Mining

Valuable Minerals in a Rocky Land

Hastings County abounds in minerals, especially in the northern parts above Highway 7. Bancroft is known as the mineral capital of Canada for the numbers of different minerals found in the area as a result of the collision and shifting of tectonic plates over billions of years.

Corundum:

Found in the Carlow, Monteagle and Dungannon areas, corundum can be used as a gemstone (rubies and sapphires). It is also a superior natural abrasive which was in demand during the Second World War for special optical grinding procedures.

Feldspar:

This mineral is used in the manufacture of glass, pottery, porcelain, enamels and other ceramic products. Feldspar for this purpose was extracted from quarries in the Hybla area of Monteagle Township.

Fluorite:

Sometimes called the most colourful mineral in the world, fluorite (calcium fluoride) has a number of uses. It can be a rare gemstone, a source of Fluorine and a popular mineral specimen. Prized for its rich variety of colours, it can be fluorescent and rivals amethyst in beauty. In Hastings County it was useful as a flux in iron smelting. The discovery of fluorite in Madoc around 1904 led to a very active fluorite mining industry which operated intermittently through to the early 1960s. About 50 deposits were discovered but only about 20 of these came into commercial production. The largest of these, the Rogers Mine, extracted 250,000 tons before it closed around 1962.

Gold:

The first discovery of gold in Ontario was made in 1866 on the Richardson farm near Madoc. The find sparked a gold rush to the Madoc area and miners looking for gold combed much of the surrounding area. Gold was also found at Eldorado and Deloro.

Granite:

Quarries in Dungannon and Faraday townships supplied this fine building stone for various government construction projects.

Graphite:

Graphite Road and Graphite Lake get their name from the graphite mining in this area near Maynooth. Graphite powder is used a dry lubricant.

Iron:

Charles Hayes opened an iron smelter at Marmora in 1823 to process ore from Blairton but found it was uneconomic to ship out pig iron at that time. The Central Ontario Railway was opened to Coe Hill in 1884 to ship iron ore south to the United States. Iron ore was also extracted at the Bessemer, Child's and Rankin mines. The largest and most visible iron ore mine in Hastings is found in the open pit at Marmora.

Marble:

This fine building material from quarries in the Faraday and Dungannon areas has been used as interior trim in the Parliament Buildings in Toronto, The Royal Ontario Museum, the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, the Vancouver Court House and Canadian government buildings in Hamilton and Windsor.

Sand and gravel:

Glacial action has left Hastings strewn with a large number of sand and gravel deposits, particularly in the southern reaches of the county. These resources are extremely valuable in road and building construction.

Sodalite:

A jewellery stone and decorative rock. In 1906 about 130 tons of the rich blue Bancroft sodalite were shipped to England and used in the decoration of Marlborough House in London. It has also been used in the interior of the rotunda of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Talc:

John Conley, a Madoc farmer, discovered talc in the 1880s. The Conley Talc Mine began commercial production in 1896 and is still producing talc more than a hundred years later under the name of Canada Talc Industries. Only three mines in the world have been in continuous operation for more than a century. Talc (magnesium silicate) is used as a base for talcum powder and other powder-based cosmetics. It is also a filler material for paints, rubber and insecticides.

Uranium:

Exploration for uranium in the Bancroft area in the 1950s led to the discovery of many scattered deposits. However, only four mines were fully developed: the Dyno Mine and the Bicroft Mine in Cardiff Township and the Faraday Mine and the Greyhawk Mine in Faraday Township. Uranium was sought for use in nuclear weapons and as a fuel in nuclear reactors. The uranium boom in northern Hastings was short-lived, as the high cost of extraction in these mines soon led to their closure.

 

Minerals First Discovered in Hastings County

Hastings County can claim its own mineral.

Hastingsite (NaCa₂(Fe²⁺₄Fe³⁺)Si₆Al₂O₂₂(OH)₂) was discovered in Dungannon Township. It resembles glass and varies in colour from black to dark green. Although it was first named in Hastings County, it also occurs in many other parts of the world, such as Yukon Territory, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Montana, India, Japan, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Ireland, France, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Ghana.

The Taylor pit, Lot 13, Con. XIV, in former Huntingdon Township, near Madoc, has produced a number of other minerals which can claim to be first discovered in Hastings County. These minerals are:

Dadsonite (Pb_10+xSb_14-xS_31-xCl_x), named After Alexander Stewart Dadson, 1906-1958, who was active in developing the gold deposits of Yellowknife, NWT. It is also found in the Northwest Territories, Nevada, Germany and France.

Guettardite (Pb(Sb, As)₂S₄) consists of minute metallic black grains. It is named after Jean Étienne Guettard, 1715-1786, French mineralogist and geologist. Guettardite is also found in Italy, France, Kirgizia and Colorado.

Launayite (Pb₂₂Sb₂₆S₆₁) consists of minute metallic grains observed only in polished section. The mineral is named After a French geologist, Louis A.A. de Launay, 1860-1938, who specialized in the origin of mineral deposits.

Madocite (Pb₁₇(Sb,As)₁₆S₄₁) shows up as minute metallic grains visible only in polished sections and was named After Madoc. It is also found in France, Kirgizia and Sweden.

Playfairite (Pb₁₆Sb₁₈Si₄₃) consists of minute rims and grains observed in polished section; one loose, striated multiple crystal found. It was named for the Scottish mathematician and geologist John Playfair, 1748-1819. The mineral has also been found in Kirgizia, of the former USSR.

Sorbyite (Pb₁₉(Sb,As)₂₀S₄₉) is found as minute loose striated metallic black crystal fragments and grains. It was named for Henry Clifton Sorby, 1826-1908, an English chemist and geologist, the founder of metallography. It is also found in Nevada and Kirgizia.

Sterryite (Ag₂Pb₁₀(Sb,As)₁₂S₂₉) is found in polished sections as laths and grains, as well as loose fragments distinctively composed of bundles of fibres. The mineral is named for Thomas Sterry Hunt, 1826-1892, the first mineralogist with the Geological Survey of Canada.

Twinnite (Pb(Sb,As)₂S₄) is found as metallic black grains and is named for a University of British Columbia mineralogy professor, Robert Mitchell Thompson, 1918-1967. "Thompson" means son of Thomas, and "thomas" is Aramaic for twin, hence twinnite, which is conveniently also an allusion to the polysynthetic twinning of the mineral. It is also found at the Hemlo gold deposit near Thunder Bay, as well as in France, Yugoslavia and Kirgizia.

Veenite (Pb₂(Sb,As)₂S₅) is found as steel-grey masses to 19 millimetres A single crude crystal of about 0.5 millimetre is also known. It was named in honor of R.W. van der Veen, eminent metallographer, and is also found in Peru.

Source: www.ontariominerals.com

Significant Mines and Mineral Locations, Centre Hastings

The sites identified here are abandoned or existing mines, or sites where exploratory work has been carried out.

1. Iron. Marmoraton open pit iron mine. An airborne magnetometer survey of the Marmora area in 1949 led to the discovery of a large magnetite orebody under 30 metres of limestone cap. Marmoraton Mining, a subsidiary of Bethlehem Steel, opened the mine and for 20 years the mining operation produced pelletized iron ore which was shipped to the United States by rail and boat.

2. Gold. Gold was discovered in the Eldorado and Deloro areas in the 1860s. The Deloro gold mine operated at the turn of the 20th century.

3. Gold. A small fortune was spent on exploring the Ackerman gold mine property but no gold was ever produced.

4. Talc. A talc mine operated by Canada Talc has been operating on this site for more than a century.

5. Fluorite. A fault line in the rocks through Huntingdon Township is the location of a number of fluorite mines.

6. Pyrite. This pyrite property was operated from 1909-1910 by Canadian Sulphur Ore Company.

7. Pyrite. Blakley Pyrite Mine. Pyrite is sometimes called fool's gold or iron pyrite. It is an iron ore and also used to make sulphuric acid.

8. Gold. Three shafts were sunk in 1896 at the Sophia (Diamond) Gold Mine.

9. Various. Forty-nine Acre Mine exposed lamatite, siderite and magnetite mineralization in a series of pits.

10. Iron. Seymour Mine. An open cut in basic volcanic rock.

11. Iron. Iron ore was extracted from an open pit at the Wallbridge Iron Mine.

12. Iron. The Cook Mine is a small open pit in Madoc Township.

13. Gold. The Richardson Gold Mine in Madoc Township was the first gold discovery in Ontario (1866). A gold rush followed as miners flocked to seek their fortunes in the Eldorado and Deloro areas. A copper mine also opened just west of the Richardson Gold Mine.

14. Iron. Many small pits and shafts have been dug in the Hobson, Nelson and Knob Iron Mine occurrences in this area.

15. Iron. Dufferin Iron Mine. This area is pitted with open cuts.

16. Talc. The Eldorado Talc Mine on the east bank of the Moira River operated from 1911 to 1920. There are two shafts about 70 metres apart.

17. Pyrite. The Bannockburn Pyrite Mine opened in 1898. There is an open pit and a shaft about 90 metres deep. The mine was closed because of unsafe conditions.

18. Gold. Half a kilometre west of the village of Bannockburn, this gold mine opened in the early 1890s. Gold found in a quartz vein was stripped and trenched for about 214 metres. There are four shafts and several open pits.

19. Lead. Lead was extracted from the Hollandia Lead Mine beginning in 1898.

20. Lead. The Stewart lead occurrence is just north of the Hollandia mine. There is one pit and an old shaft.

21. Gold. Gold was discovered at the Craig Gold Mine in the late 1880s. The mine has been idle since 1907, except for some development work in the 1930s.

22. Copper, nickel. Low-grade copper and nickel values have been determined on this occurrence site.

23. Lead. An old shaft, two pits and a trench are all that are left of the Blackburn Lead Mine which opened in 1925 and operated for a very short time.

24. Lead. William Ramsey of Millbridge stripped and sank several shallow trenches and pits on his farm in Tudor Township.

25. Iron. Magnetite was taken from four open pits at the St. Charles Iron Mine just west of Highway 62.

26. Iron. The Orton and Ricketts iron mines shipped a few tons of magnetite to Belleville between 1912-1917.

27. Lead. The Katherine Lead Mine was opened in 1899. Two shafts were sunk.

28. Copper, iron. Prospected in the 1950s and 1960s as the Whetstone Lake Prospect.

29. Iron. Developed in the 1940s by Tomahawk Iron Mines, the mill on this property has not operated since 1958.

MINING FIRSTS FOR HASTINGS COUNTY

1819: Blast furnace erected in Marmora Township. Ore obtained from the nearby Blairton Mine in Belmont Township, Peterborough County. The furnace was unsuccessfully operated on several occasions until its closure in 1847.

1866: First discovery of gold in Ontario (Richardson Mine) at Eldorado.

1879: Ontario's first arsenic produced, near Deloro.

1883: Actinolite mining began in Hastings County.

1900: Talc mining started in Hastings County near Madoc.

1905: First recorded shipment of Canadian fluorspar occurred in 1905 in Madoc.

 

Significant Mines and Mineral Locations, North Hastings

30. Iron. Workings at the Emily Iron Mine consist of an open cut. There is a shallow deposit of 16,000-17,000 tonnes of ore here.

31. Iron. The Baker Iron Mine consists of two open cuts and five trenches.

32. Iron. The Lee Iron Mine consists of an open cut about 18 metres long.

33. Gold. Several pits were opened in the 1950s in the McMurray gold occurrence just east of Wadsworth Lake.

34. Various. Between 1916 and 1918 Cashel Copper Mines explored this area for copper, lead, gold and silver. A shaft was sunk to about 25 metres.

35. Lead. Bouzan Mines Limited or Chrysler Lead Property. Trenches and an old shaft indicate exploration for lead on this property.

36. Gold. Prospectors searched for gold on the Gunter Prospect in 1907.

37. Pyrite. Some exploratory work was done in the early 1900s.

38. Talc. A 25-metre shaft was sunk in 1938 but the low-grade talc proved to have too many impurities to be commercially viable.

39. Copper, nickel. The Macasso Copper Nickel Prospect was discovered in the 1960s.

40. Iron. Trenches and some drilling have been done on the Ridge Extension Iron Prospect.

41. Iron. The Coe Hill Iron Mine operated from 1884 to 1887 and was the prime reason for building the Central Ontario Railway from Picton through Trenton to Coe Hill. Unfortunately, the iron ore contained too much sulphur to be of use.

42. Iron. The Jenkins Iron Mine is a shallow open cut not far from the Coe Hill Mine.

43. Iron. The Umfraville Iron Prospect was surveyed and mapped in the 1950s. The sites identified here are abandoned or existing mines, or sites where exploratory work has been carried out.

44. Gold. The Cataraqui (Gilmour) Gold Mine is located in Grimsthorpe Township.

45. Copper, gold. The Munroe copper and gold pits indicate exploration many years ago.

46. Copper. A small shaft was sunk here in 1903 in search of copper.

47. Iron. A spur line of Canadian National Railways was built to serve the iron mines at Bessemer and Childs. Mining in this area dates back to 1902.

48. Iron. Reserves are estimated to be 15 million tonnes of iron ore on the Rankin iron property.

49. Iron. Location of the Childs Iron Mine.

50. Iron. A number of test pits and strippings have been dug on the Stevens iron property here.

51. Various. Diggings are about 180 metres from the point where Highway 28 crosses the York River. Rockhounds can find marble, diopside, vesuvianite, wollastonite, zircon, garnets and grossularite.

52. Nepheline. The Goulding-Keene Nepheline Quarry is located on the east bank of the York River. It opened in 1937 and closed in 1939.

53. Corundum. A corundum occurrence is found in a scenic location at Egan Chute.

54. Nepheline. The Morrison Nepheline Quarry operated in the 1930s and 1940s.

55. Nepheline. The Davis Nepheline Quarry here is also known for its large zircon crystals.

56. Corundum. West of the Davis Quarry, the Dungannonite Corundum Property features open cuts, pits and trenches.

57. Corundum. The Lily Robertson property contains rich exposures of corundum-nepheline pegmatites.

58. Nepheline. The Robbins Nepheline Deposit is exposed in a quarry on the side of a hill, rising in six benches.

59. Cancrinite. An area on Cancrinite Hill has been blasted to prospect for nepheline and sodalite. The hill is composed of nepheline-rich gneisses with patches of pegmatite.

60. Sodalite. About four kilometres east of Bancroft, the Princess Sodalite Mine was opened in 1906 and reopened in 1961. About 130 tonnes of sodalite were shipped to England as a decorative stone.

61. Nepheline. The small Vardy Quarry was opened here in Dungannon Township.

62. Marble. The McMillan Marble Quarry was next to the old CNR line.

63. Marble. The Stewart Marble Quarry was southwest of the McMillan Quarry.

64. Marble. A great variety of marble is available here at the Barker Marble Quarries.

65. Marble. The marble at the Ritchie Marble Quarry is white, coarse-grained and contains considerable pyrite.

(Marble from the above four quarries was used for interior trim in the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Court House in Vancouver and other government buildings in Hamilton and Windsor.)

66. Iron. A magnetic anomaly indicates the presence of an iron orebody at this location.

67. Talc. A talc prospect lies here in Faraday Township, near Pipe Lake.

68. Arsenic. Two small pits and a small shaft mark this arsenic prospect in Faraday Township.

69. Uranium. The Greyhawk Uranium Mine operated here in the 1950s.

70. Uranium. Faraday Uranium Mines began operations here in the 1950s, closing in 1964.

71. Various. Silver Crater Mines produced black mica (biolite) from an open pit here. From an adit, carbonate rock carrying betafite, apatite, mica, hornblende, fluorite, titanite and feldspar was excavated.

72. Uranium. Some pits and trenches were opened here in the 1950s.

73. Uranium. Art Shore, who discovered uranium in the Bancroft area, conducted his last prospect here.

74. Uranium. Standard Ore and Alloys Corporation of Baptiste Lake explored radioactive pegmatite on this property with trenches and drill holes.

75. Uranium. Small pits, trenches and drill holes were sunk by Peter-Rock Uranium Mining Company.

76. Uranium. The Patterson Uranium Prospect strippings are on a wooded hill just west of Little McGarry Lake.

77. Corundum. A small deposit of corundum was found in the Welsh Corundum Pit.

78. Mica. A mica pit was opened in Monteagle Township in 1924.

79. Nepheline, corundum. There are six large trenches on this property operated by Monteagle Minerals Limited.

80. Uranium. A cliff face has been blasted down to expose uraninite, the strongly radioactive chief ore of uranium, at the Robson Uranium Prospect.

81. Uranium. Small radioactive showings have been exposed at the Quirk Uranium Prospect.

82. Uranium. Radioactive showings on the Car-Quirk-Robson property were exposed in 1955 by stripping and trenching.

83. Feldspar. The workings of the Thompson Feldspar Mine consist of three pits. The property was worked for several years in the 1920s.

84. Feldspar. The Macdonald Mine in Monteagle Township was the largest feldspar operation in the Hybla area and is well known for its interesting variety of radioactive minerals.

85. Feldspar. Minerals present at the Plunkett Feldspar Mine include amazonite, ellsworthite, euxenite, titanite, garnet, fluorite and hornblende.

86. Feldspar. Three operations at the Watson Feldspar Mine produced about 500 tonnes of feldspar between 1919 and 1926.

87. Feldspar. The main pit of the Cairns Feldspar Prospect is about eight metres deep.

88. Feldspar. Two pits of the McCormack Feldspar Mine are on the side of a hill.

89. Feldspar. The Woodcox Feldspar Mine operated from 1921 to 1923 and produced about 4,000 tonnes.

90. Feldspar. In 1926 a pit was opened near the Bartlett farmhouse on the west shore of Salmon Trout Lake.

91. Feldspar. The workings of the Genesee No. 2 Mine consist of a large cavern opened into the side of a hill. The portal of the cavern measures 12 metres wide by seven metres high.

92. Feldspar. A pit was cut here into the side of a hill overlooking Salmon Trout Lake. It has two steps of two metres cut into the hill.

93. Feldspar. A small tunnel, about 10 metres long, was driven into a hill. The mine was worked in 1926 and 1927.

94. Feldspar. The Hickey Feldspar Mine was opened and operated in 1949.

95. Mica. Mica pits are found here.

96. Mica. More mica pits found here.

97. Graphite. The National Graphite Mine and the Tonkin-Dupont Mine opened operations here in 1913-1914.

98. Iron. An iron occurrence was noted near Fraser Lake. The magnetic anomaly was drilled and evidence of a magnetite zone was found.

99. Iron. This is the Kennedy Iron Occurrence where magnetite has been assayed at 38 per cent iron.

100. Corundum. The Burgess Corundum Mine on the west face of Burgess Mountain yields corundum crystals coloured grey, red and blue.

101. Corundum. The Mackie corundum cuts can be found atop Burgess Mountain.

102. Corundum. Ashland corundum pits are found near the Burgess Mine, halfway up Burgess Mountain.

103. Corundum. The Logan corundum cuts are northeast of the Mackie cuts.

104. Corundum. Bronze corundum crystals up to five centimetres in diameter can be found in Jack's corundum cuts.

105. Corundum. Another corundum cut north of the New Carlow Road.

106. Corundum. Bronze corundum crystals can be found at the Hoover Lake corundum cut.

107. Corundum. Herb's corundum cuts are found halfway between Hoover and O'Grady lakes.

108. Corundum. There are two long corundum cuts on a property just south of Buck Lake.

109. Corundum. The main occurrence here is about three kilometres north of the Burgess mine and can be reached by a trail from the New Carlow-Boulter road.

110. Corundum. Actually just outside Hastings, the Craigmont Corundum Mine produced corundum worth almost $2 million 19001913, 1919-1921 and 1944-1946. Other minerals present include diopside, magnetite, molybdenite and scapolite.

Source: Information provided by Bob Ross of Belleville.