Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist.

Date:
[1855?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rambles among the Channel Islands / by a Naturalist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    149/402 (page 137)
    ore, and the once almost forsaken island of Sark was made lively and bustling with the presence of the miners, and the noise of the engines and machinery. One of the galleries of this mine Avas driven three hundred feet under the sea. The rock is a very hard syenite, except near the lode, where it is decomposed to a greater or less decree. The minerals found in this mine comprise the following compounds:—Carbonate of copper, phosphate of lead, carbonate, sul- phate, and sulphuret of lead, antimoniferous galena, chloride and sulphuret of silver, sul- phuret of silver and antimony, and copper, &c. On our first visit to these islands, in 1845, these mines were in full operation; and up to that period many tons of lead had been raised, and the total yield of silver amounted to twenty- five thousand ounces. Shortly afterwards, how- ever, the works were abandoned, the existing steam poAver not being sufficient for the proper drainage of the mine; and, it being thought not desirable to incur the expense of a larger engine, the Avhole Avorks were given up, and they now present a most wild and desolate appearance. At the present time no mines are Avorked in any part of the island. That numerous metalliferous lodes exist in other parts of Sark is fully believed by many mineralogists, and it is possible that the experiment of Avorking them may again be made.