4G0 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Mr. Seeley. — Nitrate of silver is foimd in Egyptian work. Did they 

 understand the photograph ? 



Dr. Deck. — -One thousand seven hundred years before our Saviour, they 

 used an amalgam of mercury and copper, with which, while soft, the most 

 perfect and sharp moulds can be made from inscriptions, &c., and which 

 afterwards becomes very hard. 



Mr. Davison. — The eye piece is the magnifier. This Ross, of London, 

 instrument, cost $350. It magnifies three thousand diameters. There is 

 no one over .3,500. This uses polarized light, and is therefore superior for 

 showing ditferences in minute objects. Spencer makes excellent ones. 



Mr. Nash adverted to the presence of iron in marbles, and to the obser- 

 vation that marble increases in purity and value in proportion to the dis- 

 tance of its quarry from the equator, so that we may look for the very best 

 in the Arctic circle, where Sir John Franklin lies. 



Dr. Deck supposed the quarries on low latitudes were injured by vol- 

 canic action, while those of the high latitudes are sedimentary marbles. 



Prof. Mason. — Our city hall is of good marble. Fifty years finds it 

 untouched. The rear of it, of red sand stone, is failing. We have marble 

 of good quality at Lenox. Here is a piece from the bottom, near the creek, 

 almost equal to the best statuary marble. 



Mr. Stetson. — Have the crystals of it been tried as to strength ? 



Mr. Nash. — We have discovered to-night, that all the mud of our harbor 

 abounds in shell. We need no longer go to Peru for guano ! No need of a 

 quarrel with Peru about that. 



Mr. Everitt. — As to vulcanized India rubber. The microscope shows the 

 sulphur perfectly, and chemical analysis could not do that. 



Mr. Deck. — As to flour, I find clieraistry beat, at least in one case, that 

 of adulteration with beans, for the microscope cannot detect the bean flour, 

 which chemistry can. 



Mr. Pierson, of Toronto, Canaela, described an extensive quarry of free 

 stone white limestone, &c., of his, thirty-three miles from Toronto. He 

 wants capital to work it. A specimen of the stone was before the club. 



Prof. Mason hoped we might prove our material, then build cathedrals, 

 city halls, &c., to stand for future ages so many monuments of our science, 

 showinf that we gloried in the future, as men should do, and not die down 

 like the savage, or the wild animal, leaving no vestige on the earth which 

 we were created to enjoy, to till, to civilize, and be remembered as long as 

 material can survive. I always speak well of Jews ! What an immortal 

 race ! Beginners of great things ! Leaders now in many kingdoms ! Never 

 poor, never idle — more durable than monuments. 



The Chairman. — And never known to beg ! 



Prof. Mason moved that the Secretary ask Prof. Henry, of the Smithso- 

 nian Institution, for such information as he may please to give us relative 

 to materials for building. 



Subjects for next meeting. The committee gave : " The building mate- 

 rials of New York," and " Electrotyping." 



