Mineralogy and Geology of Nova Scotia. 295 
crystalline structure. Its color is between lead and steel-grey, 
and it possesses a high metallic brilliancy emulating that of anti- 
mony-glanz, and is not tarnished by exposure to air and moisture; 
while the hematite, with which it is blended, or sometimes alter- 
nates in successive botryoidal coatings, has often become very 
rusty on its surface. Its color is the same, whether exhibited by 
its streak or ground to powder.* 
The geodes in this hematite are also frequently occupied by 
crystals of arragonite, in six-sided prisms, and also sulphate of ba- 
rytes in compressed or tabular crystals, usually of a pure white 
color, and but very loosely attached to the matrix; or they are 
sometimes completely isolated. Several masses of a foliated 
structure, composed entirely of this substance, were also found 
in the soil near “ the brook.” Whether the manganese, intermixed 
with this ore, will prove injurious to the iron in the operation of 
smelting it, is a question of importance to those who may be en- 
gaged in working it. It is certain that it must exert some injurious 
* The common grey oxide of manganese has recently been divided by Mr. 
Haidinger into two new species. (Edinburgh Royal Society Transactions, Vol. 
XI.) The mineral above referred to by us, is evidently his pyrolusite, with which 
it agrees in its characters of hardness, color, streak, &c. and, what must not be 
overlooked, in its being associated with precisely the same ore of iron; an ore to 
which it is almost exclusively attached in other countries. The other species, call- 
ed by him manganite, which is much harder, is often in distinct prismatic crystals, 
that exhibit a brownish-red streak, and is said by him to have been found in No- 
va Scotia, has not yet come under our notice there. We have it from the neigh- 
bouring Province of New Brunswick, in elongated rhombic prisms deeply striated, 
and in druses of acicular crystals, answering well to the characters which, accord- 
ing to this acute observer, give it undoubted claims to be considered a new species. 
Is it not possible that his specimen may have come from that Province, since he does 
not cite its precise locality ? 
