GIBB — ON CANADIAN CAYEENS. 



215 



miles west (soutli-west ?) of Brockville on tlie higli road to Montreal, 

 wMcli for tkree miles consist of white translucent quartz in steep and 

 shapeless, often ruinous mounds, but still often betraying in its rents 

 a south-west direction. It is of a fine granular, passing into a 

 crystalline, texture. One of these eminences in the woods, half a mile 

 north of the road, thirty to forty feet high, and near the easternmost of 

 two creeks occurring here, has a vein of iron pyrites under the follow- 

 ing circumstances. About the year 1811, a farmer was seeking for 

 his cow in the woods, and when within a short distance from this 

 spot, he was suddenly startled by a tremendous explosion, attended 

 by volumes of smoke and sulphurous odours. On visiting the seat 

 of disturbance he found the following appearances, which Dr. Bigsby 

 thus describes : — " A rounded cavity twelve feet deep and as many 

 long, but not quite so broad, with its sides consisting of very shat- 

 tered quartz, spotted with brown oxide of iron, and profusely covered 

 with a yellow and white efflorescence of sulphate of alumina, has its 

 lower parts studded with masses of u*on pyrites. The vein, which 

 is visible for a yard and a half at the bottom, is described as eighteen 

 inches thick, and disseminates itself into the surrounding quartz 

 rock. This vein may be seen running east with a very high dip, to 

 the distance of a yard and a half. 



The Quartz cavern (if it may so be called) is ten miles west of 

 Brockville, and situated in the township of Yonge, in the county of 

 Leeds, and is within a couple of miles of the river St. Lawrence, and 

 will therefore exist in the Laurentian formation, which is here closely 

 approached by the Potsdam sandstone, a white quartz rock. 



" Similar phenomena have been noticed in a mountain in Vermont 

 (vide Amer. Journ. of Science for Feb., 1821), and in the country 

 towards the head of the Missouri (vide Travels of Captains Lewis and 

 Clarke)." 



24. — Probable Caveens, at Kingston, 



For the present, the existence of caverns at Kingston is wholly 

 conjectural. It has been assumed that because Hamilton's Cove on 

 its north shore is cavernous to a very great degree, that they may be 

 discovered with animal remains in their interior. The limestone 

 portion of Cedar Island is said to be equally cavernous, and Colonel 

 Bonnycastle relates that there are some tokens of vast caverns under 

 Point Henry, as a stream, which is of some volume in the spring of 

 the year, loses itself suddenly there in a chasm.* The limestones of 

 this locality belong to the Trenton formation, and are frequently 

 cavernous. 



25 AND 26. — ^MoNO AND Eeamosa Caveens. 



The most extensive caverns which have hitherto been discovered 

 in Canada, are found in massive and solid beds of bluish grey lime- 



* Tran. Lit. and His. Soc, Quebec, vol. i., p. 65. 



