354 
EEYIEWS. 
The Laios icJiich regulate the Deposition of Lead Ore in Veins, 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 tlie handsome book produced by Mr. 
Wallace on the mineral district of Alston Moor, and in the interim many 
periodicals have passed euloginms 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 hope 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 peculiarl}^ 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 
and 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, jprom 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 v hich 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, 
with descriptions of the principal ; and then he enters into special details of 
the Alston Moor and Coal Cleugh cross veins, and the Quarter Point veins 
of Alston Moor. 
He next gives us ten chapters on the laws which regulate metalliferous 
deposits, as illustrated by an examination of the lead veins or lodes of 
