278 MAN AND NATURE. 



estimated, we cannot forbear saying a few words about 

 the mines of England more especially, as those which 

 exemplify on the largest scale all others of the world 

 besides. Our pecuniary interests are deeply involved 

 in this branch of industry, scientific education has 

 fairly advanced among us, and travelling is almost 

 superfluously easy from one end of the island to the 

 other. Yet how few have knowledge of, or care to in- 

 spect, these great subterranean and submarine work- 

 ings, which bring the hidden wealth of our country to 

 the surface to vivify us with light and heat, to furnish 

 material and machinery for our manufactures, and 

 motive power for every part of the globe ! When we 

 say that this indifference is strange, we use the lightest 

 term that can well be applied to it. 



According to our present knowledge, Great Britain 

 contains within its scanty area a greater variety and 

 abundance of minerals serving to the uses of man than 

 any other equal space in the world. We do not pro- 

 fess to number the metals we now possess, since 

 modern science, by disclosing the metallic bases of the 

 earths and alkalis, and making known four new metals 

 through the wonderful medium of the spectrum ana- 

 lysis, has swelled the list of these bodies elementary 

 as we still must call them to a formidable length. 

 But of those metals and minerals which are worked by 

 mines on a scale commensurate with their value to 

 mankind iron, copper, lead, tin, zinc, coal, rock-salt, 

 &c. we possess an abundance really marvellous in its 

 concentration on this small island. We do not men- 

 tion gold or silver ; though it may perhaps surprise 



