THE PROGRESS OF AMERICAN MINERALOGY. 805 



dred supposed new American minerals. Of these, perhaps one quarter 

 are new to science, and the remainder have either been proved to be 

 identical with species already described, or their characters are so im- 

 perfectly given that further investigation is needed to ascertain what 

 they are. Among these new minerals are some of great interest to 

 science. . . . 



In comparing the minerals found in America with those of Europe, 

 although interesting minor variations are observed, it can hardly be 

 expected that very marked differences should exist. This is, of course, 

 due to the fact that, in the inorganic kingdom, Nature has everywhere 

 to do with the same elements, under essentially like conditions. A 

 large number of remarkable analogies between the minerals of the two 

 continents will occur to anyone familiar with the subject, as, for exam- 

 ple, the character of the occurrence of individual minerals in the rocks 

 of the Northeastern United States and Canada as compared with those 

 of Norway and Sweden, and numberless instances of like association 

 of minerals in various parts of Europe find their counterparts here. 



A marked feature of American minerals is the grand scale upon 

 which crystallization has taken place, individual crystals of large size 

 being very common. The granite veins of New England afford strik- 

 ing examples of this kind. We have common mica, in sheets a yard 

 across ; feldspar has been observed where a single cleavage-plane 

 measured ten feet ; gigantic hexagonal prisms of beryl, four feet long 

 and more than two feet in diameter, and weighing over two tons, have 

 been described ; spodumene crystals, six to seven feet in length and a 

 foot or more across, and masses of rock-crystal of immense size, have 

 been found. Canada and New York have given crystals of apatite, 

 phlogopite, and sphene, which for these species are of marvelous grand- 

 eur in dimensions. Many other American localities might be men- 

 tioned where giant crystals occur. While it is true that these are 

 extraordinary instances, it is also true, as a general fact common to a 

 very large proportion of the minerals found in this country, that the 

 species occur in much larger crystals than those obtained from Euro- 

 pean localities. 



Another point worthy of note is the occurrence in comparatively 

 large quantities, and over wide areas, of some of the rarer elements as 

 constituents of the minerals found. In illustration of this we have, 

 among the rare earths, glucina combined with silica and alumina in 

 the mineral beryl, occurring in large quantity and perhaps in a hun- 

 dred or more places ; zirconia, in the mineral zircon, is also very wide- 

 spread in its range of occurrence as an original constituent of the older 

 rocks, as well as a vein-mineral; localities are known which have fur- 

 nished this rare species *by the hundred-weight. The cerium earths 

 are found largely in the mineral allanite, which occurs in so many 

 places that it may be said to be a common mineral in the United 

 States. These earths are also found in the rare phosphate monazite, a 



