Before any plan is adopted for treating the ore in a new mine the management should very seriously and carefully consider the whole circumstances of the case, taking into account the quantity and quality of the lode stuff to be operated on, and ascertain by analysis what are its component parts, for, as before stated, the treatment which will yield most satisfactory results with a certain class of gangue on one mine will sometimes, even when the material is apparently similar, prove a disastrous failure in another. Some time since I was glad to note that the manager of a prominent mine strongly discountenanced the purchase of any extracting plant until he was fully satisfied as to the character of the bulk of the ore he would have to treat. It would be well for the pockets of shareholders and the reputation of managers, if more of our mine superintendents followed this prudent and sensible course. Having treated on gold extraction with mercury by amalgamated plates and their accessories, something must be said about secondary modes of saving in connection with the amalgamation process. The operations described hitherto have been the disintegration of the gold-bearing material and the extraction therefrom of the coarser free gold. But it must be understood that most auriferous lode stuff contains a proportion of sulphides of various metals, wherein a part of the gold, usually in a very finely divided state, is enclosed, and on this gold the mercury has no influence. Also many lodes contain hard heavy ferric ores, such as titanic iron, tungstate of iron, and hematite, in which gold is held. In others, again, are found considerable quantities of soft powdery iron oxide or "gossan," and compounds such as limonite, aluminous clay, etc., which, under the action of the crushing mill become finely divided and float off in water as "slimes," carrying with them atoms of gold, often microscopically small. To save the gold in such matrixes as these is an operation which even the best of our mechanical appliances have not yet fully accomplished. Where there is not too great a proportion of base metals on which the solvent will act, and when the material is rich enough in gold to pay for the extra cost of treatment, chlorination or cyanisation are the best modes of extraction yet practically adopted. Presuming, however, that we are working by the amalgamation process, and have crushed our stone and obtained the free gold, the next requirement is an effective concentrator. Of these there are many before the public, and some do excellent work, but do not act equally well in all circumstances. The first and most primitive is the blanket table, previously mentioned; but it can hardly be said to be very effective, and requires constant attention and frequent changing and washing of the strips of blanket.