E. MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY. 227 



NATIVE TELLURIUM IN COLORADO. 



One of the most interesting results of the examination of 

 sundry minerals collected during the geological survey of 

 Professor Hayden in 1873, according to Dr. F. M. Endlich, 

 one of the geologists of the expedition, consists in the fact 

 that native tellurium was found among some of the tellu- 

 rides from the Red Cloud Mine at Gold Hill, Colorado. It 

 occurred in a specimen weighing about six pounds, a me- 

 chanical mixture of quartz and native tellurium in equal pro- 

 portions. Except in Transylvania, tellurium has never been 

 found in its native state. Small admixtures of bismuth, se- 

 lenium, iron, gold, and silver are associated with it, so that 

 the tellurium is only about ninety-one per cent, of the min- 

 eral. 



BEDS OF SULPHUR IN ICELAND. 



The discovery of immense beds of sulphur in Iceland bids 

 fair to make a material change in the trade in that substance, 

 the Italian mines, according to recent accounts, having be- 

 come to a considerable degree exhausted. An Englishman, 

 Mr. Locke, has purchased six square miles in the region ad- 

 joining Lake Myvatn, in which are mountains of almost solid 

 sulphur, the yellow color of which is visible at a great dis- 

 tance. 13 A, July 25, 1874, 97. 



"MINERAL BUTTER." 



Sch warz, chief of an astronomical expedition to East Sibe- 

 ria, obtained there a white salt, in form of globules about the 

 size of pease, and grouped in clusters, the source of which, ac- 

 cording to the natives, was the schistose rock on the banks 

 of the Yenisei River, and employed in dressing wounds. 

 Fragments of adhering rock confirmed the statement of its 

 origin. It was almost completely soluble in water, the resi- 

 due left consisting of a mixture of basic sulphates of alumina 

 and sesquioxide of iron, while the liquid, possessing a strong- 

 ly acid reaction on litmus, contained, in addition to the neu- 

 tral salts of these sesquioxides, a considerable quantity of 

 the sulphates of magnesia and ammonia, with some sulphates 

 of lime and soda, and traces of sulphate of potash and chlo- 

 ride of sodium. A white salt similar to the above was ob- 



