162 
Notices of BooJcs. [no. 3, new series, 
the beds, that it is impossible to extract the former without breaking still larger 
quantities of the latter also. In order, therefore, to obtain a supply for their 
furnaces, as well as to allow the miner the free use of his tools, large excavations 
are made, and a selection of ores, as far as practicable, is made under ground, and 
that which is too refi*actory for use is heaped up within the mine, to such an extent 
as scarcely to allow sufficient convenience for the exit of the miner, and the re- 
moval of the ore. The ordinary mode of extraction, is in bags of skin, tied to the 
person of the labourer, who crawls, when possible, on all fours, dragging the bag 
after him over the rough floor of the opening. But in many places the opening 
is too strait even for tbis, permitting passage only in a prostrate position, the suf- 
ferer propelling himself by writhing, and by tke aid of his elbows on the sides 
and of his toes on the floor of the hole. In one mine, indeed, the opening is so 
small, except in the part wrought under the Goorkha rule, that we found children 
of only from 10 to 14 years old employed in the difficult and dangerous task of re- 
opening a communication through fallen rubbish in a gallery of which the sides 
were broken down." 
M. Hasskarl, Superintendent of the Botanical Garden at Bui- 
tenzorg, and the successful introducer of the Cinchona into Java has 
been compelled to return to Europe for the recovery of his health. 
But before his departure he had commenced two works descriptive 
of the Flora of Java, one entitled, — 
Retzia sive ohservationes hotanicce quas de plantis Horti Botanici 
Bogoriensis amiis 1855-56 fecit J. K. Hasskarl : and the other, — 
Observationes Botanic^ de Filicibus Horti Bogoriensis et 
ad montem Gedeh sponte sua crescentibus, Sfc. 
It is stated however that it is his intention now to embody all his 
observations in a single work to be entitled Hortus Bogoriensis 
Descriptus with notices or descriptions of about 600 species, -^Keiv 
Misc. IX. 196. 
Miscellaneous Notices. 
Among the new works upon Eastern subjects that have made 
their appearance within the last year or bo, The Kingdom and 
People of Siam, with a narrative of the mission to that country in 
1855, by Sir J. Bowring, F. R. S., H. M. Plenipotentiary in 
China, 2 vols. 8vo. 326, stands pre-eminent perhaps for interest and 
utility in a commercial and political point of view. At the same time 
it is gratifying to find that India has made some important contribu- 
tions. The personal narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecccf, 
