Tin ores being sold by private contract, the particulars are not generally published or accessible. We hope, however, to be able to provide monthly a tolerably complete list of the sales of this metallic ore: the above list gives no idea of the real sales. THE LIBRARY W.YORK MINING AND SMELTING MAGAZINE. MARCH, 1862, The Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon. BY ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S., Keeper of the Mining Records. THE second general meeting of the Miners' Association of Cornwall and Devon has recently been held at Redruth. The council's report, and the supplementary reports of the educational and the financial secretaries, have been made. The public, therefore, who may be interested in this the most recent experiment in the way of giving a technical education to the miners, have the means of judging of the prospects of the Association becoming a permanent institution. There is certainly much that is encouraging in the results obtained during the past year. One hundred and thirty persons, more or less connected with the mining operations of Cornwall, have been receiving instruction in chemistry, mineralogy and mechanics. A considerable number of these, considering all the circumstances of their position, passed with great credit the examinations of the Department of Science and Art, securing many of the best prizes which the Government offered. If the ability and the industry of an individual is to be judged of by the result of a public examination, then the young Cornish miner has shown considerable industry and great aptitude in acquiring knowledge. I am not, however, prepared to adopt this test as a conclusive one. These very examinations have forced on me the conviction that more than the average amount of intelligence existed amongst those young men who did not "pass" in the examinations of last May. An exa Minds vary infinitely in their conditions, these conditions being greatly dependent on the physical state of the individual. mination is necessarily confined to a few hours, and within that time a nervously excitable or a timid man may be quite unable to collect his thoughts sufficiently to gather together the fragments of knowledge which are, as it were, scattered in his mind. Let those, therefore, who did not succeed at the last examination "take hope again," and let not the enquirer suppose that the aptitude for knowledge was represented by the numbers-though these were VOL. 1. 11 |