192 Mini77g Report, Mo. 1. [Nov., 



the difficulties of the subject have sometimes ventured to give only 

 a literal translation by a similar form of compound, leaving the 

 connexion to show the meaning. In some few instances, after all 

 the pains I have taken to arrive at the precise sense, I am not 

 quite certain that I have gained my object. In the main howev- 

 er, I believe that the article will be found to be accurately trans- 

 lated, and as such, cannot but hope that it will be regarded as not 

 an unworthy addition to the stock of information respecting the 

 diseases of our most important cereals. 



Since I have been engaged in this translation, I have met with 

 an essay by the same author on the Potato Disease, characterised 

 by the minuteness of investigation and accuracy of discrimination 

 which is so evident in the foregoing pages; and illustrated by a 

 number of plates, some of them colored, giving the microscopic 

 appearances observed. At some future period, when my time will 

 allow, I may prepare for the press this article on the Potato Di- 

 sease, with perhaps a few other valuable selections from the Ger- 

 man economists and naturalists. 



MINING REPORT, NO. I. 



The importance of possessing accurate descriptions and delinea- 

 tions of veins and deposites of mineral matter, can scarcely be 

 overrated. The same mineral, for example iron, occurs under a 

 great variety of circumstances; it is found in beds and veins, and 

 in deposites interstratified with slate, sandstone and calcareous 

 rocks. When in veins, considerable diversity attends its distribu- 

 tion in the rock. In this business it is useful to know what com- 

 bination of circumstances are favorable to the project of working 

 a mine, and what are unfavorable. So, it is important, as all 

 may understand, to know what rules have been established for the 

 working of those mines, which furnish certain irregularities, which 

 deviate from the ordinary course which in general they are w^ell 

 known to follow. 



The kind of information which is wanted, is not readily attain- 

 able. What has been published is scattered through many jour- 

 nals, but the greater part remains with the miner, or the geolo- 

 gists who have made this subject a matter of attention. It seems 

 that what is wanted is the collation of facts, as furnished by the 

 workings of the mines of this country. Observation, or experience 

 is of course at the bottom, and it is only by an extensive series of 

 observations that a safe system of mining can be pursued here 

 The ^matter assumes every day greater importance inasmuch as 



