The prizes, which will be awarded by the Messrs. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, are: $40, divided among the ten best solvers according to merit. If one solver stands conspicuously ahead of the rest he or she will be given from $10 to $25, as the comparative excellence of the answer warrants. Persons of any age may help find the answers, but only those who have not passed their 18th birthday, and who are members of households in which this paper is regularly read, may send them in. Merit signifies correctness and neatness, and has no reference to the solution reaching the office of Harper's Round Table first in point of time. Elaborate decoration of answers is not encouraged. Use common stationery, note size, and do not roll. Write on one side of the paper only. Everything comes to those who—try!
Questions and Answers.
H. M. Kimball says he made a battery after the suggestions given in the Table, and that it worked well when he put one cell in the circuit. But when he connected two, the battery seemed to give out. He asks for an explanation. The matter is, probably, that he connected the negative to the negative and the positive to the positive poles, in which case one cell nullified the strength of the other. The positive should be connected to the negative pole, and the negative to the positive. That is to say, the zinc to the copper, not the zinc to the zinc. Yes, the Calland cell is dirty and easily upset. In these days of improvements in batteries it is cheaper and cleaner to buy one's cells outright. The only thing lost then is the experience gained in putting them together—and the fun of doing the thing one's self.—Edgar W. Hall asks for a charter for a Chapter, and fails to give the name of the latter. What does he call his society? Tell us what name to fill in, and we will send charter promptly.
James D. Waite says his school battalion went to Washington last year, and is going again this year, and he offers to write a morsel describing the trip. By all means let us have the morsel. You are a member of the Order if you have a Patent in the Camera Club. One Patent admits to all divisions of the Order. Henry T. Smith asks what the new process is by which so much more gold than formerly is now gotten out of quartz and gold ore. Here it is. It is somewhat technical. It was invented in Australia. The machine consists of vertical distributors and mercury baths, placed as follows:—The crashed materials or slum enter a cast-iron trough or distributor, which is from 3 feet to 6 feet long and 5 inches wide; its sectional shape is half round. At the bottom of this distributor, and in a straight line from end to end, is a row of 1-4-inch holes, 5-6 inch from centre to centre. Below this is placed a mercury bath 2-1/8 inches wide by 5/16 inch deep, running the whole length of the distributor, and placed at a distance sufficient to cause the materials passing through the holes to form an indentation in the silver about the size of half a pea. These jets strike the mercury in the centre of the ripple at right angles. By these means the whole of the stuff is brought into forcible contact with the silver without separating it, and flows over its surface into another distributor below; and from there it again passes through another row of holes, and brought into contact with a second bath of silver. This operation is repeated until every particle of tailings has passed over eight mercury baths.
This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.