Professor Of Mineralogy Research Articles

Manual of Determinative Mineralogy, with an Introduction on Blowpipe Analysis

PROF. BRUSH has endeavoured to make the study of mineralogy lighter than usual, and has in many respects succeeded, but unfortunately for the modern student he has retained the old chemical formulæ. Surely it would have been better to swim with the times and adopt the new atomic weights, taking care to abolish all doubtful tests, and adding the latest and most accurate methods of analysis. Many of the latest and most delicate methods of mineral analysis are entirely omitted, such as Bunsen's methods for the detection of arsenic, antimony, selenium, molybdanum, uranium, &c. The work in question is divided into two distinct parts; the first containing descriptions of the different apparatus and reagents used, and a “Systematic Course of Blowpipe Analysis;” the second, styled “Determinative Mineralogy,” makes use of the knowledge acquired in the first part to determine the mineral species under examination. The “Systematic Course of Blowpipe Analysis ” is adapted from the later editions of Plattner's work on Blowpipe Analysis, edited by his successor, Prof. Richter; the “Determinative Mineralogy” is a translation of Von Kobell's “Tafeln zur Bestimmung der Mineralien,” tenth edition. Generally speaking, students do not take kindly to “Tables,” but Prof. Brush has made them more inviting by arranging the minerals having the same base into groups, and studying them in order. This is an excellent arrangement, and the distinguished author deserves the gratitude of students for thus lightening their labours. Too many mineralogical works of the present day exhibit a harum-scarum kind of classification, which simply bewilders the inquiring student and leaves him in greater confusion than before. The first part of the work opens with descriptions of various kinds of blowpipes, and the manner of using them, also the fuel used to obtain the requisite flame. Here, under the headings “Reducing” and “Oxidising” flames, are described very clearly the characters of the two flames, with very good engravings showing the zones. The methods for preparing the various reagents required are trivial and should Lhave been omitted; for instance, we are told to prepare pure carbonate of soda by taking “four or five ounces of commercial bicarbonate of soda free from mechanical impurities,” &c. We should be glad to know where Prof. Brush obtains his commercial bicarbonate of soda so free from impurity, as the manufacturer deserves encouragement. Chapter II. commences the “Systematic Course of Qualitative Blowpipe Analysis,” describing the reactions of the elements and their combinations in the “closed tube and open tube,” and on “Charcoal as a support.” Under the latter heading a very neat and novel method is given for overcoming the great difficulty experienced sometimes in keeping the assay in its place on the charcoal. Let those who wish to work in comfort for the future buy the book, and find the method therein. Manual of Determinative Mineralogy, with an Introduction on Blowpipe Analysis. By George J. Brush, Professor of Mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School. (New York: John Wiley and Son, 1875.)

I.—Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery; with a Description of the Geographical and Geological Features, and some account of the resources of the Great West; containing Thirty Photographic Views along the Line of the Pacific Railroad, from Omaha to Sacramento. By F. V. Hayden M.D., U.S. Geologist, Professor of Mineralogy and Geology in the University of Pennsylvania. Quarto, pp. 158

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Societies and Academies

LONDONRoyal Society, January 13.—The following papers were read:-“On the Mineral Constituents of Meteorites,” by Nevil Story-Maskelyne, M.A., Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Oxford, and Keeper of the Mineral Department, British Museum. Communicated by Prof. H. J. Stephen Smith, F.R.S. [We are compelled to postpone an abstract of this paper.] “On Fluoride of Silver.” Part I. By George Gore, F.R.S. This communication treats of the formation, preparation, analysis, composition, common physical properties, and chemical behaviour of fluoride of silver. The salt was prepared by treating pure silver carbonate with an excess of pure aqueous hydrofluoric acid in a platinum dish, and evaporating to dryness, with certain precautions. The salt thus obtained invariably contains a small amount of free metallic silver, and generally also traces of water and of hydrofluoric acid, unless special precautions mentioned are observed. It was analysed by various methods: the best method of determining the amount of fluorine in it consisted in evaporating to dryness a mixture of a known weight of the salt dissolved in water, with a slight excess of pure and perfectly caustic lime in,a platinum bottle, and gently igniting the residue at an incipient. red heat until it ceased to lose weight By taking proper care, the results obtained are accurate. The reaction in this method of analysis takes place according to the following equation: 2AgF +CaO= CaF.2 + 2Ag + 0. Sixteen parts of oxygen expelled equal thirty-eight parts of fluorine present. One of the methods employed for determining the amount of silver consisted in passing dry ammonia over the salt in a platinum boat and tube at a low red heat. The results obtained in the various analyses establish the fact that pure fluoride of silver consists of nineteen parts of fluorine and 108 of silver. Argentic fluoride is usually in the form of yellowish brown ear thy fragments; but when rendered perfectly anhydrous by fusion, it is a black horny mass,. with a superficial satin lustre, due to particles of free silver. It is extremely deliquescent and soluble in water; one part of the salt dissolves in '55 part by weight of water at 15° “5 C.; it evolves heat in dissolving, and forms a strongly alkaline solution. It is nearly insoluble in absolute alcohol. The specific gravity of the earthy-brown salt is 5 “852 at 15°'5 C.; the specific gravity of its aqueous solution, at I5°*5 C, saturated at that temperature, is 2 61. By chilling the saturated solution, it exhibited the phenomenon of supersatuiation and suddenly solidified, with evolution of heat, on immersing a platinum plate in it The solution is capable of being crystallised, and yields crystals of a hydrated salt; the act of crystallisation is attended by the singular phenomenon of the remainder of the salt separating in the anhydrous and apparently non-crystalline state, the hydrated salt taking to itself the whole of the water. The fused saltj after slow and undisturbed cooling, exhibits crystalline markings upon its surface. The dry salt is not decomposed by sunlight; it melts below a visible red heat; and forms a highly lustrous, mobile, and jet-black liquid. It is not decomposed by a red heat alone.; but in the state of semi-fusion or of complete fusion it is rapidly decomposed by the moisture of the air with separation of metallic silver; dry air does not decompose it. In the fused state it slightly corrodes vessels of platinum, and much more freely those of silver. The salt in a state of fusion with platinum electrodes conducts electricity very freely, apparently with the facility of a metal, and without visible evolution of gas or corrosion of the anode; a silver anode was rapidly dissolved by it, and one of lignum-vitas charcoal wras gradually corroded.

A System of Mineralogy: Descriptive Mineralogy comprising the most Recent Discoveries

II. EXCEPT in the subdivisions of the silicates, Professor Dana has adhered pretty nearly to the classification adopted in his fourth edition; which accords also in its general features, though not in its details, with that on which the minerals in the British Museum are arranged. The arrangement of the silicates in his new edition is a step that must be called tentative towards a simpler and more philosophical classification of these numerous and important salts. We certainly feel some hesitation in adopting either the terminology or the divisions Professor Dana introduces. The terms bi- and uni-silicate are not happy for the expression of oxygen ratios; not so happy, for instance, as the term singulo-silicate used for the latter by Rammelsberg, or the ortho-silicates of Odling. We own to a partiality for the view of Dr. Odling regarding the different classes of silicates, on the ground partly of the harmonious relations he introduces between these and other multibasic salts, and also from the satisfactory way in which these very important minerals group themselves as ortho-, para-, or meta-silicates. We may take another occasion for illustrating this, and pass on to Professor Dana's new and scholarlike handling of the whole question of nomenclature. A System of Mineralogy: Descriptive Mineralogy comprising the most Recent Discoveries. By James Dwight Dana, Silliman Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in Yale College, etc., aided by George Jarvis Brush, Professor of Mineralogy and Metallurgy in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College. Fifth edition, 8vo. pp. 827, figures 617. (London: (Trubner & Co.)

XXVIII. Mineralogical notices. Communicated by W. H. Miller, Esq., Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge

XXVIII. <i>Mineralogical notices. Communicated by</i> W. H. M<scp>iller</scp>, <i>Esq., Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge</i>

A treatise on crystallography, by W. H. Miller, F.R.S., Professor of mineralogy in the University of Cambridge

A treatise on crystallography, by W. H. Miller, F.R.S., Professor of mineralogy in the University of Cambridge

XLV. Letter from the Rev. Dr. W. Buckland, F.R.S. &amp;c. Professor of mineralogy and geology in the University of Oxford, on the discovery of Coprolites in North America

XLV. <i>Letter from the Rev.</i> Dr. W. Buckland, <i>F.R.S. &amp;c. Professor of mineralogy and geology in the University of Oxford, on the discovery of Coprolites in North America</i>

VI. An Account of some Antiquities found at Fulbourn in Cambridgeshire, in a Letter addressed to Nicholas Carlisle, Esq. F.R.S. Secretary; by the Rev. E. D. Clarke, LL.D. Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge

The observations already transmitted to the Society of Antiquaries, respecting some Celtic remains discovered near Sawston, were hardly communicated to the Society when our attention was again called to similiar antiquities of much more elegant form, and very superior workmanship, that were found by a party of labourers in the service of Greaves Townley, Esq. of Fulbourn, as they were digging upon Fulbourn common. Mr. Townley had the kindness to send these men to me at Cambridge, with the curious reliques they had brought to light; and as he allowed me to make what use of them I pleased, I am enabled to lay before the Society such other remarks as appear to me to be worthy of notice; accompanied, as before, with a drawing, by Mr. Kerrich, of the things as they were found, remarkable for its fidelity and exactness of delineation.

XLI. On the Lituus of the antient Romans; shewing that this name had a two-fold signification; being used to denote a sign of the highest Priesthood, and also an Augural Staff; but that the whole series of numismatic writers have considered it as applicable solely to the latter: together with some other observations, in illustration of a Jasper Intaglia Signet,

There is a Symbol, which may be observed upon the medals of the Roman empire from the time of Julius Cæsar down to Gallienus, and perhaps later, resembling, as to its form, the tendril of a Vine. Its curvature is more or less convoluted in different instances; and the lower part of the stem is represented as if it had been stripped from the stock of some plant.

XLI. Observations upon some Celtic Remains, lately discovered by the Public Road leading from London to Cambridge, near to the Village of Sawston, distant seven miles from the University, by Edward Daniel Clarke, LL.D. Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge. Communicated by the Rev. Thomas Kerrich, M.A. F.S.A.

It is not attaching too high a degree of importance to the study of Celtic antiquities, to maintain, that, owing to the attention now paid to it in this country, a light begins to break in upon that part of ancient history, which, beyond every other, seemed to present a forlorn investigation. All that relates to the aboriginal inhabitants of the north of Europe, would be involved in darkness but for the enquiries now instituted respecting Celtic sepulchres. From the information already received, concerning these sepulchres, it may be assumed, as a fact almost capable of actual demonstration, that the mounds, or barrows, common to all Great Britain, and to the neighbouring continent, together with all the tumuli fabled by Grecian and by Roman historians as the tombs of Giants, are so many several vestiges of that mighty family of Titan-Celts who gradually possessed all the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and who extended their colonies over all the countries where Cyclopéan structures may be recognized; whether in the walls of Crotona, or the temple at Stonehénge; in the Cromlechs of Wales, or the trilithal monuments of Cimbrica Chersonesus; in Greece, or in Asia-Minor; in Syria, or in Egypt. It is with respect to Egypt alone, that an exception might perhaps be required; but history, while it deduces the origin of the worship of Minerva, at Sais, from the Phrygians, also relates of this people, that they were the oldest of mankind. The Cyclopéan architecture of Egypt may therefore be referred originally to the same source; but, as in making the following Observations brevity must be a principal object, it will be necessary to divest them of every thing that may seem like a Dissertation; and confine the statement, here offered, to the simple narrative of those facts, which have led to its introduction.

XI. A Sketch of the Geology of the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Being resident in a district which has been but little noticed as to its geological structure, I have drawn up the following remarks on its stratification; and though omissions may occur, yet I trust that an account of the Wolds of Lincolnshire and the adjacent country, may not prove uninteresting to the members of the Geological Society. In conformity to the request of the Rev. Mr. Buckland, Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Oxford, I have endeavoured to trace on the annexed map, Pl. 24. fig. 4. the denudations or bassets of the chalk, the oolite limestone, and the sand strata, together with the alluvial earth and hills of the same formation, with as much accuracy as my personal knowledge and the nature of the country will admit. I have also added a sketch of a section, Pl. 24. fig. 3. on the same scale as the map with respect to horizontal distance (the elevation being merely imaginary) intended to elucidate the order of the stratification. It is obvious that as the general dip of the strata of this district forms but a very small angle with the horizon, the superficial extent of the different beds occupies a greater stretch of country than from their thicknesses might at first be apprehended: in the section indeed, these measures are represented at considerable angles, yet by keeping the circumstance above mentioned in view, I hope it will be found to answer the purpose for which it is intended. The marshes betwixt