186 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



elasticity may be shewn as it stands upon one end, by applying a 

 moderate force to the middle or the other end. Its flexibility is 

 seen, too, by supporting the ends of it in a horizontal position upon 

 blocks. The marble has various colours, nearly white, with a 

 reddish tinge, gray, and dove-coloured. Some of it has a fine 

 grain ; other specimens are coarsely granular, and have a loose 

 texture. It is not uncommon for one side of a large block to be 

 flexible, while the other part is destitute of this property. It takes 

 a good polish, and appears to be carbonate of lime, and not a mag- 

 nesian carbonate. 



It is well known that Dolomieu attributed the flexibility of the 

 marble he examined to exsiccation, and that Bellevue ascertained 

 that unelastic marble might be made elastic by exsiccation. The 

 flexible marble of this counry, however, loses this property in 

 part on becoming dry. When it is made thoroughly wet by the 

 operation of sawing, or of polishing, it must be handled with 

 great care, to prevent its breaking ; and the large slabs of it can- 

 not be raised with safety unless supported in the middle as well as 

 at the ends — Silliman's Journal, ix. .241. 



7. Extraordinary Minerals discovered at Warwick, Orange 

 County, N. Y. — These extraordinary minerals are described by 

 Dr. Fowler, in Silliman's Journal, ix. p. 242. They belong, he 

 says, to the formation of crystalline limestone, which there, per- 

 haps, has no parallel in any other region of the world, and were 

 discovered in the township of Warwick. " What will be thought 

 of spinelle pleonaste, the side of one of whose bases measures three 

 to four inches, or twelve to sixteen inches in circumference ? 

 These crystals are black and brilliant, sometimes aggregated, at 

 other times solitary ; at this locality seldom or ever less than the 

 size of a bullet. Some are partly alluvial, their matrix decompos- 

 ing, but when unaltered, they are found associated with what has 

 never yet been described, namely, crystals of serpentine, slightly 

 rhomboidal prisms, of a magnitude parallel with the crystals of 

 spinelle, often greenish and compact, at other times tinged yellow 

 by an admixture of Brucite." 



" In the same mass also are associated very large prismatic 

 crystals of chromate of iron, at least so they appear to be, by the 

 beautiful green colour which they impart to nitrate of potash, hav- 

 ing a specific gravity of 4.3. Some of these prisms are an inch in 

 breadth, and two inches in length, with two lateral faces broader 

 than the rest." 



" Not far from the same locality also is found, associated gene- 

 rally with a fine green and crystalline serpentine, the red spinelle, 

 of various shades and degrees of translucence," $*c. " These are 

 from a line in diameter to three quarters of an inch on each side 

 of the bases ; now and then they occur in hemitrope." " At By- 



