AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 551 



Tlie Hon. Samuel Fowler, Senator in Congress, aware of tiie mineral 

 treasury in Sussex county, had purchased from the heirs of Lord Sterling 

 thousands of acres at and around Sterling Hill. 



Without knowing what was passing in France, Mr. Fowler began, more 

 than thirty years ago, some rude but partially successful experiments to 

 separate the zinc of Sterling Hill from the frankliuite, with which it was 

 combined, and to convert the zinc into paint. His paint resembled the 

 first paint produced in Paris. He applied it to the weather-boards of a 

 coarse building, and twenty years after it was found an effectual protection 

 to the boards. 



In 1844 Mr. Hassler made from the ore of Sterling Hill the zinc for the 

 brass weights and measures, ordered by Congress for the several States, 

 but the cost of separating the zinc showed that the metal could not com- 

 pete with the foreign article. 



While the owners of the mine were perplexed at this result, one of their 

 number suggested to Mr. Gay an experiment, which he made the same day. 



At his office in Nassau street he had a heap of the rod oxyd of zinc. 

 Breaking up a parcel of the ore, he threw it on the top of an anthracite 

 coal fire, in a cylinder stove. When the zinc began to flow from the ore, 

 ho held it over a clean fire-shovel. On withdrawing the shovel he found 

 it coated with a snowy-looking substance, which he brushed off, carried it 

 to a paint shop, and prepared it in oil, and with a clean brush spread it on 

 a shingle, where it dried in a short time, and left a coat of smooth, hard, 

 white paint. This humble experiment was soon wrought out into that 

 ingenious device called '* the bag process," for making white oxyd of zinc 

 directly from the ore. This was ths third invention. 



Of the five stages in the history of zinc, the first and the last — the making 

 of brass, and the making of zinc white — the alloy and the oxyd, directly 

 from the ore, were the most remarkable, and, perhaps, the most important. 

 The accidental production of brass seems to have led to the discovery of 

 the metal. Brass had been long in use, when Paracelsus produced the 

 article, which he said was "a metal and not a metal, and seemed to be 

 composed chiefly of the ashes of copper ;" and for some reason not now 

 apparent he named it " Zincium." 



The zinc product of Europe comes chiefly from the furnaces of the Vieille 

 Montague Company, near Aix la Chapclle, in Belgium, and a large part 

 of it is made into brass at Swansea, in Wales. The ores of other countries 

 are sold in Belgium ; and" the quantity taken from the Belgium mines is 

 comparatively small. The ordinary price of good ore at the furnace is 

 $17 a ton, and the coal used in its reduction costs $7 a ton; and, unless 

 new mines are discovered in Europe, the cost of producing metallic zinc 

 must be increased. The total product of the year 1859 probably exceeded 

 70,000 tons, and the new year opens with an increased demand. 



The early attempts to produce metallic zinc in New Jersey failed for 

 want of a suitable clay for retorts. But an excavation for the railroad from 

 Easton to Philadelphia opened a supply of the very best fire clay, and pre- 



