1858.] SMYTH lEON-OKES. 105 



2. On an Experiment in MELTrN"© and Cooling some of the Rowley 

 Rag. By W. Haavkes, Esq. (Commumcated by the Pre- 

 sident.) 



[Abstract.] 



About 31 cwt. of basalt was melted in a large double reverberatory 

 furnace ; and after a slow cooling during thirteen days, it presented 

 an upper stratum of stony vesicular matter about 1 inch thick, next 

 a layer of black glass from 2 to 8 inches deep on that side of the 

 mass which was exposed to the air from the door of the furnace ; 

 elsewhere, immediately under the vesicular layer, was solid stone, 

 interspersed here and there with air-bubbles. Mr. Hawkes added 

 some observations relating to the results of experiments which he 

 had made to ascertain the temperature of melted cast iron, and of 

 melted basalt. 



3. On the Iron-oees of Exmooe. By Warington W. Smyth, Esq., 



F.R.S., Sec. G.S. 



Much attention has been bestowed, during the last seven years, on 

 the exploration of veins of iron- ore in that hilly tract of country in 

 Devonshire and West Somersetshire, which extends from IKracombe 

 on the west, to near Bridgewater on the east. Its dominant points, 

 on Exmoor, rise to an elevation of from 1400 to 1600 feet above the 

 level of the sea, whilst the greater part of the region in question is 

 of so considerable a height, that the deeply- cut valleys, or combes, 

 through which the numerous streams find their way to the craggy 

 coast, have long earned a deserved celebrity for the landscape- 

 scenery of North Devon. 



The district in which, at intervals, iron mines have been opened, 

 is a belt of about five miles in width and about thirty in length, 

 forming a part of the " Greywacke Group" of Sir H. De la Beche*, 

 and of the equivalents of the " Plymouth Group" and a portion of 

 the "Dartmouth Group" of the Devonian series, as described by 

 Sedgwick t- 



If, from Linton, where the lower beds of the range may be ex- 

 amined, the observer travel southward, he will pass over a con- 

 stantly ascending series of strata, and about Simonsbath, on Ex- 

 moor, will reach the line of irregular lenticular deposits of limestone, 

 which, trending from Combe Martin by ChaHacombe, through the 

 midst of Exmoor, to Cutcombe and Treborough, furnish an indica- 

 tion of the general strike of the district, and a supposed parallel to 

 the more massive limestones of Plymouth. To the north, or, in 

 other words, beneath these calcareous bands (which are far from 

 continuous), a few of the metalliferous repositories occur : most of 



* Report on Cornwall and Devon, p. 89. 

 t Quarterly Jom*nal Geol. Soc. vol. viii. p. 3. 



