330 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 



on the above subject, in the hope that it may lead to its 

 further discussion and ventilation. 



That the mining schools now in existence in the Colonies 

 have not yet attained to the same degree of efficient teaching 

 as the leading schools of Europe and the United States will, 

 I think, be admitted by most people ; and under existing 

 circumstances, when the po])nlation of our senior Colony 

 only shghtly exceeds one million, it is scarcely to be expected 

 that any one Colony should bear the expense necessarily 

 attached to the efficient maintenance of a first-class School 

 of Mines, with its well-appointed mining laboratory and 

 talented staff of professors. 



At the same time, these schools have done, and are still 

 doing, good work, and could be made more useful by the 

 extension of mining classes and dehvering series of lectures 

 on mining and its allied sciences in the various mining 

 centres outside the localities where the existing schools are 

 situated. 



Of course, a well-appointed mining laboratory would mean 

 the proper equipment of plant whereby parcels of ore of 

 from 500 lbs. to 5 tons could be treated by the various 

 processes of concentration or reduction, and thus be some- 

 thing of a scale of 12 inches to the foot in relation to its 

 commercial treatment. 



A central Federal School of Mines, where more advanced 

 students could complete their studies, or go in for a three or 

 four years' course of thorough practical and theoretical 

 training, is much to be desired ; and if the same school 

 could also be utilised as headquarters for the dissemination 

 of information and instruction in mining and its allied 

 sciences, under whose auspices mining and scientific classes 

 could be conducted in most of our larger mining centres, 

 and yearly examinations held something after the same 

 admirable manner as the May Examinations in connexion 

 with the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, 

 it would at once establish a powerful and efficient medium 

 for scientific instruction, and through its examinations indicate 

 the standard of proficiency attained, whether in the elemen- 

 tary, advanced, or honors stage. 



It may be urged by some that we have not the advantages 

 for the acquisition of practical instruction possessed by some 

 Em'opean mining schools, and that mining and metallurgical 

 operations are far more efficiently practised in Europe than 

 in Australia. 



