not returned. This happened above 14 years ago, and consequently was subsequent to M. Sage's experiments. Indeed, from the letter to you, I have no doubt but Mr. R. Phillips himself has often committed the same blunder.

That M. Bouillon-Lagrange did not benefit by M. Sage's example as he might have done by mine, will be evident to Mr. R. Phillips by the following sentence from Manuel d'un Cours de Chimie : « Ce sel (nitrate de baryte) est utile pour reconnaitre la presenee de l'acide sulfurique. On peut s'en servir pour seperer cet acide, qui se trouve quelquefois dans l'acide nitrique, et qui empêche de l'employer dans des experiences exactes.”

I shall select another case, out of a great many I could name : it is that of Dr. Swediaur, who, as well as M. Bouillon-Lagrange, must have been even personally acquainted with M. Sage, and could not be ignorant of the story of carbonate of barytes in the acids, which may now be called Mr. R. Phillips's fable. In order to divest nitrous acid of sulphuric acid, the Doctor prescribes the following plan. Let a solution of nitrate of barytes be added until there be no more precipitation, “ donec nihil amplius præcipitetur." I trust this experiment will be closely examined by Mr. R. Phillips, and that he will favour your readers with the result, the nihil amplius; and, for my own part, it is of no moment in this experiment whether the acid contain sulphuric acid or not, for I will venture to predict that the experiment will prove equally amusing to Mr. R. Phillips or to any other operator.

Discoveries and improvements in science invariably precede the dates of their being presented to the public, depending on the disposition, convenience, and pursuits, of their authors, and various

In my own case these intervals have generally been of

many years, and that particularly of employing silver as a test for arsenic, and asserting its superior efficacy, was not published until above 20 years after I had discovered it. It occurred to me while examining certain materials used in the preparation of carmine, and its utility was more distinctly evinced in subsequent trials

, especially while analyzing a metallic ore belonging to the late Judge Buller. I might indeed appeal to many living witnesses that I am not so forward to tease the public with my writings as Mr. R. Phillips would insinuate. The Journals of the Royal Institution will bear testimony that I can prefer a private communication. I am unwilling to bring names forward on this occasion without permission of the parties; but I can recollect one case in point, and not unlike one of the experiments of M. Sage, which took place more than ten years before my remarks on barytes were published. Few philosophers have contributed more effectually to the Philosophical Transactions than the Gentleman to whom I now allude, and he probably has not forgotten the short conversation that passed in his library, at that time in the same street and very near to my residence, on our inspecting a vessel containing carbonate of barytes in powder mixed with nitrous acid, and in a state of

apparent quiescence. I am persuaded that this Gentleman did

other causes.

not then consider me at all ignorant of any thing respecting M. Sage's experiment, or that I did not know in 1792 what I published in 1802 respecting barytes.

The two physicians to whom Mr. R. Phillips alludes cannot be more respected by him than by me; their reputations stand very high, and most deservedly so; they need no panegyric from either of us, and can fight their own battle; therefore any allusion to them on the present occasion is both irrelevant and intrusive. Such an interposition is more befitting an hireling than one in pursuit of the truth, and there are various ways of engaging such characters; for even flattery, ambition, malevolence or jealousy, is often as effectual a stimulus as any thing of a pecuniary nature.

Who Mr. R. Phillips is, whether the initial be meant for Rolert, Richard, Ralph, or Roger, I have yet to learn. I am totally unconscious of having offended any Gentleman of the name of Phillips, much less any one of whom I can boast a personal knowledge. *

I shall now expect to be told that I have also been forestalled respecting my test for arsenic ; that the arseniate of silver, the brick-red coloured compound, had been prepared by others; that it had been formed before I was born, having been found in the laboratory of that busy old being, Dame Nature ; that Henckel, Bergman, and others can bear testimony to the fact; and that M. Klaproth had frequently got hold of it, analyzed it, regenerated the same compound by means of nitrate of silver ; but was so cruel and unlucky as to disregard the silver as a test, always preferring the acelate of lead, even to the end of the second volume of his valuable Analytical Researches; thus depriving Mr. R. Phillips of another theme for his peevish effusions.

Upon the whole, Sir, and from the last paragraph of the leiter, I think your Correspondent writes more from principles of enmity and revenge than from a desire to improve science; and, as he seems to hold out a threat, I must be prepared to repel such attacks as I may now expect from one who is capable of treating me with so much malice and so little candour,

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
Long Acre, Dec. 12, 1814.

Jos, HUME.

pend

ARTICLE IX.
Notices respecting the Old Silver Mine in Linlithgowshire.

By John Fleming, D.D. F.R.S.E.
In the centre of the county of Linlithgow there is a small moun-
tain group, the most elevated portion of which is known by the

a

name of the Hilderstone Hills. Cairn-paple, or Cairn-naple, the highest of these hills, rises 980 feet above the level of the sea, and commands an extensive prospect of the surrounding country. The summit is flat, and is composed of green-stone, in many places passing into basalt and wacke.

The base on each side consists of rocks having the same dip and direction, and belonging to the Independent Coal Formation. At the western base there are many valuable beds of black coal and sand-stone, and at the eastern base there are extensive strata of lime-stone. These all stretch to the north-east, and have a westerly dip. The strata of lime-stone form a bed upwards of 30 feet in thickness, and are covered with beds of sand-stone, slate-clay, and clay-iron-stone. In these the vein is situated which is stated to have produced at one time a considerable quantity of lead and silver.

The lime-stone is of a blackish-grey colour, of various degrees of intensity. Its lustre is in general glimmering, often glistening, and even shining, but seldom dull. The compact fracture which it exhibits is in general fine splintery, often conchoidal, and sometimes earthy. It rarely occurs with a small granularly foliated fracture.* When the stone contains many petrifactions of entrochites, the foliated fracture is often conspicuous. It is opake, or very faintly translucent at the edges.

The lime-stone contains many irregular masses of flint, and the same mineral not unfrequently occurs in thin beds, thus occupying the same place in compact lime-stone which quartz is often observed to hold in granular lime-stone. The petrified remains of marine animals frequently present themselves in this rock. The teeth of fishes, particularly the shark, the spines and portions of the crust of echini, and fragments of the trilobite of Mr. Parkinson, are but rarely found. The remains of corals and shells are more abundant. The corals belong chiefly to the genera fungia, millepora, eschara, orbitolites, and tubipora. The shells are principally the remains of acephalous mollusca, some of which may be referred to the following established genera: pinna, modiolu, corbulu, terebratula, gryphæa, and productus. There are likewise a few shells belonging to genera in the cephalous order of mollusca. Thus there are species of the genera turbo, melania, nautilus, ammonites, and orthocera. In the month of May last I transmitted to the Wernerian Society a description of ten species of orthoceratites from the strata of this district, and chiefly from the bed of lime-stone abovementioned. This establishes the fact of their occurrence in the Independent Coal Formation, and thus proves that they are not peculiar to the lime-stones of the transition period. This point had been ascertained in Scotland upwards of 20 years ago by the late

* One specimen of granularly foliated lime-stone from this bed is of a greyish black colour, and is much impregnated with bituminous matter, a small portion of which pervades the whole bed,

the

a

Rev. David Ure, Minister of Uphall, in Liolithgowshire. This Gentleman, in his History of Ruthierglen and East Kilbride, published at Glasgow in 1793, describes and figures two species of this genus which he found in strata belonging to the great coal-field of Lanarkshire.

Having stated these facts in illustration of the natural history of the strata which the metalliferous vein is said to have traversed, I shall now mention a few circumstances concerning the vein itself with which I have become acquainted. Sir Robert Sibbald, in his Seotia Illustrata, published in 1684, part first, page 31, gives the date of its discovery, and records the name of the discoverer: “In Lothiana Occidentali, ad tria milliaria a Limnucho Austrum versus, in monte qui Cairne-papel dicitur, tempore Jacobi Sexti primi Britanniæ Monarchæ, ab Alexandro Mund Carbonario inventa est Argentifodina, ubi purius argentum, idque majore proportione, ex lapide rubro extractum fuit. The same author, in his History of the Sheriffdome of Linlithgow, 1710, p. 27, adds a little to his fornier description : “ In Hillderstone Hills is the silver mine, which afforded much silver at the first working of it: a part of the meltinga house is yet to be seen : and amongst the adites to the mine, the richest was that called God's Blessing. The spars are of different colours; some are white, and others of a red colour.” Tradition says that this mine was abandoned in consequence of the roof of the workings falling down, and a great increase of water taking place. In hopes of overcoming these obstacles, the proprietor, the Earl of Hopetoun, some years ago made an attempt to re-open the mine. He brought some workmen from his mines at Lead Hills, and employed them in boring and sinking shafts in the neighbourhood of the old workings. But the information thus obtained was considered of little importance, and a stop was put to all further investigation.

The ruins of the old smelting-houses are still visible, and cousin derable heaps of rubbish surround the openings of the old shafts ; but as no access to the mines can now be obtained, no precise information can be procured concerning the quantity or value of the cre, or the constitution and extent of the vein. In a lime-stone quarry about 200 yards to the east of the old workings the outgoing of a vein is distinctly seen, which traverses the strata in the direction of their dip, and is filled with soft clayey marl, and contains masses: of impure time-stone, together with lead glance and heavy spar.

It runs towards the place where the former workings were carried on, but does not appear to have been a portion of the principal vein, as the old shafts have not been sunk in the direction of its line of bearing. Judging from such circumstances, the principal vein must have traversed the strata in the line of their stretch. ''To the south of the old workings there are indistinct appearances of a vein of green-stone running in a northerly direction, but the nature of this vein cannot be ascertained by inspection of the surface, which is

a

deeply covered with soil. The heaps of rubbish in the neighbourhood of the mine are now our surest guides, and in them the following minerals may be observed :

1. Heavy Spar. This appears to have occurred in great quantity in the vein, and may even be observed filling up some small rents in the adjacent rocks. It is usually of a reddish colour, sometimes white, and presents the followiog sub-species. Heavy spar earth, found as a coating to the cavities of the other sub-species. Granular heavy spar is very abundant, and in some specimens appears to pass into compact heavy spar. Curved lamellar heavy spar is in small quantity at the old workings, but eccurs abundantly in the cross vein mentioned as opening into the lime-stone quarry. Straight lamellar heavy spar appears in greatest plenty, usually compact, sometimes crystallized in the form of a rectangular four-sided table, having all the terminal planes levelled. In these sub-species of heavy spar the ores of the following metals occur either imbedded or disseminated.

2. Lead.-Lead glance was the ore sought after, and yielded so considerable a proportion of silver as to bear the expense of extraction. All the pieces of this ore which I have seen are broad foliated.

3. Nickel. Both the ores of this metal are to be found here, but in small quantity. The copper nickel is in roundish pieces, from the size of a pea to that of a pigeon's egg. The nickel ochre sometimes occurs as a coating to the preceding species, and likewise fills small cells in the heavy spar, where it appears to hold the rank of an original deposition.

4. Cobalt.--I have not observed any of the alloys or oxides of this metal; but the arsepiate of cobalt, or cobalt crust, fills the cavities of the heavy spar, and is spread as a coating on its surface.

5. Zinc. The only ore of this metal which is bere observable is a small portion of brown blende. The same ore associated with lead glance." Iron pyrites, brown spar, and lime-spar, may be observed in many of the small veins which traverse the strata of lime-stone in this district.

Amidst the rubbish may also be observed masses of calcareous sand-stone and indurated clay. After heavy rains, when fresh portions of the rubbish have been exposed, the poultry which feed near the place are observed to sicken and die. Are we to consider the cobalt crust as the cause of the mischief?

The rarest ores enumerated above are those of nickel and cobalt, These have been found in other places of Scotland, but not situated in the same kind of rocks. Some time ago

I observed

among

the manuscripts of the late Dr. Walker, Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, a short notice of his having between the years 1761 and 1764 found copper nickel and nickel ochre in the mines at Lead Hills and Wanlockhead. These mines are situated in transition rocks. Hence we must consider nickel as belonging not only to the primitive class of rocks, but to the transition, and even to a new member of the floetz class.