MACHINERY IX THE TRANSVAAL. 285 



and to any extent the customer demands. It is somewhat gratify- 

 ing- to remember that the very complete electrical transmission 

 installation on the Princess Estate Mine at Roodepoort, which 

 the writer had the privilege of designing in conjunction with the 

 late R. Oliver Drummond, followed by a similar installation at 

 the City and Suburban Company, designed also by Mr. Oliver 

 Drummond, have proved to be the modest forerunners of the 

 gigantic plants now becoming quite common in South Africa. 



From this time forward the development of the Witwatersrand 

 Gold Fields proceeded by leaps and bounds. The comparatively 

 insignificant geared winding engines at the shafts gave place to 

 direct winders of large size and considerable hoisting capacity. 

 The metallurgical chemists had solved in the most satisfactory 

 manner the problems connected with the extraction of the gold 

 from the ore, and results of 87 to 90 per cent, extraction were 

 becoming common, and it may truly be said that the Transvaal 

 Gold Fields had embarked on the prosperous career that has made 

 fhem the wonder of the world. What has been done subsequently 

 is too fresh in our recollection to be recapitulated here, but I 

 trust that these few remarks on the earlier methods and apparatus 

 used for the exploitation of the gold mines in this country may 

 prove of interest. 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION— The 1911 Session of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science will begin at 

 Portsmouth on the 30th August, under the Presidency of Sir 

 William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. The sectional presidents will 

 be as follows : Mathematics and Phvsics, Prof. H. H. Turner ; 

 Chemistry, Prof. J. Walker; Geology, A. Barker, M.A., F.R.S. ; 

 Geography, Col. C. F. Close, R.E. ; Economics and Statistics, 

 Hon. W. 'p. Reeves; Engineering, Prof. J. H. Biles; Anthropo- 

 logy, Dr. W. H. R. Rivers; Physiology, Prof. J. S. Macdonald ; 

 Botany, Prof. F. E. Weiss (Agricultural sub-section, W. 

 Bateson, F.R.S., Chairman); Education, Rt. Rev. J. E. C. 

 Welldon. 



ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH —During the course of his 

 recent Presidential address to the Royal Astronomical Society, Sir 

 David Gill, after presenting Dr. P. H. Cowell with the Society's 

 Gold Medal, took occasion to say that of the three national estab- 

 lishments devoted to the promotion of astronomy and navigation, 

 two, namely, the Royal Observatories at Greenwich and the Cape, 

 were equipped for research in two of the three great sub-divisions 

 of Astronomy — Astrometry and Astrophysics. For the department 

 of Astrodynamics there had been no national provision, and Dr. 

 Cowell had accepted the Superintendentship of the Nautical 

 Almanac Office with the hope of making that the centre of research 

 in Astrodvnamics. 



