As the news spread men poured into the Perche district from no one knows where, some armed with only a piece of salt pork, a little meal, and a prospecting pick; some mounted on mules, others on foot; old men and men half-crippled were among the number, but all bitten by the monomania which possesses every prospector. Now there are probably 2,000 men in the Perche district, and the number of prospects located must far exceed 1,000. Three miners from there with whom I was talking recently owned forty-seven mines among them, and while one acknowledged that hardly one prospect in a hundred turns out a prize, the other millionaire in embryo remarked that he wouldn't take $50,000 for one of his mines. So it goes, and the victims of the mining fever here seem as deaf to reason as the buyers of mining stock in New York. Fuel was added to the flame by the report that Shedd had sold his location, named the Solitaire, to ex-Governor Tabor and Mr. Wurtzbach on August 25 for $100,000. This was not true. I met Governor Tabor's representative, who came down recently to examine the properties, and learned that the Governor had not up to that date bought the mine. He undoubtedly bonded it, however, and his representative's opinion of the properties seemed highly favorable. The Solitaire showed what appeared to be a contact vein, with walls of porphyry and limestone in a ledge thirty feet wide in places, containing a high assay of horned silver. The vein was composed of quartz, bearing sulphides, with horn silver plainly visible, giving an average assay of from $350 to $500. This was free milling. These were the results shown simply by surface explorations, which were certainly exceedingly promising. Recently it has been stated that a little development shows the vein to be only a blind lead, but the statement lacks confirmation. In any case the effect of so sensational a discovery is the same in creating an intense excitement and attracting swarms of prospectors.
But the Perche district does not rest on the Solitaire, for there has been abundance of mineral wealth discovered throughout its extent. Four miles south of this prospect, on the middle fork of the Perche, is an actual mine--the Bullion--which was purchased by four or five Western mining men for $10,000, and yielded $11,000 in twenty days. The ore contains horn and native silver. On the same fork are the Iron King and Andy Johnson, both recently discovered and promising properties, and there is a valuable mine now in litigation on the south fork of the Perche, with scores of prospects over the entire district. Now that one or two sensational strikes have attracted attention, and capital is developing paying mines, the future of the Perche District seems assured.
THE SOY BEAN.
The British Medical Journal says that Prof. E. Kinch, writing in the Agricultural Students' Gazette, says that the Soy bean approaches more nearly to animal food than any other known vegetable production, being singularly rich in fat and in albuminoids. It is largely used as an article of food in China and Japan. Efforts have been made to acclimatize it in various parts of the continent of Europe, and fair success has been achieved in Italy and France; many foods are made from it and its straw is a useful fodder.
ON A NEW ARC ELECTRIC LAMP.
[Footnote: Paper read at the British Association, Southampton. Revised by the Author.--Nature.]