574 ISLE OF MAN. MINERAL VEINS. 



ments in question had either been washed ashore by 

 the sea, vessels laden with this article having been lost on 

 the coast, or that they have been the consequences of 

 fraudulent views on the part of interested coal surveyors or 

 miners. Since my visit to the island I have however 

 received fragments of coal, which appear, on good autho- 

 rity, to have been found under the limestone or in the 

 conglomerate of Derby haven, where some expensive 

 borings for that purpose were formerly made. The speci- 

 mens are of a dry and splendent quality, resembling the 

 coal of Arran, and they are, very probably, analogous to it 

 in situation. They do not appear to offer any temptation 

 in an economical view, even abstracting the commercial 

 objection just stated. 



METALLIFEROUS veins are found in different parts of 

 this island. They vary much in importance in the several 

 places where they occur; and the smaller, which have 

 been observed at different times, have, as might be ex- 

 pected, fallen into such oblivion, that it is scarcely possible 

 to procure accurate information about their situations. 

 A few of these are still remembered by the old miners who 

 were formerly employed in the works that were carried 

 on in the larger veins ; and among them two or three were 

 pointed out to me in Port Eirin. It is unnecessary to take 

 further notice of them than merely to say that they 

 contain the same substances as the larger veins, and that 

 they lie in the same direction. This direction is, in all the 

 veins, from north to south, or nearly so; the variations 

 among them not exceeding two points. They are all 

 nearly erect, and contain the same substances disposed 

 in a similar manner. 



The three principal veins which have been wrought, 

 are at Laxey, Brada head, and Foxdale : some workings 

 have also been carried on at Balla corkish, and at Glen 



