ISLE OF MAN. MINERAL VEINS. 575 



sash, near Port la Marie. It is now some time since 

 they were abandoned, nor is there at present any prospect 

 of their renewal. The information with respect to them 

 which is now to be procured from actual examination, is 

 therefore very scanty ; the more so, that the remains 

 of the workings at some of them, are scarcely in an 

 accessible state. A description of the structure of the 

 Laxey vein, will almost supersede the necessity of enter- 

 ing into details respecting the others. 



This vein comes to light at a short distance from the 

 town of Laxey, in a small and narrow glen which affords 

 passage to a mountain stream. It has been wrought by 

 a drift opened on the course of the vein itself, with an 

 air-shaft from the surface. Another opening upon its 

 course lower down the stream, is now filled up with rub- 

 bish, and therefore inaccessible. The course of the vein 

 is N. N. E. and it varies near its entrance, from two to 

 six feet in breadth, dipping towards the east in an angle 

 which appears to amount to five or six degrees. In 

 the miner's report it is stated at sixteen or eighteen. The 

 vein lies in the ordinary clay slate already described, 

 which in this place is generally of a smooth texture 

 and silky lustre ; but varieties of the finer graywacke com- 

 position, and of the quartzose and granular kinds, are 

 also found in the immediate vicinity mixed with it. 



Fragments of all these substances, of different sizes, 

 united into a breccia by an imperfectly crystallized quartz, 

 form the vein stone. In the cavities, the quartz is some- 

 times crystallized, and the same happens in the other 

 veins, at Brada head and at Foxdale; from the latter 

 of which very splendid specimens have been obtained. 

 In all these places the quartz crystal presents the same 

 forms, namely, that of a short prism terminated by a 

 pyramid at each end, and consequently attached by its 

 side, or else that of the pyramidal termination only. 



The metallic substances, consisting of lead, zinc, copper, 

 and iron, are irregularly dispersed and mixed with the 



