WATSON — THE HiEMATITE DEPOSITS OP OLAMORGANSniRE. 249 
ore "in sight," from which we can calculate the yield for a definite 
period, with almost grave certainty, without taking into consideration 
those chances and contingencies which render mines — under the 
best of circumstances — par excellence speculations. 
A face of vein upwards of two hundred yards in length has been 
more or less laid open by Mr. Vaughan's excavation, and the average 
width of the " raising floor " is about thirty-five yards. A reference 
to the woodcut (PI. X.) will afford the best idea of the dimensions 
and other details connected with the works. To obtain a weekly yield 
of 1,500 tons is said to be a matter of easy performance. 
The mines at Cornel Park are situate about a mile and a half north 
of the Llantrissant Station on the South Wales Railway ; and so far 
as regards the character of the limestone-strata, as seen in quarries and 
sections by and near to the roadside, but few indications ai-e to be 
found of the vast deposits of mineral which exist in the vicinage. The 
stranger, accustomed to the position of mines, will probably look for 
operations at the foot of some hill, but the hills which are seen in the 
distance in travelling towards these works, are those of the coal-grits, 
and we unexpectedly advance upon the mines in a slightly undulating 
plane. The accompanying lignograph (PI. X.), from a rough sketch I 
made on the spot, gives a representation of Mr. Vaughan's mine. On 
the left hand in the cut we have a section of the rocks on the dip of 
the beds, which amounts, on an average, to twenty-three inches in the 
yard. On the " face " we have an end section of the same beds, 
showing the thickness of the hsematite-vein, the overlying conglome- 
rate, and the great thickness — upwards of fifteen feet — and bedded 
character of the "drift." The magnesian conglomerate, from the 
sub-angular character of some of the fragments of limestone and 
sandstone of which it is ^jrincipally composed, might perhaps be more 
properly called a breccia. The cementing paste is not of uniform 
composition, but is as often wholly calcareous as it is magnesian, and 
near the haematite it is usually highly charged with peroxide of iron. 
The " conglomei-ate " itself does not appear to include any fragments of 
solid ore. The nature of the cementing matter confers, especially at 
a distance, a more homogeneous appearance to the rock, and a rude 
description of bedding is always to be observed ; the stratified character 
being further maintained by a series of horizontal "joints," along the 
