Pras INV GeACs SC. 2 Octr3; 
miles out at sea, off Fire Island and Montauk Point, Long Island, 
N. Y.; Prof. D. S. MARTIN, as observed between Saratoga and Cats- 
kill, N. Y.; and Prof. C. A. SEELEY, calling attention to the extremely 
attenuated character of the carbon particles, produced by their long 
transportation from distant localities. 
Mr. GEO. F. KUNZ mentioned that Mt. Mica, at Paris, Maine, the 
locality so famous for colored tourmalines for the last fifty years, had 
been purchased by a mining company and was being worked for 
cassiterite, mica and tourmaline, principally through the efforts of 
Dr. A. C. Hamlin of Bangor, Maine. 
Dr. Hamlin has the finest known collection of American tourmalines, 
and he recently reported the discovery of a crystal, three inches long and 
one-half inch thick, a transparent gem of a beautiful blue-green color. 
This was taken from the new mine, and many more remarkable speci- 
mens may be expected as the work advances. 
Mr. Kunz said that during the last year a German agate-hunter re- 
turned to his native country after 20 years collecting in Brazil, taking 
with him a large suite of fine colored tourmalines, some five inches long 
and not more than one-eighth of an inch thick, transparent, and of a 
green color; also many fine green crystals with red, yellow, white, and 
other colored centres, many of these equalling for variety of color 
anything yet found, most of which will cut as gems. There is also in 
this lot one exceptionally fine green crystal over one inch square. This 
collector brought with him also at least 1000 kilos of transparent yellow 
spodumene, the same as that described by A. Pisani, of Paris, some 
eighteen months ago, and is dissimilar only in color to the new variety of 
spodumene found at Stony Point, North Carolina, described in the Feb- 
ruary number of the Amerzcan Journal of Sczence for 1881, by Dr. J. 
Lawrence Smith, as Hiddenite. Some of the specimens which he 
brought will cut as fine yellow gems. . All these were found in the Minas 
Geraes district. Recently a new locality for chrysoberyls has been found 
in Ceylon, where they occur of gem value in an unusual variety of colors, 
from yellow to brown, and from brown to green. The last color 
is the variety known as Alexandrite. This gem has heretofore been 
found but of very inferior size and color, but here it occurs of re- 
markable size, having in one case afforded a gem weighing 26 kts. 
They are a beautiful green color by day and a columbine red, or 
browaish red, by night. The chrysoberyl cat’s eye is found here of 
the same color, and possessing the same dichroic property as the 
Alexandrite, viz., changing color, from green to red, and hence 
might very properly be called an Alexandrite cat’s eye. Many of 
the chrysoberyls are erroneously called and sold as a variety of 
sapphire. 
