.3 34 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF OEE-DEPOSITS. 



16. That the secondary fissures resulting from the cracking 

 off of larger or smaller masses of the hanging sides of veins 

 may have been partly filled, in many instances, by the electric 

 action of different portions of ore on each other ; and that 

 secondary lodes may have been formed at right angles to parallel 

 E. W. lodes, in consequence of the reciprocal action of the latter. 



17. That many other phenomena of mineral veins, includ- 

 ing those of a mechanical character, such as the occurrence of 

 "horses," "heaves," &c., appear to be capable of satisfactory 

 explanation on the principles which have been (here) laid down."-^' 



Mr. Hen wood, who at first did not agree with Mr. Fox's 

 conclusions, and who, to the last day of his life, declined to 

 theorise on his facts, remarks that Mr. Fox had only detected 

 electric currents in connection with copper and lead lodes, and 

 not in tin lodes, veinstones, or rocks. Von Strombech, too, 

 failed to get current indication at St. Goar on the Rhine, 1833. 

 In 1838, Mr. Pattison reported certain somewhat doubtful results 

 which he had obtained in the sandstones and limestones of Alston 

 Moor,f and in 1839 Reich got good results between veinstones 

 and ores, while Henwood got distinct evidence of current by 

 connecting oxide of tin and iron pyrites at the 106 fathom level 

 in Eosewall Hill Mine, and in all cases, when he used a delicate 

 galvanometer (Watkins and Hill's) he got results even with 

 rocks. 



These various experiments and results point perhaps to a 

 more general cause than the local electrical currents passing along 

 the veins, from rich part to rich part, or from one ore to another, 

 which was the only cause admitted by Reich, though they do not 

 seem to be very closely connected with Ampere's general earth 

 currents occasioned by the rotation of the globe, as held by Fox. 

 The local currents are, indeed, effective in distributing, or in 

 concentrating the ores in the rich parts, but there is certainly 

 more than this to be seen. It is hardly possible to conceive that 

 that two rocks, of dissimilar nature, or even only under dis- 

 similar conditions, can exist side by side, both subject to chemical 



* Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornivall, v, 1843. 

 t Brit. Assoc. Report for 1838. 



