The following analysis gives a fair idea of the composition of the

No. 2 shaft has not, as yet, got below the decomposed spar, but has reached good solid nickel ore. It was started on the vein in decomposed spar and pyroxene, carrying occasionally small masses of chrome-garnet. The vein here is fully as wide as in No. 1 shaft. The pyroxene (analyzed by Dr. Hunt) has the following composition :

Coming back now to the specimens before us: The chrome-garnet is the beautiful green crystal, a rhombic dodecahedron of the isometric system. It remains absolutely untouched in hot, strong aqua regia. I am still in hopes of finding crystals in some of the many druses which occur in the vein, large enough to show their beauty to the naked eye. The specimens which I have here will require a glass to bring out the crystals.

In the ore near the surface, which only was accessible at the time the Geology of Canada, quoted above, was written, the millerite occurred in grains as there described, but as the shafts have gone down, the crystals have increased in size, till now we have the large ones, which show the characteristic needles very plainly. Sometimes these occur in clusters of needles, placed side by side as it were, forming a flat plate.

It (the millerite) varies in color greatly according to the depth. In the samples shown from No. 2 shaft, there appear two distinct, differently colored metallic sulphides, and this was the case with specimens from No. 1 before it got below the decomposed spar. At first it was supposed that magnetic iron pyrites or other sulphides might be present, but the analyses go to prove it all to be millerite.

At first I had grave doubts about the practicability of treating the ore, owing to the infusibility of the chrome-garnet, at the least I expected to have to add fluxes, but the results have proved quite the contrary. The first experiments were made in a Siemens furnace. A black-lead crucible full of the ore was placed on the bank 'of the furnace, while making low steel. Looking at it fifteen or twenty minutes later, I was surprised to find it liquid. It was poured into a mould, and a good button obtained, which was more ductile then the pieces shown, and had the yellow color to a greater degree when polished.

The next experiment was to run 508 pounds of the ore through a blast furnace. Through the courtesy of Prof. Richards, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I was allowed to use the blast furnace of his laboratory. It is about one foot square by four feet high, and uses gas coke as fuel. I am largely indebted to the great facilities offered by Prof. Richards for the results I have obtained.

Ten minutes after the ore was charged into the furnace, slag appeared at the tap-hole. The whole charge was run through in 2 hours. 145 pounds of coke were used, making about 3.5 of ore to 1 of coke. 8 pounds of matte or alloy were obtained, containing

The ore treated was a very lean lot from near the surface, probably containing not over one half of one per cent. of nickel. The slag had a mere trace of nickel.

As to the further treatment of this product, I am not prepared now to make any report. Prima facie, it would seem that the problem was a simpler one than most nickel manufacturers have to face, since there is no copper or cobalt present; but not finding it spoken of in the books on metallurgy, I have been obliged to investigate as I have gone along, and my progress has consequently been slow.

At some future time I hope to give the results of the present investigations, and at the same time to be able to report some progress in extracting the chromium in some merchantable condition. Inasmuch as the slag produced must contain somewhere about 6 per cent. of sesquioxide of chromium, it becomes extremely valuable, provided it can be extracted easily, but while some slags produced

yield it up with great readiness, others yield it up with great difficulty.

As to the per cent. of nickel which this ore carries, and which will determine its money value, it is not easy at present to speak with any certainty. At the bottom of No. 1 shaft, pieces taken to be average ones for three-quarters the width, show between three and four per cent. nickel. Specimens from No. 2 look equally rich. What is to be the average yield after the mine is opened up it is impossible to say.

February, 1878.

DISCUSSION.-Dr. HUNT, after alluding to the fact that Mr. Eustis had quoted from his description of the Orford mine, given in 1863, in the Geology of Canada, proceeded to refer to the peculiarities of the deposit. It is what by many would be called a contact-vein, lying, as it does, between serpentine on the one side and limestone on the other. He regarded it as a true fissure-vein, lying in the plane of the bedding, and, in support of this view, cited the observation which had been made, that at one point a branch of it penetrates the limestone wall. The veinstone of calcite, holding green chrome-garnet and chromite, with crystals and grains of millerite, or sulphide of nickel, is of great interest to mineralogists. Small crystals of pale-green epidote are also found in this veinstone, and large tabular crystals of white pyroxene. The latter, like the green garnet, had long since been analyzed and described by him. in the volume above quoted and elsewhere. The crystals of millerite are remarkable for their size and beauty, some of them being an inch long, while shorter tabular crystals of the species are found nearly one-half an inch in breadth.

In allusion to the statement quoted from his former description, where the rocks holding this vein are referred to what was then called the "altered Quebec group," Dr. Hunt explained that the view that these crystalline schists were altered Paleozoic deposits,a view which he had formerly accepted, in accordance with the opinions of many American geologists,—had long since been rejected by him as untenable. In 1870 and 1871 he had expressed the conviction that the rocks in question are more ancient than the uncrystalline Paleozoic sediments of the St. Lawrence valley (which are of Cambrian age, and have been variously called the Hudson River group, Upper Taconic, and Quebec group), and that they are to be referred to the Huronian period of Eozoic time.

Dr. Hunt added, that the results obtained by the Geological Survey of Canada in 1876 and 1877 had, in the opinion of Mr. Selwyn, its present director, fully vindicated his view. These results will, probably, soon be officially made public.

ON THE MANUFACTURE OF ARTIFICIAL FUEL, AT PORT RICHMOND, PHILADELPHIA.

BY E. F. LOISEAU, PHILADELPHIA.

(Read at the Philadelphia Meeting, February, 1878.)

UNTIL June, 1868, it had not been attempted, either in this country or abroad, to manufacture by mechanical means, from anthracite coal-dust, artificial fuel for domestic use. Several attempts had been made to utilize coal-waste by converting it into a fuel for manufacturing purposes, but none of the processes were original, and they were merely applications of the well-known European processes and machinery, slightly modified by American ingenuity and mechanical skill. With one exception all those attempts have been failures.

The great difficulty in the application of European processes and machinery has always been the limited production, and the excessive cost of the manufactured product, as compared with the cost of mining and preparing the ordinary anthracite coal for the market.

The only serious and intelligent attempt to manufacture, on a large scale, artificial fuel for manufacturing purposes, has been made by the Anthracite Fuel Company, whose works are erected at Fort Ewen, near Rondout, New York. This company, organized under the auspices of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, had to go through the usual course of difficulties, breakages, and disappointments, which seems to be the lot of every new industry. Thanks, however, to the energy and perseverance of Mr. L. L. Crounsse, a gentleman of means, from Washington, D. C., the enterprise succeeded, and it is to-day established on a permanent basis. In order to increase the production, and to reduce its cost, the Anthracite Fuel Company was compelled to change most of its plant, and to erect more powerful machinery, producing lumps of a larger size, almost twice the size of the lumps made previously by the same company. This increase in the size of the lumps has been resorted to in Europe as well as in this country, in order to increase

the production, but the lumps being large, require a strong draft for their combustion, and consequently the use of artificial fuel has been confined almost exclusively to steamers and locomotives.

In order to manufacture a fuel which could be used in all kinds. of furnaces, it was evident that the lumps should not exceed a certain size, and machines for this purpose were invented, by Mr. RevollierBietrix, of St. Etienne, France, and by Messrs. Mazeline and Couillard, of Havre, but the production of these machines, in 24 hours, did not exceed 48 gross tons, in lumps weighing each 1 kilogram, 250 grams. No better results have been obtained in Europe to this day, and no smaller lumps have been manufactured there.

The compressing machines, above referred to, are constructed on the principle of Gard's brick machines in this country. Circular horizontal tables, containing either stationary or movable moulds, revolve under a pug mill, in the centre of which is a vertical shaft, with knives placed at an angle. These knives force the materials into the moulds. The bottom of the moulds is formed by followers, fitting exactly, which travel on an inclined track under the moulding table, gradually compressing the materials, and finally expelling the brick-shaped lumps, which are afterwards removed by hand, or pushed by a scraper on a conveying belt.

The problem, therefore, was to obtain a large production in lumps of a small size, and my efforts for the last ten years have been directed towards the solution of that problem.

I devised and designed, to the best of my ability, several machines which my experience had told me were best adapted to the continuous and automatic production of lumps of a small size, the main machine being the press. I had previously made a good many experiments, on a small scale, which had demonstrated beyond a doubt the practicability of the process. A good many of our members will remember to have witnessed in Mauch Chunk, in 1874, the manufacture of the fuel by a small moulding machine, which was the embryo of the large one erected at Port Richmond. As is usually the case, the large machine did not work as well as the small one; it had to be modified several times, according to what practical experience demonstrated to be an absolute necessity. One modification suggested another, until at last, in spite of all the prophecies to the contrary, I succeeded in getting the press to work in a very satisfactory way. The production is 137 tons, in 10 hours, the lumps weighing but two ounces each.

I will give here a brief description of the moulding press: