- 

 ing, or from disadvantages in the positions and locations of the 

 quarries, some of which are between twenty and thirty miles 

 distant from a port or railway. The slates are paid for at the 

 quarries by the thousand, but the Welshmen reckon 1,200 to the 

 "thousand." The Welsh quarries are estimated to produce an 

 aggregate of from 350 to 400,000 tons of slate every year, of 

 which fully one-half is furnished by the two first mentioned. The 

 selling price of manufactured slates is about fifty shillings a ton, 

 so that if the latter figure be correct, the yearly value of the slates 

 produced in Wales, will be equal to a million of pounds sterling. 



A cubic yard of slate rock weighs about two tons, and when we 

 know the proportion to allow for waste in quarrying and dressing, 

 we can calculate approximately the quantity of slates which can 

 be produced in a volume of slate rock whose dimensions are 

 given. As these dimensions can be ascertained in each case, the 

 profits of slate quarrying may be reduced to a certainty, and thus 

 it has the character of a sure branch of business — a great advan- 

 tage over the more hazardous enterprise of mining. Some of the 

 slate quarries in Wales have a horizontal surface of from 1000 to 

 2000 square yards, and are capable of being worked, in many 



