anoe of evidence appears to show tliat the 

 demand for copper has been exceptional, 

 and it can hardly be hoped that its price 

 will continue quite as high as it is at 

 present. With regard to tin, the in- 

 crease in price has been more remark- 

 able, and there are strong reasons to 

 hope that the increase has come to staj'. 

 This is a subject of the greatest import- 

 ance to Tasmania; it callfi for a care- 

 ful analysis by experts, rather than the 

 passing attention that it is here possible 

 To bestow upon it. The physical proper- 

 ties of tin are remarkable. Its intrin- 

 vic A'alue is great on its own merits, 

 which is more than can be said for sil- 

 ver. Tin, as an alloy with copper to 

 produce gun metal, and tin for solder- 

 ing, has to be purchased, practically re- 

 gardless of price, as there is no available 

 substitute. With reference to the t&- 

 inarkable properties of tin when alloyed 

 with copper, experiments have recently 

 been made in which these metals have 

 been combined in varying proportions 

 to re-discover the truth or otherwise of 

 the tradition that the bronze tools if 

 the ancients could cut stone as readily 

 as steel, with the result that alloys have 

 been produced from tin and copper 

 A\liich are as hard as steel. They are, 

 I'owever, very brittle, and too expensive 

 to be commercially useful. The great- 

 est demand tor tin is for the coating of 

 thin steel plates so largely used for en- 

 closing pre^served foods, jams, etc. Al- 

 ', iiough the present high price of tin has 

 brought about the establishment of works 

 for saving the tin from scrap and from 

 okl pans and other receptacle.?, this re- 

 covery is very limited, and it is obvi- 

 vns that much of the tin put on the 

 inarket gets dissipated and lost for evei. 

 Tin, therefore, differs from other metals 

 in the extent to which it is worked up 

 again to keep Tip the supply of the 

 world. Tasmania is fortunate in hav- 

 ing large deposits of tin, both in the 

 original rock matrix and in alluvial de- 

 posits. The methods of recovering tin 

 at sm.all cost have been wonderfully de- 

 veloped. Hydraulic dredging has now 

 been brought to such a stage of perfec- 

 tion that tin-mining in Tasmania, at 

 present prices, must go up by leaps and 

 bounds, and continue for generations. 

 One of the reasons given to account for 

 greater supplies of tin not being forth- 

 coming from the Straits is that the 

 supply of Chinese and similar labour is 

 not as easily procured as formerly. It is 

 said that the mortality exceeds 50 per 

 cent, when it is attempted to open up 

 bush land in Banca and Billiton, simi- 

 lar in character to the land here^tofore 

 productive of tin. With reference to 

 gold-mining, the erection by the Tas- 

 mania Gold-mining Company of two 

 sets of pumping plant equal to the 

 largeet in rhe world deserves special 



mention. This plant will make it pos- 

 sible to follow the reef of the Tas- 

 mania mine to a depth of probably 

 2,OQ0ft. Although improvements in de- 

 tail Lave been effected in the methods 

 hitherto known for extracting metals, 

 no new process of importance appears to 

 have been discovered in 1905-6. The 

 West Coast of Tasmania is reaping great 

 benefits from the operation of smelters 

 Tinder a system in which the sulphur n 

 low-grade ores is made to act as fuel to 

 facilitate their reduction. By the adop- 

 tion of this system on a large commer- 

 cial scale, vast quantities of low-grade 

 ore, too poor to pay for transport out- 

 side Tasmania, can now produce rich 

 returns. It is reported in America that 

 by very high temperatures obtained 

 electrically: gold, copper, and silver 

 have been distilled; that is to say, boil- 

 ed off in vapour, and the vapour re-con- 

 densed into liquid metal. This achieve- 

 ment may open a way to. separate cer- 

 tain complex ores, which have defied 

 all previous efforts. 



The adaptation of the steam tur- 

 bine for marine propulsion has made 

 enormous strides in the last year. 

 Tasmania is closely connected with 

 this development, inasmuch as the 

 steamer Loongana, built for the Tas- 

 manian trade, was the first turbine 

 steamer to cross the eciuator, and her 

 voyage out from Glasgow to Australia, 

 with one stop, at the high speed of 15 

 knots, and her subsequent performancps 

 have done moie than any other achieve- 

 ment to silence the strong bodj' of con- 

 servative engineers and owners of 

 special machinery for constructing re- 

 ciprocating engines, who have been pro- 

 claiming that the turbine is an experi- 

 ment, and a wasteful application of 

 coal. At low and moderate speeds, 



that is to say, at speeds below 14 knots 

 the turbine at present does waste coal; 

 but as the speed increases, the relative 

 mechanical efficiency of the turbine in- 

 creases in comparison with the efficiency 

 of the reciprocating engine. It appears 

 to me that this remarkable advantage of 

 the turbine may be largely accounted for 

 by the fact that in a turbine the back 

 tiirust of the screw propeller is nearly 

 balanced by the forward thrust of the 

 steam against the blades of the rotrt- 

 ing rings, and consequently the extrava- 

 gant internal friction of the reciprocat- 

 ing cjigine, which becomes enormous at 

 high speed, is absent in a turbine- 

 driven steamer. There has been a 

 phenomenal development in the manu- 

 facture of gas and oil engines. This is 

 so pronounced that factories in this 

 line have been working day and night 

 in England to meet their orders. Verv 

 simple appliances have been developed, 

 by which a gas engine makes its own gas 

 from coal or charcoal. This system has 



