fields of Nova Scotia will, it is believed, compare favorably with
that of either Australia or California, while some of the maximum yields
_indicate ores of unsurpassed richness_."

In regard to the best and most effectual methods of dressing and
amalgamating these rich ores, it seems to be conceded that the modes
hitherto in use in Nova Scotia have been very defective. Much larger
returns of gold are to be expected from the introduction of the new
processes, which scientific research is every day bringing to a greater
degree of efficiency in Colorado and California. The promoters of the
Nova-Scotia mining-enterprises, thanks to the skill and pains of their
scientific advisers, are fully awake to the importance of this vital
point. Pyrites--the mineral mixture so universally found with the gold
of this region--is well known to escape, or rather to resist, the
attraction of the mercury used in the amalgamating process, and it has
hitherto been allowed to pass away with the "tailings", or refuse from
the mills. When we state that it has been repeatedly shown to be from
ten to twelve per cent. of the components of the ore, and that by test
of the United-States Assay-Office its average yield is one hundred and
twenty-eight dollars to the ton,--and by the careful experiments of
Professor Silliman, at the Sheffield Laboratory in New Haven, it has
yielded even as high as two hundred and seventy-six dollars and
forty-nine cents to the ton,--the oversight and bad economy of its
waste will be sufficiently apparent. It may safely be estimated,
therefore, that the process of Dr. Keith, or some other equally simple
and efficacious method of extracting this hitherto wasted portion of the
precious metal from the accompanying sulphurets, will produce an amount
quite equal, at least, to the previous minimum yield. The effect of such
an increase in the returns will readily be appreciated by others besides
the merely scientific reader.

In regard to the capacity of the various mines for the regular supply of
quartz to the mills, it may be stated that ten tons daily is the average
amount fixed upon, by the different experts, as a reasonable quantity to
be expected from either of the well-conducted properties. Works of
exploration and of "construction", such as will hereafter be pointed
out, must, it is true, always precede those of extraction; but a very
moderate quartz-mill will easily "dress" ten tons of quartz daily, or
three thousand