have the least inclination to absorb and waste the metal, and which shall not badly attack the firebricks of which the furnace is made, and finally which shall run well or hold its liquidity for a sufficiently long time to effect good separations between metal and slag.

The mining machinery in this laboratory is supplied with power from an upright tubular boiler, which is fed with hot water by a force-pump and steam water-heater, by a ten horsepower engine. There are two suites of milling apparatus :

I. A small five-stamp battery, capacity 100 lbs. of quartz per hour, of the form in use in Colorado and on the Pacific coast, an amalgamated plate, an amalgamating pan, a settler and concentrator of the kind used in the Washoe process in California and Nevada, for the treatment of silver and gold

ores.

II. A Blake crusher with jaw opening 2 × 5 inches, crushing rolls, capacity 400 lbs. per hour, with automatic screens, a series of sorting V-boxes (German spitzlutte), two automatic machine jiggers, a Rittinger shaking-table, a Freiberg shakingtable, and a set of little finishing V-boxes.

These machines are all arranged to give up their overflow sand into hand buckets, and the overflow water into a large tank. The water from this tank is forced back into the feed tank and used over again. This arrangement makes it possible to perform an experiment without the loss of slime due to an overflow of waste water. Steam drying tables are at hand to dry the wet sand for the furnace. The laboratory also contains the following auxiliary apparatus:-a Whelpley and Storer pulverizer, an edge-stone mill, a Sturtevant blower, and Batchelder's dynamometer. The metallurgical laboratory contains a blast furnace, a reverberatory smelting furnace, a roasting furnace, a furnace for cupellation, furnaces for fusion, crucible and muffle assay furnaces, a blacksmith's forge, and a melting kettle.

The Institute is from time to time receiving ores of gold, silver, lead, copper, antimony, zinc, iron, etc., from various lo

.calities on this continent. These ores are worked, and reports sent to those who contributed them; and it is hoped that by such coöperation the laboratory will continue to receive the necessary amount and variety of ores.

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The Course in Metallurgy. During the second year the studies of the courses in Mining Engineering and Metallurgy are the same, except that the mathematical studies in Mining Engineering are replaced by chemistry, in Metallurgy. In the third year the lectures on mining and applied mechanics given to students in Mining Engineering, are replaced in Metallurgy mainly by quantitative and industrial chemistry. With these exceptions the courses are the same during the four years, and although what precedes relates more particularly to the course in Mining Engineering, it will readily be understood to what extent it also includes the course in Metallurgy.

MINING EXPEDITION TO NOVA SCOTIA.

A party of ten students with two of the professors left Boston, by the St. John steamer, on Monday, June 7th, and spent three weeks in visiting some of the mines and mineral localities of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine.

Arriving on Wednesday, at Dorchester, N. B., we crossed the four mile ferry, at high tide, to Hopewell, and succeeded, at a late hour, in obtaining conveyance to the Hillsborough Albertite mine. Here occurs that peculiar bituminous mineral whose origin and classification has caused so much dispute among geologists. The highly inclined strata are mostly of a soft, shaly character, and the difficulty of locating the shaft of a mine in such yielding materials is well illustrated by the experience of the miners. The present working shaft, though at the distance of two hundred feet from the vein itself, is found to have been moved a little already by the comparatively quick filling in of the worked out parts, while three different shafts

have before been abandoned on account of this unavoidable creeping. As the Albertite is highly prized as a means of enriching coal gas, it is desirable to send it to market in a state of purity. It is therefore, carefully washed at the mine in long sluices to free it from a slight accidental contamination of pyrites and shale. The stoping of this very brittle mineral is effected with less labor than that of any other substance procured by mining. At times no tool is needed to dislodge it, but the fragile solid breaks up of itself when a barrier is removed, and flows out with an inconvenient rush. Mr. Wm. Blacker, the agent, and Mr. Byers, the mining engineer, were very kind in their attentions, giving us full opportunity to see all that our between tides visit would allow, and fully explaining the nature and working of the mine.

We left the railroad again at Maccan and went by stage to the Goggins. At the Goggins mine a seam of coal about five feet thick and inclined at an angle of about 35° is worked very systematically by "back balances. " The pillar and stall method is carried out in such a way that the roof is allowed to fall in, after almost all the coal in each panel has been hoisted to the surface. The strata among which the coal occurs are wonderfully rich in large and well preserved fossils. The high, precipitious bluff, extending many miles along the shore of the Bay of Fundy, shows a complete section of the tilted coal measures several thousand feet thick. There is here a chance to study every leaf of a huge geological book. The special features of this region were carefully explained to us by Mr. B. B. Barnhill, a former student of our Institute.

Going on to Londonderry we spent a day at the Acadia Iron Works and the mine two miles distant. The whole property is now owned by the Canada Steel Co., Limited. The iron belt extends some thirty miles east and west in the Cobequid range. The ore is chiefly limonite, occurring promiscuously, mixed with ankerite and siderite, in irregular veins and pockets nearly vertical. The limonite, which is in various states of aggregation, is probably the result of the slow oxidation and hydration