320 W. W. Smyth, Esq., on the 



slightly undulated surface, hard gneiss rock, and mineral 

 veins from two to six feet in width ; so that in the mode of 

 working, the small necessity for timber, and, in fact, in 

 everything but the raising of water and of " stuff," we find 

 there a perfect prototype of our own Cornish mines. At 

 Schemnitz, on the contrary, the surface is roughly diversified 

 with hill and dale, whilst gigantic lodes, of fifty to two hun- 

 dred feet wide, sometimes forming with the decomposed 

 felspar a mass of yielding clay, course along a ridge of green- 

 stone porphyry, often softened by decomposition, and present 

 difficulties to the miner which those alone can appreciate who 

 have seen the driving of tunnels, or even small galleries, 

 through such material. Shafts can rarely be sunk in the 

 lodes, but are put down vertically on the hanging side ; the 

 common method of working out the contents cannot, from 

 the great width, be adhered to, whilst the crushing softness 

 of the filling substance demands unusual resources in walling 

 and timbering. 



Yet the scientific character of the Austrian miner has sunk 

 below its former position, and below that which it ought from 

 the above-named educational advantages to attain ; and the 

 cause, invisible to most on the spot, is evident to those who 

 have examined works of a similar nature in other countries. 

 A grave error has been committed in omitting the pursuit of 

 science for that of practical art alone, and the consequent 

 exclusion of the knowledge of advances made in other dis- 

 tricts has led to their own state of backwardness. The 

 varied circumstances of mineral deposit and other geological 

 features occurring throughout the empire remain undescribed, 

 and unreduced to their proper bearing, and the Schemnitz 

 student generally passes to his distant charge, prepared only 

 to conduct the works of the particular district around his 

 academy, and expecting to see in other places a recurrence 

 of the same phenomena. The very object of such an insti- 

 tution, to fit the miner by a general review of phenomena 

 observed, and processes used, in various localities, to adopt 

 what is most suitable to the particular locality in which he 

 will be engaged, — is lost sight of, and he is left with the one- 



