35^ X^inetalogg, 



ECONOMIC MINERALOGY. 

 It is supposed, and on good grounds, that the Mineral 

 treasures of the Lake Country have been made available to 

 the purposes of life, in war, in the arts, and in commerce, 

 for something like two thousand years; and there is also 

 reason to believe that of these the earliest made use of by 

 the primeval inhabitants of this country was — 



Copper. — The Copper Mines of Coniston therefore may 

 be held to be the most ancient works of the kind north of 

 Cornwall ; and some idea of the enormous extent to which 

 the ores of this metal have been deposited originally in the 

 Coniston Fells may be deduced from the fact that, though 

 these mines have been wrought almost incessantly for so 

 many centuries, at no earlier period have such quantities of 

 ore been obtained as of late years. At present, and for a 

 long time past, the copper ore transmitted from Coniston 

 averages three hundred tons per month, and the ore exposed 

 is sufficient to maintain this rate for many years yet to come. 

 It occurs almost entirely in the form of sulphuret, though 

 considerable quantities of different oxides, and traces of sul- 

 phate, carbonate or malachite, phosphate, and even pure 

 malleable copper have been found in various parts of the 

 workings. The ore is deposited in the green slate and por- 

 phyry rock in * veins, lodes, and cross courses,' and is gener- 

 ally embedded in a matrix of quartz. The extreme hardness 

 of the rock and the vast extent and depth of the mines ren- 

 der the process of obtaining and dressing the ore very labo- 

 rious and costly ; and it is entirely due to able management 

 that the great prosperity of these copper mines has been 



