174 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



^.^•^.^•^.x'jr.v - x.^->.x^.^ - ^.x*^.x*^.^*x.x'X.^ - ^.v'^.w^.^*<^'^.*.^.*k'^.v'^.^:^.x , <'.Vir.^*^.^'^.x , x.^'^.^'^.v-^.^-^.i 



ywy ypyyjyyyyyywpwypypp^w ywi 



x/ FTr r rrr ** rr ™ r ****™~r*^^ *'* >oc* cflgMOBCPOpooOOOoooooQoo oocooooiaoqt 



MINERALOGY 





Address all correspondence to Arthur Chamberlain, Editor, 56 Hamilton Place, New York City 



Minerals of Stamford, Connecticut. 



BY WILLIAM C. BANKS, STAMFORD, 

 CONNECTICUT. 



Search your home locality for min- 

 erals, even if it is not on the published 

 list. The specimens, more or less 

 good, are surely there. For instance ; 

 Stamford is not reported as yielding 

 any thing much but Yale locks, but I 

 have personally collected the follow- 

 ing minerals, in quite good specimens. 

 From Shippan : Hematite, ironstone 

 geodes, kaolinite, chlorite, and a drift 

 mass about five hundred pounds in 

 weight, of good green Vesuvianite, and 

 plenty of quartz sand and pebbles, 

 they are pretty anyhow. Simsb.ury 

 district : Almandite in coarse crystals, 

 some nearly two inches in diameter 

 associated with fibrous hornblende ; bi- 

 otite, crystallized. Near Talmadge 

 Hill, talc var, steatite, gray-green pot- 

 stone. On Henry Street, near the ca- 

 nal ; good epidote crystallized with 

 feldspar, but no terminated crystals. 

 This occurs in a quarry of quartz dio- 

 rite rock, a trap rock, at the contract 

 with the gneiss. In the same quarry 

 I found some fair tremolite, in crys- 

 tals through quartz ; iron pyrites, and 

 one small bit of molybdenite. In the 

 quarry on West Avenue quite good 

 microcline, in bluish white cleavages, 

 also iron pyrites. In the neighbor- 

 hood of Grove Street good incrusting 

 radiations of stilbite ; one seen when 

 I was a school boy, lingers in my mem- 

 ory as being upward of three inches 

 in diameter; it was unobtainable how- 

 ever. In the Cove district among the 

 drift material and along the shore I 

 have found red and green jasper, red 

 and blue quartz in fairly good speci- 

 mens ; good crystals of muscovite in 



granite ; red almandite, small crystals 

 in granulite rock ; garnet and mag- 

 netite sands. In the gneiss rock, in 

 crevices, good pseudomorphs of limo- 

 nite often siderite in small but distinct 

 twins ; compact feldspar, a felsite rock. 

 Across the line in Darien, on the prop- 

 erty of George Gregory, good antho- 

 phyllite in drift masses. These are all 

 I believe, but they are enough to prove 

 that you needn't rely on a published 

 list of localities to show you where to 

 look for mineral specimens. Remem- 

 ber the darky proverb, "Look for coon 

 tracks, find coon tracks." So out with 

 your hammers and search. 



Curious Crystals. 



BY HOWARD R. GOODWIN, PHILADELPHIA, 

 PENNSYLVANIA. 



In minerals, as in some other lines, 

 the odd things attract as much atten- 

 tion as the more perfectly formed and 

 beautiful specimens 



In the quartz group, for instance, are 

 many eccentric forms, the capped 

 quartz which is illustrated in this num- 

 ber being one that is quite common in 

 some localities. This specimen is nine 

 inches high by five in diameter, and the 

 original crystal has been covered by a 

 deposit of minute crystals of dolomite ; 

 then, a fresh supply of silica having 

 materialized, crystal building was re- 

 sumed, a second crystal being formed 

 over the first but not entirely enclos- 

 ing it. 



At some unknown period after this 

 took place, the exposed portions of the 

 dolomite were removed by decompo- 

 sition, revealing the outlines of the 

 original crystals ; the dolomite protec- 

 ted by the outer crystal, however, is 

 plainly visible (in the specimen) 



