I. Description of STERN BERGITE, a New Mineral Species. By 

 W. HAIDINGER, Esq. F. R. S. E. 



( Read December 4. 1826.) 



THE mines of Joachimsthal in Bohemia, have long been cele- 

 brated for their riches. They were successfully worked at an 

 early period, and though their produce has been exceedingly 

 fluctuating, yet the mining district, in which they occur, con- 

 tinues one of the most important of that country. They seem to 

 have been particularly lucrative and important while they be- 

 longed to the house of the Counts SCHLICK, and when, in the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century, a larger kind of silver coin 

 was introduced into Germany, it took the name of Joachimsthakr, 

 from the place of its coinage, a name which was afterwards 

 changed into thaler, talaro, and dollar *. 



These mines are not less remarkable for the variety of the 

 species, and for the beauty of the specimens which they have 

 produced. The ancient collections of minerals at Vienna, the 

 Imperial cabinet, that of VON DER NULL, that of VON MORGEN- 

 BESSER, and others, contain magnificent suites of sulphuret of sil- 

 ver, of red silver, &c. chiefly crystallised. The finest specimens, 

 however, of the red silver, and perhaps the finest that ever were 



* These Thalers bear the head and the name of the then reigning Count SCHLICK, 

 and the earliest of them the date of 1517. There are some coins, however, of the 

 same value, with the head of the Emperor MAXIMILIAN I., as far back as 1493. 

 They used to be called Kliippllnge, an antiquated German word, which means some- 

 thing ponderous, giving a sound when struck against a hard body. 

 VOL. XI. PART I. A 



