164 Notices and Extracts from the Minutes of the Geological Society. 



3. Notice respecting a Copper Mine at Cally in Kircudhrightshire. Bj/ John 

 Taylor, Esq. m.g.s. [Read December 15, 1820.] 



The main land of Scotland has not, I believe, heretofore produced any 

 quantity of copper ores worth the notice of the miner ; though that metal was 

 obtained a few years since from a vein in a bed of limestone in one of the 

 Shetland Islands, where a steam engine was erected; and the produce for a 

 time was not inconsiderable. 



The mine, I am about to describe, is near a small town in Kircudbriglit- 

 shire called Gatehouse in Fleet, which is on the mail road from Dumfries to 

 Portpatrick. It is on the estate of Mr. Murray, and is situated on a hill rising 

 above the grounds that surround his house at Cally, and slope southward 

 towards the river Fleet and the Solway Frith. 



The rocks of this neighbourhood are Killas, very similar in all respects to 

 that of Cornwall : this resemblance struck me much on the road west from 

 Gatehouse as far as Portpatrick, and particularly in passing between Cree- 

 town and Glenluce, where the similarity in the general features of the two 

 countries is very striking. It does not appear, however, that there have been 

 many veins discovered in this district, though I should think it probable that 

 they exist. Some veins however, producing lead, have been worked near 

 Gatehouse for several years, but not with any vigour, or in such a manner as 

 to prove much respecting them. Copper was, until very lately, totally unknown 

 there, and was now found by accident, on the spot above described, by a la- 

 bourer employed with others in cutting a drain in a swampy piece of ground 

 near the top of the hill. Specimens of the ore were sent to different places 

 for the purpose of ascertaining what it was, — among others to Edinburgh and 

 Liverpool ; and from the latter place to Anglesea, where it came under the 

 notice of my friend Capt. Treweek, the manager of the Mona mine, who 

 some time after visited the spot, and formed a company for the purpose of 

 raising it. 



The mine was commenced by sinking a shaft at the place where the ore 

 was first discovered, and this was continued to about eight fathoms in depth ; 

 ore being produced from the shaft as it went down, as also in the vein or lode 

 to the east and west of the shaft. The vein was not very regular in these first 

 trials, being disordered and split into branches ; which, though frequently rich 

 to the width of six or eight inches of solid ore, were changeable and uncer- 

 tain. They had been traced in a direction from east to west for nearly a hun- 

 dred fathoms ; and their branches appeared (o converge towards each other in 



