NA TURE 



[June 21, 1894 



Court, in the house recently pulled down and replaced 

 by so many houses and streets that its site is now lost, 

 receives the most scanty attention. Here, too, illustra- 

 tion fails us, which is much to be pitied, because illus- 

 tration in the former part of the book has afforded its 

 chief value. 



There is nothing more painful to a reviewer than to 

 find himself forced to discover faults and deficiencies in a 

 work under his observation, and we have felt severely 

 the task of pointing out the defects and deficiencies of 

 the volume before us. But it would be false, even to the 

 author of the work, if we did not notice its failures, for 

 there is evidently an ardent desire on his part to be not 

 only a faithful, but an enthusiastic biographer. What is 

 wanted in his essay is work ! work ! work ! expurgation 

 of all that is irrelevant, introduction of all that can be 

 added beyond what his been told by predecessors on 

 the subject, with avoidance of the pitfiiUs of mere 

 memory. 



In a new edition, if it should appear, we will hope that 

 the improvements suggested, in a perfectly friendly spirit, 

 will be carried out. The volume as it now stands is a 

 groundwork of a good treatise, which, under the in- 

 fluence of industry', learning, spontaneity, and art, might 

 yet secure a good place in the literature of the century. 



GOLD. 



The Metallurgy of Gold. By T. Kirke Rose, B.Sc. 



(London : Charles Griffin and Co., 1-94) 

 A Handbook of Gold .'ifilliiig. By Henry Louis. 



(London and Xcw York : Macmillan and Co., 1894.) 



THESE tsvo books, which have been issued almost 

 simultaneously, constitute important additions to 

 the metallurgy of gold. They are both written by Associ- 

 ates of the Royal S.hool of Mines, and it is singular that 

 although the students of this great na'ional institution 

 have taken their full share in conducting mining and 

 metallurgical operations in all parts of the world, and 

 have gained wide experience, no treatise claiming to;ji\e 

 a general account of the metallurgy of gold could hitherto 

 have been attributed to a student of the School of Mines. 

 No work on this subject of equal importance has 

 appeared in English since Dr. Percy issued his volume 

 on •' Silver and Gold,"m iSid, bit his book, altliou;,'li 

 unrivalled in accuracy of detail, is only a splendid frag- 

 ment, and gold is alone dealt with in the sections devoted 

 to the refining of bullion and to assaying. 



Mr. Rose, who it appears gained his e.\perience of gold 

 and silver extraction in the Western States of America, 

 is one of the able band of young men of whom Prof. 

 Roberts- Austen is forming, in this country, a new school 

 of metallurgists which is doing so much physical work 

 in connection with metals and alloys. In the present 

 vol ime Mr. Rose ha^ made a successful effort to supply 

 a succinct summary of the existing conditions of the 

 metallurgy of gold for the u»e of students and others 

 who are interested in the industries connected with the 

 precious metals. In the second volome under review, 

 Mr. Louis (urns, it is true, more directly to an industrial 

 application of the metallurgy of gold, and addresses the 

 mill-man rather than the ttudent ; but Mr. Rose's volume 

 NO. I ■286, VCI, 50] 



is far from being only a student's m.inu.\', as he keeps 

 steadily in view the needs of the manairers of the gold 

 mine and smelting works, a class who have hitherto con- 

 sidered that they had "little to learn from books." 



The whole of the ground indicated by the Title 

 '■ metallurgy of gold " has been covered by Mr. Rose 

 with equal care, and the space is carefully apportioned ; 

 the various branches of the subject according to then 

 relative importance. Mr. Rose is probably at his best in 

 dealing with the chemistry of the subject, as, for instance 

 in describing the >Ltc Arthur- Forrest process, which i- 

 now, for the first time, fully de.-\lt with in a manual. !• 

 importance may be gathered from the fact that nearh 

 one-tenth of the world's annual production of gold is now 

 being e.Kiracted by its aid. .Among other processes which 

 have not hitherto been described in a book, three desert 

 special mention. These are the process for separatin 

 gold from silver by the new Gutzkow process ; the electr 

 lytic process ; and the modern barrel chlorination pr> 

 cess, which is practised with great success in Dako: : 

 where the Black Hilh district is being rapidly develop< 

 by its aid. These processes are of special interest, b 

 none which have stood the test of experience have been 

 omitted. The four chapters devoted to chlorination. 

 written from the point of view alike of the practical min 

 and the chemist, teem with considerations hitherto un- 

 recognised, and constitu'.e an addition to the literature of 

 metallurgy, which will prove to be of classical value. 



The author has evidently taken great pains to secure 

 details of gold-working from all parts of the world, and 

 his descriptions range from Colorado to Xe.v Zealand 

 and thence to South Africa, and as a result he has 

 furnished practical men with details of working which 

 should be of much service to them. 



No less than eleven pages are devoted to an elaborate 

 bibliography that is certainly more complete than any 

 earlier ones, the latest of which — in Lock's work on the 

 occurrence of gold — only brought us to the year 18S2. 



The illustrations are simple but eliective ; they are 

 sufficiently accurate, and are characterised by much 

 freshness, there being no time honoured diagrams from 

 other metallurgical manuals. The same may be said of 

 the illustrations in Mr. Louis' work. 



Mr. Louis, in his book on " Gold Milling," has mainly 

 limited his attention to the treatment of gold ores in stamp 

 mills, and has, as the result of much personal experience, 

 written a treatise of great practical value. He gives de- 

 tails of machinery with great fidelity, as a worthy pupil 

 of the late Dr. Percy would be sure to do. While Mr. 

 Louis clearly sets forth the general methods of working 

 adopted in stamp mills, he reserves for full description 

 those which he considers to be the best, instead of giving 

 details of all methods, good, bail, and indilierent, that 

 are to be met with in various parts of the world. 



In a future edition the author would do well to devote 



additional space to considerations relating to the mill site, 



its building, modes of construction, and installation of 



machinery. These are of more importance to the mill 



manager, for whom the work is intended, than the shape 



, of the cam-curve, and other points to which the maker 



j of machinery should attend. The experience gained in 



the South African gold-fields, where the number of 



I stamps at work is greater than in any other country, has 



