460 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec 



passing through the retort might be dispensed with. Twelve 

 grammes, calcined ore from the Wellington Mine, assaying 5.22 

 per cent., were intimately mixed with three grammes of the dry 

 chloride, and heated over a spirit lamp in a common digesting 

 flask for twenty or twenty-five minutes. These experiments 

 resulted as follows : 



I. 



Dissolved by water per cent. 4.76 



Remaining in residue " .59 



In II and III there were respectively extracted 91.18 and 

 95.02 per cent, of the copper contents. The residues contained 

 respectively one-third and one-fourth of one per cent, copper. 

 None of the solutions obtained in these experiments contained 

 any protoxide of iron, but there was abundance of peroxide 

 present. This proves that, although an excess of proto-chloride 

 was used, all of it was decomposed as above explained. Little or 

 none of the perchloride of iron was observed to sublime during 

 the heating. It would therefore seem that, in these experiments, 

 the protoxide of copper was converted into proto-chloride by 

 simply exchanging its oxygen for the chlorine of the perchloride 

 of iron (3 Cu + Fe 2 Cl 3 = 3 Cu CI + Fe 2 3 ). 



Although the calcareous nature of the ores of Acton Mine 

 gave little hope that experiments on them with this process would 

 be successful, I nevertheless tried a few, but never obtained more 

 than one per cent, of copper from an eight per cent. ore. 



Ore of five per cent, from the Albert Mine, near Lennoxville, was 

 next calcined and heated with one-fifth of its weight of chloride, 

 as above described ; 90.2 per cent, of its copper was rendered 

 soluble in water. 



I next returned to experimenting with the slimes from Wel- 

 lington Mine, which had been unsuccessfully treated by calcining 

 them with the chloride in the muffle. They were first calcined, 

 and then leached out with hot water, whereby some sulphate of 

 copper formed in the calcination was removed. After drying 

 they assayed 1.77 per cent. Ten grammes mixed with one gramme 

 of the chloride and heated over the spirit lamp for fifteen minutes 

 gave up 1.33 per cent, of its copper to water, while 0.44 per 

 cent, remained in the residue. The same quantities heated for 

 twenty minutes gave 1.55 per cent, soluble and 0.22 per cent, in 

 the residue. Neither of the solutions contained protoxide of iron, 



