Mr. William Phillips on the Veins of Cornwall 125 



try ; the second, that he has at least a good chance of meeting with 

 all the veins between the extremity of the adit and the vein to which 

 he intends to drive it. Yet of this he is not altogether certain, for 

 the east and west vein is sometimes so greatly disordered by the 

 cross vein, as that it might wholly escape the notice of the miner ; 

 besides, cross veins often divide into branches, so that the miner 

 runs the hazard of following the wrong branch, and thereby 

 of missing altogether the metalliferous vein. But although the 

 mode of discovering veins, by driving an adit along the run of a 

 cross course is at once the cheapest and most expeditious method, it 

 is not always practised, as the foresight of the experienced miner 

 sometimes induces him rather to drive through the solid country 

 than to hazard the chance of being obliged to draw the water of the 

 country all around him, which he is aware the cross vein would 

 prevent from troubling him on one side. 



Accident often occasions the discovery of veins. That of the 

 mine called Huel Maggot, or Velenoweth in the parish of Phillack, 

 was first seen by workmen employed in digging a trench for the 

 foundation of a garden wall in a valley. It there consisted of a rich 

 gossan, which in the phrase of the miner was verj kindly. On 

 driving into the hill, a few fathoms on the * course of the load,' it 

 produced abundance of sulphat of lead in well defined crystals, some- 

 times accompanied by the sulphuret, and sometimes deposited on the 

 gossan, and, a little deeper, copper ore in considerable quantity. 

 Both were however soon exhausted, and the mine was abandoned. 

 The run or course of an east and west vein may sometimes be traced 

 on the surface, by loose fragments or portions of earthy or stony 

 substances, having generally more or less of an ochreous tinge, but 

 this, which is called the ' bryle of the load,' has rarely a regular 

 separation from the country on each side of it. But in sinking a 



