475 
the Dun Mountain proper, but on the opposite declivity of a moun- 
tain-ridge , the highest point of which is named Wooded Peak. In 
1856, sixteen tons of excellent copper-ores, principally red oxide 
of copper and native copper were shipped to England, only as at 
kind of sample as it were , but the enterprises of the company 
established in consequence of it were not crowned with the eagerly 
expected success; and at the time of my stay at Nelson the Dun 
Mountain was the subject of a hot controversy, as tire enthusiastic 
anticipations and promises of an old Cornish miner, whose vivid ima- 
gination beheld in every superficial trace of ore the richest lodes, 
were in direct contradiction with the unsatisfactory results , obtained 
by the technical leader of the enterprise. I regret much to say 
that the results of my examinations were not such as to corro- 
borate sanguine hopes. The escarpments of Wooded Peak consist 
of serpentine traversed by dykes of diallage-rock. The mass of the 
larger dykes is coarse-grained, and very fine specimens of diallage 
may be knocked off. In this serpentine mountain, over a line of 
about two miles running from South almost due North, traces of 
copper-ores are here and there met with in the shape of green and 
blue silicates of copper (rarely malachite), forming thin crusts upon 
the crumbling serpentine. Nearly in every instance, where such 
indications appeared upon the surface , farther researches at a greater 
depth produced smaller and larger nests of red oxide of copper, 
and of native copper; sometimes also bunches of copper-pyrites, 
of purple-copper and of copper-galena , which , however , soon dis- 
appeared again. I could not convince myself of the existence of 
a number of parallel lodes, so as to justify the various names which 
have been given, and which appear to designate different lodes 
such as Sullivan’s lode, Main lode, Windtrap-Gully lode, Duppa- 
lode etc. The copper ore does not occur in a regular lode; by 
which I mean a metalliferous dyke of different mineral composition 
from that of the rock of the mountain. As is usual in serpentine, 
the copper ore occurs only in nests and bunches. The richer de- 
posits of ore form lenticular- shaped masses, which, when fol- 
lowed, may increase to a certain distanec, but then disappear 
