The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-18 00:00:00

851.

[PRICE SD.

in some of them from abroad. Gold has not been
exhibited by Ireland, although a fay: fragments are
to be met with amid the older rocks which encircle
the eastern coasts of Wicklow and Wexford, the value
of which, when extracted from the ore, has not yet
paid for the cost of extraction.

Plumbago or black lead, and some of its products,
are well exhibited in the numbers from 64 to 69.
This mineral, while fou❑d in Spain, Germany,
Ceylon, and eve❑ in Greenland, has been found in
superior quality in England; it usually lies in gneiss,
and mica or transition slate, and so valuable was the
discovery of a large deposit of it in Cumberland a
century ago thought to be, that the proprietors of
the mine suffered severely by robberies both secret
and open, and extraordinary precautions are still
talon to prevent the abstraction of the mineral by the
workmen.

In No. 477 may be seen specimens of platinum,
palladium, iridium, rhodium, uranium ; of these
platinum is the least unknown in public repute, the
Russians having coined part of their currency in it,
and the philosophical instrument makers having
brought it into common use for their purposes.
South America and Spain, as well as Russia, pro-
duce this metal, but the chief supply is from the
Dural Mountains, and in all these cases the geo-
logical character of the locality is nearly the
same, namely, auriferous and quartzose sands, su-
perficial in their position. Though platinum is the
heaviest of metals, ranking in this respect before
gold, it is also equally ductile, and may be beaten
out into leaves or films which the breath will blow
away, floating in the air. Palladium is one of the
discoveries of the present century, and is found
combined with platinum, and also in Germany, where
it is combined with selenium (a sort of metallic sul-
phur). Palladium may be familiarly described in its
properties as being a steel-like silver, hard in txture,
and not liable to tarnish in the air ; hence it has
proved a useful ally to the instrument maker, in all
cases where finely graduated lines or marks are re-
quired which must bear exposure to the atmosphere.
Iridium, so called from the rainbow colours which it
exhibits in different chemical states, is found but
rarely, and then usually as a companion of platinum ;
it has not yet been applied usefully in the arts.
Rhodium is also a companion of platinum, and derives
its name from the beautiful rose colour which it may
be made to exhibit; its present use is chiefly confined
to hardening the nibs of metallic pens. Uranium is
found in Cornwall and Germany, but is rare, and has
not yet been applied more successfully than iridium.
Sulphur is exhibited in No. 23, and is a foreign
specimen. The sulphur of the United Kingdom, which
was found chiefly in combination with copper pyrites
(or mundic), has been superseded by the foreign pro-
duct, chiefly from Sicily. In a quarter of a century
the consumption in these kingdoms has increased nine-
fold, and while we cannot emulate the native purity
which the sulphur of Sicily possesses, it is to be hoped
that our industry exerted upon the purer material is
more than compensating us for the loss of our busi-
ness in the raw article. Arsenic, which is so well-
known in glasemaking and dyeing, or printing, is not so
well illustrated as we could wish, especially as our na-
tive science and industry have of late years found a field
in the reduction of this metal from some of the refuse
ores of Cornwall. Arsenic as a metal is too brittle and
soft for use, and is therefore known in commerce
chic fly as an oxide in the form of powder. The
yellow amber-like crystals seen in the refining pet
are extremely beautiful, and we hope this hiatus in
the industrial specimens of the Crystal Palace will
shortly be filled. Nickel, of which specimens are
exhibited in No. 476, is found chiefly in Germany,
but also in Hungary, France, and England. It has
been more generally known of late years under the
name of German silver, and is chiefly extracted
from the ores of cobalt. Manganese is exhibited in
No. 505, and is found in considerable quantities in
Devon and Cornwall, and also in Germany and Pied-
mont. In the form of a metal it somewhat re-
sembles cast-iron, but its readiness to combine with
the oxygen of the air renders it difficult to retain in
the metallic form. It is used in bleaching, in the
potteries, in glassmaking, and in some other arts,
and its production gives employment to an industrious
section of our population in the west of England.
In conducting the visitor beyond the precincts of
our island minerals we shall request him to pass
through the western nave, and (before we begin upon
our colonial wealth) observe the gigantic crystalline
masses of alum, which stand nearly behind those
equally gigantic specimens of law—my Lords Eldon
and Stowell. Alum employs an industrial portion of
our population on the north-east coast of Yorkshire
and in Scotland, where it is extracted from the earthy
clay called alumina, combined with sulphur and pot-
ash or ammonia, but is found with a basis of superior
quality in the Papal States and in Syria. It is used
1 for clarifying liquors, and in dyeing, leatherdressing,
paperhanging, and other arts.
Canada also shows her samples of various ochres,
and of barytes, labradorite (felspar), jasper, peristerite,
and agates ; some good whetstones, lithographic-
stones, limestones, marbles (in between 30 and 40
varieties), and gypsum. This mineral, more com-
monly known by us under the name of plaster of
Paris, is a sulphate of lime, and is used in America
to an immense extent for manure, for which purpose
it does not appear to have found favour in this
country; probably the cause of this may be found
in the circumstance of the larger proportion of car-
bonate of lime contained in the Transatlantic deposits
of this mineral. It is also used in pottery manufac-
factures, and for moulds, and the more common
models and statues, its softness and little tenacity
rendering it too liable to injury to be used for the
more valuable works of the sculptor. Samples of
compact and fine granite appear in this colonial series,
and also of serpentines and slates ; the quality of
which is coarse, but will probably improve as the
quarries become more fully opened. So long as the
settler can find at hand a covering for his roof of the
" shingles," or wooden tiles, chopped roughly out of
the smaller logs, while the larger logs form the walls
of his house, he will not be disposed to delve beneath
the surface of the soil for building-stone or slates,
but the day is fast coming when the clearing of
the forests in the neighbourhood of Canadian towns
will bring these more enduring materials into use
among the multitude (there are no " middle classes"
in North America), and as that day advances in-
dustry will find her sure reward in working upon
these fine mineral stores with which Providence has
studded this colony. We may also notice the
pitchstone, soapstone, and fuller a earth which are
exhibited as samples of another useful series of
indigenous minerals. Grains of gold are shown from
the eastern extremity of the colony bordering on the
United States, but we do not advise our Canadian
friends to let any Californian visions divert them from
the steady application of their industry to deve-
lope the less glittering minerals which we have briefly
enumerated.

We see no specimen of coal from Canada, and if
the absence of such correctly leads us to conclude
that no basin of that mineral has yet been discovered
in the province, we may assure the Canadians that
they will some day be made aware of the importance
of connecting themselves more closely with New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where this mineral is
abundant. Without cheap fuel of strong quality and
small bulk, the process of smelting, forging, and
raising steam can be carried on only to disadvantage,
and the industry of Canada must be exercised prin-
cipally on raw material, until she puts herself in a
position to command a good supply of the all-powerful
stimulator—coal.

The sister province of New Brunswick has not
been entirely idle amid the general excitement to
contribute to the show of industry of all nations; but
this is all we can say, inasmuch as the samples of iron
ore, manganese, plumbago, and pitch coal, which com-
pose her entire list of mineral specimens, are most
paltry as an index of the mineral wealth which really
exists in that fine province. New Brunswick is
somewhat larger than Ireland; the greater part of her
soil is fertile, and is covered with fine forests. Two-
thirds of her boundary line are formed by the sea,
and, as a consequence of these conditions, the energies
of her inhabitants have been absorbed by timber-
cutting and by fisheries. She possesses,
however,
vast stores of coal, of ore, and of stone, applicable to
building and to the arts, and as soon as the tempta-
tions to " lumbering" (cutting timber)
and fishing
on the small scale diminish before the advance of
population and the demand for produce of more
skilled labour, then will the star of New Brunswick
take its place amid the more solid and valuable jewels
of the chaplet which adorn the brow of our Imperial
Victoria.
Nova Scotia has been more industrious, and has
sent us a fine collection of iron ores and iron pro-
ducts through the medium of one of her most enter-
prising inhabitants, Mr. C. D. Archibald. The mi-
neral property of this gentleman is exhibited in the
ear not only rich •
rough ores, which app
~ in quantity
of metal, but of excellent quality ; and a
systematic
arrangement of pig,
,bar, steel, tinplate, wire, and ma-
nufactured articles (knives, grates, Scn.), deserve high
credit, as skill as well as me-
thodical i evincing energy and
ndustry, to exhibit these very valuable pro-
ductions in a young colony,
There are also exhibited by the same gentleman
various samples of marble, some
of
goad colour, which are fine in
texture and of
but apparently nut suf-
ficiently e.g.%) and eyen
-grained to compete with the