Antimony is a trigonal mineral, usually massive, lamellar and distinctly cleavable. Its colour ranges from tin-white to a steel gray, and is opaque and metallic. Native antimony is of hydrothermal origin, occurring in veins with silver ores, often with stibnite, also with sphalerite, pyrite, galena, and quartz. It is a poor conductor of heat and electricity.
Native antimony is nearly indistinguishable from native arsenic.
However the garlic odor which is sometimes found on arsenic is not a characteristic of antimony. Antimony was recognized in compounds by the ancients and was known as a metal at the beginning of the 17th century and possibly much earlier. Antimony has been extracted from Lake George area in New Brunswick since 1863. Production in Canada Canadian primary antimony production is estimated at 665 t in 1995. Limited in New Brunswick produce antimony-lead alloy from concentrates from their own mines and from external sources.