340 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 
of August.* M. Gustav Rose has communicated to the Academy of 
Berlin notices of six aérolites.ft 
M. Henry Sainte-Claire Deville brought under the notice of the 
Academy of Sciences a new mineral found by M. Breithaupt in Green- 
land, and to which he has given the name of Carphosiderite.{ This 
mineral is very rare, and it was supposed by E. Harkort to be a sub- 
phosphate of the hydrate of iron ; but Deville says :—“ After the study 
which I have made of carphosiderite, I am able to say that it is a sub- 
sulphate of the peroxyde of hydrate of iron mixed with sand and a little 
gypsum.” 
An interesting paper has reached us on “ The Gems of Australia,” 
read before the Royal Society of Victoria, by Dr. Bleasdale. From 
this we learn that the following gems have been found in our important 
colony :§—Diamonds, sapphires, ruby, topazes, beryls, garnets, opals, 
amethysts, and jaspers. The ruby, of which one only has been found, 
alone requires notice. It was found in Queensland, “and cut in Mel- 
bourne by Mr. Spink, and turned out to be a star ruby, of good size 
and great beauty. This stone is, I think, new. It belongs to the 
Asterias, but instead of having a floating star of six rays of white light, 
it has a fixed star of six black rays in a deep blue ground.” 
Dr. Bleasdale offers some very sensible suggestions on the importance 
of instructing the gold miners in a knowledge of precious stones, and 
of forming a good collection of them in the local museums. 
We conclude our chronicle of mineralogy by drawing attention to 
a machine recently patented (of which a working model is exhibited 
in Liverpool), for the reduction of “ charcoal and other friable sub- 
stances to fine or impalpable powder, particularly applicable to the 
manufacture of a substitute for lampblack.” The apparatus is of the 
simplest kind, consisting in the main of cylindrical vessels, into which 
the material to be reduced is placed along with a great number of small 
balls or spheres of iron, glass, stone, &¢., to which rotary motion is 
then imparted at any speed required. 
The inventor claims for his machine the power to reduce a great 
variety of substances to an impalpable powder, as fine as lampblack ; 
and amongst those named in the specification of patent are, colouring 
earths, barytes, marble, bloodstone, litharge, emery, gums, pepper, &e. 
The invention is a Swedish one, and is in charge of Mr. Lee, 
16, Leeds Street, Liverpool, who exhibits the working model, 
Although the well-determined processes of metallurgy leave us 
nothing in the way of progress to record, our metal manufactures 
appear to advance with great rapidity. Our attention has been directed 
to a new process for drawing steel tubes, which is now exciting consi- 
derable interest. The following description, which is most exact, we 
borrow from ‘ The 'Times’ newspaper :— 
* See ‘ L'Institut,’ February 17, 1864. 
+ See ‘ Les Mondes,’ February 11, 1864. 
{ Breithaupt in Schweiger’s Journal, Bd. L. 8. 314. 
§ See also Dicker’s ‘Mining Record and Guide to the Gold Mines of Victoria,’ 
December 24, 1863. 
