The discovery in 1923 of the largest silver nugget ever found renewed interest in the Cobalt deposits, and has led to the reopening of several old mines with profitable results. This gigantic find, which tipped the scales at more than two thousand pounds, was about ninety per cent. pure silver, and was valued at twenty thousand dollars. The discovery was made by Anson Clement, a carpenter, in the Gillies Timber Limit about five miles from Cobalt, and a team of horses with a block and tackle was needed to haul the giant nugget out of the ground. Nuggets of silver eighty and ninety per cent. pure and weighing three and four hundred pounds each are not uncommon, and I have seen chunks of silver ore the size of a paving brick that I could not lift. Indeed, much of the ore reminds one of the rich copper nuggets that are found in the Lake Superior region. Recently a vein of almost pure silver, which in one place was between four and five feet in width, was uncovered in the Keeley Mine, eighteen miles from Cobalt. Before the discovery of the Cobalt deposits, British Columbia led in the production of silver in Canada, and still has an output about one third that of Ontario. Silver is mined also in Quebec and Yukon Territory, a new silver district of promise having been discovered at Keno Hill in the Yukon. Three thousand tons of ore has been taken from one of the Keno Hill mines in one season. This has to be carried on dog sleds and wagons forty-five miles to the Stewart River and then sent down the Stewart and the Yukon to the Pacific, where it goes by ocean steamer to the nearest smelter. Only an unusually high grade of ore can be handled profitably with so long a freight haul before smelting. The Cobalt mines produce not only silver, but also four fifths of the world’s supply of cobalt. Cobalt and silver are frequently found together, but nowhere in such quantities as here. Cobalt is a mineral somewhat like nickel in its properties, and is also used instead of nickel for plating steel. It is used to make paints and pigments, and is often known commercially as cobalt blue. Silicate of cobalt furnishes the colour for all the finest blue china. Practically the entire Canadian output, most of which is smelted at plants in southern Ontario, is exported to England and the United States. The cobalt can be plainly seen in the ore when the rock is exposed to the weather. It is of a steel-gray colour tinged with rose-pink, and where it occurs in the form of a powder it looks exactly like rouge. When heated it turns a beautiful blue. Arsenic and other elements are often found mixed with the cobalt-silver ore, and the region has deposits of nickel, copper, and lead.