298 



lor, of New York, the specimens having been brought by him 

 from the Whitehall gold mines in Spoltsylvania county, Vir- 

 ginia. I made an examination of the ore and proved the exis- 

 tence of Tellurium by means of blowpipe experiments, but I 

 overlooked the existence of Bismuth, and supposed that the oxide 

 absorbed by the cupel was oxide of lead. I announced the fact 

 of the discovery of Tellurium in the Sixth Volume of the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science, published in September, 1848. Since I 

 had not a sufficiency of the ore for a regular analysis, I was 

 obliged to wait until I could visit the mine, which I was enabled 

 to do last spring. In the meanwhile Mr. Coleman Fisher, of 

 Philadelphia, received a sample of the ore from the Assayer of 

 the Mint, and discovered the presence of Bismuth in combination 

 with the Tellurium, and we are indebted to him for a chemical 

 analysis of a specimen of this ore, an account of which is pub- 

 lished in the Seventh Volume of the American Journal of Sci- 

 ence for March, 1849. 



By my own researches I am able to confirm the fact of the 

 existence of Bismuth in this ore as stated by Mr. Fisher, but I do 

 not find so large a proportion of Selenium as is given in his 

 analysis, and do find a considerable proportion of Sulphur, which 

 is not given in his analysis. It is possible that there are mixtures 

 of distinct minerals in the specimens from the mine, and if care 

 was not used in selecting the specimen for analysis, variable 

 results might be obtained by the same chemist. My specimen 

 was all taken from a single nodule of the ore, so that we cannot 

 suppose it to have been mixed with other ores of similar appear- 

 ance. 



Description of the ore. It occurs in foliated masses in nodules 

 invested with yellow oxide of Bismuth in mica slate rocks of the 

 gold mines. Also in the quartz beds and veins which contain gold, 

 and associated with masses of native gold which are impressed by 

 the edges of the laminae of the Tellurium ore. It is readily split 

 into thin lamince like sulphuret of Molybdenum. It is flexible and 

 not elastic ; sectile and not brittle. Color, between tin white and 

 steel gray, resembling very much flexible foliated Graphite of 

 Orange county, New York. Hardness, 1. Sp. gr. not deter- 

 mined. Lustre, brilliant metallic. Before the blowpipe, melts 

 readily, giving off* fumes of sulphurous acid gas and a slight 

 odor of Selenium. In the glass tube, gives Sulphur and Telluric 



