SWAN PRINCES ISLANDS. 55 



the village of Prinkipo, the white trachytes are again seen cropping 

 out with their red joints ; then, continuing on for about 100 yards 

 further, we arrive at a narrow strip of Primary strata composed of 

 grey and purple shales and grey limestones, which continue along 

 the beach for a distance of about 450 yards, until the trachytes are 

 again met with in the cliffs, alternating with the Primary strata as 

 far as the Bay of San Nicolo, where they come in contact with the 

 quartzose primary rocks of San George, and end there. 



Here again, on this side of the island, at the junction of the vol- 

 canic and Primary rocks, large deposits of brown iron-ore have taken 

 place, but in greater abundance than in the beds of the west coast ; 

 and near the ruins of an ancient monastery, large quarries were 

 opened out on the ore, about 17 years ago, by the Turkish Govern- 

 ment, furnaces erected to roast it (to be afterwards used in the 

 blast-furnaces at Zeitunbournou), and magazines and houses for the 

 workmen built, at a great outlay of capital and labour. The whole 

 works were, however, abandoned again within a very few months 

 from the time of their commencement ; and a large quantity of the 

 quarried ore is lying at the furnaces to this very day, just as when 

 the works were last in use. The ore does not occur in regular 

 veins or beds, but in irregular masses or bunches, at the joints of 

 the rock ; and in one quarry the ore has been followed down to the 

 depth of 60 or 70 feet, and the mine abandoned in apparently poorer 

 ground. The rock enclosing the mineral is highly siliceous ; and 

 this must have enhanced greatly the cost of production of the ore, 

 and was probably a chief cause of the works being abandoned. 



Ascending the mountain from these quarries, the strata gradually 

 change their highly siliceous and metalliferous character until they 

 become again the ordinary soft white feldspathic trachytes devoid 

 of iron, which, along with the white sandstones above mentioned, 

 are the prevailing rocks of the northern portion of the island. 



The phenomenon of ironstone in the trachytes of Prinkipo, at 

 their junction with the older strata, is curious, and, excepting to a 

 very limited extent in Chalki, does not occur in any other of these 

 islands ; and this is in contradistinction to the trachytes of the Bos- 

 phorus, where deposits of copper-ore (pyrites) have taken place at 

 their junction with the Devonian strata behind the village of Seriyeri, 

 on the Roumelian side of the Bosphorus. These occur in small irre- 

 gular veins and bunches, of considerable pureness ; and mines have 

 been opened in them for several years ; but, from the imperfect mode 

 of working, they have not been successful as a speculation. 



In one spot only in Prinkipo have 1 been able to detect the pre- 

 sence of copper ; and this occurs at a trap dyke in the trachytes, 

 exposed to view in a small ravine to the east of Morton's Mill, where 

 the dyke, about 8 feet in width, and composed of white crystals of 

 feldspar and dark-green crystals of hornblende in a feldspathic paste, 

 is coloured light-green by the presence of copper. It is also dis- 

 seminated through the adjoining trachytes and quartz boulders in 

 minute green crystallized veins of carbonate of copper. This copper 

 is doubtless derived from water containing a solution of that metal, 



