176 Miscellanies. 
discovered on the side of a hill, between the upper and lower towns, 
an iron mine which had been formerly wrought, and thought it still 
deserving of attention. ‘The excavation was carried horizontally in- 
to the side of the hill, and is now used by shepherds to pen their 
flocks, and is called the black sheep fold. A little in front of its 
entrance, stands a large mass of the ore, eight or ten feet high. I 
remarked that the mine had probably been wrought by the Vene- 
tians, towards the end of the period when they had possession of 
the island, and that this would account for the work having been in- 
terrupted. The director replied, that the Venetians would have 
made use of gunpowder,—but as it is evident that the ore has been 
hewn out, and not blasted, it must have been the work of the an- 
cient Greeks. 
The same gentleman also discovered the red oxide of titanium, 
or rutile, which seems not to be very rare in our part of the island. 
There is also manganese sufficient for some useful purposes. Iron 
abounds at Cape Sunium and coal in Negropont (Eubcea.) The 
director showed me hematite from Andros—serpentine from Tenos 
in masses large enough to be wrought into urns, &c. He told 
me of sulphate of barytes, extending across parts of the island of 
Mycone like white walls. 
We are on board the steam boat Levant at the Pireus. It brings 
strange associations, to be on board a steamer in sight of the Par- 
thenon, and with the ruins of the long wall of Themistocles run- 
ning along one side of the harbor! About twenty-five dwellings 
and warehouses have been erected at the Pireus, but all things move 
slowly in Greece. The country is exceedingly poor, and its few 
resources have scarcely begun to be developed. 
12. Remarks on the lavas, &c. of Mexico and South Amer- 
tea, in a letter to the editor, dated January 24, 1836.—The la- 
vas are of all varieties, from the most sound basalt to the most 
porous pumice. I have been reflecting upon some of the most 
probable causes of the absence of crystallization in the lavas of this 
country. ‘The Andes contain a much greater volume of volcanic 
rocks than any thing in Europe, and probably the force of heat ne- 
cessary to liquefy such an enormous mass, might have been so great 
as to melt all the crystals that might have been in the primitive or 
other rocks, which, in smaller and less heated eruptions, were thrown 
out as crystals. In all lavas, when the vacancies are filled, it is 
