On Mercury in Alluvial Deposits

Extract

Dr. Phipson, of Paris, has drawn attention, in the April number of the Geologist, to the observations which have been made of the presence of mercury in the soil and substrata of the town of Montpellier, and, in your June number, another correspondent notices the finding of the same metal under circumstances so decidedly adventitious, however, as to possess, I think, rather archæological than geological interest. The occurrence of this precious metal in rocks and mineral deposits of such ages as we should hesitate to assign for its matrix, most probably arises from its fluid nature admitting of its easy transport to distances far remote from those formations in which it exists in situ; and, as furnishing something like the history of its presence in such apparently abnormal situations, the following account of its discovery at Ajaccio, in the Island of Corsica, may, perhaps, be considered worthy of insertion:—

In the year 1811, a M. Matthieu, an Engineer Officer of the French Army, was entrusted by Napoleon with the mineral survey of the Island, but, being re-called to his military duties in 1814, was cut off before Leipzig, leaving in the possession of his widow the notes he had made of his survey. These notes do not appear ever to have been officially communicated, but among them was a memorandum to the effect that a deposit of mercury existed at Ajaccio.