AGRICULTURAL MUSET'M 45 



by any of South America or India; the number is, liow» 

 ever, small, and the range of hues confined. 



Our country is jjrolific of some metals. — Yet antimony 

 and mercury are imknown as its productions Arsenic, 

 cobalt, copper, ant! the precious metals, have been found 

 in such small quantities or peculiar states, as to render 

 them little valuable or useful. 



There can be no reason why a1I these metals should 

 notexist abundantly in this country. There is every 

 probability they do. The rocks, which are their gan- 

 gues in other countries, in our own are generally dift'ii- 

 sed It is indeed, no stretch of credulity to believe that 

 their ores are every day trodden under foot, turned up 

 by the plough or the spade, and thrown away or re- 

 garded as useless, from ignorance of their value. Simi- 

 lar cases have been known ; of which the following may 

 be cited : 



Blackjack, an ore of zinc, now largely employed in 

 ilie making of brass, a few years past was used in 

 Wales, for mending the roads ; and the cobalt ores of 

 Hesse, which now yield a neat profit of 14,000 pounds 

 sterling per annum, were formerly employed for the 

 same purpose! 



If ignorance should have caused, in Europe, at a late 

 period, such a misapplication of valuable and produC" 

 tive ores, how very probable is it, that, in this country, 

 where hardly one in a thousand has a superficial ac- 

 quaintance even with their appearance, they may be 

 in the hands of hundreds ; may be used for common 

 purposes constantly, and their importance never sus- 

 pected. 



It has happened, that valuable ores have remained un- 

 worked, to national and individual injury, from ajust dif- 

 fidence in the proprietors of expending their money 

 fruitlessly, as they could not obtain a knowledge of their 

 nature and richness. 



t Watson's Chyir.ical Essavs, vol. 1st, page 45". 



