SALMON ON THE FORMATION OF OJRE-YEINS. 



357 



cases the proprietors of all mines and minerals in their respective 

 countries. In France, in Germany, in Russia, and in other states, a 

 very extensive and a very high-class literature is devoted to the sub- 

 ject ; and the result, if not equal to what English energy would 

 produce icith the same means, at least surpasses, a hundred-fold, any- 

 thing we do possess. Among these, the German mining literature, 

 as might be expected from the countrymen of Werner, stands pre- 

 eminent ; and is particularly valuable from its characteristic minute- 

 ness, and also from the great and accurate mineralogical knowledge 

 of the German engineers.* 



As I am strongly convinced of the importance of the study of 

 mineral veins, not merely for useful purposes, but also in a purely 

 scientific point of view, it has struck me that the publication, in an 

 accessible form, of some of the most considered of these observations 

 and disquisitions would afford a secure basis as to facts, and a woHhy 

 guide as to opinion, invaluable as an aid to the student who, quitting 

 the more beaten paths of palaeontology, may venture to enter 

 upon the as yet almost unfrequented road to distinction offered 

 by the exploration of the mineralogical, chemical, and physical 

 departments of geology, of which the inquiry into the circum- 

 stances of the origin of mineral veins is undoubtedly one of the 

 most important. 



In selecting memoirs for translation or abstmct, I shall take par- 

 ticular care to include those which represent the distinctive schools 

 of opinion. Professor Cotta's memoir which follows is generally 

 considered to be the most compact exposition known of the hypo- 

 thesis which it sets forth. 



As loose and inaccurate language is fatal to satisfactory investiga- 

 tions of any branch of science, and as the nomenclature of mineral 



* 111 iiistitutiug a comparison between English and foreign mining literature 

 I am not mimindfid of the pubhcatioiis of the Geological Survey. The most 

 valuable of these, relating to mining subjects, — Sir H. de la Beche's memoir 

 on South Wales, and that of Mr. Jukes on the South StatFordshire Coal-field — 

 do not relate to metallic veins, and are consequently excluded from the scope 

 of my observation. This leaves Mr. Warington Smyth as the only Survey 

 writer on metalliferous deposits. His papers are, with those of Mr. W. J. 

 Henwood, about the only modern ones of much value that we possess ; for they 

 are the result of real observation, and not mere industrious collections of 

 hearsays. 



VOL. II. 



F F 



