Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 2.djvu/60

50 up and burnt for lime, which I was informed is preferred by the northern farmers to the Castletown lime for manuring the land. The colour of these pebbles is smoke-grey, the texture granular with lamellar crystals; they are soluble with a brisk effervescence in acids, leaving behind only an inconsiderable residuum. They contain organic remains.

Lead glance or galena is the most conspicuous of all the simple minerals I have to mention here. It forms three limited repositories, one at Laxey, the other at Foxdale, and the other at Brada head.

No workings are carried on at present.

As to the precise time those mines were first opened there is, I think, some uncertainty. It would appear from the following passage taken from Bishop Wilson's History of the Isle of Man, that there had been mines wrought at an early period; “Mines of coal there are none, though several attempts have been made to find them. But of lead, copper, and iron, there are several, and some of them have been wrought to good advantage, particularly the lead; of which many hundred tons have of late been smelted, and exported. As for the copper and iron-ores, they are certainly better than at present they are thought to be; having been often tried and approved of by men skilled in those matters. However, through the ignorance of the undertakers or by the