SALMON — ON THE FORMATION OP ORE-VEINS. 
357 
cases the proprietors of all mines and minerals in their respective 
countries. In France, in Germany, in Russia, and in other states, a 
very extensive and a very high-class literature is devoted to the sub- 
ject ; and the result, if not equal to what English energy would 
produce with the same means, at least surpasses, a hundred-fold, any- 
thing we do possess. Among these, the German mining literatui-e, 
as might be expected from the countrymen of Werner, stands pre- 
eminent ; and is particularly valuable from its characteristic minute- 
ness, and also from the great and accurate mineralogical knowledge 
of the German engineere.* 
As I am strongly convinced of the importance of the study of 
mineral veins, not merely for useful purposes, but also in a purely 
scientific point of view, it has struck me that the publication, in an 
accessible form, of some of the most considered of these observations 
and disquisitions would afford a secure basis as to facts, and a worthy 
guide as to opinion, invaluable as an aid to the student who, quitting 
the more beaten paths of palaeontology, may venture to enter 
upon the as yet almost unfrequented road to distinction offered 
by the exploration of the mineralogical, chemical, and physical 
departments of geology, of which the inquiry into the circum- 
stances of the origin of mineral veins is undoubtedly one of the 
most important. 
In selecting memoirs for translation or abstract, I shall take par- 
ticular care to include those which represent the distinctive schools 
of opinion. Professor Cotta's memoir which follows is generally 
considered to be the most compact exposition known of the hypo- 
thesis which it sets forth. 
As loose and inaccurate language is fatal to satisfactory investiga- 
tions of any branch of science, and as the nomenclature of mineral 
* In instituting a comparison between Enghsh and foreign mining hterature 
I am not xinmindfiJ of the publications of the Geological Survey. The most 
valuable of these, relating to minuig subjects, — Sir H. de la Beche's memoir 
on South Wales, and that of Mr. Jukes on tlie South Staffordshire Coal-field — 
do not relate to metaUic veins, and are consequently excluded from the scope 
of my observation. This leaves Mr. Warington Smyth as the only Survey 
writer on metaUiferous deposits. His papers are, with those of Mr. W. J. 
Henwood, about the only modern ones of much value that we possess ; for they 
are the result of real observation, and not mere industrious collections of 
hearsays. 
vor^. ir. 
F F 
