112 



Marcasite was at one time much used for making into ornaments, 

 brooches and the like. 



Molybdenite, Molybdenum Sulphide, is one of the rarer 

 minerals found in our district. It seems to occur most commonly 

 in small scaly patches in the granite now so extensively worked 

 at Shap ; and a visit to the quarry will generally enable almost 

 anyone to secure more or less perfect specimens. Less commonly 

 it may be found in the same form, and occurring in the same way, 

 in the quartz matrix of the veins traversing the Skidda Granite at 

 Brandy Gill Mines, where it is associated with Wolfram, Scheelite, 

 Mispickel, Telluric Bismuth, and a host of interesting mineral 

 species. It bears some resemblance to Graphite, but may be 

 distinguished by its paler colour, its somewhat more decidedly 

 metallic lustre, and its greener streak. It also resembles Galena, 

 but may be at once distinguished by its property of marking on 

 paper. 



Brandy Gill Mines yield occasional specimens of the beautiful 

 mineral known as Telluric Bismuth, or Tetradymite. This is 

 described in the British Museum cases as " Bismuth with telluride, 

 sulphide, and selenide of Bismuth." The specimens in the British 

 Museum are said to be from Roughten Gill, but the character of the 

 matrix associated with the specimen is exactly like that of the well- 

 known quartz-with-muscovite matrix of Brandy Gill. The mineral 

 occurs in laminar masses with a foliated structure, and a very 

 perfect cleavage. The freshly-cleaved faces present a very beautiful 

 bright silvery lustre. Brandy Gill is the only known British 

 locality, and the mineral is not by any means of common occur- 

 rence there. 



Professor Sedgwick refers to an Antimony mine in the Skidda 

 Slate near the foot of Bassenthwaite ; but the precise locality and 

 the exact species of the mineral are not mentioned. 



Antimonite, Stibnite, or Antimony tersulphide, is given in Greg 

 and Lettsom's British Mineralogy, and in Bristow's Glossary, as 

 occurring at Robin Hood Mine, Bassenthwaite, which is probably 

 the locality referred to by Sedgwick. 



