1854.] 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



21 



Geological Maj) of a portion of 'Western Canada* 



We are most reluctantly compelled to issue a considerable quantity 

 of the August number of this journal with uncoloured geological JIaps 

 and sections illustrating Mr. Logan's valuable paper on the Physical 

 Structure of the Western District of Upper Canada. Notwithstanding 

 every effort made to ensure and expedite the rather tedious process of 

 carefully colouring many hundi-ed Maps with not less than fourteen 

 different tints, we have been disappointed in procuring the requisite 

 number. We have preferred, however, to publish the full complement 

 of our present issue, rather than disappoint by delay a considerable 

 proportion of the members of the Institute, as well as Subscribers to 

 the Journal. This determination has been less reluctantly adopted on 

 account of the expressed intention of the Council to furnish all those 

 gentlemen whose names are now upon the books of the Institute, with 

 a coloiired copy of Mr. Logan's Map, as soon as they are completed. 



Miscellanea, 



Gold Mininfj in England — Extraction of Sulphur — Aye of Man on the 

 Earth — Sewage Manure — Electric Colour Company — Crystal Palace 

 — Wheeling Suspension Bridge — Trade Museum in London — Wisconsin 

 Lead — Longitude of Cambridge — New Planet — Moon's Surface — 

 Specula of Telescopes — Columbiades — Iron Furnaces in Great Britai7i 

 — Revemce, Expenditure^ and Commerce of Great Britain — Cotton from 

 India — Casualties at Sea — Egyptian Railroad — Madame Sontag — 

 Canadian Exports to Oswego. 



Gold Mining in England is a failure. The auriferous gossan of the 

 Poltimore appears to be already practically exhausted. Strong 

 suspicions of " Salting" the specimens upon which the examinations 

 were made and reports founded, are expressed. The gold Mining 

 share market (England) is in a very depressed condition. A general 

 want of confidence exists in all Quartz Slining Gold Companies. This 

 feeling extends both to California and Australia. 



Several Companies have been formed in England for the extraction 

 of Sulphur from various Minerals. This is a consequence of the 

 eccentric manoeuvre of the King of the Two Sicilies, who declared 

 Sulphur one of the articles contraband of war, — and hence prohibited 

 its exportation from his dominions, much to the discomfiture of a vast 

 multitude of chemical and other manufacturers in England. The 

 annu.al consumption in Great Britain and Ireland, amounts to 

 60,000 tons, which at £5 a ton, equals £300,000 a year. It appears, 

 however, that owing to the remonstrances of her Majesty's Minister at 

 the Court of Naples, the King has removed the prohibition regarding 

 the export of Sulphur, which is only considered contraband of war 

 according to cii-cumstances, and the port to which it may be conveyed ; 

 and that when sent out in its native or unmanufactured state, it may 

 'be presumed to be destined for peaceful and not warlike purposes, 

 especially when shipped to a mercantile port — all vessels being allowed 

 to convey it, with the exception of native bottoms. 



The Mining .lournal says that the volcanic Sulphur, which wo have 

 hitherto obtained from Sicily, owing to its freedom from impurities, 

 has been of great importance to us in several of our manufanufac- 

 for many purposes. Were we to avail ourselves of the re.^'ourees 

 ■wo possess at home, in a great measure we should be independent of 

 the supply derived from foreign sources. 



It is with considerable satisfaction we sec that the question has 

 already excited some interest among many influential people connected 

 with our home mines. A company has Ijeen formed at Conway for 

 working the Sulphur in that district, which, it is stated, is nearly free 

 from any deleterious mixture. Several other associati(?ns are in 

 course of formation for tlie same purpose. Mines in Wales which are 

 not profitable for copper would, if workeil for sulphur, become Jiay- 

 ing ; and tlie refuse which is t!)rown away in Cornwall might be like- 

 wise rendered available. In several of the States of Germany, where 

 mining operations are carried on by a very simple process, a compara- 

 tively pure Suli)hur is obtained from the mundicy ores there produced. 



In an essay just published. Dr. Usher, an American geologist, un- 

 hesitatingly pronounces on the age of man on the surface of the earth, 

 from remains, foand more especially in America. Speaking of the 

 remains of a single human being found on the banks of the Mississippi, 

 at a depth of 10 feet in the soil, ho saj-s. from this it appears that the 

 human race existed in the d.'lta of the Mississippi more than 57,000 

 years ago. 



Prof. White, agricultural chemist, and Mr. Henry Stotbcrt, patentee, 

 of the Sewage Deodorising ami Patent Manure Company, have had an 

 interview with Viscount I'almerston, for the purpose of submitting to 

 his Lordship specimens of oats and barley grown upon clean sand, and 

 cultivated by means of pellucid sewage water. 



The Electric Power, Light and Colour Company, arc advertising 

 their Colours and state that they are prepared to supply the tra<le with 

 Co'.ours unequalled in qu.alitj' and lowness of price. A notice of this 

 important manufacture will be found in the 1st vol. of the Canadian 

 Journal. 



Twenty thousand three himdred and seventy Season Tickets of 

 the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, have been sold up to July 7lh. 



A Boston journal says, that the original cost of the Wheeling Sus- 

 pension Bridge, which was blown down in a heavy gale some weeks 

 since, was $170,000, and the damage occasioned by its recent fall was 

 about .$100, 000. The towers from which it was suspen ed rise 153i 

 feet above the low water level of the Ohio River on the Wheeling side" 

 and 1 32 J ft. high on Zane's Island. The Bridge flooring in the centre 

 of the river was 93 feet above low-water mark — or so low that in times of 

 great freshets some of the i-iver steamers, with their tall chimneys, 

 were unable to pass beneath it. The bridge was suspended from ten 

 cables, each composed of 050 strands of No. 10 wire, and two smaller 

 cables of 140 strands each. The cables were 1380 feet long from 

 anchor to anchor, and were estimated, by Mr. EUett, the builder, to 

 be capable of supporting a weight of 297 tons, equal to -1000 men. 

 The length of the span was gi'eater than any other suspension bridge 

 in the world. 



The Council of the Society c f Arts have determined to organize a 

 Trade Museum. Her JIajesty's Commissioners of the Great Exliibition 

 of 1851, have agreed to co-operate most cordially with the Council 

 of the Society of Arts, and to contribute annually out of their surplus 

 funds in aid of a simultaneous collection of materials for the several 

 branches of the proposed Trade Museum. The Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion at Washington has undertaken the general agency for the United 

 States, and it is said that promises of assistance have been received 

 from influential parties in the British Pi'oviuces. In an article on this 

 important subject, the Mining Journal gives the names of gentlemen 

 in England, Europe and India, whose active co-operation has been 

 solicited or tendered. We should like to know how far and by whom 

 Canada is represented in this undertaking. 



In the same paper we find that irrespective altogether of the intended 

 Trade Museum, the Society opened, in St. ilartin's Hall, on the even- 

 ing of Tuesday, the 4th July, their Educational Exhibition of Appara- 

 tus and School Literature, contributed by nearly 400 exhibitors. A 

 numerous body of its members assembled for the special purpose of 

 meeting Prince Albert, the president of the society. The exhibition is 

 now open to the public ; several commissioners have been appointed 

 by Foreign Governments to visit, inspect it, and report on its resulLs. 

 The visitor will find it exclusively devoted to educational ixdvnnce- 

 ment, and althougli to a certain extent experimental, and the arrange- 

 ments as yet incomplete, it must prove pre-eminently useful in cen- 

 tralizing for public inspection the evidences and examples of all the 

 most approved systems, for the benefit of all engaged or interested in 

 educational pursuits. Those who come in the hope of such attractions 

 as dazzle by the glare of their splendour at Sydenham, will be disap- 

 pointed ; the design, the arrangements and the disjday are purely 

 utilitarian, the avowed object being the improved coudition of the 

 people. 



During the past 12 years, the quantity of lead produced from the 

 Wisconsin Lead region alone was 7, 103, 448 pigs, weighing 497. 241. 3t;i) 

 lbs., and realizing Sl<).(;.j7,9H0. The vearlv returns liavovjiried from 

 425,814 pigs to 778,498, or from 28,l!03,9tii) Ihs. to 04,494,802 His. 



At a late meeting of the Astronomical Society, Professor Challis 

 read a paper on " the Determination of the Longitude of Canibridpc, 

 from observations by Galvanic signals, it was stated that the result 

 was obtained from 281 signals, which gave the final determination of 

 the longitude of Cambridge OUscpvatory at 22-°il9 cast. This detcr- 

 mluation is 0'°85 less than that ,which bnd becu usod. and upon which 



