tent to act as attorneys-at-law; that although the word "citizen," used in its most common and comprehensive sense, included women, yet the Legislature in the statute under consideration was not presumed

to intend to use it as including women, because such construction would reverse the policy of its predecessors and introduce a fundamental change in long-established principles of law. These considerations, which were controlling in that case, have no application to the question before us. The statute of 1879 does not, upon the construction we give it, introduce any new policy or make any change in established principles of law. On the contrary, it is in accordance with the policy established by former legislation.

We are of opinion that, under the provisions of the second section of chapter 291 of the acts of 1879, it was competent for the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council, to appoint a woman as a member of the State" Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity." This being so, the effect of the first section of chapter 79 of the Public Statutes undoubtedly was to confirm and continue in office the members of the board during the terms for which they were appointed.

Party Conventions.-The Republican State Convention met in Worcester on the 19th of September, and nominated the following ticket: For Governor, George D. Robinson; Lieutenant-Governor, Oliver Ames; Secretary of State, Henry B. Pierce; Treasurer, Daniel A. Gleason; Attorney-General, Edgar J. Sherman; Auditor, Charles R. Ladd.

The Prohibitory State Convention met in Boston on the 20th of September, and nominated the following ticket: For Governor, Charles Almy, of New Bedford; LieutenantGovernor, John Blackmer, of Springfield; Secretary of State, Solomon F. Root, of Barre; Treasurer and Receiver-General, Thomas J. Lothrop, of Taunton; Auditor, Jonathan Buck, of Gloucester; Attorney-General, Samuel M. Fairfield, of Malden.

The Democratic State Convention met in Springfield on the 25th of September, and nominated the following ticket: For Governor, Benjamin F. Butler, of Lowell; LieutenantGovernor, Frederick O. Prince, of Boston; Secretary of State, Charles Marsh, of Springfield; Auditor, John Hopkins, of Millbury; Treasurer, C. H. Ingalls, of North Adams; Attorney-General, J. W. Cummings, of Fall river. Mr. Prince declined, as did also Samuel A. B. Abbott, of Boston, substituted by the State Committee, which finally placed James S. Grinnell, of Springfield, in nomination.

On the same day the Greenback-Labor party held its State Convention in Boston, and nominated the following ticket: For Governor, Benjamin F. Butler; for Lieutenant-Governor, John Howes, of Worcester; for Secretary of State, Nicholas Furlong, of Boston; for Treasurer and Receiver-General, Wilbur F. Whitney, of Ashburnham; for Auditor, A. H. Wood, of Lunenburg; for Attorney-General, George Foster, of Lynn.

N. S. Cushing, of Middleboro', was afterward substituted for Mr. Howes, and Hiram W. K. Eastman, of Lawrence, for Mr. Whitney.

Election Returns. At the election in November, the Republican ticket received a majority. The following is the vote for Governor: George

D. Robinson, of Chicopee, 160,092; Benjamin F. Butler, of Lowell, 150,228; Charles Almy, of New Bedford, 1,881.

Of the 8 members of the Executive Council, 5 are Republicans and 3 are Democrats. In the Senate there are 25 Republicans, 14 Democrats, and 1 Independent Democrat.

In the House there are 137 Republicans, 92 Democrats, 3 Greenbackers, 6 Independents, 1 Independent Republican, and 1 Independent Democrat.

METALLURGY. Iron and Steel.-A new continuous direct process for the dephosphorization of iron in a charcoal-furnace is described by Prof. Särnström as having been experimentally tried at Nyhammar, in Sweden, with satisfactory results. The old Osmund or Catalan process, formerly used in Sweden to produce excellent iron, was intermittent and expensive, involving a large waste of fuel, and had to give way to blast processes. These, being adapted only to ores weak in phosphorus, precluded the use of a large proportion of the magnetic ores of Sweden. It is clear that if the process of conversion takes place in a shaft, as in a blast-furnace, without the temperature becoming so great as to effect any coalescence or complete smelting, and the mass is, at this stage, transferred in a convenient manner to a hearth where the further process of fusing the iron particles can take place, the process will at once become continuous and direct, and will have the advantages of saving fuel and removing impurities in the bloom at the same time. The furnace can be kept closed during the operation, so that the reduction by hot carbonic oxide may proceed continuously. The furnace at Nyhammar consists of a reduction-shaft connected with the hearths by small culverts. These hearths can be closed, having heavy dampers so balanced as to be easily raised and lowered, with holes in their lower part, by which the gases generated by the fuel may pass through the shaft and thus act the part of gas in an ordinary blast-furnace. Charcoal and iron are charged in the shaft of the furnace in proper proportions. The ore will then, as it settles in the shaft, be subjected to the same process of conversion as in the ordinary reduction-zone of a blast-furnace. When it is desired to transfer the spongy iron to another hearth, the raking-down, which is kept up for the purpose of having the furnace always well filled with charcoal and iron until the smelting is nearly effected, is stopped; a hook is passed through the upper holes of the dampers of the culvert through which the rakingdown is performed, and the bloom is allowed to go down into the hearth. It may then be easily broken up when one of the dampers is opened. One fire-place should always be kept charged during the operation, so as to maintain a gas pressure in the furnace constantly higher than the pressure of air from without, in order to prevent all suction of air through the open hearth. As soon

as the bloom is removed and the hearth is cleaned out, it is again closed and refilled with charcoal and iron, by raking down from the shaft as before, and the blast is turned on. In the same way, the process may be alternated with the other hearths. A considerable advantage to the practical utility of this furnace is the great ease with which the raking-down, or any other operation which may be required in the hearth while the blast is on, is effected. With a little practice, which an unskilled laborer may acquire in a very short time, it is possible to charge and rake charcoal and ores uniformly down, an advantage embodying a check whereby, to a certain extent, the action in the furnace may be kept perfectly even. The heat thrown out by the furnace was small, and the work of operating it was so simple as to render the managers comparatively independent of skilled workmen. In most of the experiments two barrels, or 12.6 cubic feet, of charcoal to 3 cwt. of ore were used; but toward the finish, the quantity of ore was reduced to 2 cwt. When tested, the iron made by this process did not show any tendency to redshortness or brittleness; its elasticity was satisfactory and compared well with that of the class of pig-iron made by the Lancashire process. The process is well adapted to resmelting by the Martin process. According to Prof. Särnström's estimates, 15 tons of good merchant iron, containing an average of 0.08 of phosphorus, were made by it from 27 tons of ore containing 0.91 of phosphorus, with an expenditure of about 600 barrels of charcoal and a loss of iron amounting to less than 5 per cent. In Bull's direct process, no solid carbon is used in the furnace. The charge is made with iron ore and flux-usually limestone-only, while the furnace is worked exclusively with gas, which is delivered to it in a very highly heated state direct from the producers. Highly heated air is also introduced in sufficient quantities to burn about 10 per cent. of the gas and maintain the furnace at the high temperature necessary to allow the withdrawal of the iron or steel and cinder in a fluid state. The gases rising through the ore and flux under this system are carbonic oxide and hydrogen in equal volumes, together with the nitrogen derived from the air which has been blown into the furnace. These gases being produced entirely outside of the furnace, there is no zone of gasi fication within it, but only the zones of fusion, reduction, and carbonization have to be provided for. The zone of preparation, in which the ore, fuel, and flux are freed from their moisture and the temperature of the ore is raised to the reduction-point, is also removed from the furnace to a special apparatus. Experiments in the operation of this system were made by the Société John Cockerill at Seraing, Belgium, in 1881. With an ordinary blastfurnace six feet in diameter at the base, and twenty-one feet high, it was found possible to reduce the silicon in the product from 3:40 to

15; the sulphur from 1.61 to 33; the phosphorus from 1.76 to 1.10; the manganese to nil; the combined carbon to 52; and the graphite to 17. At the same time, the output from the furnace was increased enormously, and the quantity of fuel required was decreased in a corresponding ratio. Mr. Bull has not yet erected his furnace on a commercial scale, but is awaiting the perfection of improvements in his calcining oven for heating the ore and flux, and in the air-heating stoves and gas-producers. He is confident, however, that with the enormous increase of the output of the furnace and the great reduction in the amount of fuel consumed, which he has demonstrated, iron or steel ingots can be produced by his system in any district at a cost much lower than the most inferior pig iron under the present systems.

Lead and Silver.-Mr. Carl Henrich, while smelting at the Benson Smelting Works in Arizona, for lead-silver bullion, had to use as a leadore a sulphate of lead (anglesite) with occasional lumps of galena. He had also received for reduction an ore high in silver, carrying about 25 per cent. of iron pyrites, with oxide of iron and quartz or silicates. Finding the old method of reducing anglesite to sulphide of lead and then precipitating the lead by metallic iron to be very unsatisfactory, on account of the quantity of silver-bearing matte produced, and the difficulty, amounting almost to an impossibility, of making a slag free from lead, he made the experiment of reducing the anglesite by the action of iron pyrites with silica. Acting upon the calculation that the reducing power of the pyrites would be about five times that of the galena, he found that, by putting together, in round numbers, 350 pounds of the anglesite-ore (estimated to contain 15 per cent. of galena and 75 per cent. of anglesite) with 100 pounds of the silver-ore carrying iron pyrites, the two ores would reduce each other and the sulphur would be removed in the form of sulphurous acid (SO2), with the production of very little matte.

Copper. Heap-roasting of copper-bearing pyrites has been practiced at nine different mines lying along the ore belt from North Alabama to Central Vermont, but can be said to have entirely succeeded only at two neighboring mines lying in Central Vermont. The bed upon which the ore is roasted, having to be well drained, is constructed precisely like the traffic-way of a city street. The plan of the heap is laid off in the form of a parallelogram, 24 feet wide and 50 feet long, and wood-common split fuel-wood is the best-is piled nine inches deep all over the plan. The ore is piled upon this and carefully arranged in successive layers till a bed seven feet thick is formed. One foot of "ragging," or the coarser part of ore that has passed through a screen of holes 1 inch in diameter, is laid over this, and the fire is started. As soon as the ore has ignited, from the ground one foot upward, "fines," or that part of the ore which has passed through a screen

improved and cheapened the operation of refining the nickel and toughening it, and has reduced the liability to the presence of blowholes in castings, by adding to the molten charge when ready to pour a very small quantity of magnesium. Dr. Fleitmann has also succeeded in welding sheet-nickel upon iron and upon steel plates, so as to coat them equally on each face with a layer of nickel. He claims to have produced steel wire similarly coated, and proposes to make nickeled boiler-plates. Up to this time the most direct uses of such nickelediron sheets seem to be in making hollow-ware, particularly culinary vessels, and the manufacture has already begun at Schwerte by Dr. Fleitmann. This ware is believed to be far superior to tinned iron or tinned copper for cooking in. The nickel is not only less liable to corrosion, but is harder, will wear longer, and can not be melted off by overheating. The ware is lighter and stronger than tin or copper ware; is susceptible of a high polish and is not easily tarnished. The coating of nickel applied by welding is stronger and tougher than that deposited by electrolysis, and appears to be less liable to scale off.

The general use of nickel in solid articles has heretofore been impracticable on account of its expensiveness and of its brittleness, making it hard to work. A French company now obtain it from New Caledonia so cheaply as to permit them to use it at half the cost of a few years ago; and they have adopted methods of reduction that enable them to roll and forge it and adapt it to the manufacture of many useful articles. Mixed with zinc, copper, or tin, in such a proportion that 20 per cent. of nickel shall be present, it forms a nickel bronze of a desired color and inoxidable. All articles that are now made of brass or copper and nickelplated may be made of nickel bronze at practically the same cost, and will be one fifth stronger, and may be as much lighter. Added to steel, nickel increases its hardness, renders it inoxidable, and makes it more suitable for edge-tools.

Pure nickel, after melting and casting, generally holds more or less of oxygen in combination, and is brittle. This has to be remedied by incorporating in the melted metal some substance which has a strong affinity for oxygen, and also for the nickel itself. M. J. Garnier has found that phosphorus answers this purpose very satisfactorily, and that it produces effects analogous to those of carbon in iron. If the phosphorus does not exceed three tenths of one per cent., the nickel is soft and very malleable; with more than that proportion, the hardness increases at the expense of the malleability. Phosphorized nickel, when alloyed with copper, zinc, or iron, gives results which are far superior to those that are obtained from the same nickel when not phosphorized. By means of the phosphorus, Garnier has been able to alloy nickel and iron in all proportions, and always to obtain soft and malleable prod

ucts. The contradictions of chemists, some of whom say that such alloys are brittle, and others that they are malleable, are thus explained by supposing the results to have varied according as the iron contained or did not contain phosphorus.

Tin.-A bed of tin-ore has been discovered in Pennington county, Dakota, in the central part of the Black hills, on a mountain rising about 4,300 feet above the sea, which has been named the Tin mountain. The cassiterite occurs near the top of the mountain, in two distinct forms-a massive form, in close association with spodumene, feldspar, and quartz; and in a granular form, disseminated in a massive micaceous albitic rock or greisen, which traverses the coarse granite in irregular veins. The outcrops or exposures of the ore at the surface are "extensive and decidedly encouraging"; and the percentage of ores to mineral compares favorably with the percentage of tinstone in the ores of other and well-known tin regions, ordinary hand-samples of the greisen, rejecting the richer portions, having yielded from 6 to 10 per cent. of clean tin-stone, or black tin, of high grade.

Quicksilver. The quicksilver-mines of the Amiata mountain, in the province of Siena, Tuscany, have undergone an extensive development in late years. The ore, the sulphuret, or cinnabar, is found in the valley of the Siele in an argillaceous lode in the forms both of almost invisible particles and of very rich red masses, sometimes of large size. Two shafts have been sunk, one 170 metres (or 552 feet), and the other 57 metres (or 185 feet) deep, with horizontal workings cutting the lode at three different heights. The ore, having been brought to the surface, is separated from the stone and is also sorted into two different classes, rich and poor, by a screen. It is then run down a self-acting incline, in trucks, to the works, and is reduced by women into small pieces, which are kept as dry as possible. The works are furnished with twelve half-moon retorts of cast-iron for treating the rich ore, and three vertical furnaces for the poor ore. The retorts are arranged horizontally, three by three in four ovens, their mouths being closed by covers luted with clay and kept in place by screws and straps. They are charged, each with from two to two and a half hundredweight of ore and quicklime, in the proportion of one of the latter to eight of the former, every eight hours, the operation being performed very quickly and the closing effected immediately, to prevent loss of metal, and injury to the men's health from the escaping vapors, for distillation begins at once. distilled mercury escapes by the neck of the retort, and passes into a receiver, in which cold water is constantly circulating. The vapors from six retorts are condensed in one and the same tank filled with cold water, and the metallic mercury is drawn off from inclined channels at the bottom. This treatment is

The