1868. | Metallurgy and Mining. 581 
in Natal, and an experienced English geologist is to be sent to the 
colony to report on it. The gold-fields on the Limpopo river are 
exciting much attention. 
Mr. Bauerman and Dr. Le Neve Foster, who went to Egypt to 
explore the mountain-range of Sinai and some part of the coasts 
of the Red Sea, for the Viceroy of Egypt, have returned to England. 
Their report will contain much valuable information. The latter 
gentleman has started for Venezuela—he heads an expedition to 
explore the new gold-fields of the Orinoco. 
We have before us a return of the production of coal in 1867 
from the Sarrebruck coal-basin :— 
8,171,125 metrical tons (of 2,204 lbs. 10 ounces) of coal were 
raised, which was a slight advance upon the production of 1866. 
Of this quantity France took 971,695 tons, Prussia 453,685, the 
Zollverein 641,754 tons, and Switzerland 108,659 tons. 
The coal-production of the Calais coal-field is stated to have 
been nearly 2,000,000 tons last year, this quantity having been 
obtained from seventeen collieries. Of these five only are of any 
importance: Lens produced 400,000 tons, and Counieres, Neeux, 
Grenay, and Dourgis about 100,000 tons each annually. The 
price of this coal at the pits is maintained at from 15s. to 17s. the 
ton. It is mainly used to supply seventy-six sugar-mills, twenty- 
two distilleries, and eighteen flax and silk mills. 
Within the bounds of the great commercial union of Germany,— 
the Zollverein,—there are at the present time no less than 198 mines 
producing the precious metals. The gold and silver ore weighed 
during the year amounted to 641,000 cwt. In Saxony alone there 
were 176 mines, producing 598,546 cwt. of silver ore. The mines 
of Prussia gave 30,090 cwt. of ore, those of Bavaria 2,850 cwt., and 
those of Anhault 17,515 ewt. The auriferous ores extracted were 
valued at 21,2687. The argentiferous ores were far more abundant ; 
they were smelted at thirteen furnaces, and yielded 157,084 lbs. of 
silver. 
Coal in Russia.—lt is to be regretted that journals professing 
to chronicle the progress of science, should allow themselves to be 
made the medium for conveying to the public, as established facts, 
the speculations of adventurers. We find in ‘ Les Mondes’ a para- 
graph to this effect—* Contrary to the previsions of that celebrated 
geologist Murchison, the country is rich in deposits of coal.” It 
then gives a list of places where, it is implied, coal exists in abund- 
ance. Now every one of the places named have been long known 
to contain coal, and in some of the districts there is a wide spread 
of coal-measures; but the coal is insignificant in quantity, and 
many of the carboniferous measures are destitute of true coal. This 
statement, so hastily copied by ‘ Les Mondes,’ has its origin in the 
circumstance that the little coal-field of Donetz has been brought 
