Harper's Round Table, September 3, 1895 Part 10

Even the dreaded puncture loses its terrors with Hartford Single-Tubes.

Repaired in a minute. Anyone can do it. Dunlop tires, best of double tubes, if you prefer.

POPE MFG. Co.

HARTFORD, CONN.

Postage Stamps, &c.

=1000= Mixed Foreign Postage Stamps, including Fiji Islands, Samoa, Hawaii, Hong Kong, for 34c. in stamps; 10 varieties U. S. Columbian stamps, 25c.; entire unused 5c. and 10c. Columbian Envelopes, 25c. the pair. Only a limited number were issued by U. S. Government. E. F.

GAMBS, Box 2631, San Francisco, Cal. Established, 1872.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

100 all dif. Venezuela, Costa Rica, etc., only 10c.; 200 all dif. Hayti, Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Ag'ts wanted at 50 per ct. com. List FREE!

=C. A. Stegmann=, 2722 Eads Av., St. Louis, Mo.

=100= all different, China, etc., 10c.; 5 Saxony, 10c.; 40 Spain, 40c.; 6 Tunis, 14c.; 10 U. S. Revenues, 10c. Agts. wtd., 50% com.; '95 list free.

CRITTENDEN & BORGMAN CO., Detroit, Mich.

[Ill.u.s.tration: If afflicted with SORE EYES USE Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE WATER]

Good Music

Franklin Square Song Collection.

GOOD MUSIC arouses a spirit of good-will, creates a harmonious atmosphere, and where harmony and good-will prevail, the disobedient, turbulent, unruly spirit finds no resting-place. Herbert Spencer puts his final test of any plan of culture in the form of a question. "Does it create a pleasurable excitement in the pupils?" Judged by this criterion, Music deserves the first rank, for no work done in the school room is so surely creative of pleasure as singing. Do we not all agree, then, that Vocal Music has power to benefit every side of the child nature? And in these days, when we seek to make our schools the arenas where children may grow into symmetrical, substantial, n.o.ble characters, can we afford to neglect so powerful an aid as Music? Let us as rather encourage it in every way possible.

_Nowhere can you find for Home or School a better Selection of Songs and Hymns than in the Franklin Square Song Collection._

Sold Everywhere. Price, 50 cents; Cloth, $1.00. Full contents of the Several Numbers, with Specimen Pages of favorite Songs and Hymns, sent by Harper & Brothers, New York, to any address.

Mangoes and Bilberries in Jamaica.

All the mangoes are ripe now, and we get plenty of them. There are about six kinds: the Number Eleven, the Black, the Yam, the Kidney, and the East Indian. I like the Black best, though the Number Eleven is considered the choicest. The Black mangoes are gray with black spots on them; the Number Eleven are a bright orange color; and the Yam mangoes are yellow and red, and might be taken by strangers for huge peaches as they lie on the ground. The East Indian variety is big and green, with black spots.

We also have bilberries. They are about the color, shape, and size of our huckleberries, and they taste about the same. We have them in the morning for breakfast. We also have cocoanuts on our place.

When they are young the milk is good to drink, and is very refreshing. Our cook often makes soup of them, which is very rich in flavor. At one time I saw our cook with her dinner on her head.

It consisted of baked plantain and yam, and was smoking hot. She was walking around the yard, taking off a bit of her dinner now and then to eat it.

Coffee does not seem to grow well in this place, judging from that which is here. It grows better in higher regions. There is to be a "Sky Meeting" at Up-Park-Camp on the 20th of July, given by the English officers. It includes horse-racing, etc. This place in which we are now living is called "Garden House." The first mangoes in the island were planted here, and all the others came from them. There are sixteen acres of coffee. The people prune their coffee after it has begun bearing. I would like a few correspondents.

FRED HAWTHORNE.

GARDEN HOUSE, KINGSTON, JAMAICA.

Gold and Silver from Ores.

I visited a huge smeltery not long ago, and saw how gold and silver were separated from their ores. The lead ore, or galena, which contains also gold, silver, and copper, is brought from Utah. The average yield of silver of the ore used here is about one hundred ounces to the ton. The amount of gold and silver in the ore is determined in the a.s.saying room in this manner:

A piece of the silver-bearing lead is carefully weighed in a very delicate balance, and is then placed in a little cup of bone ash, called a cupel. Then the cupel is put into a very hot furnace so arranged that a current of air pa.s.ses over it. The air oxidizes the melted base metals, but the gold and silver are not affected.

The cupel has the remarkable power of absorbing the oxides of metal, and so in an hour or so there is nothing left in it save a little bead of silver and gold. This bead is then weighed, and in this way it is known what proportion of gold and silver there is in the ore.

To extract the metals, the ore is mixed with limestone and coal, and is thrown into a blast-furnace, which resembles an inverted cone. A fire is started in the bottom and a blast of air is forced through the pipes into the furnace. When the metal has been melted from the ore the furnace is tapped at the bottom, and the metal, consisting of gold, silver, copper, and lead, runs out into large pots. It is then run into moulds. This metal is called "bullion."

The next process is to separate the lead from the other metals.

The bullion is melted in a large deep basin and molten zinc is added. The zinc forms an alloy with the gold, silver, and copper, which is lighter than the lead, and therefore floats on the surface. Then this alloy is skimmed off and taken to another part of the works, where it is placed in furnaces and the zinc burned out. After all the zinc has been gotten rid of the metal is taken to a large room which contains a row of small furnaces. Inside of these furnaces are shallow cupels over which a current of air pa.s.ses. After the metal has been melted in these cupels it is run out into moulds, which shape the metal into plates about twenty inches long and ten in width.

The metal of these plates consists of gold and silver, which still have to be separated. The plates are hung in gauze bags and put in strong nitric acid. This acid dissolves the silver, but does not affect the gold, which drops down into the bags and is caught there. About three inches distant from the sack containing the gold and silver plate is a very thin plate of silver. This plate and the one in the sack are connected to a dynamo. The current of electricity causes the dissolved silver to deposit itself on the plate. After all the silver has been collected it is cast into blocks weighing one thousand ounces each. The gold is likewise cast into blocks.

I saw about $100,000 worth of silver in the vaults and in the works. There are other methods of separating these metals, but I think this is the most common way. Some ores are more easily worked than others.

HOMER L. STEWART, R.T.F.

PITTSBURG, PA.

The Lyre-Bird.

The lyre-bird is a very beautiful bird, and is to be found in the eastern part of Australia. The form and structure of the tail resemble an ancient Grecian lyre, hence its name. The size of this bird is about that of the common hen, the eyes are dark hazel, large, mild in expression, and very beautiful. The wings are short and hollow, rendering great a.s.sistance when running, but of little use in flying.