6l6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO l6g3. 



Their method for finding out a vein, is by digging a trench as deep as the 

 rocks, where they expect it to lie, across the place where they look for a 

 course; which trench they generally dig from about north to south, the courses 

 usually lying from east to west, or at 6 o'clock, as their term is. Though this 

 is not always the case; for sometimes the courses, seams, or rakes, as they call 

 them, lie at Q o'clock, and sometimes are perpendicular, which they call the 

 high time of the day, or 12 o'clock, and these courses they esteem the best. 

 These seams or courses run between the rocks, generally wider than those of 

 lead ore, unless they are inclosed in very hard cliffs, and then they are as narrow 

 as the veins of lead. The colour of the earth where calamine lies, is generally 

 a yellow grit, but sometimes black ; for all countries, as they term their under- 

 ground works, are not alike. Calamine itself is of several colours, some white, 

 some reddish, some greyish, some blackish, which is counted the best ; but 

 when this is broken it is of several colours.* In working for it below, in the 

 countries, they use the same way and instruments as in lead-mines ; sometimes 

 they light upon a good quantity of lead, and always find some eyes of lead 

 among the calamine, which in ordering of it they separate : though in lead- 

 mines they do not always find calamine. In landing the calamine, some pieces 

 are larger than others, and of different sizes, as other stones are, and mixed 

 with the gritty earth ; but generally it rises in small particles, larger or smaller, 

 and some about the size of a nut, which they call a small calamine. In old 

 works, which are those that have been forsaken, and afterwards wrought again, 

 damps and stenches sometimes arise, but never in new works; which damps 

 arise from the neglect of those workmen that do not carry air along with them, 

 which is done by air-shafts, as in lead-mines. 



When they have landed a good quantity of this calamine, which is done by 

 winding it up in buckets from the works, they carry it away to the places where 

 they wash, clean, or huddle it, as their term is, which they perform after this 

 manner: they inclose a small piece of ground with boards or turfs, through 

 which a clear stream of water runs ; within this inclosure they shovel the cala- 

 mine, with the rest of the impure and earthy parts, which parts are carried away 

 by the running water, which comes in at one end of the inclosure, and leaves 

 the lead and the calamine, and the other heavier stony and sparry parts, behind ; 

 and for the better cleansing or huddling the calamine, while it is in this inclo- 

 sure, they often turn it, that the water passing through may wash it the better ; 

 when they have thus washed it as clean as they can, after raking up the larger 

 parts, both of the lead and the calamine, they afterwards put the smaller parts, 



* A chemical analysis of these Somersetshire and other calamines by Mr. Smithson, inserted in the 

 Phil. Trans, for 1803. 



