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1 . On Osmelite, a new Mineral species. % Description of a 

 new species of' Pyrites. 3. Mineralcgical eooamhiation of 

 Russian Platina Sand. By Professor Breithaupt of Frey- 

 berg. 



1. On Osmelite. 



X HE name of this mineral is derived from aa-fin smell, and 

 A<^«?, stone. Its characters are as follows : Colour greyish- white, 

 which passes into a tint between smoke and yellowish grey. 

 Planes, which have been exposed to the weather, have their 

 colour changed into dark hair-brown. It consists of thin pris- 

 matic concretions, either scopiformly or stellularly arranged, and 

 these again collected into coarse granular concretions, forming 

 massive portions. Cleavage visible Only in one direction, owing 

 to the thinness of the prismatic concretions, which indeed pass 

 into fibrous. Its form is conjectured to be rhomboidal. Is 

 strongly translucent. It feels rather greasy. Its hardness, 

 owing to the fibrous structure, is difiicult to determine ; it ap- 

 pears, however, from some trials on the file, to be intermediate 

 between that of fluor-spar and apatite. Specific gravity = 2.792 

 to 2.833. 



It gives out, in the common temperature of a room, a distinct 

 clayey smell, which is increased by breathing on it, or when 

 brought from a warm to a cold place. In the mouth it tastes 

 like clay, and appears as if it would dissolve like clay, although 

 no change takes place. 



This species is distinguished from the zeolites by its greater 

 specific gravity. It approaches to tabular spar in hardness and 

 specific gravity, but in no other characters. 



It occurs superimposed on calcareous spar, mixed with dato- 

 lite, — in veins in trachyte, in a hill at Niederkirchen, near 

 Wolfstein, on the Rhine. 



% On a new Species of Pyrites^ from Shutter ud, in Norway, 

 This mineral was met with at Skutterud, in Norway, by M. 

 Winkler, brother-in-law to Breithaupt. That mineralogist con- 

 siders it a new species, and describes it under the following 

 name in Poggendorf's Journal. 



Hard Cobalt Pyrites. — Colour fresh and beautiful dark tin- 



