All the other freeholders work on their respective freeholds. Sir A MR. Francis Leicester, of Vauxhall, gives an account of this vein in a small pamphlet, called The little Mine Adven"ture,' published in 1702. He ftyles himself the prefent leffee, and gives, I believe, a good plan of the vein in an annexed map. BLACK JACK, Zinc, Pfeudo-galena, is met with in large quanti- BLACK Jack. ties near the eastern extremity of the parish. It is found to answer the purposes of calamine. It has hitherto been only exported to Bristol; and is fold there at the rate of 4. 10s. per ton, delivered. We have it in a metallic form, of a blueish grey color, and again of the colors of the dark femi-pellucid ambers. Cronsted, ii. p. 779. Magellan's ed. calls the firft, Zincum ferro Sulphur ato mineralifatum; the other, Zincum calciforme cum ferro fulphuratum. THIS femi-metal, and its ore, has been long known in India, and imported from thence in a metallic ftate, under the name of tutenag, as early as the year 1647. It had even been fused in the Goflar mines, as early as 1617. Yet the fecret of its being an ingredient in making brafs, did not reach us till the year 1738; when it was communicated to us by Mr. Von Swob. I refer to the learned Bishop Watfon's entertaining and inftructive works, for a full account of this useful mineral. Let me here inform the reader from the fame authority, (iv. p. 2.) that by the accident of the Dutch taking a Portuguefe fhip laden with calamine, we learn the origin of the name, it being derived from the Arabic, calaem, the fame mineral as our calamine, which is plentifully MILL-DISTEMPER, plentifully found in the peninfula of Malacca, and probably in. other parts of India. A MOST excruciating, and often fatal diforder, frequently attacks the miners who work in the hard veins of lead ore, or of black jack, or of fuch as are folid and lodged between fides, or immersed in the rock. The disorder is called the Felyn, from Felyn, a mill. It may be tranflated into Mill-distemper, because it was at first most frequent in the fmelting-mills; but for a confiderable time paft has ceased in thofe buildings; and that happiness may be dated from the period in which lime has been used as a flux for the lead ores. . In the mines it arifes from the workmen being obliged to use the pick-axe in the hard veins to get the ore out. The minute particles fly about, and are taken down into the ftomach, and into the lungs. This occafions a moft obftinate coftiveness, attended with most dreadful pains, which have been known to laft fourteen, and even twenty-one days, and attended with a ftrong fymptomatic fever. William Spencer, a miner, worked in Meilwr, (a mine near • Holywell) in a clofe confined fituation, and where the ore was of a particular hard nature. He was attacked annually, during fifteen or fixteen years, (ufually in the spring) with an acute pain in the pit of his stomach, extending itself downwards, with a griping pain in the bowels; and attended with a violent reaching, vomiting, coftiveness, and tenefmus. His bowels and abdominal mufcles were much contracted, his pulfe feeble and low, he was fubject to cold clammy fweats, and an unusual coldness of his extremities. In the efforts to vomit, he fome times parted with a quantity of bile; and in each evacuation I obferved a depofition of a number of particles of lead, by parting with which he found great relief. The coftiveness ⚫ continued fometimes eight, nine, or ten days, notwithstanding the repeated use of purgatives, (chiefly caftor-oil, in large dofes, which I found to be the most effectual remedy). When this was got the better of, and a ftool procured, I obferved in each evacuation a quantity of lead, by which, from 'the relief he obtained, his pulfe became better, the contraction of his bowels difappeared, and likewife the cold clammy 'fweats. In three or four days, and in the two laft attacks, he 'felt a fimilar acute pain in the lower part of his belly, attended with a fcantinefs, pain, and difficulty in voiding his urine. I confequently fufpected that fome leaden particles might have found their way into the bladder, and gave him fome diuretic medicines, as ballam of copaiba, gum-arabic, and oil of juniper. In the courfe of twenty-four hours his urine was voided much 'éafier, and in greater quantity, and he parted with as much pure lead by urine as would lie on a fhilling. He in the latter part of his days became afthmatic, and weak, and died Nov. 30, 1794, in the 51ft year of his age.' I AM obliged to Mr. William Denman, of Holywell, furgeon, for the above account of the fad diforder; but more materially to his skill, and my excellent conftitution, for a speedy recovery in the last spring (April 6th, 2 P. M.) from the confequences of a knee-pan fnapped in two tranfverfely, by no other violence than by stepping down two steps inftead of one. After a ftrict recumbency of near feven weeks, in pof CHERT. feffion of high fpirits, fulness of faculties, and enjoyment of my favorite amusements, I rofe from my bed, with the grateful profpect of paffing the remainder of my days with my prior activity little impaired; thankful to PROVIDENCE for graciously adding this blefling to the numbers of others it has fhowered on me during my long and various life. CHERT, which I have mentioned before, as being often the lodgement of the mineral veins, is the petrofilex, and lapis corneus, of Cronstedt, i. 189. It is of a flinty nature, and the only one of that clafs we have in our county. Nodular flints, the attendant on chalks, are quite unknown here. This is in the neighborhood of lime-stone, as flints are concomitant with chalk. It is an opaque ftone, fometimes plain, often varied with stripes. I have spoken of it as a matrix of the ores. I now confider it as useful in manufactures. It is frequently cut out of its quarries in great maffes, and sent to the pottery countries of Staffordshire, firft, for the purposes of forming ftones to grind and comminute the calcined flints, which are the great ingredients in the ftone ware; and I think it is itself calcined, and being homogeneous with the purer flints, ferves also for the fame purposes. Much of it is found in the midst of our hills, finking, as I have faid, to depths unknown. In Sir Roger Moftyn's land, near Pen-yr-allt, where the upper part of the parish hangs abrupt over the lower, it forms the broken precipitous front, and has been of late quarried out for exportation. Bishop Watfon, (ii. 263) fays, that it fells in Derbyshire at eight fhillings The duke of Rutland contents himfelf with five fhillings per ton, as lord of the rock. The workmen have three fhillings for raifing, I leave the reader to confult the right reverend au thor thor for the process of calcining, &c. The knowlege may be of use to my countrymen, whether it is any way related to the Petunfé of the Chinese, p. 273. It may not be wrong to confult our late legatine voyagers to China for that purpose. OUR lime-stone is a genuine marble, often pure, often filled with entrochi and fhells, compofed entirely of homogeneous matter. I have mentioned the immenfity of the beds: but it is often found mixed with calamine and ore. Its ufes cannot be unknown to any, whether in building, whether for the purposes of agriculture. I am fenfible its application is not extended as far as it ought to be; (but more of that under the article Rural Economy.) Here I may fay that it is the common fluxused by the smelters in the fufing the lead ores; which has taken off much of the noxious effect it formerly had on the smelters, who were engaged in the operation, and on the cattle who fed on the grafs within reach of the smoke. On the weft fide of Celyn rake, is a large ftratum of a deep grey lime-ftone, which, when calcined, makes, mixed with. common lime, an excellent cement or terras, for works conftructed in water. It is nearly equal to the Aberdour stone from South Wales, of which much has been imported for the uses of our great buildings on the Holywell stream. Or fpars we have in abundance the white opaque kind; but I think none of the fine refracting fpars, or the Cryftallum Ilandicum, which is frequent in the neighboring parishes. PETROLEUM, rock-oil, or what the Welsh call it y menin tyl-` with teg, or fairies butter, has been found in the lime-stone strata LIME-STONE.. SPARS. PETROLEUM.. |