64 
EDDY : LEAD VEINS. 
state of the strata where the walls of the vein have been proved. It is 
the most southern of all the lead producing districts of our county, 
removed some ten miles from the nearest mine, properly so 
called, and fourteen miles from those producing lead ore in the 
Grit-stone beds. These veins also proved the rare, perhaps the 
only exception in the investigations made by Mr. C. IMoore, of 
Bath, which seems to establish the " existence of organic remains 
in the earthy matrix of mineral veins in the carboniferous rocks." 
Again, the main vein is the only one amongst the grit produc- 
ing mines of Craven which has yielded lead ore in quantities 
commercially valuable, whilst traversing highly disturbed strata, 
and with accompanying masses of shale in the vein itself : the veins 
in the other mines requiring the beds to be comparatively regular 
to prove productive, and then as a rule becoming small and poor 
on the approach of the shale either as a "cheek" of the vein, or 
thrown in as a leader, or accompaniment of the vein. 
The Cononley mines were worked very many years ago, cer- 
tainly before the introduction of gunpowder into this district, but 
only to a shallow depth, except in one place. The workers were 
stopped in their progress by the combined drawbacks of too much 
water and too little lead ore. In one place however, on the crown 
of the hill, eastward, and near to Mason's shaft, they got down to 
the depth of our Upper Adit Level, or 24 fathoms from the 
surface at that point. Here the vein was poor. 
Some time subsequent to 1830, Messrs. Hall, of Newcastle, 
began the deep adit level crosscut from a point in Nethergill, to 
the west of the village of Cononley, about 525 feet above the level 
of the sea, with the view of intersecting and draining the main 
vein at that depth. After driving through several faults and 
much disturbed ground for a distance of 90 fathoms, these gentle- 
men gave up the trial and the crosscut was continued on behalf of 
His Grace the late Duke of Devonshire. The vein was met with 
after a total drivage of 205 fathoms. 
I will briefly state the principal levels and shafts in the mine 
