378 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



Regular Meeting, December 2d, 1867. 

 President in the Chair. 



Thirty-five members present. 



Messrs. S. W. Holladay, Henry R. Goddard, and Henry K. 

 Moore, were elected resident members. 



Donations to the Library : Bulletin de la Socie'te' Imperial des 

 Naturalistes de Moscow, 8vo., Moscow, 1866. 



Professor Silliman read the following notices : 



o 



Note on three new Localities of Tellurium Minerals in Cali- 

 fornia, and on some Mineralogical Features of the Mother 

 Vein. 



BV B. SILLIMAN. 



(a.) Tellurium Minerals. — It is well known to mineralogists and others 

 that in the Melones Mine, on Carson Hill, there occurs, in considerable abund- 

 ance, a tellurium compound which has been called Sylvanite by some mineral- 

 ogists, but apparently without sufficient authority. It occurs in one of the veins 

 on the Melones property, associated with Dolomite and quartz, in what appears 

 to be a gneissic rock ; but the mine being under water I am dependent on the 

 specimens kindly furnished me by the intelligent proprietor, Mr. G. K. Steve- 

 not, for my knowledge of the gangue. 



At the " Golden Rule " Mine, on the mother lode near Poverty Hill, in Tuol- 

 umne County, I detected in August last the same tellurium minerals which are 

 found at Carson Hill in the Melones. The veinstone here is an argillite, with 

 thread-like veins of quartz crossing the cleavages of the slate, and in these filons 

 of quartz gold is seen in beautiful specimens. It was in this association that I 

 detected two or three small groups of brilliant crystalline plates, identical in 

 appearance and physical characters with the Melones mineral, which has been 

 culled Sylvanite, and affording the same blowpipe reactions. 



At the Rawhide Rancho, a mine •near Jamestown, on the mother lode, of 

 which I have had occasion to make a careful study, there occurs a deposit or 

 shoot of very rich sulphides containing copper, antimony, iron, arsenic, with gold, 

 silver and tellurium. This ore has in general a bronzy, blackish appearance ; 

 shows often free gold in scales of a blackish yellow color, and appears to be a 

 kind of fahlerz, or gray-copper ore, the value of which in silver and gold rises to 

 one thousand dollars per ton, (2,000 lbs.) or even higher. Associated with this 

 ore are brilliant sectile, flexible scales of the same tellurium compound which 

 occurs at Stanislaus and Golden Rule, but in the Rawhide Mine intimately 

 blended with the blackish sulphides before-named — occasionally in nests or small 

 bunches with metallic gold. The blowpipe readily detects in this ore antimony, 

 arsenic, tellurium, copper, iron, manganese, lime, magnesia, chromium, alumi- 



