18 



ANGLICAN CHURCH. 



ANTIMONY-MINES IN MEXICO. 



financial reports showed that a steady decrease 

 in the receipts from various sources had been 

 going on for several years past, the amount re- 

 ceived under the head of assessment having 

 fallen from 124,424 in 1876 to 108,272 in 

 1879, and the receipts from all sources from 

 212,095 to 165,007. The attention of the 

 Synod was given to the discussion of the rela- 

 tions of the Divinity School in Trinity College 

 with the Synod, of the status of proprietary 

 churches, the formation of a General Church 

 Committee, the claims of the minor incum- 

 bents and curates, the increasing expenditure 

 of the representative body, the consecration 

 of church-building, and primary education. 



The Provincial Synod of the Episcopal 

 Church in Canada was held in Montreal in 

 September. The Synod decided that the name 

 of the Church should hereafter be " The Church 

 of England in Canada " ; that a Board of For- 

 eign Missions should be formed for the collec- 

 tion of money for missions to the heathen 

 abroad, and a Board of Domestic Missions for 

 work in British America, particularly in the 

 diocese of Algoma; and that persons might be 

 admitted to the diaconate, but not to the priest- 

 hood, without surrendering their worldly call- 

 ings. 



The fifth Synod of the Diocese of Sydney met 

 in Sydney, New South Wales, June 22d. Bish- 

 op Barker, in his opening address, mentioned 

 as important topics affecting the interests of 

 the Church, the Public Instruction Act of 1880, 

 and the Church and school land revenues, 

 an act concerning which was pending before 

 the Colonial Parliament. He urged the clergy 

 to avail themselves of the opportunities for 

 imparting religious instruction in the public 

 schools. A resolution was proposed reciting 

 that the Church had not the influence in the 

 colony to which it should, by its numbers and 

 position, be entitled, and advising the members 

 to take a more active interest in politics. After 

 considerable debate, it received the vote of a 

 large majority of the clergy, but was defeat- 

 ed by the negative vote of the laity. The in- 

 come of the Church Society for the year had 

 been 14,000. The Society granted stipends 

 to thirty-eight clergymen and eight catechists. 



The triennial meeting of the General Synod 

 of New Zealand, was held at Christchurch in 

 April, and was attended by seven bishops, 

 twenty clergy, and twenty-three lay represent- 

 atives. The Primate suggested that a revision 

 of the wording of the constitution of the Syn- 

 od was needed to adapt the instrument to the 

 changes which had taken place in the circum- 

 stances of the colonies since it was framed, 

 and a motion providing for a revision was 

 mnde, but not acted upon. The principal sub- 

 jects considered by the Synod were the con- 

 solidation of the parochial system, and clerical 

 education. The Board of Theological Studies 

 provided a uniform standard of education for 

 all the dioceses. It was resolved not to attempt 

 to establish a central theological college, but to 



found exhibitions which might be held in New 

 Zealand or elsewhere. The arrangements for 

 the selection of hymns and the musical parts 

 of the service were declared to be under the 

 control of the clergymen, not of the vestry. 

 Favorable accounts were given of religious work 

 among the Maories, and in the islands. 



ANTIMONY-MINES IN MEXICO. The an- 

 timony of commerce has hitherto been derived 

 almost exclusively from the sulphide-ore called 

 stibnite, or gray antimony. In this state the 

 metal is distributed very widely over the globe, 

 though it is found nowhere in large deposits. 

 It is mined in Hungary and different parts of 

 Europe, and is found in California and Nevada ; 

 but the principal source of the supply is Borneo, 

 whence it is shipped in ballast to the English 

 smelters. The cost of the purified metal is quite 

 high, being as great as that of tin and copper, 

 and about four times that of lead. Its high 

 price is owing not only to the comparative in- 

 frequency of the ores, but to the difficulty of 

 reducing the sulphide, in which the antimony 

 is usually associated with various troublesome 

 mineral impurities, which impede and compli- 

 cate the process of extraction. The reduction 

 of the sulphide is a long process. The sulphide 

 is first separated from the gangue by fusion, 

 and then reduced to an oxide b} roasting in a 

 reverberatory furnace ; and from the oxide the 

 metallic antimony is obtained by fusion with 

 charcoal saturated with a solution of carbonate 

 of sodium. 



Extensive mines of the oxide of antimony 

 have recently been discovered in Sonora, Mex- 

 ico, in the district of Altar. The attention of 

 metallurgists was called to these deposits in 

 1879 by the discoverer, E. T. Cox, of Arizona. 

 A company of capitalists from Boston was soon 

 formed who secured nine claims of the dimen- 

 sions allowed in Mexico, 2,624 by 656 feet, in- 

 cluding all the outcropping lodes. The geologi- 

 cal character of the country where this valuable 

 discovery was made is identical with that of 

 southern Arizona. The mountains are in short, 

 narrow ranges, running mostly in a north-and- 

 south direction. Some of the summits are ir- 

 regular and rugged, and some are smooth, round 

 cones, owing to the different degrees of erosion 

 in the different materials of their masses. Be- 

 tween the parallel ranges is table land or mesa, 

 formed of the eroded material. The peaks are 

 porphyry, quartzites, basalt, diorites, and tra- 

 chytes, the principal mass of the mountain- 

 chains granite, the sedimentary rock on their 

 flanks a sub-carboniferous limestone, in which 

 the fossil remains have been effaced by igneous 

 action. The debris which forms the mesa is so 

 loose that the rain sinks through it, leaving the 

 surface always dry and arid. In the immediate 

 neighborhood of the mines only the limestone 

 and quartzite are found. The lodes are from 

 four to twenty feet thick. The ore has been 

 removed to the depth of thirty feet, and the fis- 

 sures are found to be filled from one wall to the 

 other with the solid ore. It is oxide of anti- 



