Scientific Intelligence.'— Mineralogy, 199 



mines of Slatoust, there was raised, in April 1825, within 

 twenty-four hours, a series of beautiful specimens. Several 

 weighed from five to nine pounds, and one sixteen pounds. 

 This bed of sand also affords other metals. Soon after the com- 

 mencement (1819) of washing for the gold of the Urals, many 

 grains were noticed amongst the grains of gold, — these were of 

 magnetic iron-ore, iron-pyrites, lead-glance, brown iron-ore, &c. 

 In the year 1823, Lubarsky detected along with these, also pla- 

 tina, iridium, rhodium, and osmium. 



17. Geognostic situatimi of the Siberian Platina. — M. Menge 

 of Lubec, one of the contributors to our Journal, who is at pre- 

 sent travelling in Siberia, gives the following account of the geo- 

 gnostic situation of the Siberian Platina. Being very desirous of 

 examining the locality of that mineral, he proceeded to the spot, 

 on the western side of the Uralian range, with one of the officers of 

 the mine of Nischnin Tagil. There he found primitive clay-slate, 

 much traversed by quartz veins on the banks of the Utka. The 

 ridge of the Urals where he saw it, was composed of Serpentine : 

 at the foot of a hill, named Pugina, which is composed of ser- 

 pentine, resting on talc-slate, he found, under the soil, in decom- 

 posed talc-slate, a quantity of platina associated with gold and 

 native lead. Forty hundred weight of this slate afford half a pound 

 of platina. The slate is a compound of smoke-grey quartz and 

 common talc-slate. Grains of platina were, in all probability, 

 also disseminated through the quartz. The serpentine abound- 

 ed in grains and crystals of magnetic iron-ore; and, in decom- 

 posed varieties of the same rock, grains of platina, but none of 

 gold, were met with. On the east side of Pugina, the serpen- 

 tine appears first in diallage rocks, and in this rock platina also 

 occurs. North-east from Kuschwa, near to Nischnin-Turah, 

 platina occurs in blue limestone, connected with disintegrated 

 ^een porphyry. — The occurrence of gold and platina, in quan- 

 tity, in serpentine and talc-slate, is a fact worthy of the attention 

 of those proprietors in Scotland, where these rocks abound, as 

 in Shetland, and various parts of the mainland of Scotland. 



18. Cordierite found in Norzvay. — This mineral has been 

 met with in Norway associated with Wernerite, quartz, garnet, 

 and mica. The pierre de soleil probably belongs to this species. 

 The Norwegian cordierite, when cut and polished, exhibits a 

 stellukr opalescence, resembling that of the stellular sapphire. 



