APPENDIX—GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 
417 
oldest mines in the world. Mines that were worked over three 
thousand years ago, and were visited by the first commercial 
nations of antiquity. We have here also, some of the best 
defined fissures and mineral veins in the world ; fissures and 
veins that have been fully developed, and their characteristic 
features marked and distinct. In no other mining region are 
these systems of grouping into belts and districts, more dis¬ 
tinctly marked. 
Suppose now, we go, to the western part of England and 
drive down a stake at the extreme northwestern part of Lands 
End, in Cornwall, and from that take measure about seventy 
or eighty miles east, and drive down another, (that will be 
about the width of the lead district of Wisconsin.) Now let 
us draw two lines from these stakes north to Scotland, a dis¬ 
tance of three hundred miles or more, and then see what will 
be included within these boundaries. We have all the mines of 
Cornwall, Wales, Anglesea, and the Isle of Man on the north. 
South from Lands End, our lines cross the English channel and 
strike a belt of mineral land on the western portion of France. 
“ This is a belt,” says Yon Cotta, “ lying north and south, 
whose northern prolongation touches these lines still further 
south.” If we are curious enough to follow these lines further 
south by taking a good map we can see that they, after cross¬ 
ing the Bay of Biscay, strike the north coast of Spain in the 
province of Santander, between the western portion of the 
Pyrenees and the sea, and include the extensive lead and zinc 
mines of that province. 
I refer to these facts, (I.) Because they are plain and open 
for inspection; any man with a good map can trace them for 
himself. (2.) Because they prove beyond doubt that this sys¬ 
tem of grouping is not a mere accidental occurrance in nature, 
but the result of some general law with which mineral veins 
are always connected. (3.) To show that this law is not lim¬ 
ited in its operations to one ore-district, to one province, or to 
one island, but is operative throughout this vast belt of min¬ 
eral districts from Spain to Scotland. (4.) To show that its 
27—Ag. Tk. 
