RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY 



19 



On the Blow-Pipe Eeactions of Cryolite. 



Having occasion a short time since to use 

 a very easily melting flux, I thought of cr}-- 

 olite for this purpose, as all authorities on 

 the subject speak of its extreme fusibility. 



Before relating mj' experience with this 

 fusible mineral, I wish to quote a few of the 

 manj' works I have consulted on the sub- 

 ject. 



" Very fusible into a white enamel, fusing 

 in a candle flame." — Booth's Enc>/., 1853. 



"Melts below a red heat and forms an 

 opaque glass on cooling." — Watt's Diet. 

 Chem., 1870. 



"In the forceps fuses ver}' easily, color- 

 ing the flame yellow. On charcoal fuses 

 easily to a clear bead, which on cooling be- 

 comes opaque." — Dana's Text-Book ofMin., 

 1883. 



" p]asily fusible in the flame of a candle." 

 — Brush''s Determinative Mineralogy, 1878. 



It would appear from these quotations 

 and man\' others of a like tenor, that authors 

 cop\' each other's statements, without veri- 

 fying facts b^' actual experiment. 



Now for the facts. I first tried to melt a 

 small piece of cryolite in the flame of a 

 Bunsen burner, which, as everyone knows, 

 is very many times hotter than any candle, 

 lamp, or gas flame ; it did not fuse ; secondlj' 

 I threw a small piece into a hot coke fire, 

 used for melting gold in quantity. I stood 

 and watched it for about ten minutes and 

 then removed it with a pair of tongs, in 

 the same condition it went in, excepting 

 that it was whiter in color but not fused 

 even on the edges ; then having a large 

 crucible full of melted copper (it takes 2500 

 degrees of heat to melt copper), I laid some 

 cryolite on the melted metal, shut up the 

 cover and left it there ; after some time I 

 opened the fire and the mineral was there 

 just the same. The fact is, that by long con- 

 tinued blowing, cryolite is difficultly' fusible 

 on thin edges before the blowpipe. Why 

 should statements of this kind be repeatedly 

 copied into every work published on these 

 subjects? I hope in future editions this 

 mistake will be rectified. Yours truly, 



H. F. Carpenter. 

 " To the Editors of Random Notes." 



To the amateur student, especially if work- 

 ing without a teacher, such an experience 



as the above is worse than perplexing. It 

 is most unfortunate that so marked an error 

 should appear in standard books of refer- 

 ence. — JScl. 



Ozocerite, or Mineral Wax. 



[by feanklin s. smith, b. s.] 



Ozocerite, from the Greek, " Ozein," 

 smell, and " keros," wax, is a mineral con- 

 sisting of carbon and hydrogen, and resem- 

 bles paraffin, or dirtj' wax. Its color is 

 generallj' yellowish brown. It is found in 

 Turkistan, east of the Caspian Sea ; in the 

 Carpathian Mountains in Austria ; in the 

 Apennines in Ital}'^ ; in Texas and Cala- 

 fornia, and specimens have recently been 

 found in New Jerse}'. Commercially, it is 

 worked chiefly in Austria and other portions 

 of pAirope, although we have in Utah a larger 

 deposit than in any other place. 



Ozocerite from Baku was found by Peter- 

 son to have a specific gravity of 0.903, and 

 fused at 70° C. By distillation it gave : 



Paraffin 81.8 



Gas 13.8 



Coke 4.4 



100.0 

 Ozocerite from Zietriska in Moldau, had 

 a specific gravity of 0.946, fusing point 20.50° 

 C, and distilled at 300° C. It occurs in thin 

 layers of brown to yellowish-brown color. 

 Its structure is leaf}', and its fracture re- 

 sembles mother-of-pearl. It dissolves in 

 turpentine, naphtha, and fatt}' oils, but lit- 

 tle in ether or boiling alcohol, and has a 

 weak odor of coal oil. 



" Earth-wax," or ozocerite, has been sup- 

 posed to be a residuum of oil that has evap- 

 orated. It is dug out with picks and shov- 

 els, and is about the consistency of claj'. 

 The shafts are from 350 to 600 feet deep, 

 and very close together ; so close that in a 

 piece of land containing not over fift}' acres, 

 there are ten thousand shafts. The walls 

 of these shafts are curbed with timbers, but 

 at the depth to which the}' go the}'' are so 

 very thin that scarcely a day passes with- 

 out some of them caving in, breaking the 

 timbers like pipe-stems, and often burying 

 human beings beneath the great masses of 

 earth. The earth taken out of the shafts is 

 carted away a short distance and dumped. 



