THE LAST DECADE. 
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Witherite, which has been foiuid in association with metallic sulphites 
in the lower carboniferons rocks. The mineral wealth of Harrogate 
was the subject of a paper at the same meeting by Mr. R. Hayton 
Davis, who had recently made a complete examination of all the 
public sulphur springs. He found that the springs in the cellars 
beneath the Royal Pump Room yielded 240,000 gallons per annum, 
and taking the whole of the wells in the district he found that the 
solid constituents would amount to no less than a hundred tons in a 
year, if separated. If a well be sunk in a part of Harrogate to a 
depth of eighteen or twenty feet under favourable conditions, the 
alluvial deposit will first be penetrated, then perhaps sand, afterwards 
yellow clay, then a blue or almost black clay is reached, after which 
black shiver or shale cross the upper part finely laminated, and which, 
as the excavations proceed, becomes harder and of a more rock-like 
character, almost like slate. The characteristics of the water met 
with in these proceedings would be found as variable as the strata. 
There is first, surface water containing carbonate of iron in solution, 
to a more or less degTee. From the blue clay a weak saline water, 
charged with iron either as carbonate or iu some other combination 
woidd be obtained, and as the excavation continued the water would 
become more saline and less chalybeate. Eventually, strong saline 
water containing only traces of iron would be found, and lower still a 
saline sulphur water would be the result. He considered the Spas 
as a mine only partially explored, and might be regarded as only 
an indication of the mineral wealth of Harrogate. Mr. R. Lloyd 
Whiteley, a student in the Yorkshire College, described analyses of 
the Kissengen Saline Chalybeate water made in 1883, and compared 
them with others done in 1845, 1854, 1867, and 1879, in which he 
found considerable differences. These were attributed to the amount 
of water in the well, and to the relative rate at which the various 
springs were flowing when the analyses was made. 
^ Mr. W. E. Garforth contributed an important paper on the fire- 
damp detector with recent improvements in the miners' safety lamp. 
After describing the lamps invented by Stephenson, Davy, Clanny, 
and others, and stating their points of weakness and the difficulty of 
overcoming them, he proceeded to describe a detector for fire-damp 
