476 
Lenticular mass of ore 
(9 feet long, 2 feet 
broad), in the serpen- 
tine of the Wooded Peak 
near Nelson. 
a. Iron -ochre and decom- 
posed serpentine. 
b. Nests of copper-ore. 
again in a thin wedge. Where these nests are 
large and rich, one alone may sometimes make 
the fortune of a mine. The richest found on 
the Dun Mountain appears to have been that of 
the Windtrap Gully, from which pieces of native 
copper, some of them weighing as much as 
eight pounds, were extracted. The green and 
blue silicates of copper are surface minerals, 
which are only of value by showing the direc- 
tion of the fissure in which the real ore may 
be looked for at a greater depth; at a certain 
distance below the surface they disappear en- 
tirely, and it is only by the broken and softened character of the 
serpentine that the miner is enabled to follow the fissure from 
one deposit of metal to the other. The occurrence of the best 
indications of copper ore on the surface over a continuous line of 
about two miles , affords good ground for supposing that con- 
siderable quantities of ore are contained in the mountain; but, on 
the other land, owing to the manner in which the ores occur in 
isolated bunches , mining operations in such a region are always 
attended by less certain profits than where the metal is deposited 
in a regular lode. 
The Dun Mountain Company, therefore, has within the last 
years devoted all their attention and energy to the systematic and 
successful working of the chromate of iron which occurs in the 
same serpentine mountain in large quantity. Whole groups of rocks 
on the sides of the Wooded Peak consist of almost pure chrome-ore; 
and there is no doubt, that the lodes of this ore continue with 
more regularity than the copper-ores . 1 In order to facilitate the 
hitherto so very difficult and expensive transportation from the 
heights of the mountain to the harbour of Nelson, the company 
has constructed a railroad, which runs from the harbour through 
1 The chromate of iron of the Dun Mountain is but little inferior to the best 
ore from the mines in the vicinity of Baltimore in North America. The price of a 
ton of ore is in England about £ 10 . 
