Me. J. Bbyce on the Discovery of Copper near Barrhead. 47 



December 17, 1856. — The President in the Chair. 



The following gentlemen were elected members of the Society : — 

 Mr. Thomas Russell, Engineer, 204 Saudyford Buildings, Dumbarton 

 Eoad; Mr. John Kidston, 71 West Nile Street; Mr. John Mann, 

 Accountant, 153 Queen Street. 



Mr. Bryce read the following papers : — I. On the Discovery of Native 

 Copper in the Trap Rocks near Barrhead. II. On the Discovery of 

 Coal-bearing Strata and Coal Fossils in the Island of Bute. III. Notice 

 of the Geological Relations of the workable Copper Veins recently dis- 

 covered in Bute. 



On t/ie Discovery of Native Copper in the Trap Rocks near Barrhead. 

 By James Beyce, M.A., F.G.S. 



The existence of native copper in this locality was lately made known 

 to me by John Graham, Esq., of Barrhead, who kindly furnished the 

 many beautiful specimens now exhibited. It has long been known to 

 him, and a matter of notoriety in the neighbourhood ; but no account 

 of the discovery, or of the conditions under which the metal is found, has 

 hitherto been published, so far as I am aware, in any scientific journal ; 

 yet the great interest of the discovery as a scientific fact entitles it to 

 a permanent record. The metal occurs in a native state very sparingly, 

 even in the great repositories of its ores, as in Cornwall, Norway, and 

 other places ; and its existence in basaltic rocks is of such extreme 

 rai'ity, that only two other similar cases are known. Cape D'Or, at 

 the western extremity of Nova Scotia, between Chignecto Bay and 

 Minas Channel, in the Bay of Fundy, receives its name from the con- 

 siderable quantity of yellow, gold-like, native copper found there in 

 overlying basaltic rocks, under cii'cumstances very similar to those now 

 to be described, as wiU be seen by consulting the admirable work of Mr. 

 Dawson, entitled Acadian Geology, p. 93. The other instance is at 

 Nalsije, in the Faroe Isles, where native copper is found in trap with 

 mesotype, butH)nly in minute disseminated particles of a crystalline form, 

 and in strings branching through amygdaloid. 



I lately visited the locality at Barrhead, in company with Mr. Alex- 

 ander Cowan of that place, by whom it had been previously examined, 

 and who also has favoured me with several fine specimens. The locality 

 in question is the Boylestone trap quarrj^ about a quarter of a mile 

 north-west of the railway station at Barrhead. The rock is a coarse 

 crystalline greenstone, a member of the trap series which forms the 

 Fereneze hill ranges, erupted through, overlying and much altering 



