OBITUARY NOTICES. XV11 



he gave the name nickel gymnite, but Dana subsequently called it 

 genthite. 



A series of highly valuable papers, entitled " Contributions to 

 Mineralogy," were published by Dr. Genth from time to time for 

 several years. These papers were fifty-four in number and con- 

 tained descriptions of 215 mineral species, in most cases being 

 accompanied by analyses. Most of these contributions appeared in 

 the American Journal of Science, although several were published in 

 the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society and in other 

 serials. In a number of his later papers he was aided by S. L. Pen- 

 field, who furnished the notes on crystallography. Besides these 

 comprehensive communications, Dr. Genth was the author of 

 twenty-three minor contributions to chemical mineralogy, many of 

 which contained descriptions of new species. He was the discov- 

 erer of twenty-four new minerals, all of which were so thoroughly 

 individualized, both by chemical and by physical methods, that 

 they took at once a position in the science which they have ever 

 since maintained. 



Dr. Genth was especially distinguished for his extensive knowl- 

 edge of the chemistry of the rarer elements ; and this rendered 

 his analyses of the minerals containing these elements of great value 

 to the science of mineralogy. His papers "On Some American 

 Vanadium Minerals," " On the Vanadates and Iody rites from Lake 

 Valley, N. M.," "Examination of North Carolina Uranium Min- 

 erals," and especially the one " On Some Tellurium and Vanadium 

 Minerals," are noteworthy. In No. VII of his " Contributions to 

 Mineralogy," published in 1868, he gives a list of seven American 

 tellurium minerals, of which two are new species ; and in a paper 

 published in 1874 " On American Tellurium and Bismuth Min- 

 erals," he describes native tellurium, tetradymite, altaite, hessite, 

 petzite, sylvanite, calaverite, tellurate of copper and lead, bis- 

 muthinite and schirmerite, the latter a new mineral. Indeed, he 

 regarded his work on tellurium minerals as among his best efforts. 

 Nearly one-half of the new species made by him were compounds 

 of the rarer elements. 



Perhaps the most important, as it certainly was the most ex- 

 tended, of Dr. Genth's mineralogical investigations was that upon 

 " Corundum : Its Alterations and Associated Minerals," the results 

 of which were communicated to the American Philosophical So- 

 ciety in 1873. The paper occupies forty-six pages of the Proceed- 



