540 SCIENTIFIC KECORD FOR 1882. 



The coruudum of Sliimersville, Pa., is also in part altered to spinel. (2) 

 Corundum altered to zoisite. A new locality is mentioned in Towns 

 County, Georgia. (3) Altered to feldspar and mica (damourite). At Pres- 

 ley mine, Haywood County, North Carolina, feldspar and mica have 

 been observed as alteration products of corundum ; the larger crj'stals 

 of the latter mineral are of a grayish-blue color and contain patches of 

 a white, cleavable feldspar often surrounded by mica. In other cases a 

 small nucleus of the original mineral is surrounded by an aureole of deli- 

 cate subfibrous mica. One crystal of muscovite contained in the center 

 remnants of a smooth bluish-gray cleavable corundum ; another mass 

 resembled a coarse granite, consisting of albite, muscovite, and scattered 

 remnants of grayish-blue corundum. At Belts' Bridge, Iredell County, 

 North Carolina, large crystals of corundum one foot in diameter occur 

 which are more or less completely altered to mica, though they also 

 contain radiating masses of black tourmaline. From the mica- schists 

 near Bradford, Coosa County, Alabama, fine hexagonal crystals have 

 been obtained, consisting of a central part of corundum of a brown or 

 bronze color, inclosing grains of menaccanite, and surrounding this is 

 a perfect ring of subfibrous greenish-white mica ; other crystals are al- 

 most entirely altered, often being flattened out and so forming nodules 

 in the mica-schist ; the mica is sometimes scaly, sometimes very fine- 

 grained and compact. Flattened nodules of mica, inclosing a nucleus of 

 corundum, also occur at the Haskell mine, Macon County, North Caro- 

 lina. Various new localities are also given of (4) corundum altered to 

 margarite. From Shoup's Ford, Burke County, North Carolina, speci- 

 mens showing (5) the alteration to tibrolite have been obtained ; they 

 consist of brown corundum with a thin shell of fine fibrous radiating 

 white fibrolite. Corundum altered (6) to cyanite has been noted from 

 Statesville, Iredell County, North Carolina ; the specimen consisted of 

 a nucleus of pink corundum with pale blue cyanite crystallized about it 

 and presumably having resulted from its alteration ; in another speci- 

 men from Wilkes County, North Carolina, the cyanite was still further 

 altered to mica. 



Notes of work by students in the laboratory of the University of 

 Virginia, recently i)ublished as a continuation of a series commenced 

 several years since, contain some points of interest. An analysis is 

 f given of the allanite from Bedford County, Virginia, by Page, the re- 

 sults of which are remarkable as showing the presence of over 50 per 

 cent, of the oxides of the cerium metals ; analyses are also given of the 

 helvite recently discovered near Amelia Court-House, Virginia (see 

 beyond), of mimetite from Nevada, a sulphantimonite of copper and zinc, 

 near bournonite, from Park County, Colorado ; of fergusonite, samarskite, 

 orthite from North Carolina ; of metallic iron found in sn)all flattened 

 scales in the alluvial washings of Brush Creek, Montgomery County, 

 Virginia, of native palladium gold, containing 8.2 per cent, palladium, 

 from Taguaril, near Subara, Minas Geraes, Brazil. 



