COrPEU MINK 



17 



carried in a forked stick. The mine was so steep, 

 and the roof so low, that it was difficult, and 

 sometimes dangerous, to proceed ; but by perse- 

 vering, we reached the bottom, at the depth of a 

 hundred and fifty feet from the surface. The whole 

 rock, forming the mountain, is impregnated with 

 copper ; some strata, however, and, occasionally, 

 quartz veins, which cross the strata, are so much 

 richer than others, that it becomes worth the 

 miner**s while to incur the expence of carriage to 

 the top of the hill, whence the ore is scooped out 

 with great labour, rather than work the more ac- 

 cessible, but poorer rocks lower down. As the 

 workmen, therefore, follow the rich veins in all 

 their windings, the shafts become very tortuous, 

 and branch off to the right and left, wherever the 

 ore is to be found. We observed that every cre- 

 vice or rent in the rock, of whatever size, was in- 

 variably coated with crystals of calcareous spar, or 

 of quartz, but frequently metallic : when the light 

 was thrown into these clefts, it gave them a bril- 

 liant appearance, like frost-work. The copper ore 

 was richest in the quartz veins, but it was found 

 frequently unconnected with them, and combined, 



VOL. II. B 



