Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/273

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Our New Zealand Cousins.
257

ment so auspiciously begun in connection with your 'School of Mines.'"

The Professor was farther so impressed with the importance of the work thus auspiciously begun, that he has formulated a scheme which he forwarded to the Minister of Mines to provide special instruction in several branches of knowledge on the gold-fields.

The branches of knowledge embraced in this scheme are as follows:—"1. Geology, the general subject including modes of occurrence of useful minerals, prospecting for useful minerals by boring and otherwise. 2. Ore-dressing, including gold-saving machines, treatment of auriferous sulphides (sulphides of iron, copper, antimony, arsenic, &c.), the preparation of valuable ores for the market. 3. Mineralogy, including the wet and dry processes for determining minerals, the physical characters of useful minerals, instruction in the use of the blowpipe. 4. Metallurgy, including the characters, tests, and mode of occurrence of the ores of gold, silver, lead, mercury, copper, tin, antimony, iron, zinc, manganese, and cobalt, and the processes for smelting these metals or reducing them from their ores. 5. Analysis and Assaying, including practical instruction in the processes for assaying metallic ores. In these testing classes, which I regard as a most valuable part of the scheme, the students themselves will perform the work under the direction of the instructors. It is for the prosecution of this kind of work that the local schools of mines