Cobalt is recognised as a permanent silver camp, and as one of the richest on the entire American continent. At first the stories told of silver paths, brilliant and shining in the sunshine, were regarded as part and parcel of the usual myths that spring up in mining camps. But the "silver sidewalks" were there. They were the most palpable of facts. A hundred miles to the north of the town of Cobalt, on Porcupine Creek, the prospectors found gold. Specimens of the alluring yellow ore may be seen in glass cases in the corridor of the King Edward Hotel, Toronto. In that city many of the miners may be met, for mining is now a scientific pursuit rather than merely an industry, and whether the miner takes his ease in cosmopolitan centres and gives his mines "absent treatment," after the convenient fashion of Christian Scientists, or whether he is less remote { 136} from his interests, does not seem to affect the results in a vital manner.
During the year 1915 thirteen mines in Northern Ontario produced gold, and many of these are now making alterations and additions to their plants which will enable them to largely increase their output.
The following table shows the steady advance of the Porcupine gold camp since its discovery in 1910:--
Value of Year Production $ 1910 35,539 1911 17,187 1912 1,730,628 1913 4,284,928 1914 5,203,229 1915 7,580,766 ---------- Total 18,852,277
To find this possibly incalculable wealth in the densely wooded wilderness is a continually increasing surprise. The Porcupine district, as well as the Cobalt region, is reached by the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway, a line of two hundred miles in length, built by the Province of Ontario, and furnishing connection between the Transcontinental line from Quebec to Winnipeg, north of the lakes, and the cities in the southern portion of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The construction { 137} of this connecting line led to the discovery of Lake Timagami (one of the popular summer resorts), and about thirty miles north of the lake the first indication of silver was accidently found by a workman who hurled his hammer at a scampering rabbit and hit a rock instead, chipping off a layer that disclosed a vein of almost pure silver. This initiated the famous La Rose mine, taking its name from the man who made this fortunate throw of his hammer, and within the succeeding four years this immediate region was capitalised at some five hundred millions. While the Cobalt silver mines, then, owe their discovery to this employee on the line, the engineers prospecting for the grade of the Grand Trunk Pacific accidentally uncovered vast coal-fields in Alberta.