Feather stonhaugli's Geological Report. 75 



abstracted, no principle of adhesion would be left for the re- 

 maining mineral.* Very little attention appears to have been 

 paid to this circumstance, which, as respects the origin of 

 rocks, deserves some consideration. If such strata as the car- 

 boniferous limestone, bearing galena, were deposited by w^ater, 

 how came the metal to be so singularly suspended in and inter- 

 mixed with the stratum, when, by the law of gravitation, it 

 should be found separated from the calcareous matter ? 1 have 

 seen in the gold region of this country deceptive veins, which 

 have been the occasion both of disappointment and litigation. 

 Veins, apparently very rich, have suddenly been stopped by 

 slates coming in below. Upon examination, these turned out 

 to be flat veins, or the overflow of true veins, as trap is some- 

 times known to come up vertically, and overflow to the right 

 and left. 



The successful pursuit of the art of mining for the metals 

 which have now been mentioned, essentially depends upon 

 the application of some scientific information. The want of 

 a proper degree of information on this subject has occasioned 

 hitherto, in this country, as it did heretofore in older mining 

 countries, the rejection of many valuable minerals, from igno- 

 rance of their natures, to say nothing of the losses sustained 

 by the rude and unskilful manner in which the mines are 

 often worked. There are instances in Cornwall of silver and 

 cobalt having been thus thrown away from a mine which, 

 since the discovery of their value, produces £10,000 sterling a 

 year from the same ores. The mines of Missouri have been 

 worked a long time, but it is only recently that cobalt has been 

 observed there. Whilst Cornwall was esteemed only as a tin 

 country, the copper ores were considerated to spoil the vein, 

 and were used to mend the roads ; and in Derbyshire, a public 

 road has actually been taken up, and smelted profitably from 

 the rejected lead ores that had not been in familiar use. Ji is 



♦ Report 1835, p. 48. 



