crushed between the upper and basement stone.

Solomon says "there is no new thing under the sun"; certainly there is
much that is not absolutely new in appliances for gold extraction. I
lately learned that the principle of one of our newest concentrating
machines, the Frue vanner, was known in India and the East centuries
ago; and we have it on good authority--that of Pliny--that gold saving
by amalgamation with mercury was practised before the Christian era.
It will not be surprising then if, ere long, some one claims to have
invented the Korean Mill, with improvements.

Few subjects in mineralogical science have evoked more controversy than
the origin of gold. In the Middle Ages, and, indeed, down to the time
of that great philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, who was himself bitten
with the craze, it was widely believed that, by what was known as
transmutation, the baser metals might be changed to gold; and much time
and trouble were expended in attempts to make gold--needless to say
without the desired result. Doubtless, however, many valuable additions
to chemical science, and also some useful metallic alloys, were thus
discovered.

The latest startling statement on this subject comes from, of course,
the wonderland of the world, America. In a recently published journal it
is said that a scientific metallurgist there has succeeded in producing
absolutely pure gold, which stands all tests, from silver. Needless
to say, if this were true, at all events the much vexed hi-metallic
question would be solved at once and for all time.

It is now admitted by all specialists that the royal metal, though
differing in material respects in its mode of occurrence from its