“There are five main zones or provinces,” replied Mr. Brock. “First there is what may be called the Appalachian province, of which the Canadian portion embraces south-east Quebec and the maritime provinces. The Appalachian region is characterised by rock formations which range from pre-Cambrian to carboniferous, and which are typically disturbed and thrown into a succession of folds. You will be aware that some of the eastern United States are in the foremost rank of the world’s mineral and industrial districts. They occur in the Appalachian region, the best developed State being Pennsylvania, which produces domestic minerals to a yearly value of nearly £2,000 per square mile. The same minerals occur over the Appalachian extension into Canada. Important deposits of coal, iron, and gold are mined in Nova Scotia. Of lesser importance, but of considerable value, are the gypsum, stone, and building-material industries in that province, where manganese, antimony, tripolite, and barite are also mined, while some attention is paid to copper; indeed, Nova Scotia already has an annual mineral production of about £200 per square mile. The comparison between £200 and £2,000 may not seem impressive, but it bears a fair relation to the difference between the density of population in Pennsylvania and in Nova Scotia. That matter of population is, of course, vital, since mineral production, like agricultural production, passes with the development of a country from methods that are rough-and-ready to those that are ‘intensive.’ Expert authorities have estimated the coal reserves of Nova Scotia at 6,000,000,000 tons. The thickness of the carboniferous system is believed to be in some parts 16,000 feet, and at the Joggins, on the north arm of the Bay of Fundy, is a remarkable continuous section showing 14,570 feet of strata, including seventy seams of coal.
“In the matter of mineral development New Brunswick is still very backward. This is partly due to the covering of soil, but mainly to the forested state of large areas—conditions that make discoveries difficult. Indeed, very little of the country has been prospected. The principal products so far are gypsum, lime, coal, building material, grindstones, clay, and mineral waters. Iron promises to become important. Antimony is being mined, while copper, lead, silver, nickel, gold, etc., have been found. Shales rich in oils and ammonium salts occur in large quantity. We have just found very fine clay deposits in the maritime provinces.
“South-east Quebec is already a high producer of economic minerals. In addition to possessing the main asbestos mines of the world, it has important industries in chrome-iron ore, copper, and pyrites. Iron ores and gold also occur there. And so I think I have supplied you with plenty of reasons for agreeing that the Appalachian area may ultimately give as good an account of itself in Canada as it has in the United States.”
“And what of the next geological bond between the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack?”
“Next in order,” replied Mr. Brock, “comes the Lowland province, embracing the southern portion of Ontario and the valley of the St. Lawrence. It consists mainly of flat-lying palæozoic rocks, and is, so to speak, an extension of part of the State of New York. On both sides of the international boundary the mineral products are the same—namely, clay, cement, and other building materials, as well as petroleum, natural gas, salt, gypsum, and other non-metallic products. They are extremely valuable, if they do not appeal to the imagination in quite the same manner as the metallic minerals.”
“The two geological areas you have dealt with so far,” I ventured to point out, “have covered only a portion of Eastern Canada.”
“Exactly,” replied Mr. Brock. “But the next geological province to be considered embraces about two million square miles, or more than one-half of the Dominion. It may conveniently be called the Laurentian plateau. It runs from Newfoundland to the eastern border of Manitoba, embracing the vast territories lying north of the St. Lawrence Valley, and enclosing Hudson Bay like a huge V. It is an area of pre-Cambrian rocks, and one extension passes into New York State (where it supports some large and varied mineral industries), and another extension crosses into Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (where it provides the Michigan copper mines and the great Lake Superior iron ranges).
“These pre-Cambrian rocks are remarkable for the variety of minerals they contain. Iron, copper, nickel, cobalt, silver, gold, platinum, lead, zinc, arsenic, pyrite, mica, apatite, graphite, feldspar, quartz, corundum, talc, actinolite, the rare earths, ornamental stones and gems, and building materials are found in the Laurentian plateau, and nearly all of them are being profitably mined. And since the list I have just given you is far from complete, it would perhaps be better to describe the wealth of the Laurentian plateau negatively. Diamonds have not yet been located in that geological region, though, I should add, as they have been found in glacial drift brought from that area, they undoubtedly occur there.
“So far as Canada is concerned, the plateau is still, in the main, an unvisited treasury. Over the greater part of the area there have been nothing but the most general scientific surveys. Our southern fringe of the plateau is the only Canadian part that is known, and even of that southern fringe merely a portion has been prospected. Of the more important discoveries in that southern fringe, you will not need to be reminded. There are the gold ranges of the Lake of the Woods; the silver of Thunder Bay; the iron ranges extending from Minnesota for hundreds of miles to Quebec; the copper rocks of Michipicoten and the Bruce mines; the Sudbury copper-nickel deposit; the Montreal River and Cobalt silver areas; the corundum deposits of Eastern Ontario, and the magnetites of Eastern Ontario and Quebec. It is true that few good merchantable iron deposits have been found in our extensive iron range formation; but in the Mesabi range—the richest in the world—only about two per cent. is iron ore, so that immediate discovery in the little prospected areas in Canada is scarcely to be expected.”
“And am I not right in supposing, Mr. Brock, that the most sensational mineral discoveries have been purely accidental?”