VOL. XVI. (1) THE OLD-RED-SANDSTONE 85 
would be thereby much facilitated, and the cost of its 
extraction reduced. The proximity of a plentiful supply 
of coal and of a fair supply of water are other favourable 
factors. Not only does it appear, therefore, that the 
winning of a valuable ore could be effected without serious 
difficulty or unusual expense in the Forest area, but pro- 
bably, from the relatively imperfectly consolidated condition 
of the reef and the absence of deleterious impurities, the 
extraction of the gold from the ore might also be carried 
out in a simple and inexpensive manner. 
It must be emphatically repeated, however, that the one 
all-important matter which has still to be settled, is whether 
or not the yield of bullion from the conglomerate will 
eventually prove to be sufficiently high to make the mining 
of precious metals in the Forest of Dean a practicable 
proposition. That remains to be seen ! 
