Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/334

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Haiti: Her History and Her Detractors

cenillier (Hippomane-mancenilla); acajou (mahogany); bois rose (Cordia gerascaubus); chêne noir d'Amérique (oak) (Catalpa longisiligua); tendre acaillou (Acacia arborea, Mimosa tenuifolia); ébène noir (Acacia lebbek or ebenus); bois de fer jaune (Sideroxylon americanum); ébène verte (Tecoma leucoxylon-a-saratiplea); bois blanc (Simaruba officinalis); chêne des Antilles (Bignonia arborea); bois-de-fer blanc; oranger (orange-tree); cèdre (cedar); goyavier (guava-tree); canapêche (log-wood)," etc.

Mr. Edmond Roumain, professor of chemistry of the National School of Pharmacy at Port-au-Prince, who was the Haitian Commissioner-General at the Exposition of St. Louis, has devoted a great deal of his time to the mines of Haiti. At St. Louis he exhibited a large collection of iron, copper, platinum, and iridosminum ores.

According to Mr. Roumain there are millions of tons of lignite at Maissade; in the South there are manganese ore (pyrohisite) right on the surface and in great abundance, and also a considerable deposit of lignite. Gypsum, cinnabar, petroleum, and gold are to be found also in Haiti.

"In the outcrops called Rocher and Reserve the copper ore is gold and silver bearing;[1] specimens cut off the vein known now to be over five feet wide at Rocher, gave to Mr. Charles Merry, mining engineer of Columbia University:

"Gold, ounce 0.50 (half an ounce to the ton).
Silver, ounces 45 (forty-five ounces to the ton).
Copper, 20 per cent (twenty per cent).

"In one other outcrop, at Lhercour, the mineral is the so-called peacock ore, yielding right at the surface 27.83 per cent of copper. The iron found in the same district is magnetite of 67 per cent iron. Regis Chau-

  1. This information concerning the mines and ores is an extract from the pamphlet, "A Brief Sketch of Haiti," St. Louis, 1904.