1867.] Mineralogy, Mining, and Metallurgy. 547 



tures of coal-gas and atmospheric air. When gas was made to 

 travel through the box in which the lamps were placed, at the rate 

 of 7*3 feet per second, all the lamps exploded — the ordinary Davy 

 first, and the Stephenson last. In the recent experiments of 

 Messrs. Hutchinson and Wilson, at Barnsley, where the coal-gas of 

 the gasworks was used, it has been suspected that some of the 

 results were due to olefiant gas in the explosive mixture employed. 

 This would certainly render explosion more probable ; but all the 

 experiments teach us in an unmistakable manner that, as we have 

 improved the ventilation of our coal mines, we have, by driving the 

 currents of air more rapidly through the ways of a colliery, ren- 

 dered that which was a safety lamp safe no longer, and the attention 

 of the ingenious must be turned to the construction of a lamp which 

 shall resist the action of currents of explosive gases travelling at 

 from seven to ten feet per second. The results of these experiments 

 promise us the production of a modified form of the Stephenson 

 lamp, which will be a real safety lamp. 



The Select Committee on Mining have made their report. They 

 recommend that no boys should be employed in any mine under 

 sixteen years of age, and that the hours of labour should be regu- 

 lated so as to allow the proper time for rest and recreation. 



The truck-system, still prevalent in some parts of the country, 

 is to be repressed. Several new, and in some cases, it would appear, 

 impracticable regulations as to the modes of working collieries are 

 proposed. They also recommend that the present staff of inspec- 

 tors should be increased — a recommendation to which there appears 

 to be a very general objection, unless the system of inspection is 

 extended far beyond what was originally contemplated by the 

 legislature. 



Metallurgy. 



There is not much to report of novelty in any of our Metallur- 

 gical processes during the past quarter. 



The Wilson downward-draught puddling furnace, which is in 

 action at the Bolton Iron and Steel Company's works, is reported of 

 as giving most excellent results. It is said to be producing a ton 

 of puddled blooms to a ton of coal, and that without smoke, and with 

 a minimum waste of metal. Twenty-one hundred weight and a half 

 of pigs per ton of blooms has been reported. Further experiments 

 are, however, necessary to establish this. 



The Metallurgical methods of Messrs. Whelpley and Storer are 

 receiving so much attention in the United States and in Canada, 

 that some notice of them cannot but be interesting to our metallur- 

 gical readers. Dr. Sterry Hunt, F.R.S., of the Canadian Geological 

 Survey, than whom there cannot be a more competent authority, 



