298 Notices respecting New Books. 



mining. It is a collection of papers or treatises contributed by dif- 

 ferent writers ; and if continued, as we presume it is intended it 

 should be, and the matter selected with judgement, it may form a 

 valuable record of many interesting facts and observations, which 

 must be constantly occurring, but which pass unnoticed, and are 

 buried with those who witness them, for want of a place to register 

 them for general use and advantage. 



The first paper is by the Editor, and is a proposal for establishing 

 a School of Mines in Cornwall, with suitable Professors for teaching 

 the sciences necessary to those who conduct the practical details. 

 It is rather surprising that in this educating age, and in a country 

 where Mechanics' Institutes flourish so much, nothing should ever 

 have been done for those who seem most to require this kind of 

 assistance ; while institutions for this purpose have long ago been 

 thought to be essential in other countries. 



Two treatises by J. H. Vivian, Esq. F.R.S. follow. The first relates 

 to the celebrated process of amalgamating silver ores practised at 

 Freyberg, in Saxony ; and the second, to the modes of smelting sil- 

 ver ores in difierent parts of Germany. These papers are stated by 

 the author to be intended to assist such of his countrymen as may 

 be engaged in the mines of America, to whom they will be ex- 

 tremely interesting, and particularly the latter. The defects of the 

 methods at present in use in Mexico for the reduction of the ores 

 are becoming daily more apparent, and the necessity of improve- 

 ment is more and more obvious. There is no practical experience 

 on this subject in England ; and although a difiicult art cannot be 

 taught in a treatise of this kind, yet Mr. Vivian has conferred a 

 great benefit on those who are interested in the subject, by a con- 

 cise and luminous account of such processes as are most in esteem 

 in the countries where much attention has been given to this branch 

 of metallurgy. The paper is illustrated by engravings of a very 

 judicious selection of furnaces and apparatus best adapted for 

 the purpose. 



The next paper, by the Editor, describes the arrangements of 

 pumps now employed in the largest English mines, and particularly 

 points out the use of that construction which, in Cornwall, has ob- 

 tained the name o( plunger. This is in fact a forcing pump, in which 

 the column of water is made to ascend by the descent of a solid 

 cylinder, working through a stuffing-box into an appropriate barrel 

 or case. The advantages of this arrangement are pointed out ; and 

 the importance of perfect hydraulic machinery is very evident, 

 when the quantity of water and the depths from which it is to be 

 raised are such as the author mentions in this treatise. 



The next paper is also by Mr. Taylor, and relates to a subject 

 very interesting to all engineers, and one on which some controversy 

 has taken place ; — the duty of steam-engines, and the amount of 

 improvement which has at various times taken place in these most 

 important machines. 



This improvement has of late been stated to be so rapid in some 

 of the engines employed in the mines in Cornwall, that it has oc- 

 casioned 



