How little aware is the great mass of the community at what an expense of human suffering and misery the ordinary necessaries of civilized life are obtained! Few of our readers, we will venture to say, have ever heard of the dreadful extent of the accidents which have occurred in the mines of Cornwall from the use of _iron_ rammers, in the process of charging the rock with gunpowder, in order to blast it. Hundreds have been thus sent to an untimely grave, or, what perhaps is still worse, have been so mutilated as to remain blind and helpless objects of misery for the rest of their days, while their wives and children have been thus driven, in a state of destitution, to the hard necessity of seeking from charity that pittance which honest industry could no longer supply. We must refer the reader for a full account of this appalling subject to Dr. Paris's Memoir, in the first volume of the Society's Transactions, entitled "_On the Accidents which occur in the Mines of Cornwall, in consequence of the premature explosion of Gunpowder in blasting rocks; and on the methods to be adopted for preventing it, by the introduction of a Safety Bar, and an instrument termed the Shifting Cartridge_." We earnestly, therefore, entreat the Society to persevere in those laudable efforts, which have already ensured for it the respect of the learned, and the gratitude of the public.--_Floreat._ Besides the instructive collection of the Geological Society, the splendid cabinet of _Joseph Carne, Esq._ may now be seen in this town, for since the first edition of this "_Guide_," the Cornish Copper Company have given up their smelting establishment at Hayle, at which place _Mr. Carne_ formerly lived as the resident partner. Among the principal excellencies of this collection we may notice _Prehnite_, in a variety of forms; _Axinite_ in the usual forms of that mineral; _Stilbite_ in flat four-sided prisms, terminated by pyramids; _Mesotype_ radiated; _Garnets_ in twelve, and twenty-four sided crystals; _Pinite_ in six and twelve sided prisms; _Uranite_ in quadrangular tables with the angles sometimes truncated, and also in forms much resembling cubes and octohedrons; _Uran-ochre_; _Native Bismuth_; and _Specular Iron ore_, little inferior in beauty to that brought from Elba,--all of which are from Saint Just. From other parts of Cornwall are _Sulphate of Lead_ (Vellenoweth Mine) in a variety of forms, more especially in one resembling an octahedron; _Grey Sulphuret of Copper_ (Crenver mine), the best defined crystals of which are very obtuse dodecahedrons, and six sided prisms; in some specimens the dodecahedron is so placed upon the summit of a prism as to produce the whimsical appearance of a nail, which from its rarity is sought after by mineral collectors with considerable avidity. Two specimens of rarity also in this collection are the _Yellow_, and _Grey Sulphuret of Copper_, in forms approaching that of Cube; the latter is pseudomorphous.