at $6.975.418. The steel produced totalled 331.321 tons valzed at $7.855.407. Of the iron-ore charged into the furnaces only 143.264 tons was domestic. Building materials showed consider able increase, the cement industry was active and growing and the total of construction material produced was $7.961.060. Petroleum production decreased; Natural gas increased as it had been doing for some years.

Cobalt development continued steadily although shorn of its sensational and speculative features. Coleman Township, in which Cobalt is situated, exceeded its own previous record in output and values. The total from 1904 up to the close of the year was officially stated at 93.977.833 ounces of silver worth $48.327280; the total dividends paid or declared and profits shared to date were placed by Alex. Gray-a voluminous press writer on the subject at $23.860.425; the dividends paid in 1910 were stated by him at $6.250.667 and those declared in 1910, payable in 1911, at $1.705.730; proved ore reserves were estimated at 60,000,000 ounces of silver. The opinion of Mr. T. W. Gibson, Deputy Minister of Mines for Ontario, as to this territory was expressed as follows: "The seven years which have elapsed since the opening of the mines of this remarkable Camp have been seven years of increasing plenty. The ratio of increase is now lessening, and 1910 will not exhibit as great an advance over 1909 as 1909 did over 1908; indeed, if no new and unexpected additions be made to the known sources of production it may well be that Cobalt has reached, or is approaching, its climacteric, for it must not be forgotten that a mining camp will not last for ever. The present rate of production may, however, be maintained for some time to come, and doubtless Cobalt will be producing silver a generation hence. Up to the end of 1910 the gross production of the field has been about 90 millions of ounces, worth say 47 millions of dollars."

The principal mines at Cobalt in 1910 were Nipissing with a production of 5,584,742 ounces, Crown Reserve 3,158,156 ounces, Kerr Lake 2,877,299 ounces, Coniagas 2,621,681 ounces, McKinley-Darragh-Savage 2,607,071 ounces, Temiskaming 1,887,127 ounces and Buffalo 1,514,895 ounces; others with large outputs were La Rose, O'Brien, Hudson Bay, Trethewey and Rightof-Way. During 1910 the Temiskaming and Hudson Bay mining interests built a mill and proposed to increase their 300 per cent. dividend on an $8,000 capitalization; the Trethewey declared a 20 per cent. dividend; the Cobalt Townsite, under the careful guidance of two Englishmen, commenced shipping; the McKinleyDarragh property produced 2,000,000 ounces and paid a 12 per cent. bonus and quarterly dividend; La Rose Consolidated, with

• NOTE.-Financial Post, Toronto, Jan. 7th, 1911.

its varied collateral or feeding mines, prospered and its Lawson and Princess properties alone earned its 2 per cent. dividend— paid while cash reserves were accumulating; the O'Brien completed its large mill and became the heaviest producer in the camp with profits of nearly half-a-million; Nipissing with its many properties had a year of much effort and some excellent surface finds while the management decided to hydraulicize its acreage and treat their own low-grade ore in a prospective mill; the Crown Reserve, with its record of 150 per cent. paid on its capital within three years, had considerable high-grade ore in sight, developed a large tonnage of low-grade for the use of its almost completed mill, and had rich discoveries in the Carson and Victoria mines; the Kerr Lake Company found some fine ore bodies and the Gillies Limit properties had a poor year; the Temiskaming had good profits from its mill, a persistence of high-grade ore in its lower levels, the resumption of quarterly dividends and the payment of a bonus. According to the Canadian Mining Journal summary: "The year 1910 was disastrous to companies of purely speculative value but has witnessed the building up of the district as a centre of industry and production to a degree not imagined 12 months ago by the most sanguine."

At the beginning of 1910 Cobalt ores were being treated by the following smelting concerns: American Smelting and Refining Co., New York; Balbach Smelting and Refining Co., Newark, N.J.; Beer, Sondheimer & Co., Frankfort-on-Main, Germany; Canadian Copper Co., Copper Cliff, Ont.; Coniagas Reduction Co., St. Catharines, Ont.; Deloro Mining and Reduction Co., Deloro, Ont.; Pennsylvania Smelting Co., Pittsburg, Pa.; Quirk, Barton & Co., London, England; United States Metals Refining Co., New York. The Cobalt Companies declaring dividends in 1910 were the Buffalo, Coniagas, Crown Reserve, Kerr Lake, La Rose, McKinley-Darragh, Nipissing, Right-of-Way, Temiskaming, Trethewey and Temiskaming and Hudson Bay. A notable event of the year was the decline in Cobalt stocks, the elimination of speculative values and general adjustment to the work of actual and thorough mining. Between 1908 and the close of 1910 Coniagas declined from $8.50 to $4.50; Foster from $4.37 to 34 cents; Green-Meehan from $2.05 to 1 cent; Kerr Lake from $7.86 to $6.92; La Rose from $7.00 to $3.30; Nipissing from $34.25 to $9.80; Right-of-Way from $10.50 to 19 cents; SilverQueen from $3.50 to 4 1-8 cents; Trethewey from $2.85 to $1.13; Temiskaming from $2.25 to 52 cents. Of details in Cobalt development the Mayor of that place (H. H. Lang) gave particulars during the visit of the Press Association. He claimed that Canada, as a result of Cobalt's production, added to that of British Columbia, was in the third place amongst the nations as a silverproducer-ranking after Mexico and the United States; that the horse-power capacity of the Camp had grown from 150 in 1905

to 9,700 in 1908 and 12,000 in 1909; that there were 4,000 men employed with a yearly wage list of $3,000,000; that in percentage of profit it surpassed all other Camps and that an actual expenditure of 10 or 20 cents produced a dollar's worth of product; that no other single mining area could claim such a large amount earned and paid in dividends during its first five years. Incidents of the year at Cobalt included the settlement of the legal and personal controversy in the Peterson Lake Company and changes in the Directorate which put Sir H. M. Pellatt and others from Toronto in control; the power given to the Cobalt Lake Company by the Legislature to reduce its capital from $5,000,000 to $3,500,000; the statement that, so far, little production had come from the once famous Gillies Limit and that the Government's total expenditure when it was Provincial property had been $94,271 and the amount received from its sale of lands $128,028; the report of production in the Nipissing Mine totalled up to July 31, 1910, the sum of $8,086,764; the 3rd annual Report of La Rose Consolidated, presented in October by D. Lorne McGibbon, showed a 12 per cent. dividend during the year paid out of net earnings and totalling $900,000; the financial difficulties of the Town of Cobalt, which found its revenues unequal to the demand for improvements compelled, on Sept. 13th, a request to the Provincial Government for aid. The chief mining Companies of the year with their Presidents and profit payments were as follows:

Rise of the
Porcupine
Gold-Fields

Situated in Whitney, Tisdale, and surrounding Townships, about 30 miles west of the T. & N. O. Railway, and near to Kelso which was 222 miles north of North Bay on the C.P.R., this region had been tentatively explored in 1899 by Dr. W. A. Parks for the Provincial Bureau of Mines. He reported that gold seemed to be well distributed while he regarded "the region south of the trail to Porcupine Lake as giving promise of reward to the prospector." At Pigeon Rapids on the Mattagami, and on the south arm of Matagaming Lake, he also found promising traces of gold. In 1907 the Railway approached the country and there occurred a rush to Night Hawk Lake with a man named Victor Mathison in the lead; in 1909 John S. Wilson and his party discovered the Dome Mine and were followed by B. Hollinger and Alex. Gillies. These men seem to have been the practical discoverers and earliest exploiters. W. S. Edwards of Chicago backed up Wilson and the Timmins syndicate took over the Gillies claims; varied gold discoveries followed of widely differing degrees in value or the reverse throughout a region of about 50 miles square and including such properties as the Bannerman, Way, Griffin, and Foster claims in Whitney; the Davidson-Dobie and McMahon group as well as the Hollinger and Wilson claims in Tisdale; and other staked showings away up into the Temagami Reserve.

Meantime Dr. G. R. Parkin, C.M.G., had been visiting Cobalt and in some remarkably accurate correspondence sent to the London Times referred to the Mineral riches of the country in general and urged British mining houses to investigate. The McArthur-Forest firm of Glasgow sent out a representative who heard of the Porcupine discoveries, the Scottish-Ontario Syndicate was formed and acquired important properties north of Porcupine Lake in Whitney, a vertical shaft was sunk and rich gold ore discovered. Other British concerns became interested and, unlike Cobalt, it appeared by the close of 1909 that Porcupine might be largely developed with British money. H. H. Webb, W. Frecheville, W. M. Deempster, Dr. Alfred Simon and other expert engineers testified favourably as to the resources of the region. One result was the coming of the Consolidated Gold Fields Co. of South Africa into the Camp in control of the Rea Mines; another was active work by the Milliken interests of St. Louis and the Armstrong-Booth syndicate composed of F. C. Armstrong and E. P. Earle with D. Lorne McGibbon, David Fasken, K.C., and other Canadians. By the close of 1910 it was asserted by the Cobalt Nugget that 3,000 square miles of the region in and around the Porcupine District was under continuous prospecting with 1,000 claims already staked and recorded. As in Cobalt and Gowganda and Larder Lake the speculative mania had also commenced

and brokers and newspapers together were floating companies with large prospects and small proofs.

The press was wildly enthusiastic. "A Northern El Dorado," and perhaps "one of the greatest gold fields in the world,” said the Toronto World; "the Porcupine gold camp, the wonder of the world," said the Mail and Empire"; "there is more gold in a single property in the Porcupine than in the whole state of Nevada," said an interview in the Montreal Herald; "Chunks of gold," "phenomenal finds," became favourite newspaper headings. It took a year, however, to work up popular interest in the subject although prospectors poured into the region in hundreds and then thousands while villages commenced to spring up in what had been an utter wilderness. There was excuse for much that was said. P. McLaren, M.E., F.G.S., of the MacArthur Company, Glasgow, who were working the Bannerman property, said in the Montreal Star on Feb. 5 that: "The surface showings appear to indicate the existence of vast bodies of excellent low-grade oresome of the best I have ever seen. But this is no poor man's camp. You cannot ship out the ore as they do from the silver camps at Cobalt and receive a cheque from the smelter. Gold has to leave the camp in the form of bullion. Much expensive machinery will, therefore, have to be installed before there is a return of a dollar. If there are millions in the ground it will take millions to get them out. It appears to me that those who have the capital and the courage to invest, and the patience to wait, will do well out of some of these properties."

In the Monetary Times of June 25th H. E. T. Haultain, Professor of Mining at Toronto University, summed up his impressions of the region: "The good gold values were first recognized only about nine months ago, and one cannot form any definite opinion as to ultimate value from the work accomplished in such a short time. Still, the fact remains that, while too early to be sure, the Camp gives great promise. Very many of the claims which have been recorded will, undoubtedly, produce disappointment instead of gold. Many of them are located on swamp ground and many of them are claims staked when the snow mantled the earth. Much quartz will be discovered that does not carry commercial values. To sum up, after nine months' life, the Porcupine camp affords well-based hopes that it may become a valuable goldproducing area, with greater permanence than has hitherto characterized Ontario gold camps." Mr. R. W. Brock, Director of the Geological Survey, Ottawa, about this time reported as follows:

The district furnished remarkably tempting specimens. About 9,000 claims have been staked, the great majority of which, of course, have no real present or prospective value as mines, but they are in Porcupine and can be bought or sold. But there are some really good-looking prospects. Quartz is remarkably widespread over the district and visible gold is abundant in some showings and has been found at numerous and widely