Things not generally Known. 



nated, splitting with great ease horizontally, like many cannel 

 coals, and like them it may be lighted at a candle. In all parts 

 of the bed stigmaria and other fossil plants occur in greater 

 numbers than in most other coals ; their distinct vascular tissue 

 may be easily recognised by a common pocket lens, and 65 of 

 the mass consists of carbon. 



Dr. Redfern considers that all our coals may be arranged in 

 a scale having the Torbane-Hill coal at the top and anthracite 

 at the bottom. Anthracite is almost pure carbon ; Torbane Hill 

 contains less fixed carbon than most other cannels : anthracite 

 is very difficult to ignite, and gives out scarcely any gas ; Tor- 

 bane-Hill burns like a candle, and yields 3000 cubic feet of gas 

 per ton, more than any other known coal, its gas being also of 

 greatly superior illuminating power to any other. The only 

 differences which the Torbane-Hill coal presents from others 

 are differences of degree, not of kind. It differs from other 

 coals in being the best gas-coal, and from other cannels in being 

 the best cannel. 



HOW MALACHITE IS FORMED. 



The rich copper-ore of the Ural, which occurs in veins or 

 masses, amid metamorphic strata associated with igneous rocks, 

 and even in the hollows between the eruptive rocks, is worked 

 in shafts. At the bottom of one of these, 280 feet deep, has 

 been found an enormous irregularly-shaped botryoidal mass of 

 Malachite (Greek malache, mountain-green), sending off strings 

 of green copper-ore. The upper surface of it is about 18 feet 

 long and 9 wide ; and it was estimated to contain 15,000 poods, 

 or half a million pounds, of pure and compact malachite. Sir 

 Roderick Murchison is of opinion that this wonderful subter- 

 raneous incrustation has been produced in the stalagmitic 

 form, during a series of ages, by copper solutions emanating 

 from the surrounding loose and sporous mass, and trickling 

 through it to the lowest cavity upon the subjacent solid rock. 

 Malachite is brought chiefly from one mine in Siberia ; its value 

 as raw material is nearly one-fourth that of the same weight of 

 pure silver, or in a manufactured state three guineas per pound 

 avoirdupois. * 



LUMPS OF GOLD IN SIBERIA. 



The gold mines south of Miask are chiefly remarkable for the 

 large lumps or pepites of gold which are found around the Za- 

 vod of Zarevo-Alexandroisk. Previous to 1841 were discovered 



* The use of malachite in ornamental work is very extensive in Russia. 

 Thus, to the Great Exhibition of 1851 were sent a pair of folding-doors veneered 

 with malachite, 13 feet high, valued at 6000J.; malachite cases and pedestals from 

 1500/. to3000/. a-piece, malachite tables 400/., aud chairs 150/. each. 



