The Broken Hill Proprietary Company has many thousands of tons of these slimes which the smelters have hitherto been unable to cope with, owing to the roasters being fully occupied with the more valuable concentrates. Moreover, the desulphurization of slimes in Ropp mechanical roasters is objectionable for various reasons, namely, owing to the large amount of dust created with such fine material, resulting injuriously to the men employed; also on account of the reduction in the capacity of the roasters, and consequent increase in working cost, owing to the lightness of the slime, especially when hot, as compared with concentrates, and the necessity for limiting the thickness of material on the bed of the roasters to a certain small maximum. Further, the desulphurization of the slimes is no more complete with the mechanical roasters than in the case of heap roasting, and the combined cost of roasting and briquetting being quite three shillings (or 75c.) per ton in excess of the cost of heap roasting, the latter possesses many advantages. These heaps are being dealt with, preparatory to roasting, by picking down the material in lumps of about 5 in. in thickness, while the fine dry smalls, unavoidably produced, are worked up in a pug mill with water, and dealt with in the same way as the wet slime produced from current work. The slime, as produced by the mills, is run from bins into railway trucks in a semi-fluid condition, and shortly after being tipped alongside one of the various sidings on the mine is in a fit condition to be cut with shovels into rough bricks, which dry with fair rapidity, and when required for roasting are easily reloaded into railway trucks. As each man can cut about 20 tons of bricks per day, the cost is small. Various other methods of lumping the slime were tried, including trucking the semi-fluid material on movable trams, alongside which were set laths, about 9 in. apart, which enabled long slabs to be formed 9 in. wide and 5 in. thick, which were, after drying, picked up in suitable lumps and loaded in platform trucks, thence on railway trucks. Owing to the inferior roasting that takes place with bricks having flat sides, which are liable to come into close contact in roasting, and to the rather high labor cost, this method was discontinued. Another method was to allow the slime to dry partially after being emptied from railway trucks, and to break it into lumps by means of picks; but this method entailed the making of an increased amount of smalls, besides taking up more siding room, owing to the extra time required for drying, as compared with the method now in use. Ordinary bricking machines could, of course, be used, but when the cost of handling the slime before and after bricking is counted, the cost would be greater than with the simple method now in use; the material being in too fluid a condition for making into bricks until some time elapses for