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From Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec

Gold has traded in a range of $1,814 to $1,839 so far today…as of 12:00 pm Eastern, the yellow metal is down $13 an ounce at $1,821…Silver is off 35 cents at $40.78…Copper has slipped 7 cents to $3.90…Oil is $1.45 lower at $88.76 while the U.S. Dollar Index is down slightly at 77.01…the CDNX is off 9 points at 1752 after a strong day yesterday…news out of the euro zone continues to be watched very closely…two French banks, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole, have been downgraded by Moody’s today…Moody’s had put them on review about three months ago amid fears over exposure to Greece but has since become worried about the banks’ funding and liquidity profiles…a conference call today between Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will likely shape a crucial meeting in Poland Friday of euro zone finance ministers and U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner…the Financial Times reported this morning that the U.S. Treasury would effectively accommodate a possible Federal Reserve stimulus to drive down long-term interest rates, citing people “familiar” with the matter…of course the Fed meets next Tuesday and Wednesday…the Treasury would play a crucial role if the Fed decided to launch “Operation Twist” where the central bank would buy more longer-term Treasury securities to drive down long-term interest rates by reducing the amount of such debt available to other investors…more Americans were living in poverty in 2010 than at any time since at least the 1950’s with the overall poverty rate climbing to 15.1% – a 6% jump in just one year – according to Census figures released yesterday…the Census Bureau’s annual report showed nearly 1-in-6 people in poverty, reflecting sustained long-term unemployment and the failure of the U.S. economy to kick into gear following a crippling recession…

How Gold In Quebec Was Discovered – The Story of Edmund Horne

The important turning point in the geological exploration and economic development of the Rouyn-Noranda district came during the 1910’s…on the left is a picture of the pioneering prospector Edmund H. Horne who began exploring the Rouyn area in 1911…Horne was an experienced miner and prospector before he ventured into the wilderness of northwestern Quebec, having worked in Nova Scotia, Labrador, northern B.C., Colorado, California and England…in 1908 he joined the Gold rush in northern Ontario and worked in the booming Cobalt mining camp…he then prospected in the Kirkland Lake and Cobalt areas to seek his own fortune, and liked what he saw in the rock formations…he wondered what mineral riches lie across the provincial boundary in Quebec while others prospected in northern Ontario…Horne later recalled, “Well, it didn’t seem sensible to believe that all the good geology would quit at the Ontario border, just because somebody had drawn an imaginary line there”…coming from the Ontario side along the Ottawa River, Horne and another prospector, Bob Bryden, canoed through the Kinojevis waterway in 1911…the unexplored country of northwestern Quebec left favorable impressions in Horne’s mind…he believed the area held great promise for mineral wealth…he returned in 1914 with two prospector partners, Bert Armstrong and Bert McDonnell…this time they found a showing of mineralized and heavily fractured rhyolite along the shore of Lake Osisko, which later became the Horne Mine…with more sampling and prospecting in the following years, Horne was convinced that he was onto a major mineral discovery…lacking the financial resources for a grubstake expedition to stake claims and do the assessment work, he had to wait for better financial times after World War 1…he initially found few backers for his venture…it was only in 1920 that Horne was able to secure funds to stake the ground…he raised the money through the Tremoy Lake Prospecting Syndicate which Horne founded with a total of 12 partners in the Grand Union Hotel in New Liskeard, Ontario…the syndicate was established to finance Horne’s venture in Rouyn Township to develop the Horne property, which eventually became Noranda Mines Limited…further surface work and trenching led to the discovery by diamond drilling of the giant “H” orebody in 1923 which triggered a prospecting rush and a subsequent mining boom throughout the Abitibi region…Horne, with the Mine now bearing his name, and the Noranda company were on the way to fame and fortune and a prominent place in the economic geology and mining history of Canada…the Horne Mine went on to produce a whopping 10 million ounces of Gold, about 2.5 billion pounds of copper and some Silver…at today’s prices, that equates to about $30 billion in resource value…at the site of the former mine is now Xstrata’s Horne Smelter which is treating more and more electronic recycling…

The northern boundary of Visible Gold Mines‘ Stadacona East Gold Property is within just one kilometre of the former Horne Mine…VGD is currently drilling the unexplored eastern part of the property in an effort to upgrade and expand resources…an initial NI-43-101 resource estimate was released earlier this year and showed nearly 1 million tonnes grading 5.19 g/t Au at a cut-off grade of 2.5 g/t Au…Stadacona-East is an extension of the past producing Stadacona Mine…VGD’s flagship projects, however, are Lucky Break and Joutel…at Lucky Break, the company is enjoying impressive early exploration success at both Wasa Creek and Wasa East which are on either side of Richmont Mines‘ (RIC, TSX) growing Wasamac deposit approximately 15 kilometres west of Rouyn-Noranda…our interview yesterday with VGD President and CEO Martin Dallaire was posted last night and Dallaire confidently predicted that “five or six more deposits” will be discovered in the Wasamac area over the next five or six years…though it’s still very early in the game, one of those could turn out to be at Wasa Creek where some highly intriguing structural features have been discovered with mineralization also observed in drill core over a wide area as reported by the company on Monday…with the intense fracturing and displacement at Wasa Creek, north-south faults and a “bending” of the Cadillac Fault that runs right underneath the property, the geological recipe is for not only Gold but a potential massive sulphide discovery as Dallaire mentioned in the interview…these are interesting times for Visible Gold Mines and the company’s aggressiveness on the ground has allowed it to make an incredible amount of progress at both Wasa Creek and Wasa East in a short period of time, especially considering these properties were previously unexplored…VGD is unchanged as of 12:00 pm Eastern at 43 cents…

Gold Bullion Development (GBB, TSX-V) has released more assay results from the LONG Bars Zone this morning…we haven’t yet had the opportunity to fully review everything but at first glance there are some impressive widths which means the interpretation of Granada as a potential high-tonnage, low-grade deposit remains intact…we’ve been on the look-out for results from some key holes in the northern area of the Eastern Extension…one of those holes (#178) was reported this morning and it returned 183.50 metres grading 0.50 g/t Au including 45.50 metres grading 1.12 g/t Au…#178 was collared approximately 40 metres northwest of hole #108, so this northern section of the Eastern Extension continues to look very promising…GBB’s Slow Stochastics have declined to a level not seen since early to mid-May when GBB was also in the mid-30’s before rebounding into the 50’s, so on the chart’s it’s clearly very attractive at the moment as it trades at 33 cents, down 2.5 pennies…the 52-week low is 31.5 cents…Manitou Gold (MTU, TSX-V) is up sharply this morning following release of initial drill results from the high-grade hole 26 area at its Kenwest Project southwest of Dryden, Ontario…Manitou is another company like VGD that is extremely active on the drilling front at some interesting land packages and the stock is currently up 13.5 cents to 57 cents on CDNX volume of over 800,000 shares…MTU reported 9 metres grading 26.9 g/t Au including a high-grade interval of 0.70 meters grading 316 g/t Au…that new intersection is positioned up dip from the very high grade cut from hole 26 earlier this year… results from 3 holes were released this morning with 15 more to come…MTU says all holes (KW-11-46 thru 63) intersected the mineralized structure…Bellhaven Copper (BHV, TSX-V), which we haven’t mentioned for a while, enjoyed a strong day yesterday as it gained 14 cents after releasing an initial NI-43-101 inferred resource estimate of 1 million ounces of Gold and 1.6 million equivalent ounces at its La Mina Project in Colombia…these announced resources occur at the La Cantera prospect, one of several porphyry Gold-copper targets at La Mina and the only one drilled sufficiently to date to allow for the calculation of resources…there’s also some Silver at La Cantera (2.6 million ounces in the inferred category)…Bellhaven is led by the very respected Paul Zweng…BHV definitely worth keeping on one’s radar screen…as of 12:00 pm Eastern, it’s off 4 pennies at 60 cents…we’ll be checking in with Abcourt Mines‘ (ABI, TSX-V) President and CEO Renaud Hinse in the coming days…ABI has some significant assets in its portfolio and trying to unlock that value is the company’s challenge right now…ABI is unchanged this morning at 10.5 cents…