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Tt E B» O H T OK MONSIEUR i. MICHEL, GEOLOGIST, ON THK GOLD MINES OF THE RIVER OHAUDIERE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES. To the Directors of the de Lery Gold Mining Company. GiNTt»««N,-Tbe valley of the Chaudiere, in Lower Oaaada excites e ada„„»tlonof all thee who visit it. After i couple of honJrdVen R.rer, on the conBnes of the Parish of St. Isidore. Then the road, skirtine the nght bank of the river, passes successively through the parUhes o Ste M^: at ;. T'' ^*,/""^"' *"•* '* «««'«•• -«» 'P«- into the State Of An nnint! ' '"/ """''^ " '''°'''^''" ''°°» ''"«'' *»>« «»*d t^^es its name- An uninterrupted succession of farm houses, cultivated lands, and agrical- oral establishments please the eye while animating the scene y; and when ™7w;tlT?.' ''IT' '' "*'^ " "'''""""' '^^ touri'st m'eer.t r/c: ^h jrpist::^'" ^- ^^--^-^ ^-'-^ •"*-^-^. ^^e The farmers of this dist.ict are the proprietors of the soil; hence the are exb.b.ted in its cultivation. They are exclusively French 'oa .dian, ^therr th"""'V"**"'.*'* **°«"«'' «"^»°'»'' •»•» "I'«ion of their fore others This population is very sympathetic and hospitable in i.s character Irl'ul'r »"^J'"*"«'"''» P°P"I««on; and to the persevering eJ^Jt, J; several A«6./a«s-who became miners after the gold discoveries-are 7«?*i,/ z^s:::^^r'- " '- " ^'^^^-^ "^ -h:=o::'^^ P.rl'\^t^T^ Of Kiguud-Vaudreuil, which at a later period became the Pa sb of St. Francois, is situated at about 50 miles distance from Zb^o .a the most picturesque portion of this beautiful valley. It h«^H e^'tSj'! »!ong the Ckau,Iure River-which flows through Md divideTittnto tw« of the river, and has a general superficies of 84,672 arptnh. or •''•/'A-«^-e;.„Vb;7«ltr^^^^^ -- tl.e»aintr,bat.,ie. W become swollen and tor^tuou. Th7n °''. V""' P'""*^" "^ »»•. /«««. or J,e> Planter Ri.er, on the ri.btLM' ""*"""' ^'»« ^•"^- Ri-er. "Mill" and Z. 5.„, on its left bank "" ''*'"'''""• "<» »»>« "•, tb..rt, f„ ,t. „„., ;."t,7,f; ?«'••'. ""^ b". ..a ,h„. crop «ll"lon, ,f ,„„b,, m^i,',,, • """'"' "°'I" l«jcrs or „g,t,bl. mom or «!■« Of rn,«^ Honrj W«rn.r T^ "" ""°«*>«lfi-t., «.o.goth.,, . , '^epjoie with encouragement. ;ero«.:Xrth:rj^trand\rp"^^^ -— theaur.. the r..«lt. Obtained since 18C3 r embodu? ''V"' '"''' "^^Wiahed and which I had the honor to addre « to st W ^ ''''''''''''"' '" ^^e report ^.t. It 1. only such of .hoae obs ^v! llanr"' "" *'' '"' *'^^»'"»V Se-gnory of Rlgaud-Vaudreuil tbl "l rn, ""'V"^""'""' "' '«'»'« »<> the page., adding thereto the in L^UoVlZt. V"" "^ '"*''« ^°"«^"g tion, in thi. present month of luJZ ^^^^'"'^ ^^"'^i '^J recent explora- -ce Of .teen days ^ro^^J^T^^lJ^Z JJ^X" ""'^ Bonrce in the northern part of tbiMerdtv " r •'''' """ ''''"''" "" "' reunua at Lot 73 in the Concession ScL' u "" •"' '"'^'''"'' '">'«'' from northeast to southweat in the ConcestZs. a ^""?*^ '•"°«'' ^^w. aod In the first range northeast of the So ' .m ^*''* ""^ ^»- O'*"'". other, Which flows down from the Col!^sTon7i '* *"' '"'°"°° ^^ »he' northwest, through the Concession St CbTrle;. ' "" ''*'" ''°"*''««« *o tion.tfir::r?g:X:cierr; ''"r-"- -"— «io,p,ora. effort, greatl, contrL^d to The Ico; 7 ""r*"*'' ''''°''« enterprising ' took the working of the mines with v!' 7.?°'' '" ''''"' Canada,'nder' tily Of gold obtained. Since Mat r ^ Jtisfactorj results as to the quan- -rching for the preciotrii; J Te ed tf'r '''' ^^° -"^«7 **ter, and they hav-oi , . , °® "**' ^^ the river, at tiai»« o* l«= le maio tributaries ral ptrloda of th« tins are ihe Gutl- auditre, and the itituted of schist f quartz, some of ' locality, while bedsof grarel. Silurian forma- and there crop •table mould or fical Survey of ii among others >le information ictir 18 relative ouragement. nine the auri- itablished and Jn the report It of February " relate to the ^he following cent ezplora- to the short Jmy. '88 the River '/««/«« has its whes, which branch flows St. Charles, otion of the ioutheast to i-al cxpiora- nterprisiog Bda, under- the qasn- constantly Jes of low '«7> 'n pro- I devoted several days, in October 1803, to the cxomination of this river, Roiug up its bed between the 'wo Falls, and I was excocainyly well satisfied with the results of the exploration. Recently, I visited that part of the river situated between the Great Fall and the junction of the two branches, and I also explored the southeast branch, aa far up a? two miles above the Fork. I found gold everywhere, on digging into the soil, in the bed of the river, and in the high banks. A washing with the " rocker" of about a ton and a half of gravel, made up from different excavations, gave nearly a doUat's worth of gold. I am persuaded that a systematic working of the alluvion of the River i)f,s Platitea would be profitable, and that it would not be either difficult or expensive in the higher parts of the stream ; the sinuous course of this river, and the peculiar configuration of the land on its banks, permit- ting a variety of cuttings and the sinking of canals, for d ainage and to turn aside the river and lay bare its bed. A quartz vein crosses the River Des Plantes below the Little Fall, and besides the numerous fragments of this mineral scattered here and there in the bed of the river, I met with very large blocks belonging to a vein— the cropping out of which I could not discover— in the southeast branch, at about a mile and a half above the Fork. Having assayed, mechanically, several pounds weight of this quartz, I found a few particles of gold in the sediment of the washing. Some of the habitans, whom I questioned on the subject, assured me that quartz crops out of the soil In divers places in the Gottcessions Frazer and St. Gaspard, and I am of opinion that a special exploration of these Conces- Bioni would result in very interesting discoveries. From the River Des Plantes to the residence of Mr. Louis Barbeau, for a distance of several miles, the road crosses a number of small st ■rr-s, which fall into the Chaudiere, and in most of which gold in alluvion hi j already been found. One of these streams, " Marcoux Cieek," on Lot 30 of the first range northeast, is traversed by a quartz lode running from northeast to touihwest, which is known in the neighborhood as the " Rodrigue-Vein." My fattention wa^ particularly attracted by those lots, in the first range northeast of the Seignory, which ere washed by the C/iaudiere, at the place called the '• Devil's Rapids." Eere the soil is uneven, ravined, and divided into mounds or bluffs, which fall away to the river in slopes that are often very abrupt. Between Lots 4S and 55, on the property of Mr. Louis Barbeau, are visible several elrips of schist and clayey gravel, cropping out in ridges above the soil, and traversed in every direction bv veins and seams of quartz. Certain croppingg out of this minsral on Lots 50, 51, 52 and 53, seem to beloiig to lodes ; but the indications in some excavations made here and there on those same lots, lead me to believe in the existence in this locality trold T u """""i 0/ uis mechanical ads.. "oouea it with care oenind the property of Mr. Louig Barbeaa " ''" ^*"»" the contete'lnhJt'",^;;';/"^''^^^'^"^ ^^^gi^t after in tbe Caur PTticoIarly at the CrR^Z'^r' '' '""> «o'^ »>«arini.r?a; '";;?' Creek" on Lot 59 A of the firsf ,. ^**' °''® <»*' these, called « Rnl ' Tbn (greatest quantity as well as tho largest nugi{nt8 of Canadian gold, up to the present time, baye been gathered in the ToujTt des Pint or Gilbtft ftlver. Like the River Dtn Planter, the (iitbert River takei ita rise in the north, UowIdk in two branches, which reunite on Lot IG of the GonceBiion St. Oharles. The main branch flows from north to soatb io the Gonceisions De Lerjr and St Charles ; it takes a bend on Lot 7 of the latter CoDceRsioo, and then traverses the first range northeast, directing its course from north- east to southwest. It Is the rich products of tho alluvion of the Gilbert River which have principally attracted public attention to the aurifevous deposits of the ChaU' ditrt ; I therefore felt that a special exploration was duo to this portion of the Seignory. Notwithstanding the favorable results of the works undertaken by Dr. James Douglas, sixteen years ago, gold in alluvion has not yet been actively sought for in that part of the Gilbert River which waters the first range northeast of the Concession St. Charles. Neveitheless, a mining effort undertaken in the course of last sommer, on Lot 75 of the iirst range north- east, gave satisfactory results, one of which was a nugget weighing six ounces. Qold has also been found in the Concession St. Charles ; notably at <« Oaron-Creek," as well as on the Lot 14, where four associated miners took out four ounces in one week. Tho alluvions which have produced a considerable qm^ntity of gold, without their richness being yet exhausted, are on Lots 18, 19 and 20, of the Concession de Lory. On the occasion of my first visit to the Gilbert River, in October, 1863, Lota 13 and 19 were occupied by about a hnndred miners, whose labors, carried on in the open air, consisted of a series of excavations, sunk one near the other, without method r^r regularity, and constituting on the whole a general working without b . .m or order. It is in this deplorable state that the organised companies, up to the pre- sent time, have abandoned the allnvial ^dli diggings to the industry of the habitant ; and these (diggings— often very productive, notwithstanding their irregularity, more or less actively pursued since 1863, even during tb« winter months by means of wells and tunnels— extend at the present time, with like success, on Lots 16 and 17, at the junction of the two branches of the river. In all those excavations the gold is found in the gravel' resting on the hard-pan, formed sometimes of schist, sometimes of gravel, often of both these foimatious interstratified : bnt the precious metal is found lodged par- ticularly between the leaves of the schist, and the cracks of the gravel, whern the latter has penetrated and become hardened. It is certain that the alluvions of this locality have blready produced much gold, among which were many nuggets varying in valne from f 25 to 8 *w.l^'SJ;r;,ti!;°.:,t::'. "rr" """■"■ ""-'«' i-m .^. .nu •PP'M.MIIr.l,-, ibo ,,„„,;,„ .„. 7."'' ", " '""""' l» eiUm.1,, ,„„ '» o«.=..i, .b,i. <,,„„,. b„v„ ., j;„tn ,:;;°;::',;r """■" ■''~ "'■•" y 'bid. it eroMe. at Lot i ; s.„ ' ^'""»"'" J" l-m .ud Ob.„„,J, ■">'"-"»"-.«. .0 .oulb "„ b L ' r?'? ""'"■"S"'. '""»>.» from jreenlBh gold in .ueaUon, Z piel "wZ I ir^' '''''''''''' ^' ^<> »»>« bat recently detached «id not .!. e^^ammed seemed to Lave been «o..o„ .ub „,b„ .on;;b:i:ir.L"::xt" '•- -""^ - ^1° The two branches of IheRivor /'./a- # which come down to the cwL; '^'''^^^ I'erj..8t.0harlea, and St 1 ": nCr^.'^T^' ''' ^-«'«"'0««' ^e northeast to southwest. I slw'ZTJ '' ' '^'" *""''"°° ^eing from ;onr feet, a little wa, ubo.e're" 3:^?^ "^•""'^' "'°^ »' - >" Concession do Lcry. "caration which I made on Lot 26 of the B«tag ..«.,.d m.ch.„ic.|l° soita „fS^-°* ^''"' '■"""of'b.c.mnt. lion 0. tb. tigbt babk, , c„™m t, .„,v t. ° '"'"'' '"^ "• «»'- lie Mdii>„», of lb, „„»u„g '" """'J--"" "T Ene p.piloi., „r g„u ,„ o.3.irsftrrr.":irti7r'''°'-°-'»'*-''-- «<««J«, inweb. Dr. f. Stem Hunt ««l7^i,,C f'^'""^'- »"l«'l« »25.e6 pM ton. ^ "'• "''"™'' *» P'odoct to an arwage of tvta On Lot •'•2 of the lirat range northeait » quartz cropplog out of from four to &r» fttt in tbiokneu, known in tlie localitj as the " Loabier-V«In" wai, I am ioformed, subjected to lome asaayi, one of wbloh, made at New Vork, Attributes to the mineral taken from it a production in gold of $15 per ton ; and tbia value was incrensed to Sl06 per ton, hj nnotiier nssaj made bj Mr. ColTln. A rnry slight surl'ace working, consistiog of a trench sunk to a depth of from two to three feet, exposed to view on Lot l:) r'' the Concession St. Gbarlts, a bed of quart/ which lias hccn named the " Louivon-Loubier- Vein." The assay of this quart/, by H.*. A. A. Hnyrs assigns it a ralue in gold of $70.9") per ton ; a value which six nssn}?, nia'^o by Dr. T. Slerry Hunt, redneed to an averag*? of f'.'t.Tl per ton. Finally, a well has been Bunk on another lude, on liOt Hit uf the first range northeast. 1 assayed mechanically JO lbs of quart/, taken from this, the " Rigg-Vein," and Ibund Bomo particloa of gold in llie sediment of the washing. Thus, operations of a suporliuial cbaniclcr, opoiicd at the cruppiogs out of several bods of tiuart/. in tho Sjoignory, have cuablod o)» to establish their existence, to determine the directions in which ihcy run, and to extract from them a certain quantity of mineral,— tho repeated oaaays of which have proved, in the case of some cf tho specimens, u well pronoonced value in gold. But the conditions of regularity or irregularity, the average richness and capacity, and tho continuity of depth, — that ia to say, all the conditions necessary for tho more or less profitable working out of a «iuart/. vein, — must remain in doubt, until a solution is dotcrminou hy operations ot greater magnitude than have been hitherto attempted in tho Ohaudiere gold mines. The mines of tbo Soignory of Rigaud-Vaudrcuil, situated on thu lei i bank of the Chaudicre, have not yet been explored. It is known, however, that the alluvions of the Uivcra Le Brat and " Mill'' are gold bearing ; for grains of the precious metal have been found in both these principal streams, as well as in most of the creeks which cither flow into them or fall directly into the Chttudiere. Recently, I went over tl:e Goncessiotis of this section of the Seignory, and I remarked numerous croppingsout of quartz at the River Le Bras, whore tho gravels and clayey schists are intersec'td l)y veins and seams which cross each other and run in every direction. Home of these Teins have a width of several feet, and those arc the ones which appeared to me to be most regular in character. The landa watered by " Mill' River, iu the Conccfidions of St. Etienn* and St. Guillaume, are also traversed by largo ridges of quartz, associated w.fK a/>Ktof 4(iA ««Fnnnlniv« aii( nf nrViir|t T aato at T.oira Cf VpAnf>'\|.* 4%mA *\*^ course of which I followed through the townships of Lampton and Forsyth. Those croppinge out are again met with on the road from Lambtoa to St. Francois, and at Lakes Volet and Rond, in the Seignory of Rigand-Vaudreuil. 10 The reins which I pointed out on the right bank of the Ckauditrc, aoiodc he a,m„ons of the Gilbert River, are discovered in the prolongation or these ridges; besides which, I would also mention two other lodes, al^a,"/ .nd" 1 T: '*" '"' °'r '"^'^''''^ '^' - '^« boundary l!; Of l1 •outh of Mr. de Lery's m.lls on tlio first mnge southwest. of a ^!!r T Y"^'^ '"''"^' '" "^''"'^ '^" ""^* f «'^^' ^«'""l'« '^^ "-^^"^ 0? h ancient a uvions is sometimes so much superior to that of the modern depo- ts that the, acsuon has beenasked, "ifthose alluvions are really produced '. ?ormrtiororftt" '''■T """'^' ''«^- which pierce through th/sHurSu formaiion, or it there might not be underneath the solid crust of the riobe an immense reservoir from whence this gold comes, aud where no doubt adrtirrLr^i^^r "r ^-"^^^ ^^^ «^'«- utt;rance tt; L houg^t adds, with reason that we dare hardly risk hypothesis on this sabjeot. and X s wilZirH" rf .'' "•''°"' °^J«^'' «-'"« '^'^^ 'f there 8 ould exist within the bowel, of the earth, real agglomeration., nf nati- -Id th^- must assuredly be at a depth impossible to~reach. ' " *""'"""'' ^^'' But whatever may have been the origin of the ancient alluvions does it not seem probable that they may have contributed, in certain locamt to 11 iiere, aiuoDg lODjfation or des, alreadjr ' line of Lots pentB to the 1 and noted, ands of the ' their deve- vea, already in its faTor ide in Cali- ted charac- lucts of the Dus, resting w yards of Jccunt ; for le to those that fame e precious produced alluvions, tt to reach asalt, to u I this kind degree of ae, capital are in the ess of the crn depo- prodaced i Silurian the globe no doQbt, I thought jeot, and 'e should :o!d, they s, does it lities, to 4 tbc enriching of the later deposits ; and may not this supposition be admitted ia respect of the deposits so profitably worked out on the Gilbert River ?— ■upposrtion which naturally leads to the belief in the existence of aneient and very rich alluvions in the gold fields of Lower Canada ! The incessant washings, by the operation of which nature forms the modern alluTions,— washings which appear insigoifleant when compared with the resistance offered by tbose rocks which enclose gold, — become very effective when the subterranean waters, disturbed by exceptional causesi react upon and upheave the ancient alluvions. Such may be the origin of those unusual deposits of gold met in with the modern alluvions, and it is in reliance upon these considerations that i have always believed that the search after the alluvial wealth of Lower Canada, received a strong guarantee from the mining results of the Gilbert River ! Moreover, we must not lose sight of the fact, that there exist many sec- tions of modern allavion in the Se . .ry, capable of being advantageously worked out by the Californian methods, which permit the profitable wash- ing of gravelly alluvion when the minimum return in gold reaches only about 10 cents per ton. The crushing of quartz which does not give a gold value of at least $7 per ton, becomes unprofitable in Oalifornia and Australia, owing to the high price of labour ; this would not be the case in Lower Canada, where labour is proverbially cheap. I have pointed out the abundance of quartz bedi already discovered in the lands of the Seignory, as well ad the favourable results ot the assays applied to the mineral extracted from the several veins. Tet, as I have already said in another report, the distribution of gold in quartz is so irregular, it might often be dangerous to receive with too much confidence, (with a view to operating,) the average richness of a bed given by assays of specimens, even when those assays are numerous. In conclusion, gentlemen, the certainty of the gold bearing quality, in a very high degree, of several of the quartz beds in the Saignory ia already an important fact ; and everything leads to the belief that the crushing mill in course of erection will soon prove, by its results, that the working out of the quartz of the Seignory of Rigaud-Vaudreuil, as well as of its deposits of allavion, is worthy the attention of tbose interested in gold mining and the confidenca of capitalists. I have the honor to be, gentlemen. Your very humble and obedient servant, A. MICHEL. St, Francois, County of Beauce, August 16tb, 1866.