ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



AUGUST, 18U. 



Article I. 



Biographical Account of Mr. Williams, the Mineralogist.* 

 By Patrick Neil 1, Esq. F.K.S.E. 



IMR. WILLIAMS was the son of a clergyman in Glamorgan- 

 shire, South Wales, and was born about the year 17«50. While a 

 boy he resided a good deal at the copper- mines of Anglesea, and 

 thus very early acquired a taste for mining pursuits. Having 

 reached manhood, lie travelled into Scotland, and was fortunate 

 enough to be employed by the Commissioners for Forfeited Estates 

 in the survey of some of the extensive Highland domains placed in 

 their hands. In this employment he spent a considerable number 

 of years. It was in the course of this survey that his attention was 

 particularly attracted by the vitrified forts of the north of Scot- 

 land ; of which he afterwards published an account. 



About the year 177^ he took a lease of a coal-work on the banks 

 of the river Brora, in Sutherland. The seam then worked proved 

 to be of very limited extent, and the coal was so sulphureous, that 

 when taken on ship-board, to be conveyed to the towns situated on 

 the Moray and Cromarty Friths, it was apt spontaneously to take 

 lire. This speculation, therefore, proved unsuccessful ; f and was 

 abandoned in 177 1. 



After this Mr. Williams was successively engaged in the working 



• l rom a note in Mr. \ 'ill's translation of Dau'bulsson "n Basalt ; a book of 

 which an analysis i-. given in the present number of the Annah of Philosophy. 



i '/In- coal mi ilii- banks of the Brora hat, of late years, been again tried, by 



order ol the Nobleand enlightened proprietor, Earl Gowcr, and promises fair t.» 



fnl to ill.- North ul Scotland. Ina new pit, opened In 181,1, at the depth 



imewhatra than 00 feet, a !>>-•■ of " hard caking coal," three feet three 



Inches thick, v.. (band ; and almost Immediately below it, a bed ol " hard iplent 

 one fool foui inches t"i k. — Suthtrland Report, 1818 



Vol. IV. N° II. F 



