14 
been attempted in this country; and, strange to say, not a 
single book exists in the English language in which they are 
comprehensively treated. Among the Germans many excellent 
works on mining have appeared from time to time during the 
last three centuries ; and even in France, a country compara- 
tively so poor in mineral productions, treatises have been 
published, in which many of the divisions of the subject have 
been skilfully discussed, whilst the periodical literature of both 
those nations is rich in detailed descriptions of the natural 
phenomena and the working processes of mines in all parts 
of Europe. Nor are we unindebted to the Russians, whose 
well-educated officers of mining engineers, sent at the public 
expense to investigate various mineral regions of the continent, 
have carried back with them a treasure of valuable information, 
which has been in a great degree instrumental in advancing, to 
a high grade of perfection, the mining and metallurgical ope- 
rations of the Ural and of Siberia. In Britain, however, we 
have little else than two or three treatises on the working of 
coal, and a few isolated papers on other parts of the subject ; 
and hence it will be needful, in a series of Lectures, to depend in 
great part on personal experience, and to indicate, in excep- 
tional cases, the sources whence a knowledge of details may be 
obtained. 
But it would be an injustice to the many thinking and 
enterprising spirits among our British miners not to express our 
admiration for the skill and ingenuity which they have brought 
to bear on particular portions of their art. Surrounded by 
difficulties and dangers, they have won enduring triumphs ; and 
in some of their applications have, by the force ot persevering 
industry, advanced their experience with such rapid steps, that 
science has been glad to follow in their wake, and reap new 
facts to aid her further progress. 
The first great feature which strikes the attention in approach- 
ing this subject is the enormous value of the mineral productions 
of Great Britain, amounting, as has already been stated by our 
honoured Director in Chief, to the sum of 24,000,000/. an- 
nually in the rough state. So bountifully, indeed, has our 
country been enriched by Providence with these sources of 
