1867.] Mining. 123 



mines. Tin mining is rather more encouraging, for, although at 

 the present prices of that metal, the mines cannot make a profit, 

 there is a prospect that the price will shortly improve. The 

 Dutch candidly state that they cannot continue to import the tin 

 from Banca and the Straits at the present low scale of prices. 

 From some cause or other, not satisfactorily explained, there has 

 been for some time, a gradual falling off in the quantity of tin 

 produced in Banca. At present the supply of tin is considerably 

 in excess of the demand, and with the depression which pervades 

 every branch of metal manufacture, there is no immediate prospect 

 of any large quantity of tin being consumed. But with a 

 revival of trade, so important a metal must again be largely in 

 demand, and the immense stores of tin existing in Cornwall may 

 then be worked to advantage. 



It is satisfactory to know that the Cornish miners are finding 

 employment at home, instead of abroad. Nearly a thousand of 

 these industrious men are now supplying the places vacated by the 

 colliers on strike in Scotland, and many more are finding employ- 

 ment on the railways. These will, therefore, be available as soon 

 as an improved market renders it prudent to work the Cornish 

 mines with greater activity. 



We have no discovery to chronicle this quarter in ..any of the 

 mining districts of Great Britain or of the Continent. 



It was formerly a notion amongst miners that tin could only 

 exist near the surface of the earth, and many mines were abandoned, 

 because, as the miners said, " tin never made in depth." At length, 

 energy dissolved this theory, and now the largest quantities of the 

 finest tin are obtained from the deepest mines of Cornwall. A 

 similar superstition prevails respecting the deposition of gold in 

 quartz lodes. The gold miners will tell you that gold falls off in 

 depth. This hypothesis appears destined to share the fate of that 

 relating to tin. 



Mr. A. Hay ward, of Sutter Creek, Amadas Co., California, is 

 working a quartz lode to the depth of 1,200 feet, not less than 

 300 feet below the sea level. The result is, in this instance, that 

 the quartz vein increases in width and value in proportion to depth. 

 The quantity of gold obtained from this mine has been to the 

 value of six or seven million dollars, and in the galleries already 

 opened gold quartz is standing which is valued at, at least, two 

 million dollars. 



MlNEKALOGY. 



The Kev. Samuel Haughton has published* his examination of 

 a meteoric stone which was seen to fall at Dundrum, Co. Tipperary, 



* Royal Irish Academy, 1866. 'Philosophical Magazine,' No. 216, p. 260. 



