MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47 



marble would multiply and diffuse the masterpieces of sculpture, 

 and adorn our public buildings, gardens, and parks. Bas-reliefs, 

 cameos, cornices, columns, pillars, etc., might be produced at 

 comparatively cheap prices. Should the liquid be of a kind to 

 permit its application to outside or inside walls, like plaster, then 

 we could cover our brick and stone houses with white or colored 

 flint-marble fronts, and our churches, halls, theatres, parlors, and 

 rooms with glass-like walls and ceilings, colored ad libitum with 

 elegant frescos as durable as the still fresh paintings at ller- 

 culaneuni and Pompeii; while the floors could be inlaid with 

 beautifully colored stones in mosaic st} T le. 



Another important application for such a liquid would be the one 

 to render wood non-inflammable, rot and water-proof. By making 

 wood non-inflammable, we should greatly diminish the clanger to 

 which most of our old and new buildings are now exposed. 

 This could easily be effected, and with not much cost, by im- 

 pregnating the wood with a properly prepared solution of "flint ; 

 for, if once the pores of the wood, which by their capillary action 

 cause the communication, of the fire to the whole structure, be 

 stopped up by the incombustible and non-conducting silica, the 

 wood becomes non-inflammable, and at the same time proof 

 against \Vater and 'decay. Not less important would be -the partial 

 silicification of railroad-sleepers and cross-ties, house, ship, and 

 bridge timber: they would be stronger and last longer. Tele- 

 graph-poles would, when properly treated, become more durable, 

 and be, in addition, better non-conductors of electricity. What a 

 new field would such a petrifying fluid open to the manufacture 

 of incombustible paints and varnishes ! It might also be mixed 

 with paper pulp, or cheap vegetable or animal fibre, and serve 

 for the manufacture of a variety of useful articles, such as stair- 

 cases, boxes, trunks, soles for boots and shoes, patterns, moulds, 

 handles, parts of machinery, photographic instruments, piano- 

 keys ; and. further, it might be used as a coating for preventing 

 the oxidation of iron or other metals. We must not overlook 

 another important application in the use of the liquid flint, the 

 one for the preservation of old monuments and stone buildings. It 

 might, perhaps, also serve as a medium for the preservation of 

 meat, fruit, vegetables, eggs, etc. The linings of barrels, for 

 oils and other liquids, the coating of tanks, tubs, sulphuric-acid 

 chambers, etc., are other useful applications of this liquid. 



Metallurgy could be very materially benefited by a process 

 whereby quartz could cheaply and speedily be dissolved in water; 

 for we could then take the gold quartz of Nova Scotia, New 

 Hampshire, or Canada, and dissolve the quartz, and obtain all 

 the gold as a precipitate. Of course, as the liquid flint could be 

 used for so many useful purposes, and be sold for a good price, 

 the extraction of the gold would be very cheap, and, so to speak, 

 cost less than nothing, as the extraction price of the gold would 

 be more than paid for by the amount realized from the sale or use 

 of the liquid. 



Omitting the detail of the numerous attempts that have been 

 made since 1823, when Prof. Fuchs, of Munich, Germany, first 



