BO ii..riract from the third Volume of 



too little known to enable us to assign to it, with precision, 

 a place in tlie classilication of minerals. On account ot its 

 colour, which ri.sembles that of honey, M. Klaproth calls 

 it nielilite. 



McliLte is found at Arten in Thuringia, but insulated and 

 in small quantity in strata of turf* 



The external characters by which it is known are as fol- 

 lows : It is generally of a honey colour, more or less dark, 

 and sometimes of a straw yellow. It has always been found 

 crystallised in octaedra : it is however rare that the crystals 

 are entire, and for the most part they have the lorn) of py- 

 ramids with four faces more or less distinct. They are 

 seldom found of a moderate size, being always for the most 

 part small. 



The surface of them is generally smooth and brilliaint, 

 sometimes rough and as if gnawed, but they have alwavs 

 intemallv a vitreous splendour; their fracture is conchoid, 

 and the fragments are irregularly angular. 



The crystals are rarely perfectly diaphanous : in general, 

 thev are semi-transparent, and in the variety, which is of a 

 yellow colour, scarcely pellucid. Melilite is tender, fragile, 

 and easily pulverized. Reduced to powder, it is of a grayish- 

 yellow colour. Its specific gravity is 1550. 



There are found also sometimes in the same coal mines 

 small pale yellow crystals of native crystal, which have a 

 resemblance to the straw coloured variety of melilite. 



It was at lirst believ-ed that melilite is a combustible fos- 

 sil, similar to amber. Its exterior characters seemed also to 

 confirm it. But if the character of a non-metallic com- 

 bustible fossil is to feed the flame which consumes it, this- 

 is not the case with melilite: v/hen burnt it simply be- 

 comes white without being able to maintain combustion 

 of itself. 



M. Gilet Lamont has besides proved, in the Journal de 

 Chimie'i'oY 1791, that melilite is not crystallized amber as 

 baron de Born supposed. 



Other mineralogists have supposed that this fossil is sul- 

 phate of lime impregnated wjth oil of petroleum, from 

 which its yellow colour arises. This opinion arose probably 

 from the white colour which this fossil acquires by com- 

 busrion. It is however possible, considering its rarity, that 

 it hai been imitated by selenitc coloured and cut artificially 

 into crystals of the same form. 



It was only from chemical analysis that a n>ore correct 

 knowledge of this fossil could be obtained. Messrs. Tam- 

 padius aiid Abich undertook this labour and published an 



account 



