VEINSTONES. 577 



ore, pyrites, and spar, shot also into prismatical, 

 cubic, and other figures ; and besides these, clus- 

 ters of grotesque figures which grow out of one 

 another, and are as it were piled upon one an- 

 other. The whole inside of the cavern is some- 

 times most magnificently adorned with the most 

 wildly grotesque figures, which grow upon and 

 branch out of one another, in a manner not to 

 be described ; and with all the gay and splendid 

 colours of polished gold, of the rainbow, and of 

 the peacock's tail, and all these blended together, 

 and the masses reflecting all the beauty of such an 

 assemblage of gaudy colours. But it may be re- 

 marked, that these caverns are never so magnifi- 

 cent and glorious but when there is less or more 

 of yellow copper ore, or of the pyrites in them ; 

 as these ores are found to produce, in hard veins, 

 the most beautiful colours in the world. An emi- 

 nent instance, in proof of this assertion, is to be 

 seen- in the copper veins in the parish of Col vend, 

 in Galloway. 



" These mineral loughs, or caverns, are the 

 great source of materials for grotto work ; and the 

 specimens collected from the mines are generally 

 the most showy dazzling articles in the whole ar- 

 rangement of the splendid grotto."* 



Will. i. *88. 

 VOL. II. % P 



