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VIII. — Description of a Mineral Vein in the Lancashire Coal 

 Field near Skelmersdale. By E. W. Bimtey, Esq. 



Read October 30, 1848. 



The county of Lancaster is famous for its invaluable 

 mines of coal, its nearly inexhaustible rocks of useful build- 

 ing stone, and the abundance of good brick clay which it 

 contains; but it is not rich in mines of lead and copper. 

 True, there are the invaluable hematite iron ores of Furness, 

 the clay ironstones of the lower coal measures, which have 

 been worked in ancient times in many places, as near Bum- 

 ley and elsewhere, the copper mines of Coniston, and the 

 lead mines of Anglezark; but still, with the above excep- 

 tions, the county is not remarkable for metallic deposits. 

 Throughout England this is generally the case in coal- 

 fields, except as respects iron, which is so commonly found 

 in them. No doubt, in other parts of the globe many 

 deposits of much later origin than the coal measures are 

 very productive of metals. It is now well known that most 

 metallic veins are found in the vicinity of rocks of igneous 

 origin; so much so, that the latter are generally considered 

 to be intimately connected with the formation of the former. 

 Although the county of Lancaster possesses few of those 

 dislocations termed dykes, it bears numerous signs of dis- 

 turbances in the strata of great extent, especially to the 

 north-west and east of Manchester, where there is evidence 

 that the coal measures have been displaced vertically above 

 3000 feet ; but still there is no appearance of what may be 

 strictly termed altered rock, or any thing indicating the 



