- EXPERIMENTS ON VEINS AND MINES. 133 
Report of some Experiments on the Electricity of Metallic 
Veins, and the Temperature of Mines. By Ropert WERE 
Fox. 
In fulfilment of the commission with which I was last year in- 
trusted, it was my intention to have made some experiments on 
the electricity of metalliferous veins on a larger scale than I have 
yet done, and to have endeavoured to produce changes in the 
composition of bodies, by the long-continued action of electric 
forces, derived from this source. Other engagements have, 
however, interfered with the execution of these plans, and the 
only experiments of this nature which I have recently made 
have been confined to Coldberry and Skeers lead mines, situated 
near Middleton Teasdale, in the county of Durham. In the 
former, I obtained no decided results; and in the latter, the gal- 
vanometer indicated very feeble electrical action. There are 
seven E. and W. lead veins in this mine, contained in limestone, 
which are shifted from three to five fathoms to the right hand 
by a cross vein, having nearly a northern and southern direction. 
The cross vein contained more or less galena near some of the 
places of intersection ; and a connection was made, by means of 
copper wires, between portions of orein the cross vein, and others 
in one of the most productive of the east and west veins, when 
there appeared to be a feeble action from N. to W. (see ground 
plan, fig.1). The parts connected, a and 4, were about twenty 
fathoms distant from each other, and fifty fathoms under the 
~ surface. } 
A small stream of water gushing Fig. 1. 
out of the vein was at 50° Fahr. N 
The ore in this mine was far from 
abundant, at least it did not occur 
in such large masses as are best a" 
calculated for experiments of this 
description ; and the wire was not 
sufficiently long to admit of obser- 
vations being made on the relative 
electric states of parallel veins. 
These experiments, together with 
others which I made some years 
ago in other lead mines near Mold W 
in Flintshire, tend to induce the 
belief that the electric action ismuch 
more feeble in lead veins when con- 
tained in limestone and sandstone s 
Cross Vein. 
Lead Vein. 
