20

top of a hill is about six feet wide extending along the surface one hundred or more feet.

Several persons who had seen it told me of a copper vein about thirty miles below the Hotsprings, which is said to extend across the Rio Grande. have seen specimens of this ore, which is a malachite or green carbonate of good quality.

COPPER IN MASON COUNTY.

About two and a half miles northwest of the town of Mason, near the Menardville road, there is a vein of copper near the bottom of a ravine; its width is little more than six feet in feldspathic and quartoze rocks. The best surface specimens of this ore yield about ten per cent. of copper; its appearance is promising.

Near the head waters of the Little Llano are copper veins of similar quality in similar rocks.

PYROLUSITE.

There is a vein nearly ten feet thick of this mineral near the top of a mountain in the eastern part of Mason county, at a place called the Spiller mine, from which about thirty tons of ore were sent abroad last spring to be smelted, it being reported to be very rich silver ore. The assay and smelting showed that it had not enough silver to pay for working.

TOURMALINES,

Of black, brown and white colors are quite common in several parts of Llano county, in granite regions.

GARNETS.

In the mica schistoze rocks near the Sandys in the middle and southern part of the same county.

AMETHYSTS.

In the granite regions of Burnet and Llano counties.

MOLYBDENA.

In Burnet and Llano in thin layers in gneissoid rocks.