262 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
Nov., 1891. 
that it costs £4 per ton at Mitchell’s Creek, in the Bathurst 
district, some 100 miles W.N.W. from Svdnev over the Blue 
Mountains, and it would not be likely to be less in price so 
much further inland. As it requires about one ton to reduce 
five of ore, the cost becomes considerable. Limestone is used 
as a flux, which forms a fusible slag with the silica, iron 
oxide and alumina. This important material has just 
(December, 1889) been found at a distance of about thirty- 
six miles from Broken Hill. The chlorides, bromides. &c., of 
silver require a proportion of lead ores, such as the carbonate, 
to be mixed with them, so that the ores in the district are 
mutually useful. 
The rock specimens are simply such as my brother picked 
up at Silverton, and do not, therefore, show anything more 
than the general character of the rocks. You will notice 
that they are schists, gneisses, and granite. 
Although these are the richest of the New South Wales 
Silver and Silver Lead Mines, they are bv no means the only 
ones, and we may probably reckon that the others together 
afford about an equal value of ore. Thus this one colony is 
adding its quota, and that by no means a despicable one, to 
the enormous output of silver which has so reduced the price 
of late years, to the advantage of the photographer and the 
very serious disadvantage of those whose incomes depend on 
the value of the Indian silver rupee. 
fhports uf Sncictics. 
BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY.— General Meeting. September 29th. Mr. T. E. Bolton 
exhibited a rotifer, A splanclinopus myrmeles, from Castlemorton Com¬ 
mon, near Malvern, which was found first at Dundee in 1886 by Mr. 
John Hood. Mr. W. B. Grove, M.A., exhibited a collection of 
fungi obtaiued in the Kingswood excursion on the previous Saturday, 
including Russula Integra , Russula drimeia (very rare), Peziza aurantia , 
Polyporus dryadeus, and P. fumosus. Also, on behalf of Miss Hall, the 
laburnum in leaf, flower, and fruit at the same time, from St. 
Leonards, and Linaria vulgaris , on behalf of Miss McGuire, from the 
same place (sent per Mr. Hughes). Mr. Martineau gave a report of 
the Kingswood excursion, and said fourteen attended, and that 
Leptodora was found in the canal. Mr. C. Pumphrey gave an 
interesting account of a visit he had recently made to the Giant’s 
Causeway, on the coast of Antrim, and exhibited a very fine specimen 
of zeolite crystals from a cavity in basalt from that neighbourhood.— 
Microscopical Section. October 6th. The President, Mr. C. 
