Febeuaet 11, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



215 



after a model of a similar institution in 

 Paris, through which most of the radium used 

 in England has hitherto come. 



The Institute of Chemistry is issuing, as 

 we learn from the London Times, the third 

 edition of the " List of Official Chemical Ap- 

 pointments," prepared by its secretary and 

 registrar, Mr. Eichard B. Pileher. The work 

 is intended primarily for the use of profes- 

 sional chemists and those who contemplate 

 making chemistry their profession, but it 

 should prove useful also to those who are in- 

 terested in the applications of chemistry to 

 the purposes of the state and in the promotion 

 of higher education in the science. It is ar- 

 ranged in three divisions. The first gives 

 official appointments in Great Britain and 

 Ireland under the various departments of 

 state, local authorities and public institutions 

 and teaching appointments in the universities, 

 colleges, technological institutions, medical, 

 agricultural and veterinary colleges and pub- 

 lic and secondary schools. The second con- 

 tains similar information for India, Aus- 

 tralia, New Zealand, British South Africa and 

 British colonies and protectorates, with 

 Egypt and the Sudan; while the third gives a 

 concise account of societies and institutions 

 devoted to the advancement of chemical sci- 

 ence and of professional chemical interests. 



The College of Mechanical and Electrical 

 Engineering of the University of North Da- 

 kota has secured additional quarters 170X40 

 feet in which will be located the steam, gas 

 and electrical engineering laboratories and the 

 iron foundry. The new engine room is to 

 have as a part of its equipment a 70 horse 

 power automatic cut-off high speed steam 

 engine, two 25 kilowatt electrical generators, 

 a 12 horse power gasoline engine, and a 55 

 horse power producer gas engine. The new 

 boiler-room will have three 70 horse power fire 

 tubular boilers. These last are of the same 

 make and each will be provided with different 

 type of furnace and different grates. One will 

 be equipped with an automatic mechanical 

 stoker, another with a special combustion 

 chamber, while the third will have the furnace 



usually installed with this type of boiler. The 

 college will undertake to determine the rela- 

 tive efficiency of the different types of furnaces 

 in burning any given fuel and to determine 

 also the relative steaming qualities of different 

 fuels when burned in the three distinct types 

 of furnaces. In the boiler room a 50 horse 

 power suction down-draft gas producer de- 

 signed to handle lignite and soft or bituminous 

 coals. With certain modifications it can be 

 converted into an up-draft gas producer ca- 

 pable of handling anthracite and coke. In se- 

 lecting the power equipment it is the idea of 

 Dean Crouch to install such apparatus and 

 machinery as will enable the college to investi- 

 gate the best ways and means of utilizing 

 North Dakota lignite (in which the state 

 abounds) and of converting the same into 

 power. That the results obtained may have a 

 practical value, the units selected are of suffi- 

 cient size to give fair indications of what may 

 be expected from conunercial plants. The 

 experimental engineering laboratories are sup- 

 plied with various types of electrical genera- 

 tors, motors, transformers, etc., and are 

 equipped for testing all kinds of steam, gas, 

 hydraulic and electrical machinery. The iron 

 foundry is being equipped also with a cupola 

 with a melting capacity of two tons an hour. 



The following data have been compiled by 

 Messrs. Waldemar Lindgren and H. D. Mc- 

 Caskey as a preliminary review of the gold 

 industry in the United States in 1909. Gold 

 mining progressed, on the whole, very satis- 

 factorily in 1909. The year was marked by 

 increasing recovery from the depressed condi- 

 tions of the two years immediately preceding 

 and by general advance in the development of 

 proved mines and districts. Although these 

 improvements resulted in a generally increased 

 production of the base metals, and as a con- 

 sequence augmented the gold output, they did 

 not seriously detract from those gold-mining 

 operations which had benefited during the late 

 panic by the closing of numerous copper, lead 

 and zinc mines and the consequent release of 

 skilled labor for gold mining. Erom the pre- 

 liminary figures of the Director of the Mint, 

 which have just been published, it is estimated 



