E. MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY. 235 



fossils of the state ; among others to the discovery, by Mr. J. 

 H. Klippart, of twelve nearly complete skeletons of the fossil 

 peccary Dicotyles compressus a species hitherto known 

 only from scattered fragments. A full account of this spe- 

 cies is promised in the succeeding volume. 



NEW MINERALS. 



Anions; the new minerals discovered and described during;; 

 the year 1874 is one known as liivotite, which occurs in reg- 

 ular masses disseminated through limestone in Lerida, in 

 Spain. Another, Livingstonite, has been found in the State 

 of Guerrero, Mexico, and according to Barcena, its discover- 

 er, it is a double sulphide of mercury and antimony. 



Foresite is another new mineral, from the Isle of Elba, dis- 

 covered by Professor "Von Rath, of Bonn. This is a hydrous 

 silicate of alumina, lime, and soda. 



Veszelyite is described by Professor Schrauf, of Vienna. It 

 is a hydrated phosphate of copper, of a bluish-green color, 

 and crystallizing in the triclinic s} 7 stem. It occurs in gar- 

 net, at Morawitza, in the Banat. 16 A, October^ 540. 



OPTICAL STRUCTURE OF CRYSTALS. 



Professor Cook, of Harvard College, in a most elaborate 

 investigation into the crystallographic chemical relations of 

 the vermiculites and the micas, has arrived at some results, 

 quite new, and entirely unexpected, in relation to the optical 

 phenomena of crystals. He states that the facts noted by 

 him most distinctly suggest the theory that the optical phe- 

 nomena of quartz are produced by a molecular structure 

 similar to that by which we have obtained identical phe- 

 nomena in artificial plates of mica, and that the two orders 

 of crystals are aggregates of compound molecules whose 

 parts are twinned together, in the one case in right-handed, 

 and the other in left-handed spirals, and that the simple 

 molecule, if developed normally, would produce a bi-axial 

 structure. This theory is most markedly in harmony with 

 the chemical relations of silica. 4 Z>, VII., 435. 



GEOLOGY OF THE SIBERIAN STEPPES. 



According to Mr. Thomas Belt, the steppes or great plains 

 of Siberia are by no means of marine origin, as has been 



