50 MINERALOGY. 



some time ago from Messrs. Fowle and Lonstiale of 

 Pvlaulmain, a box containing upwards of thirty specimens 

 of Ores from the Antimony Mines near that place, 

 with a request that they might be examined, their desire 

 being of course to ascertain carefully and certainly, if 

 they contained any, and what, proportion of the precious 

 metals. One of the Ores sent up was indeed a ' supposed 

 antimonial silver,' 



" Now, in complicated ores of this description, this sort 

 of examination requires great care, time, and often repeat- 

 ed analysis, before a negative can safely be pronounced 

 from a small specimen, to assure the miner or smelter who 

 works on a larcre scale that nothing of value exists in his 

 ores, and these references have thus occupied a very con- 

 siderable portion of time and labor, and as is often the 

 case in such investigations, have proved wholly unfruitful. 

 Antimony, iron, arsenic, and sulphur with bismuth, and 

 in one instance a trace of molybdena being all which can 

 be discovered in them. The results have been sent to 

 Messrs. Brightman, but are not worth detailing or printing. 

 " I have suggested however, to these gentlemen that they 

 may find it well worth their while to sink a shaft ' for a 

 change of ores.' As I now understand their operations, 

 they seem to be occupied with what one might call mere 

 surface-digging rather than mining, and the pronouncing, 

 as we must now do, that these ores contain nothing of 

 value, is not to be understood as saying that the locality 

 contains nothing, but merely that the ores at 'the surface 

 have not been found valuable ; which in Cornwall, and I 

 think in Germany, is often thought to be a favorable in- 

 dication." 



godocogQooSu 



ARSENIC. 



Dr Heifer reported the existance of ores of arsenic on 

 the Mergui Islands, Mr. Piddington found it in the 

 antimony ores, and Professor Mitchell also found arsenic 

 in the lead ore that he analyzed. 



