41 . 
Federal Zinc and Lead Mine Ore Deposits 
Lead and zinc ores were found ten years ago on the site of the Federal 
Zinc and Lead mine (Plate VII B), which has since been developed by 
the sinking of a shaft to 142 feet, and by drifts aggregating 1,400 feet, as well 
as by stripping at several points. The veins commonly run in a direction 
a little east of north, i. e. across the strike of the country rock, and one has 
been followed more or less continuously for half a mile from the main 
shaft, and a second shaft has been sunk upon it toward the north end to a 
depth of 64 feet. On the suiface the roqk is greatly decayed, as suggested 
before, but the quartz of the vein resists better and is disclosed by stripping. 
In these outcrops it has, however, been much leached of its ores, par- 
ticularly of zinc blende. The veins average 4 or 5 feet in width, but in places 
the adjoining slate has been shattered and re-cemented to a breccia several 
feet wide, which may be expected to provide a lower grade ore capable of 
concentration. 
The ore below the weathered surface consists mainly of sphalerite, 
with a smaller amount of galena, and with quartz, often amethystine, and 
dolomite as gangue minerals. The minerals are sometimes well banded 
but more often irregularly arranged. The sphalerite is unusually pure 
zinc sulphide, having a honey yellow or reddish brown colour, and 
containing according to assays less than a half per cent of iron. The ore 
is stated, as a result of a number of assays of samples taken by Walter 
Harvey Weed, to average 7-9 per cent of zinc and 3-8 per cent of lead, 
and to be almost without silver. 
In character the ore is much like that of Joplin, Mo., though its 
geological relationships are very different. In the Joplin region the zinc 
ores occur in flat sheet-like deposits at no great depth in Carboniferous 
limestone, which is very little disturbed and nowhere penetrated by 
eruptive rocks; but the Federal ores are in well-defined veins in slate 
which has been shattered and faulted and pierced by eruptives, the 
probable source of the metal-bearing fluids which deposited the ore. 
Weed estimates the amount of ore blocked out above the tunnel at 
90,000 tons and suggests that “this is only a very small percentage of 
what may be expected from deeper and more extensive mine development.” 
If his expectations are justified the mine is very much larger than the 
average zinc mine at Joplin. 
The northern shaft shows ore of the same kind as that at the Federal 
shaft, with the slight difference that a little copper pyrites occurs with it, 
and that there are green stains of malachite. Small quantities of pyrite 
were found also. 
At the time of the writer’s visit, August 23-27, 1919, no development 
work was going on at the mine, the men being employed in grading a road 
to the mouth of Berry brook, so that transport might be facilitated. It is 
expected that the 45 miles of road will he put into such shape that motor 
trucks can carry ore to the railway, thus giving an outlet for the products 
of the mine. It is also proposed that the 60-foot fall on Ste. Anne river, 
10 miles north, shall be utilized for power so as to avoid importing coal 
as fuel for the hoisting engines, etc. 
Another property near by, that of the North America Mining Company, 
has been prospected slightly and shows ore of a similar kind; it may be 
expected that other discoveries remain to be made in a region heavily 
