306 Prof. Bischof on the Foundation of a New Geology. 



always present, although in the smallest proportions, nothing 

 could be more easy than to explain the origin of minerals in 

 rents and veins, by taking into account the enormous masses 

 of felspar which must have been destroyed by atmospheric 

 phenomena. The minimum quantities in fossils usually in- 

 dicate the way in which the fossil has undergone a transfor- 

 mation. Thus, the small proportion of potassium in fahlun- 

 ite, indicates its passage into mica, and the mineralogical re- 

 searches of M. Haidinger strengthen this opinion. How im- 

 portant, then, would be the comparative analyses of condiorite, 

 fahlunite, gigantolite, pinite, &c., if we met with them simul- 

 taneously in the same crystalline rocks, and passing into one 

 another ! 



When we observe barytes as the distinct companion of the 

 mineral manganese, we cannot doubt that the manganese has 

 been conveyed from mountain-rocks into transition-fissures ; 

 consequently, whenever we meet with oxide of manganese, 

 we ought also to find barytes. We are also forced to admit 

 that the barytes must be present, in the state of silicate, in 

 the amygdaloidal rocks, when we find it in the anfractuosi- 

 ties of barytic hermatose. In the amygdaloidal rocks of 

 Oberstein, in the anfractuosities of which this species of 

 hermatose occurs, I have not hitherto, it is true, met with 

 barytes, but very obvious traces of strontian are perceptible. 

 Certainly barytes often presents itself to chemists in the 

 analysis of minerals ; it may often, in consequence of its small 

 proportion, have been confounded with lime, and the chemist 

 who follows a formula, pays little attention to it if it contra- 

 dicts the results. But although I express myself with some 

 freedom on the disorder of formulas, I think we cannot dis- 

 pute their competency to the author of a stochiometry. When 

 chemical formulas are used with reserve, they may be of 

 great advantage ; but it is truly puerile to see the effbrts 

 that are made to include, for example, all the results of the 

 analyses of the toxirmalines in a single formula. — Vlnstitut. 



