354 



EE VIEWS. 



The Laws iddcJi recfulate the Deposition of Lead Ore in Veiiis, illustrated 

 by the Examination of the Geological Structure of the Mining Dis- 

 tricts of Alston Moor. By W. Wallace. London : Edw. Stanford, 

 1861. ' 



It is some time since we received the handsome book produced by Mr. 

 Wallace on the mineral district of Alston Moor, and in the interim many 

 periodicals have passed eulogiums on it, which it well deserves. The 

 volume in our hands has not however been laid aside, but in truth it in- 

 volved careful reading, and that involved time — an article not always plenti- 

 fully at our disposal. It has been thus only from time to time that we 

 have fairly read and examined Mr. Wallace's labours, and our meed of 

 praise, therefore, is not the less valuable from its being tardy. Even now 

 other urgent demands upon our space restrict our notice to the shortest 

 limits ; but at a season when mining and mineral products are displayed so 

 prominently before the world, and men interested in commercial pursuits 

 are congregated in London from all parts of the world, it is only right and 

 just to bring this excellent literary production under their notice. The 

 opportunity, therefore, is seasonable. We are informed the book has 

 already had a good sale, and we hcpe our remarks may cause an additional 

 incoming to the exchequer of the author, who must have been at a con- 

 siderable expense to have so profusely illustrated his work with the clearest 

 and finest chromo-lithograph sections, plans, and maps. 



To collect, arrange, and harmonize the experience of many generations 

 on any subject is indeed an arduous and difficult task, and it has been well 

 remarked that it is peculiarly so with everything relating to metallic veins 

 and metalliferous deposits. In the first place, the information required is 

 too often either wanting or defective, and the ideas of miners, commercial 

 asid scientific men all vary, in many degrees, according to the point of view 

 from which the aspect is taken. Large profits may be derived from a poor 

 mine when the price of metal is high, and rich mines may not pay when 

 prices in the metal market are low. Large profits might accrue from lead- 

 ore scattered in the sides of a soft vein, while a far greater amount of 

 metal would not cover the expense of extraction from a hard one ; and all 

 these classes of circumstances naturally affect the views of those who are 

 practically engaged in mining and tinge the opinions they offer. Fortu- 

 nately for us, this debatable ground is not our territory. iFrom the geolo- 

 gical standpoint in the present case, we look to that more interesting topic, 

 how the mineral veins were produced, how they exist in the strata of the 

 earth's crust, and those other natural phenomena they present, which lead 

 to a knowledge of their past history and their present conditions. Mr. 

 Wallace begins his book at the right end. He gives us first six chapters 

 on the formation and geological structure of the mining districts of Alston 

 Moor, in which he treats of the laws which have regulated the deposition 

 of the mountain limestone in Great Britain, the elevation of the rocks of 

 Alston Moor to the position they now occupy, and the laws which have 

 regulated the denudation of the country, the laws of the formation and 

 direction of veins, and the formation and direction of east and west veins, 

 widi (los(*rii)tions of the principal ; and then he enters into special details of 

 tlio Alst(^n Moor and Coal Cleugh cross veins, and the Quarter Point veins 

 of vVlston Moor. 



lie next gives us ten chapters on the laws which regulate metalliferous 

 deposits, as illustrated by an examination of the lead veins or lodes of 



