clay, which, from the specimen I have, must have formed and hardened about the pyritical ball after its formation. The pyrites opens and cracks in the fire, but without noise, or flying off. . This fossil contains nearly one-third sulphur; the other two-thirds iron, and argillaceous earth: it is nearly five times heavier than water."

The principal Metallic substances of Devonshire, are the ores of tin, lead, iron, and manganese. Gold, silver, copper, bismuth, antimony, and cobalt, have also been found, but in small quantities. The tin-works were anciently numerous and valuable, but have in a great measure been abandoned, the mines of Cornwall being considerably more productive; though in the reign of King John, Devonshire produced greater quantities of tin than that. county; its coinage being set to farm at 1001. annually, and that of Cornwall at no more than 100 marks. The importance of its trade in tin, is, indeed, manifested from its stannary courts, and coinage towns, of which there are no fewer than four; Plympton, Tavistock, Ashburton, and Chagford. The members of these courts have the privilege, from time to time, and under the direction of the Lord Warden, of choosing certain jurats to meet in a general assembly at Crockern Tor, in the midst of Dartmoor; with power to make laws for the regulation of the mines and stannaries. There are numberless stream-works on Dartmoor, and in its vicinities," observes Mr. Polwhele, "which have lain forsaken for ages. In the parishes of Manaton, King-Steignton, and Teigngrace, are many old tin-works of this kind, which the inhabitants attribute to that period when wolves and winged serpents were no strangers to the hills or the vallies. The Bovey-Heathfield has been worked in the same manner; and, indeed, all the vallies from the Heathfield to Dartmoor bear the traces of shoding and streaming; which, I doubt not, was either British or Phenician, Lead was also familiar to the western Britons. That the Danmonians had iron-works, is plain from Cæsar, who mentions the exigua copia of our iron in the maritime parts: the iron-pits

See Vol. II. p. 339.

of

of Blackdown, were, I conceive, originally British, and were afterwards worked by the Romans."

The Lead ore is chiefly of a greyish blue color, but of several varieties. The potter's or tessellated ore, is of a shining, rectan gular, tabulated structure, always breaking into cubical granules: another kind is of a flaky, smooth, and glossy texture, breaking into more ponderous fragments; and a third sort is very close grained; fracture, sparkling and uneven, and very rich in silver: the latter variety has been obtained in plenty at the Beer-ferris mines. Some very rich lead ore was discovered a few years ago near the surface at Comb-martin. Iron-stone is found in various parts of the county, and in many varieties; yet does not appear to be particularly rich in metal. Native Silver has been found in different substances, and in various forms; granular, filamentous, capillary, arborescent, and crystallized: the lead mines at Comb-martin are said to have produced it in great plenty in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: and that there were formerly mines both of gold and silver in Devon, appears from va→ rious grants made in the reigns of Edward the Third and Richard the Second, with a reservation of the tenths to the church. Manganese is chiefly obtained at Upton-Pyne, where it was dis covered between thirty and forty years ago. It does not run in veins, but is spread in flat, irregular patches, at no great depth from the surface; and seems to extend from Upton-Pyne, southeastward to Huxham, and north-westward, to Newton St. Cyres. "It is found in large rugged, irregular masses, and contains great variety of crystallizations: some shoot irregularly; some are plane, and transversely striated; others are streaked, like the lead ore; C 4 and

* History of Devonshire, Vol. I. p. 158.

+ In the year 1667, a large Loadstone was sent from this county to the Royal Society, by Dr. Edward Cotton, Archdeacon of Cornwall. It weighed sixty pounds, and would move a needle at the distance of nine feet; but a part of it having been broken off, its attraction did not extend beyond seven feet. Loadstones have likewise been found at Brent, and also on Dartmoor, but of an inferior quality.

Pettus's Fodinæ Regales.

and others shoot into hollows, crossing each other every way. The crystals seem to be the metal in a pure state, and are not equally advantageous with the calx, which contains a larger proportion of pure air, the ingredient for which it is chiefly valuable. It is employed in the potteries, but principally in the glass-houses, where it is used to discharge the color imparted by the calces of lead, and for other purposes. It has also been applied, latterly, in preparing the oxygenated muriatic acid, employed to facilitate the operation of bleaching. From 150 to 200 tons are exported annually: the general price is from thirty shillings to three pounds per ton.*" Antimony has been found in several places within the three parishes of Chudleigh, Hennock, and South-Bovey. It is mostly of a dark lead-color, full of long shining needle-like striæ; of a close-grained texture, hard, brittle, and very heavy. Cobalt, interspersed with numerous filaments of silver, has been found at Sampford in considerable abundance. About four tons of this Cobalt was taken up, and nearly 1700lb. sold in London.

Some of the filaments of silver were almost of the size of a straw, and about an inch and a half in length.

The Extraneous Fossils discovered in Devon are of various species and descriptions. "They are generally embodied in marble, sand-stone, or flint; but are rarely to be met with detached from the mass in which they have been immured, and of the perfect figure of the original shell, unless the concretion has been formed in the latter substance." On Haldon, and in the flinty strata of its vicinity, the echinus is frequently found: tubipores have been met with near Newton Bushel, and shells of various species at Hembury Fort: many of the latter bear a perfect resemblance to some of the kinds brought from the West Indies. "The most remarkable fossil that was ever found, perhaps, in this county," says Mr. Polwhele, in his History of Devon, "was lately discovered in a bed of stiff clay, on Chapel Farm, in the parish of CruwysMorchard. It is called fossil-bacon: it is certainly an animal substance: and, if I may form any judgment from a large specimen which I immediately procured, I think I may safely pronounce it

History of Exeter, p. 93.

to have been originally hog's-flesh; but the bristles on the piece. in my possession must determine the question as to what animal the substance belongs. This piece is very light, somewhat spongy; mottled like mottled soap, and evidently of a sebaceous nature. On a slight chemical analysis, it was mostly soluble in spirit of wine, while hot; but separated into white flakes on cooling, in which

it

*This singular fossil was thus noticed in the public papers soon after the period it was discovered. "An extraordinary discovery was lately made in a courtlage, on a rising-ground, belonging to Chapel Farm, in the parish of Cruwys Morchard, near Tiverton. The house and estate are the property of Mr. Brooks, a wealthy and respectable farmer, who resides there. It was formerly a monastery belonging to the Augustine friars; and at the Dissolution of the religious houses fell into the hands of the Cruwys's, from whom, by various alienations, it came to the present possessor. In order to convert a very fine spring into a pond, to water the meadows below, and also for the use of the cattle, Mr. Brooks dismantled the courtlage, the linhays, sheds, &c. and be gan to sink an extensive pond. When the workmen had sunk about ten feet from the surface, the strata appearing in a natural state, they came to a spongy matter; it appeared to be a very thick cuticle of a brown color. They soon found bits of bones, and lumps of solid fat, of the same color. Astonished at this discovery, one of them ran for his master, who, upon viewing the place, sent for Mr. Sharland, a person of great experience and practice as a farrier in the neighbourhood. It was then resolved cautiously to work round the carcase; and at last the complete body of a hog was found, reduced to the color and substance of an Egyptian mummy: the flesh was six inches thick, and the hair upon the skin very long and elastic. As the workmen went on further, a considerable number of hogs, of various sizes, were found in different positions; in some places, two or three together; in others, singly, at a short distance. Upon the bodies being exposed in contact with the open air, they did not macerate, nor reduce to powder, as is usually the case with the animal economy after lying two or three centuries divested of air: perhaps this may be occasioned by the mucilage of the bacon. This piggery continued to the depth of twelve feet, when the workmen stopped for the season, and the pond was filled with water. The oldest man in the parish had never heard that the ground had ever been broken; and, indeed, the several strata being intire, renders it impossible to conjecture from what causes this extraordinary phenomenon can be accounted for. The family of Cruwys have a complete journal of remarkable events which have happened in the parish for three centuries; and not the least mention is made of any disorder which could occasion such a number of swine to be buried in such a situation, &c."

2

it resembles spermaceti; but it was easily convertible into soap on being boiled in a fixed alkaline lixivium."

The Mineral Waters are very numerous, and chiefly of the cha lybeate kind; though they have not in any particular degree been appropriated to medicinal purposes. The strongest springs of this description arise at Gubb's Wall, near Cleave; at Bella-Marsh, near King-Steignton; at Ilsington, in the vicinity of Totness; at Brook, near Tavistock; and at Bampton: the spring at the latter place is said to be more strongly impregnated with iron than any other in the county.

The RIVERS of Devonshire are uncommonly numerous: some of them flow northward into the Bristol Channel; and others southward into the British Channel: being enlarged in their progress by innumerable lesser streams. The principal are the Taw, the Torridge, the Dart, the Teign, and the Exe: the most considerable of the secondary rivers are the Tavy, the Plym, the Yealm, the Arme or Erme, the Aven, the Otter, the Sid, the Axe, and the Lyn.*

The Taw rises in Dartmoor, and winding to the north, flows towards Chumleigh, near which it inclines somewhat to the west; and having received the waters of the Moule, which divides the parishes of South-Moulton and King's-Nympton, passes Barnstaple, and turning directly westward, unites with the Torridge at Appledore.

The Torridge derives its source from the same district as the Tamar, in the northern part of Cornwall, on the summit of a high moor, and from within a very few yards of the fountain of that river. Its springs are possibly the same; though, from a trifling variation in the height of the ground near the place where they issue, the one has a course of nearly a hundred miles due south, and the other of full sixty miles to the north.

Torridge, no sooner gotten from his head,

Is by a turning, crooked, channel led;

And full of windings, through the dales doth wander,
Sporting itself in many a wry meander;

Still gliding forth, altho' it fleet full slow,

Which way it bendeth lest its noise should show.

RISDON.

After

The Tamar is sometimes regarded as a Devonshire river, as being equally common to this county as to Cornwall; but it is more generally considered as belonging to the latter from rising within its limits. See Vol. 11. p. 356.