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XXXIII. Notices respecting New Books. 

 Three Introductory Lectures delivered at theGovernment School of Mines 

 and of Science applied to the Arts; Museum of Practical Geology. 

 X SHORT time ago it became our pleasing duty to direct atten- 

 tion to four introductory discourses delivered at the Govern- 

 ment School of Mines, one by the Director of the Institution, and 

 the others by three of its Professors. A new session brings three 

 other lecturers before us : Mr. Warington Smyth on the Value of an 

 intended Knowledge of Mineralogy and the Process of Mining; 

 Mr. Andrew C. Ramsay on the Science of Geology and its Appli- 

 cations; and Dr. Percy on the Importance of special Scientific Know- 

 ledge to the Practical Metallurgist. The distinct position assumed 

 by each lecturer is maintained with ability, and instances of existing 

 ignorance are plentifully adduced to show the necessity of scientific 

 culture in each respective department. Mr. Smyth commences by 

 clearly defining what mineralogy is, and shows the necessity of cul- 

 tivating the conterminous sciences. No man can be said to S rasp a 

 science unless he knows something of those which lie around it f a 

 map is incomplete without what surveyors call its abutting detail • 

 and to a successful prosecution of mineralogy, some knowledge of 

 geometry, chemistry and natural philosophy, is undoubtedly neces- 

 sary. By examples drawn from the soft sandstones and massive 

 architecture of ancient Egypt, from the marble of Attica and the 

 sculpture of Phidias, and others of a similar nature, the influence of 

 mineral products upon the arts and character of nations is shown • 

 and the iron ores of Britain are pointed at as one great source of her 

 present manufacturing eminence. 



" The mining districts of England, however, are so utterly desti- 

 tute of the means of mineralogical education, whether in schools or 

 suitable collections, that it need be no source of wonder to find the 

 most intelligent miner acquainted only with some two or three of 

 the substances which in the routine of his employment have been 

 brought prominently before him, and often neglecting others from 

 ignorance of their nature, or dangerously confounding things which 

 are totally distinct from each other. It is matter of history, that 

 the copper ores of Cornwall were recognised as useful only at a 

 comparatively late date, the miners having concentrated all their 

 attention upon the tin with which that county was so plentifully 

 supplied. More wonderful does it appear, that even at the com- 

 mencement of the last century, when the yellow ore or pyrites had 

 been long appreciated, the far more valuable redruthite, or sulphide 

 "Copper, was thrown as worthless rubbish over the cliffs of St. Just 

 into the Atlantic ; and Pryce informs us, that many thousand pounds 

 worth of he rich black ore or oxide of copper was washed into the 

 rivers and discharged into the North Sea from the old Pool mine " 

 coned in England when the value of these substances 

 •\i II known in other countries. 

 The lecturer proceeds to recount instances of loss and ruin, the 

 result of ignorance and duplicity, which have come under his own 



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