veins hematite and red oxide of iron. Lately these have been opened up, and smelt-ing-houses have been established at Gaspar-Saarez. There are also iron mines andfoundries in the captainry of Saint-Paul. A mine of antimony occurs near Sabara, inthe captainry of Minas-Geraes.
In Africa , the inhabitants of the countries adjoining to the scape of Good Hope mineand smelt copper and‘iron; and the Congo produces considerable quantities of thesetwo metals. It is asserted that a great deal of copper exists in Abyssinia. On thebanks of the Senegal the Moors and thePouls fabricate iron in travelling forges. Theyemploy as the ore the richest portions of a ferruginous sandstone, which seems to be avery modern formation. .Lastly, the kingdoms of Morocco and Barbary appear to in-clude several copper and iron mines.
The islands of Cyprus and Negropont, in the Mediterranean, were celebrated, in for-mer times, for their copper mines; and several islands of the Archipelago presentedgold mines, now abandoned. The same thing may be said of Macedonia and Thrace .The mountains of Servia and Albania contain iron mines; and lead mines occur inServia. Natalia possesses iron and copper mines in the neighborhood of Tokat . Somealso occur in Arabia and in Persia ; and in the territories round Caucasus, the kingdomof Imeretta is distinguished for its iron mines. The celebrity of the Damascus sabresattests the good quality of the products of some of the mine^. Persia includes, besides,mines of argentiferous lerfd at Kervan, a few leagues from Ispahan ; and Natolia fur-nishes orpiment.
Some iron and copper mines have been mentioned in Tartary. Thibet passes for be-ing rich in gold and silver mines. China produces a great quantity of iron and mercu-ry, as well as white brass ( tombac ), which is much admired. The copper mines of thisempire lie principally in the province of Yu Nan and the island of Formosa. Japan ,likewise, possesses copper mines in the provinces of Kijunack and Sarunga. They seemto be abundant; at a period not far back, they exported their products to Europe. Jap-an presents, moreover, mines of quicksilver. China and Japan contain also mines ofgold, silver, tin, red sulphuret of arsenic, &c. Large deposites of the latter ore (realgar)are said to occur in the tin mine of Kian-Fu, in China. But in that empire, as in Eu-rope , coal is the most important of the mining products. This combustible is explored,especially in the environs of Pekin, and in the northern parts of the empire.
Iron mines exist in several points of the Burman empire, and of Hindostan. NearMadras there exist excellent ores of sparry iron, and black oxide, analogous to the Swe-dish ores. The Indian natural steel, named Wootz, has been held in considerable esti-mation among some eminent London cutlers; but the iron and steel recently manufac-tured upon a great scale, near Madras, by Messrs. Heath and Co., from the crystallizedmagnetic ore of that country, will probably ere long rival, and eventually supersede inEurope the product of the Dannemara forges. The islands of Macassar, Borneo , and Ti-mor, include copper mines. As to the tin obtained from the island of Banca , fromthe peninsula of Malacca, and several other points of southern Asia , it proceeds entirelyfrom the washing of sands. . The same is undoubtedly true of the gold furnished bythe Philippine isles, Borneo , &c. It appears, however, that mines of gold and silverore worked in the island of Sumatra .
MINES OF THE SECONDARY ROCK FORMATIONS.
The most important mines of the secondary rocks, and perhaps of all minerals what-soever, are those worked in the most ancient'of these strata, in the coal-measures.
The British islands, France, and Germany , present several groups of small mountainsPrimitive on the ridge, and transition on the hanks; in the sinuosities between whichdeposites of coal occur. The principal of these have become great centres of manufac-tures; for Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham , Saint-Etienne, &,c., owe theirProsperity and their rapid enlargement to the coal, raised, as it were, at their gates inEnormous quantities. Wales, Flanders, Silesia , and the adjacent parts of Gallicia, owedually to their extensive collieries a great portion of their activity, their wealth, andfheir population. Other coal districts, less rich, or mined on a less extended scale, haveProcured for their inhabitants less distinguished, but by no means inconsiderable, ad-v antages; such, for examples in Great Britain, are Derbyshire, Cheshire, Lancashire ,Shropshire, Warwickshire, the environs of Bristol &c.; some parts of Ireland ; inFrance, Litry department of Calvados , Comanterie, Saint-Georges-Chatelaison, Aubin,-^lais, le Creusot ; Ronchamps, in the Prussian provinces of the left bank of the Rhine ;the environs of Saarebruck; several points of the north of the territory of Berg and La-marck, of Mansfeld, of Saxony, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, the United States , &c.
"We need not enter here into ampler details on coal mines, reserving these particularsf ° l * the article Pitcoal. ■
Nature has deposited alongside of coal an ore whose intrinsic value alone is verySl Pall, but whose abundance in the neighborhood of fuel becomes extremely precious to