Kinahan — On Irish Metal Mining. 203 



or, if it is injudiciously over- worked, to try and keep up its fic- 

 titious character, it will be robbed and its future prospects ruined. 



In the history of the mining during those years, it is now well 

 known, that more than one Promoter exhibited specimens as repre- 

 senting the ordinary minerals of a lode, while in reality his 

 sample exhausted all the mineral of that class to be found in the 

 veins. Also, some Analysts, after examining a specimen, allowed 

 their analyses to be published as if they were the representative 

 analyses, although they were ignorant whether the portion submit- 

 ted to them was a true specimen, representing the average ore of the 

 lode, or a picked one that only represented its riches. An honest, 

 true representation of the value of the minerals of a lode is most 

 important, and the neglect of such, or the intentional misrepre- 

 sentation of the value of the lode, has led to most disastrous 

 results, not only in Ireland, but all over the world. Careless 

 analysts and intentional misrepresentations cannot, therefore, be 

 too highly censured. 



In drawing out the lists of Irish mines and minerals the pro- 

 ducts have been arranged in the following order : — Gold, tin, 

 native silver, lead and zinc, copper, sulphur ores and gossen, 

 barytes, iron, manganese, antimony, arsenic, cobalt, graphite, 

 nickel, titanium, molybdenite, alum and copperas, apatite, salt 

 and gypsum, steatite and pyropliyllite : the products being ar- 

 ranged as much as possible in regard to the natural grouping of 

 the ores in the'veins. 



Some of the minerals in the above list have been very spar- 

 ingly looked after, and their occurrence may be much more fre- 

 quent than is hereafter mentioned, as the lists are compiled from 

 the localities observed and recorded by the different explorers. 

 This may be specially the case in reference to some minerals that, 

 although observed, have not been recorded. Boate, in his notice 

 of the silver mines, Co. Tipperary, records quicksilver as found 

 prior to 1640. In modern times no trace of this ore is recorded. 



Some of the Irish rocks are said to be Pre- Cambrian, but the 

 only pretension for classing them as Laurentians is their litho- 

 logical characters. Some of these so-called Pre-Cambrian, both 

 Petrologically and Palseontologically, are evidently, in one case 

 Ordovician and in another Cambrian ; while elsewhere they appa- 

 rently belong to one or other of these periods. 



