KAMANISTIQUIA SILVER-BEABING BELT. 245 



KAMANISTIQUIA SILVER-BEARING BELT. 



BY Herbert R. Wood, Fellow of Toronto University. 



1. Descriptive Geology and Topography, 



2. Mineralogy of Veins. 



3. Geology of veins and brief notices of Mines. 



4. Prospects as a Mining District. 



The Kamanistiquia Silver Belt, or that portion of country extending 

 along the south bank of the Kamanistiquia, beginning, roughly 

 speaking, at McKay Mountain, and trending nearly direct west to 

 "Whitetish River, is from a geological and mineralogical point of 

 view of great interest. It consists of a series of trap-covered bluffs 

 and hills, the base and sides of which are formed by the silver-bear- 

 ing slates (Animikie slates of Sterry Hunt) of pie-Cambrian age. The 

 entire region about Port Arthur lying both to the east and the west, 

 including Thunder Cape and Pie Island, while subjected at some remote 

 age to volcanic overflow, presents in its facial featui'es as well as in 

 the character of the trap evidences of six se^^arate and distinct 

 periods of eruption. The trap-rock taken from Little Pig Mountain, 

 lying about midway of the belt, is on the surface porphyritic in 

 character holding crystals of diallage in a black matrix, while taken 

 from a depth of 30 or 40 feet is a compact hard rock of even texture. 

 The trap rock taken from McKay Mountain seems to lie in three or 

 at least two bands ; the upper trap layer, lyiilg at the top of the 

 mountain one thousand feet high, differs considerably fi-om second 

 layer ; between these siliceous slates ai^e situated, grey and black or 

 dai'k grey. Thes'^ series of coarse grained trap layers indicate two 

 periods of overflow, the middle or lower trap layer being in all proba- 

 bility coeval with the trap covering the bluffs and hills of the belt to the 

 westward. Five miles to the north-east of Port Arthur in the vicin- 

 ity of the Shuniah Mine, the trap again seems to present a different 

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