And he would just as soon be a chemist as a mason or bootmaker, since the engineer wanted chemicals.

He would be all that they liked, "even a professor of dancing and deportment," said he to Neb, if that was ever necessary.
Neb and Pencroft were first of all told to extract the grease from the dugong, and to keep the flesh, which was destined for food.

Such perfect confidence had they in the engineer, that they set out directly, without even asking a question.

A few minutes after them, Cyrus Harding, Herbert, and Gideon Spilett, dragging the hurdle, went towards the vein of coals, where those shistose pyrites abound which are met with in the most recent transition soil, and of which Harding had already found a specimen.

All the day being employed in carrying a quantity of these stones to the Chimneys, by evening they had several tons.
The next day, the 8th of May, the engineer began his manipulations.
These shistose pyrites being composed principally of coal, flint, alumina, and sulphuret of iron--the latter in excess--it was necessary to separate the sulphuret of iron, and transform it into sulphate as rapidly as possible.