FRENCH PROPERTY OWNERS.
The financial strength of the French is a constant marvel to other nations. Political economists point to the single standard of coinage or to the double standard, according as they consider France to adhere to one or the other of these systems, as the source of this strength. But the difference between that and other nations is probably more conspicuous in the management of government loans than in any other thing. The French government does not depend on syndicates. More than four million French men and women have subscribed to the public debt, and whatever arrangements are made with great bankers, the common people of France are always invited to take a part of the bonds at a fixed and fair price. That country is noticeably distinguished from Great Britain by the equally wide distribution of land. There are more than five million peasant proprietors in France, while the United Kingdom is owned by about 200,000 persons. In England one person in 130 probably owns land, as distinguished from mere house property, and outside of London one in 30 owns a house. In Scotland one in 400 is a landowner, and one in 28 has a house in his name. In Ireland one in 315 owns land, but only one in 120 has title to a house.
TRIGONOMETRICAL SURVEY OF NEW YORK.
The board of commissioners in whose charge is placed the projected trigonometrical survey of New York State report that preparations have been made for beginning the work in ten counties westward from the line of the upper Hudson river to Seneca lake. The starting points are the four United States Coast Survey stations at Mt. Rafinesque, near Troy, Helderberg, Princetown, and Greenwich. The position of these points has been very accurately ascertained by means of two independent lines of triangles carried from New England and Fire Island through Connecticut and Massachusetts. The State Survey, therefore, enjoys the advantage of starting from points that belong to the great chain of stations established by the general Government, and these are so placed that the first line of triangles which crosses the State will connect directly with another chain of similar stations on the great lakes. The plan followed includes the selection of prominent elevations of land for principal stations. An earthen vessel of peculiar shape and markings will be sunk below the first line, and its centre clearly marked. Above this will be placed a squared stone projecting from the ground. The latter will be the visible base of operations in common use, but the former will be the permanent and authoritative reference in case of any difficulty or doubt. It is intended to establish these points about twelve miles apart, and their positions will be determined by careful astronomical observations, checked by accurate measurements of their distance from neighboring stations. Wherever the nature of the ground compels the placing of these stations at distances inconveniently great, subordinate points will be established in the intermediate ground. In the present working ground the highlands which bound the Mohawk valley on the north and south afford admirable positions for these stations.
The director of the survey reports that the work is well received by farmers, and he gives some excellent reasons why it should be. Boundary marks have so generally disappeared that in tracing the boundaries of eleven counties where sixty corners had been made, only two were found. It is a part of Mr. Gardner's plan to preserve these old lines, marking them in a permanent manner. The cost of bad work appears to have been very large to the people. The citizens of the State spend $40,000 for maps that are really worthless. Designing persons obtain aid for improper enterprises by exhibiting false maps, and there is no means of disproving their assertions. Counties and towns have contributed large sums to such projects, and the total is estimated at forty million dollars. Half of this was paid for the Oswego Midland railroad, which Mr. Gardner says would never have been built had its supporters known the character of the country it would cross and the ruinous original cost and running expenses involved in its heavy cuttings and high grades. The cost of surveying the whole State is estimated at $200,000 for the trigonometrical work, which is all that is now projected. To this must eventually be added topography and mapping, though these are not necessary for fixing boundaries. Still, the whole sum required, distributed as it would be over ten years' time, would be a light burden and a remunerative expenditure.
THE USE OF AIR IN ORE DRESSING.
A correspondent, Mr. M. F. M. Cazin, writes us that the article on "Hot Water in Dressing Ores" in the March number "is another good illustration of how great men will stumble over little things. Permit me to express a principle with regard to the same matter, by which without Rittinger's profound calculations, without Ransom's laboratory experiments, the entire question about the best medium (liquid or fluid) for separating two equal sized particles of solids according to their density (specific gravity) can be settled for every special case." His "principle" is that the ideal fluid for this purpose is one that is more dense than the lighter of the two particles and less dense than the heavier. But this is no new revelation. The difficulty is that there is but one fluid of the kind, and only one metal (disregarding the very rare ones) to which it can be applied. The fluid is mercury and the metal gold. The latter has a specific gravity of say 19, and therefore sinks when it is carried upon a bath of fluid quicksilver, with a specific gravity of say 13.6. The sand with which the metal is mixed has a specific gravity of only 2.6 to 5, and floats over the mercury bath and away into the waste, thus effecting the desired separation. This operation, and the fact that there is such a thing as a theoretically ideal fluid, was clearly pointed out by Rittinger, for whom Mr. Cazin appears to have so little respect. The latter gentleman does bring forward one new point, and it is an important one. He asserts that air can be made to act as an "ideal" fluid, in the sense referred to here, by imparting motion to it. This conclusion depends on the consideration that "motion of the fluid in an opposite direction to the fall of the solid particles is equivalent (by friction, adhesion, resistance) to an increase of density of the fluid. Therefore air may by imparted motion have the same separating effect, in a specified case, as water would have without motion."