chimney. The chlorides of silver and copper are prevented from volatilizing by a protective covering of melted borax, and having a lighter specific gravity than the molten gold, they rise to the surface. The pot is then removed from the fire, the gold is allowed to set," and the chlorides of silver and copper poured into molds. The 'king" of gold is then turned out nearly pure, and the silver is reduced in the ordinary way. This method was devised by Prof. Miller, of the Sydney mint, Australia, to recover the silver contained in the native gold of that country (often amounting to as much as 14 per cent). The delicate processes of assaying the precious metals were described in detail and illustrated by actual analyses. The sample of gold or silver cut from the bar is carefully weighed upon a balance sensitive to the twentieth of a milligramme. The normal weight used for gold assay is the half gramme; this weight is decimally divided down to the ten-thousandth degree. A weight of pure silver is added, to make the proportion approximately two parts silver to one part gold. The alloy is enclosed in an envelope of pure lead, melted in small bone-ash cupels in the muffle of a furnace. The base metals are converted into oxides, which, being much more fluid than the melted precious metals, sink into the pores of the cupel. When the button has flashed" it is removed from the cupel and weighed; this gives the proportion of base metal. The button is then laminated, rolled into a (6 cornet," and boiled in nitric acid. The silver entirely dissolves, leaving a roll of pure gold. The difference between the weight of the gold cornet and that of the base metal, less the amount of fine silver added, is the proportion of silver originally present in the sample. The object of adding fine silver is because the atoms of gold would otherwise cover up and protect the silver were it not in excess. The fire or "dry" assay is not well adapted for silver, owing to its volatility; hence the humid process invented by Gay Lussac, is employed. This is at once the most delicate and accurate process of analysis known to chemical science. In order to obtain a true sample of the metal to be assayed, a small " dip" is taken from the melted mass and poured into cold water, forming granulations. This is important, as alloyed silver segregates, on cooling, into richer and poorer alloys within certain limits. The weighed sample is dissolved in nitric acid, and a charge of salt water is added. The solution is prepared of such a strength that the pipette (holding one hundred grammes) shall precipitate one gramme of pure silver. This solution is called the "normal salt solution." The bottle is agitated for a few moments to settle the precipitate. A decimal salt solution, one-tenth of the strength, and one-hundredth the volume of the normal solution, is added. If any silver remains, a cloud will form on the surface of the liquid, and the precipitate will be equivalent to onethousandth of a gramme. In this manner the proportion of pure silver in a given weight of alloy is rapidly determined without weighing the precipitate. So accurate are these methods that the value of thousands of dollars is calculated from the as-say. [From the Engineer.] FILTERING METALS. Professor Lampadius, Frieberg, concluded that at a certain low temperature of fusion the metallic impurities present in the more easily fusible of metals would separate, partially as such and partially as definite crystalline compounds, and float in the fused mass, from which they could be removed by filtration. Experiments by him in this direction were so far successful that. the expected definite compounds were found upon the filter, but the metallic filtrate was still very impure. The filter was made of quartz, sand, slag, etc., which was not wet by molten metal. Curter, however, according to a communication by him, in trying to adapt this principle to the purification of Bohemian tin, of a commercial scale, sought for material for a filter which would be wet by the metal to be purified without being dissolved in it. Iron, with its comparatively high temperature of fusion, and its affinity for tin, as manifested in the tinning of iron, was employed for a filter; 500 strips of tinned iron, as thin as paper, about six-tenths inches long and one-fourth of an inch broad, were packed tightly in a square iron frame by the aid of wedges, and the frame was then luted into a suitable opening in the bottom of a graphic crucible. The tin, melted in a second crucible, was allowed to cool until the separation of fine crystals on the surface was noticed, and the thickening metallic mass was then poured into the filtering crucible, when the still pure metal passed through, and a pasty magna was left, in which iron, arsenic and copper, concentrated to a great degree, were found combined with the tin, while the filtered tin proved to be almost chemically pure. Fifty hundred weight were purified in the crucible described. Other forms and other materials for filters are suggested, and other possible applications. of the method, and in the separation of silver from lead containing the former metal. Filters for water works may be calculated for as follows: 1 square yard of filter for each 700 gallons in 24 hours, formed of 2 feet6 inches fine sand, then 6 inches common sand, 6 inches shells, and lastly 2 feet 6 inches of gravel. Perforated pipes should be laid in the lowest stratum, to carry off the supply of filtered water. The Road. STEAM STREET CAR TRIALS. The trial of the Baldwin motor on the Newark & Irvington Railroad is stated to have resulted very successfully. The motor used was one of the separate engines, and it was employed to draw the ordinary cars in use on the line. The road is over rolling ground, having three grades on which an extra horse has to be used to assist the two drawing the car, and over these grades the engine drew without difficulty two cars well loaded with passengers, making as fast time as was deemed safe or desirable. No definite figures were published, but the President of the company stated that it had proved itself to be much more economical than horse power. President Dennis, of the Newark & Orange Company, witnessed most of the trials, and it is said that that company will adopt these engines for its suburban lines from Newark to Orange and Belleville, if the necessary permission from the City Council can be had, of which there is little doubt. No trouble was experienced in running the engine through crowded streets, horses taking little notice of it. The Third Avenue Railroad Company in New York has applied for leave to inake a trial of steam cars on its road. It purposes to use what it calls the noiseless steam engine.' THE HAWLEY ENGINE SIGNAL. This automatic signal had a partial trial on the New York Central last winter, and a new trial is now being given to it at a crossing on the Rochester & State Line road in Rochester, N. Y. It is thus described by the Rochester Democrat: "First we find a hollow iron post firmly set at the side of the track at the road crossing. At about twenty feet from the ground is a square box, containing the principal portion of the mechanism, which consists of a cam lever held in its place by two spiral springs, and which controls two bolts governing the signal. From either end of this box extends a wire, communicating with a lever by the side of the rail, which can be placed at any desired distance along the track. The manner in which this wire is attached so as to get the proper force, and at the same time overcome the difficulty of the effects of heat and cold, is very ingenious and one of the most interesting features of the signal. The wire is suspended by pendulums upon telegraph poles, alternating with arm wires fastened to the ground betwen the poles, allowing a sag of five feet. Now when the lever is touched the tension at once becomes perfect without the strain which would be necessary on a straight wire. To thoroughly understand То this the apparatus must be seen at work. But from the above a fair idea may be gained. The lever is situated about ten inches from the rail and about six inches above. It consists of a wooden spring in placed on the locomotive tender, striking semi-circular shape, so attached that a shoe, it, presses it down, gives a steady pressure upon the wire, which draws the bolts in the box, on the post, above mentioned, letting fall a shaft held in suspension by them. this shaft is attached a lantern cover, a sign on which the word 'stop' is painted in large, plain letters, a white flag and a gong. If the train approaches the crossing in the daytime, the shoe upon the tender of the locomotive, traveling over the lever or spring, works the mechanism in the box a quarter or a half mile away, as may be desired, and instantly a white flag is displayed from the post and the large, conspicuous sign "Stop!" comes in view. In the night a large lantern is suddenly uncovered, giving a brilliant light, and at the same time a large and loud gong is violently sounded. When the train reaches the crossing it strikes another lever and the whole apparatus is shut up as safely as before." A STEEL-CLAD BULLET-PROOF CAR. A car of this sort has recently been conernment, for use in Cuba. The steel slides, structed at York, Pa., for the Spanish Govwhich are pierced with loopholes for musketry, and which take the place of windows, have been so cunningly planned by the painter's skill to resemble the decorated ground-glass sometimes used in cars, as to The car is 31 feet long, 8 feet wide, of the deceive the unwary at a little distance. usual height, and is mounted on the Penn truck. Its weight is about 24,000 pounds. sylvania Railroad standard passenger car No finer work of the kind has ever been made. the British Parliament to allow it to run cently completed at the London & NorthThe two thousandth locomotive was rewestern's works at Crewe. was celebrated by giving a holiday and a The occasion day's pay to all the workmen, some 6,000 in number, and a banquet, which was attended by the directors of the company, at which were exhibited specimens of the different classes of engines used on the road. Correspondence. A REVIEW OF THE REPORT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSIONERS ON THE STRIKE OF THE BOSTON & MAINE RAILROAD. MESSRS. EDITORS: Arising as I have from the ranks of labor, unless I were false to my early training and associations, I must of necessity sympathize with the sons of toil in their struggles against the continued invasion of their just rights. But a true exercise of this natural friendship does not, by any manner of means, consist in encouraging them, by means of a wholesale, indiscriminate justification of all their acts. It consists in the defense of all their rightful acts, coupled with a condemnation of their errors. Considering employers and all who sympathize with them upon the one side, and employes and all who sympathize with them upon the other, they would stand in a ratio of about one hundred to one; that is to say, for every one of the former there would exist about one hundred of the latter. Hence, if all else were equal, the power of the latter, whether physical, moral or political, would stand as one hundred to one in favor of the latter, as against the former. Thus stands the matter so far as concerns the naked elements of power. But when we consider the manner and means by which the powers upon the one side and upon the other are put in operation and controlled, how quickly does the scene reverse itself, throwing the power-one hundred to one-upon the other side. Now, the cause of this sad result, as unjust as it is unnatural, I propose to consider. An intelligent understanding of this peculiar cause requires a consideration of the subject from its very bottom; and therefore the first thing in order would be a definition of the power itself, together with the manner of its creation. Power, in the sense in which it it is here used, may be defined to be the capacity or ability of one set of men to compel obedience on the part of others to their wishes and desires, and may, for all purposes material to the main subject of consideration, be divided into moral, political and physical. This division is not based upon any inherent difference in the power itself, but upon the manner and means of its use or operation. In either case the elements of the power are the same. All human power which arises above the power of an individual is created and obtained by means of the combination of two or more individuals for a common purpose. The power thus obtained is great or small, in exact proportion to the number of individuals combined. Now, while the elements of power always exist, it does not follow that the power itself exists. Thus, two things are absolutely essential to its existence; first, the elements; and second, their combination. Again, if the power does exist, it is just as capable for self-destruction as it is for the destruction of that against which it is designed to operate. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to its continued successful operation against that which it is arrayed, that it should be directed and controlled by a judgment and discretion, which has within itself a strength and depth of comprehension equal in degree or magnitude to the power operated. Thus an army of one hundred thousand men, in the absence of a competent commander, would be powerless for all purposes, other than self-destruction. And hence the fact, sad but true, that most, if not all, labor organizations, large and powerful as they have been in point of numbers and in the justice of their cause, while they fought hard and earnestly for their just rights, have battled but to their own destruction. The cause of the unjust advantage of employers over their employes, first arose from the fact, that while employers were coinbined against them, there was an entire want of counter-combination upon the part of the employes. In this case the naked power stood against them, because while they possessed the elements of much greater power than did their employers, such power did not, as indeed it could not, exist in the absence of combination. When at last they did combine, and in this manner did establish a vast power, having neither sufficient means, ability or discretion to properly control so great a power, their able and ingenious employers turned its operation upon themselves, and thus reversed, it slaughtered its own creator. I only state the naked fact of experience when I say that all labor organizations have been as weak and feeble in the accomplishment of their designed objects, as they have been strong and powerful in point of numbers and in the justice of their cause. To this the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers as yet forms an exception, but recent developments do not augur well for their continued legal existence as an operative power of self-protection against the wrongs and oppressions of their powerful employers. Already they are crippled in two States, and in the absence of the most keen, able and persistent work they will cripple them in most, if not all other States, The usual and most effective manner by which employers turn the power of their employes upon themselves, is this: When their power becomes established, the employers impose upon their employes a most gross and outrageous wrong. This wrong naturally spurs them to desperation; under this condition of things their passion, in stead of their judgment, holds the reins of action; a great power put in motion, to be controlled by the rein of possession, must of necessity run into self-destruction. strike does occur-that is, when actual war is declared and in existence-it cripples one of the contending parties for the benefit of the other. The assumption that any action, whether Again they say: "Throughout their inright or wrong, which will prevent the vestigations the members of the Board consummation of a wrong is justifiable, have looked at the question simply in its though very natural, is very false. The public bearings." I will not say this is not end does not always justify the means, and true; but I cannot help suggesting that the two wrongs never equal one right. But recommendations of the Commissioners this is the language of the most cool and are not at all consistent with its correctreflecting judgment, and never the lan-ness. And if it be true, their very next guage of passion. A great power, the motion of which is controlled by the dictates of passion, will, independent of all else, complete its own destruction. A great power, like the one now under consideration, which, in the nature of things, is compelled to move beneath the hostile frowns of the powers of government-its motion must be controlled by more than ordinary judgment and discretion, or it will form the groundwork, or a pretext for the groundwork. of its legal destruction. Thus, for example, a very slight mistake or oversight on the part of the Brotherhood on the Boston & Maine Railroad, viz: their concluding to strike at a certain fixed time, without making any provision for running the trains to their schedule destination, has, by reason of the genius and most able abilities of the three men to whom the duty was assigned, been erected into the most plausible pretext for the passage of legislation hostile and destructive to the just, reasonable and natural powers of the Brotherhood. expression is sadly deficient in expression. It is this: "With the Boston & Maine Railroad, as such, they [the Commissioners] have not concerned themselves." Now, if they did not concern themselves with the engineers of the Boston & Maine Railroad, why did they not say so. Simply because that would be expressing a glaring falsehood; the fact being that their sole purpose and design was not a discovery of the mischief and a remedy, but a discovery of a pretext on which they might suggest legislation hostile to the natural rights of the engineers. In order to carry out their purpose and design, notwithstanding their very able and commanding abilities, they were forced to base their conclusions, to say the least, upon doubtful and immaterial assumptions. These assumptions are as follows: First. In case of a strike, the public are the chief sufferers. Second. The engineers of the Boston & Maine Railroad were entirely responsible for the public suffering caused by the strike. Third. The railroads of Massachusetts are its arteries. Now, in regard to the first, while it is true that in all cases of strikes the public suffers more or less, it is equally true that in no case is the public the chief sufferer. In regard to the second, to say the least of it, if the Company had ample notice, as they did have in case of the strike on the Boston & Maine Railroad, of the time at which the strike would occur, they were equally responsible for the public suffering thereby occasioned; and it is manifestly unfair to throw the whole blame upon the engineers. By way of illustration of the ingenious sophistry by which the Massachusetts Commissioners reach their conclusions, I will quote and comment upon that portion of their report wherein they attempt a justification or an apology for them. They say: "The Commissioners believe they speak within bounds, and say only what it is their duty to say, when they express their belief that the condition of affairs disclosed in our railroad system, as the result of the strike of the 12th instant, is wholly incompatible with the public interest." Now, there is nothing more correct than the fact that a strike of any character, or in any department of labor, is incompatible with the public interest. But the fact that this In regard to the third, the fact that is true forms the most scathing criticism of railroads are the arteries of the State in the manner in which the Commissioners no way changes or alters the fact that they performed their most important duty. are private enterprises, owned and operThat the subject of their investigation was ated for private gain; and when the incompatible with the public interest was owners, in furtherance of their private the most forcible reason for them to extend gain, reduce the pay of their operators, their inquiries to its very foundation, and and a strike results, it is purely a private thus discover the original cause of strikes, question, and in no sense, legal or otherand, when discovered, suggest such legisla-wise, in the absence of an actual breach of tion as in their judgment would remove it. But, instead of doing this, they totally ignore the cause, and very correctly assume that strikes will occur; and upon this assumption they recommend legislation, the effect and purpose of which is this: when a the peace, can it be tortured into a public question; and the attempt of the Commissioners to do so, by reason of the most bald assumption, is too transparent to mislead anybody who does not desire to be misled. The Commissioners speak very correctly when they say they have not concerned themselves about the Railroad Company; yet it is equally true that they did most seriously and effectively concern themselves about the engineers. And thus out of their own mouth do they prove their investigation to have been a most er parte one, and as such it is neither entitled to respect nor consideration. rights and obligations which exist between employer and employe can be rightfully and justly adjusted. The law, for the most unaccountable reason, while it justly protects the rights of all other contracting parties, by compelling them to deal with each other upon equal footing, permits the parties to the parent of all contracts, viz: the contract of hire, to fix and adjust their When the Commissioners affirm that the terms as best they may; that is to say, it corporations and their employes "may en-permits the one to drive the other to the ter into such disputes between themselves wall, as chance affords the one or the other as may seem good to them," they squarely the power to do so. This, and this alone, is and entirely ignore the root and the trunk the evil, all else are but mere results or of the whole question, and their recom- consequences; and all legislation which mendation to lop off some of its branches stops short of the evil itself is far worse (results) cannot only never rise to the dig- than none at all, inasmuch as all legislative nity of a remedy, but must necessarily interference with an evil must, in the result in giving additional vigor to the root nature of things, either cure or aggravate. and growth to the trunk. If it cannot accomplish the former, it will surely accomplish the latter. Inasmuch as the Commissioners have seen fit to neither attempt nor even pretend to stop the disputes which, in the nature of things, must result in strikes, how, in the face of this they can protect the public from the suffering which a strike must necessarily impose upon them, is something they have seen fit not to explain, and to my mind it is entirely beyond the domain of explanation. This report, although manifestly false, both in its assumptions and conclusions, is yet plausible and ingenious; and this is allsufficient to move a modern legislature to hostile action against the rights of labor. And hence, until all labor organizations can impress upon each and every one of their members, in such a manner that, under no excitement, under no circumstances, or under no condition of things, will they forget the following truth, viz: that the powers of government, physical, judicial and legislative, are in full accord and sympathy with capital; and that, upon the slightest pretext, they will let loose their dogs of war in its defense, their continued existence as a defensive power against wrong and oppression cannot be reasonably hoped for. So long as they lose sight of this truth, they lose sight of the chain, of the sheet-anchor of their existence. If this required proof, the report of the Massachusetts Commissioners furnishes abundant evidence. Now the fundamental fallacy of the report consists in the fact that it wholly ignores the main question, and entirely confines itself to a mere consequence. Thus, without even the slightest inquiry as to whether the disputes between employer and employe could or could not, in all cases, be satisfactorily adjusted, and in that way entirely prevent strikes, they say to employer and employe, you may have all the disputes you please; but when you go to war, in order that the public may be protected, we recommend that the guns of the employes be spiked. Now, the original cause of all strikes is the entire absence of any rule by which the The main general premises and the main general conclusion of the report is as follows: The Brotherhood of Engineers in this particular instance, viz: the strike on the Boston & Maine Railroad, made use of their power without a just or sufficient cause; therefore they should be by law prohibited from the further use of their powers. Now, admitting, for the sake of the argument, that, in this particular instance, the premises are correct-is it fair, just or reasonable to say that, because they used their power in a single instance without sufficient cause, they should be prohibited from using it in case a sufficient, cause did exist? And that sufficient cause for its use has, does, and ever will exist is a fact too well established for cavil or dispute. Had the Commissioners, with a purpose to discover the evil and its remedy, gone to the bottom of the subject of their investigation, instead of confining their inquiries to a particular strike and its cause, they might have suggested something which, with some degree of correctness, might be termed a remedy. But what they have suggested, as will hereinafter clearly appear, is a positive aggravation. And for this purpose I will state the case, as considered by the Commissioners; and then, by way of contrast, state the case as it manifestly should have been considered by the Commissioners, or anybody else who honestly desires to remedy the evil. THE CASE AS CONSIDERED BY THE COMMIS SIONERS. First. Was there a sufficient cause for the strike on the Boston & Maine Railroad? Second. What were the consequences to the public of this particular strike? Third. What, if any, legislation is necessary to protect the public against future injury or inconvenience from a strike? THE CASE AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN CON SIDERED. First. What are the relations out of which strikes originate? |