NOTES AND QUERIES. 
269 
• the earliest antiquity, Laving exercised an important influence on the 
history and social economy of the ancient Etruscan people ; and evidence 
of ancient workings, assignable to Etruscan, Homan, and mediaeval ages, 
have been often encountered in modern explorations. In the late Inter- 
national Exhibition, M. Hauft, of Florence, exhibited a scries of plans and 
synoptical tables illustrating this subject. Amongst these were special 
plans, on a scale of three inches to a mile, showing that the mineral veins, 
furaerolas, brine-springs, and lines of volcanic activity, have a remarkable 
amount of parallelism, and form two great groups, the intersections of 
which are the chief seats of mining enterprise. This double parallelism 
has also been observed to exist in the mining region between the Apuan 
Alps and Mount Amiata. The average direction of the first group is N. 
3° W. ; the extremes lying between N. 28° W., and jST. 11° E., or a total 
variation of 39^. The mean direction of the second group is N. 54° W. ; 
the extremes N. 67° W., and N. 45° W., or 22° of variation. The direc- 
tion of the brine-springs is N. 46° W., the variation being 7° on either side. 
The course of the deposits of alum worked at Montione and Frassine is 
similar to the salt group, viz. W. 50° E. ; the fumaroles, whose vapours 
contain boracic acid, are arranged in four series, having a mean direction 
of N. 47° W., with a variation on either side of 5|°. Two other lines of 
fumaroles have a direction N. 12° E., which coincides with the strike of 
the four great deposits of iron ores existing in the island of Elba. The 
lines of strike passing the marble quarries near Scravezza, give directions 
N., and N. 53° AY. The direction of a line passing the mines of iVIontieri, 
Gerfalco, and Poggio Matti, JN". 48° W., or parallel to the line of the sub- 
terranean fires of Mount Oggioli, Pietramala, and Peglio. The directions of 
the three gigantic metalliferous lines of the district of Massa are N. 13° W., 
N.ll°W.,and N. 3° W., while that of the deposit of alum at Accessa, Monte- 
rotondo, and Sasso is N. 7° W. All the above lines of bearing are in- 
cluded between the directions N. 28° TV., and N. 12° E. in the one case ; 
and between N. 67° W., and N. 46° W. in the other, — an amount of varia- 
tion so small, that M. Hauft has concluded that in Tuscany the various 
metalliferous deposits, as well as those of alum and sulphur, the brine- 
springs, and the various volcanic emanations, are all different phases of one 
great formation, due to causes still in active operation in the production of 
borax, petroleum, sulphur, etc. This formation is, he says, divisible into 
two periods of unequal value, as far as minerals are concerned, for many 
of the veins contain no metalliferous substances, and it is only in a few of 
the metalliferous deposits of the Maremmana formation that silver ores 
occur. The above conclusion is verified, he considers, by other coincident 
circumstances. The two lines which unite the extreme points in the salt 
districts, and include the four principal series of boracic acid, soffioni, are 
parallel to one of the leading lines of mineral veins ; the line passing through 
the fumaroles of Lucignano and Serrazzano, combines exactly that 
uniting the saline springs of Fontebagni, Loriano, and Scornellina ; while, 
in like manner, the line joining the fumaroles of Monterotondo and Sasso 
coincides with the line of salt-springs rising between Fattagliana and 
Prugnano. This relation between the most important borax districts and 
the metalliferous country of Tuscany has led to the supposition that they 
may be regarded as in some sort a continuation of the latter. In addition 
to these cases may be added the occurrence of borax and alum at Sasso 
and Monterotondo, and the association of alum deposits with mineral 
ores at Accessa, both of which are in direction N. 12° W. In the same 
manner, the fumaroles of the lake of Monterotondo correspond, on the line 
of N. 49° W. with the mines of Cugnano, and in the direction W. 3° E. 
