very heavy; the gardeners would not begin their work in due time; but even if we suppose them to be active and attentive, the absorbents of the leaves and fruit would take up ten times as much moisture in

the course of the night, and early in the morning, as they would receive from the sprinkling of the water-pot throughout the whole day."

"HER

ERLAND mine is situated in the parish of Gwinear, about seven miles N. E. of St. Michael's Mount, on the southern coast of Cornwall; and two miles and a half from the mouth of the river Hayle, on the northern coast of the same county: it is contiguous to Prince George mine.

"It commences in a valley on the west, and passes through a hill, which is first of steep and then of moderate ascent, for upwards of half a mile eastward; when the principal copper lodes, which fol. low this direction, meet with a large cross lode, by which and by other cross courses and flookans, which intersect them in their further progress, they are repeatedly heaved, and so disordered by these heaves, in their form and position, and so changed by them, in respect to their composition, as hardly to be recognised.

"The strata of the district in which this takes place, consist of the common metalliferous sort of argillaceous slate called killas..

"The copper lodes of this dis trict are remarkable for the shortpess of their continuity: for, whereas other lodes may be traced to an indefinite extent in the same line of direction, these, on the contrary, are observed to taper away

gradually, and terminate, to all appearance, at a short distance, completely and irrecoverably.

This mine was worked about twenty years ago, when it was sunk to the depth of one hundred fathoms from the surface. It was again set to work about eight years since; has now four fire-engines and two steam-whims on it; and is sunk to a depth of one hundred and fifty-five fathoms below the surface, or, as the miners call it, from grass.

"It is in this latter period of its history, that a discovery has been made of a considerable quantity of silver ore, in a particular part of the mine, the singularity of which discovery, in this country, has much excited the curiosity of the public.

"For, although the numerous veins of lead in Cornwall are richly impregnated with silver, and occasionally yield small quantities of silver ores, and even specimens of native silver, yet, hitherto, no instance had been known of their yielding this precious metal in such abundance; nor had any circumstances, in the natural history of the mineral veins of this country, borne any analogy to those which accompanied the present discovery.

"These circumstances therefore, having been examined with

K 3

more attention than usual, shall be stated with as much precision as it is possible to obtain, from the report of those practical miners only who have hitherto inspected them. "The facts which deserve to be first noticed are, the confined and insulated position of the mass of silver ore; its great depth from the surface of the mine; and its éontiguity to a copper lode.

"The lode in which it occurs is one of those cross courses, as they are here called, which intersect and derange the copper lodes, and consequently are of a more recent formation.

"Lodes in this direction are usually filled with quartz, but frequently produce galena; and sometimes, instead of galena, sulphurated antimony. They appear here to conform to the same laws, except in the particular instance now to be described, which forms, indeed, a very remarkable excep

tion.

saving; and those of the copper lode are much less productive of copper than at a little distance from this point. Moreover, that the copper lode, in the vicinity of the intersection, seems to have been influenced by the same causes of improvement and declension as the cross lode; being richer or poorer in copper, as the latter was, at a correspondent level, in silver.

"The richest mass of silver ore was found at the depth of two fathoms above the level at which it disappears.

"After this brief account of the most striking facts, it may be proper to enter into a more particular description of the two lodes which appear, by their intersection, to have generated this body of extraneous matter.

"The copper lode bears nearly east and west by the compass; the cross lode nearly north and south, or at right angles to it.

"The former is about two feet broad, on an average: and it dips or underlies south, cne foot in a fathom. The breadth of the latter is about two feet and a half, on an average; and its underlie is east, about eight inches in a fathom.

"The heave of the copper lode is about eighteen or twenty inches to the right, in the language of the Cornish miner; the expression being so far appropriate and convenient, as it refers to the usual situation of the observer in the heaved lode,

"The copper lode is filled with layers of ore and stony matter, the latter of which is here called caple; but the ore is usually found contiguous to the walls of the lode.

The contents of the cross lode are more singular, in respect to their local position, and more various. Only the eastern side of it - produces

produces silver ore, the breadth of which is, in general about six or eight inches, although in some places it is greater. The other part of the lode is chiefly composed of quartz, intermixed with iron, manganese, and wolfram, together with a small portion of cobalt and antimony.

"The silver ore, strictly speaking, is a mixture of galena, native bismuth, grey cobalt ore, vitreous silver ore, and native silver; which, in respect to their proportions, follow the order in which they are here enumerated, the galena being the most prevalent. The native silver, of which specimens of the greatest beauty have been reserved for the cabinets of the curious, is found chiefly in a capillary form, in the natural cavities of the lode.

"About one hundred and eight tons of this ore have been raised. The miners continue to sink near the same point of intersection; and seem confident that both lodes will soon become richer, because similar instances of declension and recovery have frequently occurred in the copper lodes of this mine, and because the two lodes appear to have a reciprocal influence on cach other.

"Unfortunately, however, the

extent of their speculation is limited by the great depth of the present workings; for, forty-five fathom's have been sunk since the first discovery of the silver; and twenty, or twenty-five fathoms more, are as much as can be sunk in this mine, with its present mechanical powers of drawing the water; at which level, viz. one hundred and eighty fathoms from the surface, it would be somewhat deeper than any mine in Cornwall, and about one hundred and thirty fathoms below the level of the sea, at low water mark,

"The other cross lodes in this

mine produce no silver; most of them being flookans, or lodes which are essentially different from the argentiferous cross lode, in the

nature of their constituent mass. There is one, however, in the eastern part of the mine, which, from its resemblance to that, is thought likely to produce silver, whenever it shall be explored to the same depth, at its point of intersection; although these hopes may probably be fallacious, for the argentiferous lode intersects five other copper lodes, viz. two on the north, and three on the south side, without producing any silver."

FROM

ROM these two last sets of observations, one of which establishes the scarcity of the luminous clouds, while the other shows their great abundance, I

taphor, that our sun has for some time past been labouring under an indisposition, from which it is now in a fair way of recovering. An application of the foregoing method, however, even if we were perfectly assured of its being well founded, will still remain attended with considerable difficulties.

"We see how, in that simple instrument the barometer, our expectations of rain or fair weather, are only to be had by a consideration of many circumstances, besides its actual elevation at the moment of inspection.

The tides also present us with the most complicated varieties in their greatest elevation, as well as in the time when they happen on the coasts of different parts of this globe. The simplicity of their cause, the solar and lunar attractions, we might have expected, would have precluded every extraordinary and seemingly discor

dant result.

"In a much higher degree, may the influence of more or less light and heat from the sun, be liable to produce a great variety in the severity or mildness of the seasons of different climates, and under different local circumstances; yet, when many things which are already known to affect the temperature of different countries, and others which future attention may still discover, come to be properly combined with the results we propose to draw from solar observa tions, we may possibly find this subject less intricate than we might apprehend on a first view of it.

If, for instance, we should have a warm summer in this country, when phenomena observed in the sun indicate the expectation of it, I should by no means consider it as an insurmountable ob

jection, if it were shown that n another country the weather had not been so favourable. And, if it were generally found that our prognostication from solar observations held good in any one given place, I should be ready to say that, with proper modifications, they would equally succeed in every other situation.

"Before we can generalise the influence of a certain cause, we ought to confine our experiment to one permanent situation, where local circumstances may be supposed to act nearly alike at all times, which will remove a number of difficulties.

"To recur to our instance of the tides, if we were to examine the, phenomena which they offer to our inspection in any one given place, such as the mouth of the Thames, we should soon be convinced of their agreement with the motion of the sun and moon. A little reflexion would easily reconcile us to every deviation from regularity, by taking into account the direction and violence of winds, the situation of the coast, and other circumstances. Nor should we doubt the truth of the theory of the tides, though high water at Bristol, Liyerpool, or Hull, should have been very deficient, at a time when, in the place of our experiments, it had happened to be uncommonly abundant.

Now, with regard to the effects of the influence of the sun, we know already, that in the same latitudes the seasons differ widely in temperature: that it is not bottest at noon, or coldest at midnight; that the shortest day is neither attended with the severest frosts, nor the longest day with the most oppressing heats; that large forests, lakes, morasses, and

swamps,