Iron Ores of Canada. 2^ 



ttere are now iu Upper Canada. 2120 steam-engines, of an ag- 

 gregate power, represented by 242,000 liorses, were also instru- 

 mental in tliis production of iron in Great Britain. 



" The growtli of tlie iron trade and manufacture of tlie United 

 States, during tlie last forty years, lias been very great. In 1816y 

 tliere were 158 furnaces, producing 54,000 tons of pig iron; in 

 1855, tliere were 540 blast furnaces,, averaging 900 tons eacli an- 

 nually, yielding 486,000 tons; and 950 bloomeries, forges, rolling- 

 and splitting mills, yielding of bar lioops, &c., 291^000 tons, and 

 of blooms, castings, macliiuery, and stove plates, 151,500 tons; 

 making, that year, an aggregate of 929^100 tons, at tiie value of 

 $33,940,500, 111 1853, tbe rapid increase in tliis class of manu- 

 facture was sucb as to jaeld more than a million tons of pig iron. 



" The United States producing in 1855, more than 1,000,000 

 tons, shows that tlie iron industry has already become very exten- 

 sive in the neig-hbourlng Union. How fer the want of coal as- 

 fuel for smelting may interfere with future Canadian production,, 

 remains to be tested. There can be little doubt that when the 

 railway is constructed from Peterborough to the Marmora iron re- 

 gion, the demand for coal so universally springing up in the basin 

 of Lake Ontario, will enable it soon to be laid down at the mines 

 at as cheap a rate as it is now furnished at Lake Ports." 



Now, of the iron made in the United States, no doubt a large 

 proportion is smelted' with mineral coal, but a great deal is also- 

 made with charcoal^ especially in the State of New York, where 

 the Laurentian formation appears in the region near Lake Cham- 

 plain and the Adirondack mountains. The following" particulars 

 relating to these works, have been gleaned fi'om a series of arti- 

 ticles, which appeared in the Railroad Journal for 1849. Speak- 

 ing of the ftirnaces in Clinton county, he says : " The works are 

 generally small, scattered over the country in the neighbourhood 

 of the various mines. The principal portion of the inhabitants 

 are directly dependant upon it, the only employment not closely 

 connected with it beings lumbering, for which the fine forests of 

 this region afford abundant materials. In the long winters, when 

 nothing can be done in fanning, the farmers find a busy occupa- 

 tion for themselves and their teams, in drawing in the supplies of 

 charcoal, wood, and of ore. At this time, the roads covered with 

 deep snow, are in the best order for hauling heavy loads, and new 

 ones are easily opened through the woods and over the roughest 

 ground by merely cleaA'ing out the brush.. The works, in general;,. 



