On the Minerals of Canada. 55 



we possess, may derive value from tlie creation of a demand 

 for them as raw material abroad, where mechanical labom* is less 

 proportionately valuable, and where cultivated taste in execution 

 may succeed in imparting to them a value which their natural 

 beauty serves only to heighten. The coarser kinds of marble will 

 acquire continually increasing value with us, as the wealth of the 

 country increases, and facilities for carriage extend into the regions 

 where Canadian marbles are to be found. 



In the Eastern townships there are very extensive ranges of 

 serj)entines, affording beautiful varieties of marbles, specimens of 

 which attracted considerable attention in England, in 1851. Sir 

 W. Logan thus notices this important and extensive range : — 



" Several considerable blocks of limestone and serpentine, fit for 

 the purposes of marble, carried across the Atlantic in the rough, 

 were sawed and polished in London. They were all from the 

 eastern townships, and though selected hastily and without pre- 

 vious trial of the stone, most of them gave very fair results, and 

 one of the serpentines from Brompton Lake, shewing a dark 

 green ground with black spots, was of a peculiar beautiful cha^ 

 racter. I was informed by the marble manufacturer, a highly 

 respectable one, who cut the stone, that large blocks of such a 

 description would command a ready sale in the metropolis, and 

 when we consider the great extent to which the serpentine ranges 

 through the townships, 145 miles, the results of these trails give 

 hopes that much stone of a valuable description may be obtained 

 from that region. 



Among the localities where marbles have been found and exa- 

 mined by the members of the Geological Commission — are for 

 white marble — Lake Mazinaw and Philipsburg ; black, Cornwall 

 and Philipsburg ; red, St. Lin ; brown, Packenham ; yellow, and 

 black, Dudswell ; grey and variegated, Macnab, Philipsburg, St. 

 Dominique, Montreal ; green, Grenville and along a serpentine 

 ran^e before mentioned extending for 150 miles in the eastern 

 townships. In the " Sketch of the Geology of Canada," these 

 green marbles are mentioned in the following terms : — The ser- 

 pentines throughout their whole extent, furnish very beautiful dark 

 green marble often resembling the vert-antique ; green serpentines 

 of various shades are mingled with white and grayish limestones, 

 giving rise to many varieties of these marbles, the finest of which 

 are from Broughton and Oxford. Near Philipsburg, the Trenton 

 limestone afford a fine white marble ; in their southern prolonga- 



