Albert Mines is a community in the southeastern corner
Map
of the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

. It is due south of the Village of Hillsborough and bordered by the communities of Demoiselle Creek (site of

Hopewell Rocks The Hopewell Rocks, also called the Flowerpots Rocks or simply The Rocks, are rock formations known as sea stacks caused by tidal erosion in the Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site at the Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in New Brunswick, ...

) and Edgetts Landing. Prominent buildings today include the Albert Mines Baptist Church. The locale is notable in the

history of the petroleum industry While the local use of oil goes back many centuries, the modern petroleum industry along with its outputs and modern applications are of a recent origin. Petroleum's status as a key component of politics, society, and technology has its roots in t ...

as being the source of the first ore used to distill

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

Mining history

In 1820, a deposit of

Albertite Albertite is a variety of asphalt found in the Albert Formation in Albert County, New Brunswick, and in a deposit at Dingwall, in the north-east of Scotland. It is a type of solid hydrocarbon. Albertite has a black colour, a resinous luster, and ...

, variously described as "solid petroleum" or "

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

" was discovered by

Abraham Gesner Abraham Pineo Gesner, ONB (; May 2, 1797 – April 29, 1864) was a Canadian physician and geologist who invented kerosene. Gesner was born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia (now called Chipmans Corner) and lived much of his life in Saint John, New Bru ...

, who understood its potential as an alternative to

whale oil Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' ("tears, tear" or "drop"). Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the ...

as a source of light. After developing a process to distill the ore into what he would call

(parafin in Europe) the ore was mined between 1854 and 1881, yielding an estimated 200,000 tons of Albertite. Mining disputes, including the nature of

, were subject to legal action in the 1850s. A section of the Albert Railway ran through the area beginning 1877 until the track was dismantled in 1955 A century-old

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

quarry supplied a National Gypsum mill in nearby Hillsborough and ceased production in the 1980s when the mill closed.

Notes

References

* {{cite book , last1=Martin , first1=Gwen L. , title=Gesner's Dream: The Trials and Triumphs of Early Mining in New Brunswick , date=2003 , publisher=Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum , location=Fredericton , isbn=1894475-46-1

Mining history

Notes

References

Further reading