AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 553 



fruits SO freely that Peon and Cooly and African shall find in it a longer, 

 higher, happier life than they knew in Africa, China or Peru. 



But every new and great movement, in the development and use of a 

 metal passes through its speculative and experimental phases. Iron, cop- 

 per, lead and zinc have all had their impulses and reactions before their 

 production and use became permanently established. 



Silently but surely the zinc white of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania 

 mines has made its way into the market for white paints, at home and 

 abroad. During the past year these mines yielded about seven thousand 

 tons, which was about ten per cent, of the white paint consumed in the 

 United States. London is a market for a portion of this article ; and the 

 ores are profitably exported to Belgium. 



In 1854 the white paint applied to ships and boats in the United States 

 exceeded the total consumption of the same article in Great Britain. 



As a substitute for lead the zinc white must depend mainly on its being 

 better and cheaper. The mere fact, that zinc is harmless while the lead 

 poison cuts off one-fourth of the life-time of all who are employed in paint- 

 ing, might be expected to aid the change ; it might be said, rather plausi- 

 bly, that painting with lead is a cruel business, worse than building a Pan- 

 ama railroad, because the thousands poisoned to death in that work pro- 

 vided a safe passage for ti'avelers in all future time ; worse than the sale 

 of intoxicating drinks, because wine does make glad the heart of man 

 before it biteth like a serpent ; but, this reasoning would be ineffectual, 

 because the poison of the lead is invisible and operates silently. Laboring 

 men cannot be brought to think about a tax on their earnings or their 

 health, if it only operates indirectly and leaves them the power to get along. 

 If laboring men should take a turn for such thinking they would become 

 troublesome to the committee of ways and means, and to the iron masters 

 of Pennsylvania. 



With nineteen-twentieths of the coal field of the whole earth, with the 

 zinc mines of Europe beginning to fail and ours just coming to the light, 

 and with a call for the products of these mines, which is advancing the 

 price, we cannot fail to be large exporters of the cheapest as well as the 

 dearest of the soft metals — zinc and gold — metals from the north, as well 

 as cotton and rice from the South, will swell that commerce which is giving 

 peace to the nations and prosperity to individuals. 



Mr. Seeley. — The menton of the name of Paracelsus suggests the import- 

 ance of the labors which he and the alchymists performed. To them is 

 due the discovery of most of the metals ; but their methods of investigation 

 were so crude, that if oi-ide were known in their day, it would have passed 

 as gold. Calamine is a silicate of zinc. It becomes magnetic when 

 heated. Zinc, when heated to oOC^, becomes malleable ; at 400'', it is 

 brittle ; at 500'^' it is still more brittle than when cold ; heated still more, 

 it vaporizes at 700^. The vapor is both very light and very heavy. In a 

 brass foundry the place is all filled with vapor which is oxyd of zinc. If 

 no air were present, the vapor would be metallic zinc. The Belgian appar- 



