362 MY LIFE [Chap. 



small body of speculators, who had offices in Pall Mall, and 

 who, among other things, were buying slate quarry properties, 

 and forming companies to work them. Two of these properties 

 were in the neighbourhood of Dolgelly and Machynlleth, and 

 a party of us went down to see them. We were shown the 

 outcrop of the slate rock, followed it across the country, were 

 told it was of fine quality, and that there was a fortune in it 

 if properly developed. My friend's employer seemed to know 

 all about it, and as many large fortunes had been made out 

 of slate quarries, it seemed quite a safe thing. The slate was 

 undoubtedly there, as small portions had been worked and 

 split up, and we saw the piles of slates, and were assured that 

 the quality would be still better as it was worked deeper. 

 One of the veins had been found to be excellent for billiard 

 tables, and for all kinds of slate tanks, as it could be got 

 out in slabs of almost any size, and only wanted sawing and 

 planing machines worked by a small mountain brook close 

 by to become very profitable. Of course we were shown 

 reports by specialists, who declared that the slate rock was 

 abundant and good, and if properly developed would be 

 profitable. 



I was persuaded to take shares, and to be a director of 

 these companies, without any knowledge of the business, or 

 any idea how much capital would be required. The quarries 

 were started, machinery purchased, call after call made, with 

 the result in both cases that, after four or five years of struggle, 

 the capital required and the working expenses were so great 

 that the companies had to be wound up, and I was the loser 

 of about a thousand pounds. 



While this was going on a still more unfortunate influence 

 became active. My old friend in Timor and Singapore, Mr. 

 Frederick Geach, the mining engineer, came home from the 

 East, and we became very intimate, and saw a good deal of 

 each other. He was a Cornishman, and familiar with tin, 

 lead, and copper mining all his life, and he had the most 

 unbounded confidence in good English mines as an invest- 

 ment. He had shares in some of the lead-mines of Shropshire 

 and Montgomeryshire, and we went for a walking tour in that 



