. Transactions. d so rapidly as a constituent of steel for use in armour plate bythe navies of the world. As a constituent of steel required for ordinarypurposes it has a wide field of usefulness. Then there are itsuses in plating and in coinage. It seems to me that since Canada issuch an important producer of the metal we should have a distinc-tively nickel coin. It is necessary for me to refer but briefly to the uses of copper,whch our Province produces along with nickel and from other prehistoric times, before the advent of the iron age, copper was themetal chiefly used in the p
. Transactions. d so rapidly as a constituent of steel for use in armour plate bythe navies of the world. As a constituent of steel required for ordinarypurposes it has a wide field of usefulness. Then there are itsuses in plating and in coinage. It seems to me that since Canada issuch an important producer of the metal we should have a distinc-tively nickel coin. It is necessary for me to refer but briefly to the uses of copper,whch our Province produces along with nickel and from other prehistoric times, before the advent of the iron age, copper was themetal chiefly used in the production of tools and articles of every-dayuse. In later ages it occupied a much less important place in the in- Eastern Ontario Mining Industries. 249 dustries than iron. In recent years, however, as in the early ages ofhuman history, copper has become an indispensable metal. In ourpresent state of development we could not do without iron, and thesame may almost be said concerning copper. We are now in what is. Concentration and Refining Plant in course of erection at theHlack Donald Graphite .Mine, near Calahogie. sometimes called the age of electricity, and if our supplies of copperwere suddenly cut off we can hardly conceive of the state we would beleft in, at least until some substitute were found for the metal. Of the other metal to which I have referred in this paper, it maybe said that it has apparetitly been the metal most eagerly sought after 250 The Canadian Mining histitute. by the race of man throughout all ages, ahke by barbarians and thosein higher states of civihzation. Much has been written of its uses andabuses. However, I think it can be said that, with all the ill uses towhich it has been put, it has proved a greater factor in bringing aboutthe settlement of waste places and in promoting civilization than anyother substance, organic or inorganic. Gold-bearing deposits havebeen the lodestone which attracted population to the wildernesses ofWestern America, .
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