1866. | Mining, Mineralogy, and Metallurgy. 597 
as it will not bear abstracting. Professor Shephard, in ‘ Silliman’s 
Journal,’ vol. xl., p. 110, announced the discovery of a new mineral 
Syhedrite, and L. 8. Inglestrom, in the ‘Journal fur Praktische 
Chemie,’ vol. xcvii., writes of Kondro-Arsenite as a new mineral, but 
this requires confirmation. 
METALLURGY. 
Mr. C. Cochrane, of Dudley, has patented a process for separa- 
ting dust from the gases evolved from blast furnaces. This in 
many cases is so great as to considerably interfere with the econo- 
mical application of those gases. Mr. C. Cochrane proposes to 
construct a cylindrical chamber into which the gases pass, entering 
at the upper end, and descending and passing off at the lower end, 
of such chamber. In this chamber are numbers of parallel parti- 
tions, so arranged as to come below the open spaces in the partitions 
above. By passing through those partitions, the gases are filtered 
of the dust they hold suspended. We fear some difficulty may be 
experienced in getting the gases to pass against the action of 
gravity. 
At the present time few things are attracting more attention 
than the use of anthracite in the manufacture of iron. In America 
for a long time this fuel has been employed, but not, as it appears, 
with anything like the economy which has been recently obtained 
by Mr. Samuel Blackwell, of the Yniscedwin iron works, in South 
Wales. For some weeks past the results upon a new blast furnace, 
constructed after many experiments, have been the production of 
1 ton of pig iron with 18 cwt. of coal in the furnace. This is, we 
believe, the greatest economy which has as yet been effected m the 
make of iron, and this anthracite iron is said to possess properties 
which render it peculiarly valuable for steel making. 
Messrs. Vivian and Sons, of the Llandor smelting and alkali 
works, Swansea, appear to have been eminently successful in their 
application of the new furnaces—Gerstenhofer’s patent—for the 
combustion of the sulphur, sublimed from the copper ores, and the 
conversion of it into sulphuric acid. 
If this process is adopted at all the smelting works, Swansea 
will be relieved from the cloud of copper smoke which is ever 
hanging over it, and many thousands a-year will be saved by the 
conversion of the sulphur now wasted into an article which is m 
extensive use in manufactures. 
