May 22, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



417 



THE NEW MINING LABORATORY OF 

 THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF 

 TECHNOLOGY. 



Before the era of railroads there was com- 

 paratively little demand for technically educated 

 engineers ; and those who were classed as such 

 were either self-made men, or men who, after 

 a college course, had studied engineering from 

 a special liking for the profession. This 

 process of selection brought forward many of 

 the best engineers the world has ever seen ; 



bent, and therefore follow their classmate's 

 lead. The duty devolving upon the school is 

 consequently to instruct to the best advantage 

 the students of both classes in order that they 

 may meet the world's demand. There is room 

 in the field of discovery and enterprise, not 

 only for the Siemenses, the Bessemers, and the 

 Holleys, but for an arnry of intelligent man- 

 agers of works and their assistants. The 

 student who has it in him to become a Siemens 

 or a Bessemer will educate himself, with the 

 help of a school, or without it maybe ; but the 



Jigging machinery. Dust- 

 Evans table. fan. 



Cornish rolls. Amalgamating pan. California stamp-mill. 



Frue vanner. Amalgamated copper plates. Ball mill amalgamator. 



MILLING-ROOM. 



but the time of preparation for work extended 

 over a period of some six to eight years. The 

 almost incredibly rapid development of the 

 railroad and of manufacturing and mining in- 

 dustries has created, within the past twenty-five 

 years, a demand for engineers which cannot be 

 met by the comparatively slow methods of 

 former years. In response to this demand, 

 schools have sprung up, most of which aim to 

 prepare }'oung men, by a four-years' course, to 

 become engineers. As a natural result, there 

 has been a rush of young men to these schools, 

 in the expectation of finding lucrative positions 

 open to them immediately upon graduation. 



Perhaps one man in four selects a given 

 course because he knows exactly what he 

 wants to do. The other three have no special 



three-fourths of a given class who are to become 

 a most important feature in the success of the 

 works to which they go, must be aided to form 

 a special, bent for themselves. 



The methods pursued in all the engineering 

 courses of the Massachusetts institute of tech- 

 nology for accomplishing the above object are 

 well illustrated in the department of mining- 

 engineering and metallurgy, which has recently 

 enlarged and refitted its laboratories. The 

 plan is to assign the maximum amount of time 

 possible in a four-years' course to the usual 

 mental training for the profession, including 

 the principles of chemistiy, physics, mathe- 

 matics, and modern languages, — all of them 

 subjects best learned at school, — together 

 with an amount of laboratory-work as small 



