SOUTHERN AFRICA. 91 
tubes, as common sponge for instance, raiglit perhaps be 
equally efficacious. 
About twent}^ miles to the westward of Zwart-kop's bay is 
another wide, open, unsheltered indentation in the coasts 
called Camtoos bay, into which fall the Kromme river, the 
Camtoos river, Van Staaden's river, and several other inferior 
streams. At the mouth of the Kromm6 river two or three 
ships may ride at anchor in tolerable good shelter from most 
winds except the south-east. The country that surrounds this 
large bay is covered with thick brushwood, and in places with 
clumps of forest-trees. Near the mouth of Van Staaden's 
river we found, in the steep sides of a deep glen, several spe- 
cimens of a lead ore. It was of that species known by the 
name of galena, or lead mineralized with sulphur. The masses 
had no appearance of cubic crystallization, but were granu- 
lar and amorphous in some specimens, and the surfaces in 
others were made up of small facets. This sort of galena is 
sometimes called by miners white silver ore, on account of the 
large proportion it has been found to contain of that metal. 
It is well known that all galenas contain more or less of sil- 
ver ; and it has been observed that those whose configuration 
is least distinct have the greatest proportion, the hetero- 
geneous metal having disturbed and obstructed the natural 
arrangement of the particles, which would be that of a ma- 
thematical cube if perfectly pure. The vein of the ore was 
about three inches wide and an inch thick, and it appeared 
to increase both in width and thickness as it advanced un- 
der the stratum of rock with which it was covered. The 
gangue or matrix was quartoze sand-stone of a yellowish 
