CANADIAN ROOFING SLATE. 3G3 



In Canada, no clay slates have yet been discovered among the 

 Laiirentian rocks, the strata of this series which approach nearest 

 clay slates in composition, being always massive, and usually of a 

 crystalline character. Slaty rocks, approaching argillites, have 

 been found in several places among the Huronian series. For ex- 

 ample, specimens from the Montreal River, about five miles from 

 its junction with Lake Temiscanrng, have the characters of roof- 

 ing slate, but the plates into which they split are scarcely as thin 

 as desirable. Among these rocks, on the north side of Lake Supe- 

 rior, greenish-black and greenish-blue slates, some of which may 

 be fit for roofing, are found on the Kaministiquia River above the 

 Grand Falls, and slates which are said to be available for this pur- 

 pose, occur on the Slate Islands, and at Anse a la Bouteille. 



In Eastern Canada the argillaceous bands of the Quebec Group, 

 in many places yield good roofing slates, which have already been 

 successfully wrought in a few localities. The most important of 

 these is the Walton Slate Quarry, in Melbourne, to be described 

 further on. The Melbourne Slate band, in its northeastward ex- 

 tension, crosses the St. Francis River into Cleveland, where, in 

 1854, a quarry was opened on the 6th lot of the 9th Range, but 

 after a time abandoned, from the band being too narrow to pay 

 to overcome the difficulties in the way of working it. The slate 

 produced was nearly black in color and of the best quality. The 

 locality is on the Grand Trunk Railway, about three miles south 

 of the village of Richmond. On the 4th lot of the 1st range of 

 Kingsey, reddish-purple slates of a good kind are found in the 

 high eastern bank of the St Francis River, about seven miles below 

 Richmond Station. The Kingsey slates are not so hard and 

 smooth as those of Melbourne and Cleveland. A Montreal com- 

 pany attempted to work this quarry, but abandoned it after gra- 

 ding a railway track down the bank of the St. Francis from the 

 Grank Trunk at Richmond. The failure to carry out this enter- 

 prise, appears to have prejudiced Montreal capitalists against slate 

 quarrying generally, and to Mr. Benjamin Walton remained the 

 honor of first demonstrating its profitable nature, and of develop- 

 ing a great slate quarry in Canada — a quarry which is un- 

 surpassed by any in the world, either in the quality of the slates 

 produced, or in the facilities for working. The Kingsey slate 

 band is continued into the Township of Durham, on the west side 

 of the St. Francis, and has been worked to a small extent on the 

 6th lot of the 4th range. At the slate rapids on the Black River, 



