Scientific Serials

Abstract

American journal of Science, January.—The history of a doctrine, by S. P. Langley. This is the address delivered iast year to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, here puhlished complete with the notes that have not hitherto appeared. Its object is to show the steady progress of scientific truth, as illustrated hy the history of the undulatory and corpuscular theories of light from the time of Descartes, Buyle, and other precursors of Newton down to the present day, when the identity of radiant light and heat as forms of motion, or as different effects of radiant energy, has heen finally estahlished.—Description of the new minerai beryllonite, by Edward S. Dana and Horace L. Wells. This is a new phosphate of sodium and beryllium discovered in 1886 by Mr. Sumner Andrews near Stoneham, Maine, the same district that has already yielded fine specimens of phenacite, herderiie, and other rare minerals. It occurs mostly as a crystal in a fragmentary state, of small size and seldom well formed, but remarkable for the number of planes they present, eight or more distinct planes being frequently presented in each zone on a single crystal. Twins are common, leading to many curiuus variations of form. The crystals are colourless, or slightly yellowish, and transparent, with specific gravity 2.845, and hardness 5.5—The iron ores of the Penokee-Gogebic series of Michigan and Wisconsin, by C. R. Van Hise. The author's recent explorations of this region confirm Prof. Irving's conclusion that the original rock of the iron-hearing formation is a cherty iron carbonate from which the various phases of rock and the ore found in it have been produced by a complex series of alterations. The iron ore is a soft, red, somewhat hydrated hæmatite, more or less manganiferous, and mostly very friable.—A quartz-keratophyre from Pigeon Point and Irving's augite-syenites, by W. 5. Bayley. The remarkable bright red rock of Pigeon Point, Minnesota, is here studied in its various phases, with the general result that the sections described by Irving as augite-syenites are partly identical with the typical red rock itself, and partly the same in all essentials as the formations which have been called its intermediate varieties. The space between the fresh olivine-gabbro and the typicai quartz-keratophyre is occupied by a series of rocks exhibiting a gradual transition between the beavy dark basie rock and the light red keratophyre.—On the occurrence of hanksite in California, by Henry G. Hanks. This anhydrous sulphate of soda has hitherto been found in limited quantities amongst the various borax fields of California. But the author's researches tend to show that it exists in great abundance, and that it plays an important part in the metamorphoses that produce gay-lussite, thinolite, and perhaps borax.—Further papers on Mount Loa are contributed by James D. Dana and the Rev. E. P. Baker, bringing its history down to July 1888.—H. L. Wells and S. L. Penfield contribute notes on the new mineral sperrylite.