THE MINERALS OF TASMANIA. 



1. AcHLUsiTE. (See Topaz.) 



2. AcTiNOLiTE (Metasilicate of Calcium^ Magnesium, with 



Protoxide of Iron). 



This is the comparatively abundant green-coloured 

 fibrous variety of amphibole. It crystallises in the mono- 

 clinic system, the crystals being long slender prisms, which 

 are remarkably brittle. It also occurs in fibrous aggre- 

 gates which are often arranged in wedge-shaped masses, and 

 occasionally assume an asbestiform character. 



The radiating variety occurs a few miles south of the 

 Hampshire Hills on the Upper Emu River. It is found 

 associated with iron garnet, amethystine quartz, and 

 fibrous radiating iron oxide, which is probably limonite. 

 At the Heazlewood it is plentiful in spreading and radiat- 

 ing acicular bunches of considerable size and green colour- 

 ation. Occurs in large masses on the River Forth, about 3 

 miles from Mt. Claude. On the Whyte River, near the 

 base of the Meredith Range, this mineral occurs of a dark 

 asparagus-green colour — much resembling the variety 

 termed calamite — containing minute bunches of asbestos 

 and particles of mountain cork, the whole closely inter- 

 mixed with bands of a yellowish-brown garnet rock which 

 rarely contains molybdenite. The mountain cork is of a 

 spongy and closely-interlaced structure, pale-brown to 

 brownish-green in colour, and is stained with iron oxide. 

 At the Savage River it occurs in considerable abundance 

 with cupreous pyrites and magnetite. At the Colebrook 

 Mine, North-East Dundas, it has been obtained as very 

 fine and beautiful radiating bunches, intermixed with 

 axinite and pyrrhotite. At this mine it also is found in 

 a semi-decomposed condition, with a little cuprite, and is 

 at times encrusted with thin films of native copper. Well- 

 developed crystals of axinite are commonly implanted and 

 embedded in this association of minerals. It is plentiful 

 at Barn Bluff in association with pyrites of various descrip- 



