48 
SILVER. TIN. 
miles. The prevailing rock in the gold region is 
argillite. 
Silver. — This metal occurs both native and com- 
bined with sulphur and muriatic acid, forming suU 
phuret and muriate of silver. Its colour is white, 
often tarnished gray or reddish ; melts into globule, 
and, when dissolved in nitric acid, tinges the skin 
indelibly black. It occurs in Saxony and Suabia 
in gneiss and mica slate ; also in Bohemia, Nor- 
way, Ireland, England, South America, Huntington 
(Connecticut), and, generally, in small quantities, in 
all lead ores. 
In some instances large masses have been found ; 
as in Saxony, where a mass weighing 125 pounds 
was discovered ; and another in the mines of Kens- 
berg, which weighed 560 lbs. ; and Jameson mentions 
a block of the same metal, discovered in the mine 
of Schneebergh, in Saxony, which was so large that 
Duke Albert descended into the mine and made use 
of it as a dinner-table. This mass, when smelted, 
produced 44,000 pounds of pure silver. 
Tin* is a white metal of considerable lustre, and 
generally occurs massive, in the form of an oxide. 
Sometimes it is found in fine brilliant crystals of 
various forms. It only occurs in primitive rocks, 
as in Cornwall (Eng.), Spain, Bohemia and Saxony, 
Mexico and Peru, &c. Some of the Cornwall mines 
extend many hundred feet under the sea, and it is 
said that in one of them the noise of the waves and 
the rolling of the pebbles can be distinctly heard, 
so near has the excavation been carried to the bot- 
tom of the ocean. 
Tin is employed for various purposes. Thin 
sheets of iron, being dipped into melted tin, receive 
a coat of the metal, and are thus prevented from 
rusting. This, commonly called sheet tin, is the ar- 
ticle of which the common tinware is made. Tin 
* Comstock's Geology 
