**n*dsb.] APATITES OF CANADA. 23 
and becomes elecfric by application of heat or friction. It occurs prin- 
cipally in the early crystalline rocks and is found in New York, New 
Jersey, Maine, Canada, and other places in North America. In Europe 
it is found in England, France, Saxony, Tyrol, Bohemia, Spain, Nor- 
way, aud many other regions. The only deposits of economic impor- 
tance as yet discovered are in Canada, Norway, and Spain. 
Pxof. J. D. Dana gives as a formula of apatite Ca :! O a p2+:\(Cl 2 F 2 ), in 
which the fluorine and the chlorine may replace each other in any pro- 
portion. When there is more fluorine than chlorine present the min- 
eral is cal-lcd fluor-apatite, and when less it is called chlor- apatite. 1 The 
apatites of Canada and of Spain, as well as most of those from Norway, 
are essentially fluor-apatites, though they almost always contain 0.01 
to 0.5 of chlorine. Occasionally apatites are found free from chlorine, 
as some of those of Nassau and the Tyrol, but they are never found en- 
tirely free from fluorine. The apatite of Snarum, Norway, contains 
more chlorine than any other known apatite, amounting, as it does, to 
2.71 per cent, of that element. 2 The apatite deposits of Canada, being 
at present more extensively worked thau any others and consequently 
better known, will be described first ; after them the apatites of Norway 
and Spain. 
APATITES OF CANADA. 
Phosphates were discovered in considerable quantities in Canada be- 
fore the middle of this century, and were described by Dr. T. Sterry 
Hunt in the Canadian Geological Survey Reports for 1848. Shortly 
afterwards they were mined in the counties of Lanark and Leeds, On- 
tario. Biufc the first regular miniug operations of any considrable im- 
portance were begun in 1871, in the townships of Buckingham and 
Portland, Ottawa County, Quebec, where apatite had been discovered 
several years later than in Ontario. The first company to operate on 
a large scale here was known as the Buckingham Mining Company. It 
worked successfully until 1875, when a sudden fall in the prices of the 
phosphate market led to a stoppage. For several years after this the 
mines were worked by private parties, until, in the years 1881 to 1SS3, 
the large mining companies which now control the richest properties 
in Canada were organized. Many of the phosphate properties in On- 
tario have been worked by the so-called "contract system." Under 
this system the farmers of the neighborhood, whenever they are with- 
out employment, blast out a little phosphate. The result of such a 
method is, of course, that the whole of a property is soon cut up with 
small pits and trenches, rarely exceeding twenty feet in depth, and often 
interfering considerably with later and larger mining operations. 
There are two principal districts in Canada where apatite occurs in 
considerable quantities. The first is in Ottawa County, Province of Que- 
1 J. D. Dana: Manual of Mineralogy and Litliolojjy, 18d5, p. 213. 
2 O. Ramon T. Mniios do Lima: Estudios qminicoa sobre economfa agricola eii 
general, y particularruente sobre la irnportancia de los abonos fosfatados. 
(497) 
