GIBB — ON CANADUN CAVERNS. 
215 
miles west (soiitla-west ?) of Bi'ockville on tlic high road to Montreal, 
which for three miles consist of white translucent quartz in steep and 
shapeless, often ruinous mounds, but still often betraying in its rents 
a soutli-west direction. It is of a fine gTanular, passing into a 
crystalline, textm'e. One of these eminences in the woods, half a mile 
north of the road, thu'ty to forty feet liigh, and near the easternmost of 
two creeks occun-ing here, has a vein of iron pyrites under the follow- 
ing cu'cumstances. 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 ■^^^th masses of iron pyi-itcs. 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 sm'rounding quartz 
rock. This vein may be seen running east with a very high clip, 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 Lam'entian 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. Jom'n. of Science for Feb., 1821), and in the country 
towards the head of the Missouri (vide Travels of Captains Lewis and 
Clarke)." 
2i. — Probable Caverns, 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 Hemy, 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 Eramosa Caverns. 
The most extensive caverns which have hitherto been discovered 
in Canada, are found in massive and soHd beds of bluish grey hme- 
* Tran. Lit. and His. Soc, Quebec, vol. i., p. 65. 
