56 



INTRODUCTION. 



Madoc, a town of about 1,100 people, in the township 

 of the same name, Hastings county, is situated 123 miles 

 east of Toronto and eight miles north of the main line of 

 the Canadian Pacific railway between Montreal and Toronto. 

 A branch line of the Grand Trunk railway from Belleville 

 runs into the town, which lies a few miles to the north of the 

 Paleozoic escarpment and on the southern fringe of the 

 great pre-Cambrian shield. 



The town was the site of early attempts to smelt and mine 

 iron ores, and a small furnace, built in 1837, was operated 

 for eight or nine years, using charcoal. The ore was obtained 

 from the Seymour mine, situated about three miles north 

 of the town. Later, in the year 1866, intense excitement 

 was created by the discovery of a small pocket of' gold 

 ore at a point about eight miles north of Madoc. There 

 was scarcely a lot in the immediate vicinity on which pits 

 or shafts were not sunk. Since that time iron ore, copper 

 pyrites, gold and other minerals have been spasmodically 

 mined in a small way in the vicinity. At the present time, 

 however, the Henderson talc mine, on the outskirts of the 

 town, and the Canadian Sulphur Ore Company's pyrite 

 mine, which lies several miles to the northeast of Madoc, 

 are being successfully operated. 



GENERAL GEOEOGY. 



Briefly, the geology may be summarized as follows : The 

 rocks fall naturally into two great groups : ( 1 ) Paleozoic, 

 and (2) pre-Cambrian. The Paleozoic consists of hori- 

 zontal beds of limestone of Ordovician age (Black Paver). 

 These beds rest with great unconformity on the pre-Cam- 

 brian. The latter consists, beginning with the most ancient, 

 of the Keewatin series, which is made up of greenstone 

 schists, which sometimes retain ellipsoidal structures and 

 amygdaloidal textures. The Keewatin is not exposed at 

 Madoc, but occurs in considerable volume in adjacent areas. 



On the Keewatin lavas were laid down a very thick 

 series of sediments, now highly metamorphosed, known as 

 the Grenville, and composed of schistose quartzite, grey- 

 wacke, iron-formation (jaspilyte), slate and crystalline 

 limestone. Both the Keewatin and Grenville were invaded 

 by the Laurentian gneissoid granite. 



