METALS AND THEIR ORES. 69 



the compounds of this metal can be used successfully as a mordant 

 in the d3'eing of cloths. The blue color of the compounds is one of 

 great beauty. The papers have occasionally stated that parties have pro- 

 posed to reopen the mine and extract the ore, but our visits have never 

 found evidences of recent work there. I annex a careful description of 

 the locality by a friend who visited the place at my request : 



The old workings on Lincoln's hill, Westmoreland, in a gneissic rock, which is 

 characterized by a predominance of mica and quartz, the latter having in many spots 

 a bright red color, so that the outcrop is suggestive of ferruginous quartzite. The gen- 

 eral course of the ledge is N. 40° E., with a dip of 50° N. W. The outcrop in which 

 the surface work v/as done is on the side of a slight depression in the hill ; and here 

 the rock has been blasted to a depth, on the upper side, of 5 or 6 feet. From this point 

 the ledge can be traced down the hill 270 paces to where it is intersected by a dry water- 

 course, the outlet of the above mentioned depression, beyond which, on the opposite 

 swell, it is not seen. Above the pit outcrops are visible to a yet greater distance on 

 the rising hill. About 50 paces below the pit an adit has been carried into the knoll 

 from the bed of the water-course, which here is parallel with it. The adit bends a little 

 to the east in its further part, but its general course is straight, and may be set down 

 as E. 20° S. It is 4 feet wide, about 6 feet high, and 35 feet long. The precise height 

 it is impossible to give, for the reason that, at the time of its being visited, it was filled 

 with water and ooze to the depth of three feet, with an unknown amount of debris be- 

 neath this. The rock is schistose, and notably micaceous at the surface, but at the 

 distance of a dozen feet becomes massive. The walls of the adit are so covered now 

 with the exudations and incrustations of more than thirty years, the period which has 

 elapsed since the abandonment of the work, that it is impossible to tell, without putting 

 in a blast, into what it has been pushed. It is pretty plain, however, from the absence 

 of any seaming of the walls at its further extremity, that it has not entered any vein. In 

 the pit before mentioned the vein exposed is of quartz, about two inches wide, and car- 

 ries molybdenite, granular and in small scales, often in radiating clusters. In its pres- 

 ent appearance, and the character of the loose fragments of the gangue lying in the pit, 

 the vein gives no evidence of richness ; but it would be unwarrantable, without clear- 

 ing and blasting, to express any opinion upon this point. 



