500 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



think will answer the purpose. "Whoever invents a reliable amal- 

 gamator will revolutionize the whole system of obtaining gold. 

 The quartz there is universally crushed by stamps, after having 

 been blasted out. This quartz is not a white crystallized sub- 

 stance, but is more like a porous brick. It occurs in parallel 

 vertical veins, from two to ten feet thick, and besides the gold 

 there is a good deal of silver in it. The atmosphere of this 

 region is so dry that a piece of meat which is hung up in the air 

 will dry up, but will not become tainted. 



APPLICATION OF CHEMISTRY TO THE MILITARY ART. 



Mr. Fisher suggested that among other applications of chemis- 

 try various articles had been pnt into a concentrated form, in 

 which they could be more useful to the army. Extracts of tea 

 and coffee had been made for this purpose. 



Mr. Johnson stated that potatos are made into a flour in this 

 city. They are boiled with the skins on, and while hot the skins 

 are. scraped off. Thej are then passed through a sieve, dried, 

 ground into a coarse flour and barreled. 



Prof. Seely. — As I stated at the last meeting, chemistry is doing 

 for the soldier as it has done for other men, administering to his 

 comfort by improving his food and clothing. The invention of 

 gunpowder I consider the great tribute of chemistry to the mili- 

 tary art. Mechanical inventions always precede or follow chem- 

 ical inventions, and are intimately connected with them. It was 

 a mechanic who conceived and perfected the application of gun- 

 powder to the military art. The composition had been known in 

 China centuries before the Christian era, and was in common use 

 for pyrotechnic displays, in celebrating jubilees and for peaceful 

 purposes alone. But it was some centuries after the Christian 

 era before there was a gun, and before the composition could 

 have been called gunpowder. I do notknoAv that we have gained 

 anything in the art of destruction of life by gunpowder or other 

 improvements in war. I fancy that we do not kiil any more men 

 in proportion to numbers in battle, nowa-days, than was done 

 formerly. The only effect of our improvements is to increase the 

 distance between the combatants, who get just so much further off 

 to be as safe as they were before. After gunpowder there are 

 ten thousand little things that the chemist may introduce as 

 improvements in the manufacture of the materials, the iron, steel, 

 copper, brass; and in the modification of the composition of gun- 

 powder itself, in its fineness or in providing substitutes for it for 



