11 
was not small, when he learned that the so-called “ spar ”, con- 
founded by him with quartz, was calamine, an ore containing in 
its pure state above 60 per cent, of oxide of zinc. Not to leave 
the same metal and its ores, which put on a great variety of 
characters, I have known zinc blende taken for lead ore, and 
honoured with the erection of a smelting furnace, when, to the 
chagrin of the manager, the volatile metal flew away up the 
chimney, leaving only disappointment and loss behind. Again, 
from a faint resemblance which some of the varieties bear to 
certain iron ores, a resemblance which would at once disappear 
before accurate observation, a considerable quantity was bought, 
not long since, by one of the greatest iron-masters in this country. 
It was carried to the furnaces, duly mingled with fuel and flux, 
and after a strenuous effort had been made to get it to yield iron, 
it all, as the proprietor naively remarked, “ went off in smoke.” 
Blunders of this kind are more excusable when made in regard 
to some of the minerals of comparatively rare occurrence. An 
active agent of my acquaintance, a man of high character, was 
requested by a couple of his friends, who gave themselves credit 
for uncommon sagacity, to join them in forming a company to 
work a deposit of an unusual ore which they had lately found. 
Already they had referred it, for corroboration of their opinion, 
to a person at Birmingham styling himself a mineral chemist, 
whose report set forth that the specimen shown him was, as the 
others had suspected, an ore of molybdenum, and that it was 
worth 8 1 . per ton. This was sufficient to induce the agent to 
join the discoverers in a journey to the place in question, and at 
the head of a remote valley, embosomed among the rugged hills 
of Cambria, he was gratified with the view of such a mass of the 
same substance that it was evident that thousands of tons might 
be quarried at a mere nominal price. Specimens were broken, 
the party returned to consider the preliminaries of their adven- 
ture, and it was agreed that the mineral corresponded pretty 
nearly with the description of sulphuret of molybdenum in some 
book, which was at hand. Still, the more cautious manager 
feared that the prospect was too bright to be real, and without 
consulting the others, expended a fee in sending for a good 
analysis to a scientific chemist in London. The result was, 
that the substance in question proved to be a shining, black, 
