18 W. Molymux — Copper and Lead Ores in the Bimter. 



paste or cementing material in which the pebbles are set. The ore 

 does not occupy any definite position in the gravels, nor is it con- 

 fined to any particular horizon. It is sometimes met with in little 

 holes left by the decomposition of Carboniferous Limestone or chert 

 pebbles ; it frequently coats and even occasionally insinuates itself 

 into the interior of minutely fractured pebbles, and in places occurs 

 in quantities which, if proportionately persistent, would be of great 

 commercial value. At this pit the copper ores, so far as I have 

 found, are not directly associated with lead, but about twenty feet 

 beneath the copper-bearing beds the latter ore is found to occur in a 

 series of thin cementing lines in the gravels, and following the 

 natural inclination of the beds. In one instance the gravels are set 

 in a light grey and greenish-yellow cement, in which are found 

 traces of lead, iron, and aluminium soluble in acids. It is, therefore, 

 to these conditions, the admixture of copper and lead ores with the 

 Huntington gravels, that they owe their peculiar character as detri- 

 mental to the growth of weed, and from which, but previously 

 unknown, circumstance they have a large demand as material for the 

 formation and repair of private roads and walks, the gravel having 

 been sent so far as Ireland for this purpose. 



During the early part of the present year the Fair Oak Colliery 

 Company, also acting under my advice, commenced sinking a pair 

 of shafts for coal four miles to the north-east of Huntington Glravel 

 Pits, about 2t\ miles north of the West Cannock Colliery, half a 

 mile west of the valley fault, to which I have alluded, and about 

 two miles west of the Brereton Collieries. These sinkings com- 

 mence in drift sands and gravel, which at a depth of eleven feet are 

 succeeded by Bunter conglomerates, and, therefore, in new red sand- 

 stone. At a depth of 29 feet from the surface lead ore occurs in 

 large quantities, disseminated freely amongst the gravel, which is 

 coarse and set in an excessively hard calcareous conglomerate. It 

 is however by no means continuous, or persistent in its occurrence. 

 It extends only about half-way across the south side of the shaft in 

 some instances, but it is found at irregular intervals in larger or 

 smaller quantities, mixed up both with fine and coarse gravel, down- 

 wards to a depth of 85 feet from the surface. At 75 feet in the 

 shaft copper ore first shows itself, which in this case is distinctly 

 separated from the lead. In passing downwards both these ores 

 are found freely associated together, and in large quantities, which 

 so far by no means reach the percentage of the Huntington speci- 

 mens. In this particular instance — that is, the association of the 

 two ores — the Fair Oak ores differ from those of Huntington, al- 

 though it is of course quite probable that this may not be so in 

 ground at present unexplored. The gravel and sandstone are both 

 coarse and fine, and they have the peculiarity, by no means an 

 economic one, of being excessively hard and compact, and hence 

 difficult to get through. This is entirely due to the calcareous or 

 ferruginous properties of the cement or paste in which they are set. 

 The Fair Oak copper ore is also a green carbonate, occasionally pass-. 

 ing into malachite or carbonate and hydrate of copper, and there' 



