aS 
AD4 Original Articles. [ July, 
worked in the Val Castrucci, in the Maremme, near the coast, and in 
this latter case there is evidence that the ancient Etruscan inhabitants 
cf Italy were able to take advantage of the minerals there found. In 
the Massa Maritima, the veins traverse the tertiary rock of the dis- 
trict. They range from N.W. to §.E. The veinstone or earthy 
mineral accompanying the ore is usually quartz. The veins are wide, 
the principal one measuring from 30 to 50 feet. The terrible miasma 
of the ‘Maremme, as the marsh lands of this part of Tuscany are 
called, is a serious drawback to working the mines of this district. 
Besides the open fissures containing ore, found in the sedimentary 
rocks themselves, there are dykes, filled with volcanic rock of the nature 
of basalt, traversing the same rocks, and in some of these copper has been 
worked from time immemorial. The greater hardness of these dykes 
compared with that of the sedimentary rock, has helped to preserve the 
latter from the action of the weather, and thus to leave hills of which 
the dykes in question are a nucleus. Although but a short distance 
from the coast, where a few hours’ exposure to the evening air is 
sufficient to induce a fatal attack of malaria fever, the villages on 
the hills are quite healthy, and near Campiglia, one of these villages, 
is a fine old Etruscan mine from which copper ore has been taken 
‘on a seale worthy of the old Etruscan population whose works of 
more than one kind have endured longer than history can record. 
At present the ore is poor though abundant, but doubtless in ancient 
times there must have been good reasons for the construction of ex- 
cavations that more resemble huge natural caverns than ordinary 
mining work. That these excavations were only made when some- 
thing was to be gained by them is evident from the extremely small 
proportion of the levels or mere galleries of communication. The rock 
is very hard, and the labour required must have been prodigious. 
The rock in which the copper ore is found in this mine is partly 
the ancient lava, but partly also the rock penetrated and altered by it. 
Thus, occasionally, there is a marble floor to the vein, and the lime- 
stone intersected by the original fissure seems to have been converted 
into this marble by the irruption of the heated matter to which the 
dyke owes its origin. 
The very important mine of Monte Catini is another curious 
instance of the same kind. It is situated in an altered lava close to a 
boss of trachytic rock a few miles west of Volterra, and some distance 
north of the Massa Maritima. The distances indeed between the points 
hitherto described is somewhat considerable, though all are intimately 
connected by geological links. Thus Campiglia is 15 miles west 
of Massa, and Monte Catini about 25 miles to the north of both. 
The coast railway from Leghorn, open at present to Follonica on the 
way to Civiti Vecchia, has, however, rendered all these places much 
easier of access than they formerly were. There is a branch of the 
main-line running up the Cécina towards Volterra for the benefit of 
the borax works and the Monte Catini mine. Close to Campiglia is a 
much larger mass of trachytic rock than that near Monte Catini, but 
no doubt answering the same purpose. Both at Campiglia and Monte 
Catini, the injected or erupted rock has brought up some of the 
