According to Professor Jameson, nearly the whole of the upper part of this county is composed of transi tion rocks. Among these, he particularly observed grey-wacke, greenstone, and flinty-alum, or grey-wacke slate. These rocks he considers the oldest in the county, and the basis of all the newer formations.
Next in point of age he reckons the independent coal formation, which pervades the low part of the county, disposed in strata from the Nith to the Esk, over the transition rocks ; or lying in hollows of these rocks, as at Sanquhar, Closeburn near Dumfries, at Whitehill, Baldcraig, Corncockle Muir, Chapel Hill by Moffat, and Canobie.
The newest of the universal formations he states to be the floetz trap, covering sometimes the transition rocks, and sometimes the independent coal formation ; and consisting in the lower parts of the county, of por phyritic greenstone and amygdaloid from the bridge of Langholm to Denbie ; while, in the upper parts, (as between \Vamphray and Langholm,) it lies on the sum mit of' transition mountains, generally in the shape of mountain caps, blackish pitchstone being subordinate to it.
Of that arrangement of compound minerals which divides them into five classes, (viz. the primitive, the transition, stratified or secondary class, the alluvial, and the volcanic,) the first and last classes of rocks do not seem to have presented themselyes in this county. The .xansition mountains are of great extent; the secondary strata run up the three principal valleys to the very bases of those mountains ; and the alluvial class em braces a variety of soils, the most remarkable of which are the haugh or holm lands, near the rivers, and some fields of sleech near the sea. The practical coal view ers have not made any other distinction than into the primitive or primary rocks, and the secondary or stra tified.
From the rocky faces and broken scars of the princi pal mountains, their conformation seems to be similar in them all. Waaken and trap are the rocks which pre vail, with slate of different characters. Near the bases of the largest mountains, beds of ferruginous clay ap pear, and masses of conglomerate occasionally present themselves, with black shistus resembling coal blaes, though not containing bitumen, but smelling of sulphur, as black ore of copper does. Here also chalybeate wa ters frequently issue in springs.
The mines of Wanlockhead are computed as yielding about 30,000/. worth of lead annually, one-sixth of which belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, as the superior and proprietor. The produce in 1808 was 15,552 bars, of nine stones avoirdupois each bar ; and the price for that year was 321. per ton. It has been said that the mines
of Leadhills in Lanarkshire, and of Wanlockhead in this county, which are near each other in the same range of mountains, were opened in consequence of a discovery by one Martin Templeton in 1517 ; but others believe them to have been open of a much older date ; and some think they may have been known even to the Romans, whose public roads passed near those moun tains, and who might the more readily have known of the veins, as most of them have appeared on the surface. It is the more probable, since two lead bars are said to exist still, which had been worked by the Romans, and are marked with the date and the name of the emperor, the one at Ripley, and the other in the British museum. A drift was opened in search of copper and lead, in the mountains near Hartfell, many years ago, without success.
It is now of particular importance to open slate quar ries in the districts remote from the sea. The very su perior slates of Lancashire, betwixt prime cost, and land and water carriage, are very expensive. Gleno char is remote, and the slate is rather soft, and not al ways to be obtained.
Among the secondary strata which are found in most of the lower parts of this county, coal is worked at San quhar and Kirkconnel, in the north western part of the county, towards the head of Nithsdale ; and also in the parish of Canobie, in the south-eastern parts, near the lower part of Eskdale. It is unfortunately not found in the neighbourhood of the greatest population ; nor at Closeburn, or Kelhead, near the principal quarries of limestone. The upper districts of Annandale and Esk dale, which are very remote from the sea, feel exceed ingly the want of coal and lime ; the mere carriage of a single cart load of the former now costing at least fifteen, and of the latter twelve shillings. The last boring in this county was lately made in the vicinity of Moffat, in search of coal. It was put down about 100 feet, mostly at the expellee of the ordinary inhabitants, and went through various thick seams of red sand stone. This colour has been commonly held as an unfavourable sign of coal ; but it has been understood of late, both from concurring facts, and the admissions of men emi nent for mineralogical science, that coal does really associate with red sandstone. The trial above-mention ed, and most of the other unsuccessful borings made in the county, seem to have been deficient in depth.