MINERALOGY. 



By EDWARD S. DAXA, Ph.D., 



Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut. 



RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 



Prominent among the contributions of the past year to the 

 literature of mineralogy stands the tenth edition of Nau- 

 mann's standard work. It is not too much to say that, since 

 the publication of the first edition in 1846, it has always 

 occupied the foremost place among German Mineralogies. 

 The author closed his long and active career in November, 

 1873, just as the ninth edition of his work had been given to 

 the public. The present edition has been prepared by Pro- 

 fessor Zirkel, of Leipsic, well known for his many contribu- 

 tions to the subject of microscopical lithology. He has re- 

 tained the general arrangement of the book, but has changed 

 the method of classification, adopting the much-to-be-pre- 

 ferred chemical system in the place of that employed by 

 Naumann. This, it need hardly be added, increases much 

 the value of the work. 



A second volume of Rosenbusch's "Mikroskopische Physi- 

 ographic der Miueralien und Gesteine" has recently appear- 

 ed. The first volume, devoted to the description of the mi- 

 croscopical characters of the important minerals, was publish- 

 ed in 1873. The second part of the work is somewhat more 

 extensive than the former, running to about six hundred 

 pages, and is devoted to lithology. Both volumes derive 

 much of their value from the fact that they embody the re- 

 sults of the author's own extended researches. Professor 

 Zepharovich, of Prague, has edited a series of large crystal- 

 lographical figures designed for class instruction. They in- 

 clude the most important crystalline forms under the differ- 

 ent systems, and are drawn on so large a scale as to be 

 adapted for wall-charts, in which form they will doubtless 

 be found very useful. 



The publication of a new edition of Kenngott's Mineralo- 



