106 Chronicles of Science. [Jan., 
the felspars—orthoclase, oligoclase, &c. In advocating a uniformity 
of termination, the professor would not seek to alter such long- 
established names as quartz, garnet, diamond, and the like. After 
all, the names requiring amendment are comparatively few in 
number, and all of modern introduction, none of them dating 
beyond the last sixty years. If any alteration is really contem- 
plated, the sooner it is accomplished the better: “ Mineralogy,” 
says the professor, “is far from being so stiffened with age as not 
to admit of progress in the direction contemplated.” 
Another point insisted upon by Dr. Dana is the necessity for a 
distinction between the names of simple minerals and those of rocks 
or mineral-ageregates, a distinction which could easily be marked 
by terminating the latter in yte, as already done in the case of 
trachyte. 
Having devoted so much space to an analysis of these important 
papers, our remaining notices—relating chiefly to so-called new 
species,—must necessarily be brief. Among the rubbish-heaps of an 
old silver-lead mine worked by the Romans near Paillieres, in the 
Dept. du Gard, there has been detected a new mineral, to be called 
Pastréite, in compliment to the President Pastré, of Marseilles: it 
occurs ag an amorphous yellow substance, and is apparently an 
impure hydrous sulphate of iron containing arsenic and lead.* 
Stetefeldtite is the name by which Mr. Riotte, a German mining 
engineer in Nevada, proposes to distinguish a new silver-bearing 
substance found in that state. It appears to be a sulphide of silver 
and copper, with an antimoniate of copper and iron.t Herr Igelstrom 
describes two minerals from the iron-mine of Langban, in Werm- 
land, Sweden: one under the name of Pyroawrite—in allusion to 
its behaviour before the blowpipe ; and the other, as Lamprophane.} 
A new mineral-resin, remarkable for its occurrence in hexagonal 
crystals, has received the name of Valdite, after Herr Vala.$ 
Under the name of Cyrtolite, Mr. W. T. Knowles notices an 
American mineral, which is apparently a hydrated silicate of zinc 
with the protoxides of iron and of the cerium metals.||_ An American 
iron ore, mistaken for red hematite, has been referred by Professor 
Brush to the rare species called Turgite by Hermann, and Hydro- 
hematite by Breithaupt.. Mr. J. P. Cooke has lately examined 
several chloritic minerals from the chrome-iron mine of Texas, Pa. ; 
but his observations simply confirm those already published by 
Descloiseaux.* * 
Several analyses of potash-micas have been made by Professor 
* Verhand d. naturhist. Vereins d. preuss. Rheinlande. xxiii., p. 17. 
+ Berg-und Hiittenmin. Zeitung. 1867, No. 30, p. 255. 
t Leonhard’s Jahrbuch. Heft V., p. 607. 
§ Jahrb. d. k. k. geol. Reichsanstalt. 1867, No. 2, p. 195. 
|| Silliman’s Journal,’ xliv., p. 224. 
4 Ibid., p. 219. ** Thid., p. 201. 
