ODDS’N’SODS — The serendipity deposit (2)

Editor’s note: We conclude the story of the discovery of a celestite (strontium sulphate) deposit in Cape Breton in the 1960s. “R.P.M.” refers to R.P. Mills and “Harry” is J.H. Morgan.

Harry asked me to drill some holes into the deposit to see if it was of substantial size. This was done with positive results.

R.P.M., Harry and two associates formed a firm called Cape Chemicals which would mine the celestite and process the ore in a chemical plant to manufacture strontium carbonate. The success of this venture hinged on receipt of considerable government funding. However, this was not realized, and so plans for the utilization of the celestite were scrapped. Some time later, an executive from Kaiser Aluminum was just about ready to leave Oakland, Calif., to buy out a celestite deposit in Spain. He planned to start constructing a plant which would supply Japanese electronic firms with strontium carbonate, which would be used for stopping the emission of X-rays from color television tubes.

The Kaiser conglomerate really wanted to put a strontium plant in North America, but there were not any known deposits of celestite large enough to serve this purpose.

Just a few days before the executive left for Spain, he received a phone call from a Kaiser representative, working on a company project in Alberta, who had recently learned that a large deposit of celestite existed in Cape Breton. This latter gent was to meet the executive in Spain and start the new strontium operation, so he thought it prudent to tell his new boss about all this.

(I was told later that the late J.P. Nowlan, then cents 1969] the deputy minister of mines for Nova Scotia, had placed a tiny article in the Halifax Chronicle which said Cape Chemicals owned a large celestite deposit in Loch Lamond. It is conjecture on my part, but I believe that either The Northern Miner or perhaps The Financial Post then picked up on the news release, which enabled the Kaiser official in Alberta to read about it.)

It did not take the Kaiser executive long to abort his trip to Spain and go to Montreal to see R.P.M. and Harry, with whom he struck up an option on the property.

The Kaiser group drilled the property and found several stacked mantos (beds). The property was bought from Cape Chemicals and I was sent a nice bonus cheque for my efforts. With the cheque was a scribbled note from R.P.M. which stated, “Avard, you now know the true meaning of `serendipity.'” Later, the Kaiser group established the world’s largest celestite mine in Loch Lamond and the world’s largest strontium plant near Sydney. The operations lasted several years and created many new jobs in Nova Scotia. Years later, I asked Harry what really prompted him to have the sample assayed. He looked at me and said he really could not put his finger on why he did it and then he asked me, “Can you really say why you went and looked at the outcrop which was supposed to be granite?

“No,” I replied, and Harry laughed, saying, “Maybe the geological spooks were telling us something.”

R.P.M., Harry, Mut Stewart and I went on to be involved in several other important discoveries where similar, unusual circumstances and hunches came in to play, but these are other

stories.

P.S. After writing this article, I learned that Metall Mining of Toronto had begun exploring near the old celestite mine in an effort to find deposits of base metals and silver. Let us hope that serendipity comes into play for Metall and that the Cape Breton spooks (relations to Santa Barbara, the patron saint of miners) are still at work in that region.

— The writer, a native of Truro, N.S., is a frequent contributor to this column.