General Considerations on the Formation of Ore-Veins

Abstract

I propose, from time to time, in the pages of this magazine, to bring before geologists and geological students translations or abstracts of some of the most authoritative memoirs of foreign geologists on the subject of mineral veins and metalliferous deposits.Notwithstanding the great commercial value of the metallic mines of the United Kingdom, the subject of mineral veins and metalliferous deposits has not, of late years, occupied the serious attention of many men of recognized scientific position in this country: the late Sir Henry de la Beche, Mr. W. Jory Henwood, and Mr. Warington Smyth are those best known. The strong distaste which undoubtedly exists to inquiries in this field of geology is due to many causes which it would be out of place to discuss here. I may nevertheless be permitted to say that, however just this feeling may have been in its origin, a continued shrinking from all attempts to grapple with the difficulties which admittedly beset this subject is likely to retard the progress of some of the most important branches of chemical and physical geology. The successful solution of many obscure problems can only be hoped for from a long, patient, and accurate examination of the never-ceasing processes of nature working deep in the recesses of the earth, and which are only open to observation in those wonderful excavations which, by the patient toil of years upon years, have been made accessible to us in our mining districts.