176 Miscellanies. 



discovered on the side of a hill, between the upper and lower towns, 

 an iron mine which had been formerly wrought, and thought it still 

 deserving of attention. The excavation was carried horizontally in- 

 to the side of the hill, and is now used by shepherds to pen their 

 flocks, and is called the black sheep fold. A little in front of its 

 entrance, stands a large mass of the ore, eight or ten feet high. I 

 remarked that the mine had probably been wrought by the Vene- 

 tians, towards the end of the period when they had possession of 

 the island, and that this would account for the work having been in- 

 terrupted. The director replied, that the Venetians would have 

 made use of gunpowder, — but as it is evident that the ore has been 

 hewn out, and not blasted, it must have been the work of the an- 

 cient Greeks. 



The same gentleman also discovered the red oxide of titanium, 

 or rutile, which seems not to be very rare in our part of the island. 

 There is also manganese sufficient for some useful purposes. Iron 

 abounds at Cape Sunium and coal in Negropont (Euboea.) The 

 director showed me haematite from Andros — serpentine from Tenos 

 in masses large enough to be wrought into urns, &;c. He told 

 me of sulphate of barytes, extending across parts of the island of 

 Mycone like white walls. 



We are on board the steam boat Levant at the Piraeus. It brings 

 strange associations, to be on board a steamer in sight of the Par- 

 thenon, and with the ruins of the long wall of Themistocles run- 

 ning along one side of the harbor ! About twenty-five dwellings 

 and warehouses have been erected at the Piraeus, but all things move 

 slowly in Greece. The country is exceedingly poor, and its few 

 resources have scarcely begun to be developed. 



12. Remarks on the lavas, &fc. of Mexico and South Amer- 

 ica, in a letter to the editor, dated January 24, 1836. — The la- 

 vas are of all varieties, from the most sound basalt to the most 

 porous pumice. I have been reflecting upon some of the most 

 probable causes of the absence of crystallization in the lavas of this 

 country. The Andes contain a much greater volume of volcanic 

 rocks than any thing in Europe, and probably the force of heat ne- 

 cessary to liquefy such an enormous mass, might have been so great 

 as to melt all the crystals that might have been in the primitive or 

 other rocks, which, in smaller and less heated eruptions, were thrown 

 out as crystals. In all lavas, when the vacancies are filled, it is 



