1890.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIES'CES. 145 



The second paper was read by Mr. George F. Kuxz, on 



THE MINERALS EXHIBITED AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1889. 



(Abstract.) 



Fifty-five nations were represented at the Paris Exposition, and 

 nearly every one of these had a governmental exhibit of the min- 

 erals of its country, besides in many cases combined exhibits of 

 private collectors. Some of these displays were very remarkable, 

 and had they been assembled in one building, as was the machin- 

 ery in Machinery Hall, the mineralogical and metallurgical and 

 precious stones exhibits would have been more impressive. As 

 it was, they were scattered over such immense distances that im- 

 portant ones were often overlooked. 



Class 41, which included minerals, or, in other words, the pro- 

 ducts of mining and the materials obtained therefrom, contained 

 over 1,800 distinct exhibits. In the French Section, a collection 

 of gold shown in this class by M. Bouglise, a French engineer, 

 was perhaps the finest ever formed. It contained many remark- 

 able specimens of gold from California ; a wire of gold, six inch- 

 es long, from Colorado ; gold amalgam, nuggets, and gold-dust. 

 The three hundred specimens represented almost every gold- 

 producing country in the world, and the collection was the result 

 of over thirty years' work. 



In the Liberal Arts Section were remarkable, exhibits of arti- 

 ficial minerals, exposed by M. Friedel, of the Ecole des Mines ; 

 and a collection by MM. Bourgeois and Gorgeu, formed from 

 heated solutions in glass tubes, among which were artificial feld- 

 spar and other minerals never obtained by direct heating in a 

 crucible. 



Dr. Fouque and Michel-Levy exhibited a magnificent series 

 of rock-sections, as well as the colored plates illustrating their 

 works on petrography. Dr. Fouque also displayed specimens of 

 the famous artificial, as well as the antique, Egyptian or Pom- 

 peian blue, from the ancient frescoes of Pompeii, which for a 

 long time had been a puzzle to scientists, but which Dr. Fouque 

 demonstrated by analysis to be wollastonite ; and the artificial 

 product made by himself was fully equal to the original in beauty 

 of color. 



M. Etard exhibited beautiful groups of artificial argentite 

 crystals. 



In Class 15, instruments of precision were shown by M. J. 

 Werlein. Here were to be seen microscopically prepared sections 

 of orbicular diorite from Corsica, violane from the Pyrenees, 

 granite and other rocks, measuring four inches square and as thin 

 as any microscopic section could be prepared ; also some beautiful 



