THE INSIZWA COPPER-XICKEL DEPOSITS. I3I 



Chief among the problems is the question of transport. The 

 .-author is very strongly of opinion that the best line of develop- 

 ment will be through the port of St. John's, distant barely loo 

 miles. This magnificent harbour is still in its natural state, no 

 .attempts having been made to maintain a channel through the 

 sand bar at its mouth. It could be made one of the finest 

 harbours in the southern hemisphere, and there seems no 

 reason to doubt that a comparatively small expenditure per 

 annum would keep the channel open to a depth sufficient for 

 present purposes all the year round. After a good freshet tne 

 channel is scoured out to a depth of 40 feet, and close on a 

 year elapses before it shoals again to the usual 10 or 11 feet. 



Rail to D'Urban is the only other course, a distance of over 

 300 miles, the line traversing very hilly country indeed. The 

 St. John's line of 100 miles, running as it does parallel to the 

 great rivers, can be built — and run — at far less cost per mile. 



The problems connected with the separation of copper from 

 nickel have been solved both chemically and electrically, and, 

 though by no mean simple, the methods are capable of com- 

 mercial application, the former method being that most in use. 

 Invented and perfected by Dr. Mond, it has revolutionised the 

 nickel industry and brought into use ores which previously it 

 had not paid to work. All that is needed now is capital and 

 brains, given which there can be little doubt that the prospects 

 .of the Mount Ayliff district are bright. 



STELLAR EVOLUTION. — A paper by Sir Norman 

 "Lockyer, entitled "Sequence of chemical forms in stellar spectra," 

 was read at the meeting of the Royal Society head on the 24th 

 November last. By the use of a calcite-quartz optical train 

 the author obtained a series of photographs of the ultra-violet 

 portions of stellar spectra, which enabled him to check his 

 previous classification of stars on the basis of temperature 

 conditions, and allowed of very much finer detail in the results 

 obtained, as well as greater certainty with regard to the " heat- 

 levels " at which the various chemical forms of the elements 

 predominate. In the hottest stars hydrogen, proto-hydrogen, 

 silicium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur, and the cleveite 

 gases predominate, and the lines of proto-chromium are more 

 .developed in the spectrum of t Ursae Majoris than in the case 

 of any other star hitherto examined. The lecture was illus- 

 trated by a number of diagrams and photographs showing the 

 range of chemical forms which succeed each other in stars of 

 rising temperature. The stars of the Alnitamian group in the 

 Kensington classification have been divided into four species, 

 and the relation of each of these to groups immediately above 

 and below on the stellar temperature curve was diagramati- 

 • cally illustrated. 



