452 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



pinchbeck-brown problematical fossil, crystallized in six-sided tables. 

 Both these gentlemen entrusted me liberally with the specimens for 

 examination, the only specimens then known to exist. I am happy 

 to learn that Mr. Zippe has succeeded in finding out a few more spe- 

 cimens, in rummaging over some old store of minerals. 



2. There exists a considerable deal of resemblance, as appears also 

 from the characters given, between the Sternbergite, and the black 

 tellurium, the flexible sulphuret of silver, and the rhombohedral mo- 

 lybdena-glance. As a species it is sufficiently distinct from all of 

 them. On account of that resemblance it must receive its place in 

 the order Glance of the system of Mohs ; but whether as a genus of 

 its own, or along with some one or the other of those enumerated, is 

 as yet uncertain, while these species themselves are so imperfectly 

 known. No systematic denomination can therefore be at present 

 proposed for the new species. The name of Sternbergite, in proposing 

 which I concur with my friends Neumann and Zippe, is particularly 

 appropriate, as the species to which it applies was first observed in a 

 public collection, belonging to an establishment chiefly formed by the 

 exertions of that learned and patriotic nobleman. Count Caspar Stern- 

 berg. 



3. No chemical analysis has yet been given of this substance. 

 When treated with the blowpipe it gives in the glass tube a strong 

 odour of sulphurous acid, loses its lustre, and becomes dark-grey and 

 friable. Alone on charcoal it burns with a blue flame and sulphurous 

 odour, and melts into a globule, generally hollow, with a ciystalline 

 surface, and covered with metallic silver. The globule acts strongly 

 on the magnetic needle, and before the blowpipe has all the proper- 

 ties of sulphuret of iron. It communicates to fluxes the ordinary co- 

 lours produced by iron, red while hot, and yellow on cooling, in the 

 oxidating flame, greenish in the reducing flame. Borax very readily 

 takes away the iron, and leaves a button of metallic silver. It appears 

 therefore to consist of sulphuret of silver, combined with a large quan- 

 tity of sulphuret of iron. 



4. The locality of this interesting species is Joachimsthal in Bo- 

 hemia. It must have been found at a rather remote period, as the 

 specimens were discovered in old collections ; and it is likely enough, 

 on account of the economical value of Sternbergite as an ore of silver, 

 that most of it has been melted down long ago. Moreover, it is chiefly 

 accompanied with other ores of silver, as the red silver, the brittle 

 silver, or prismatic melane-glance, and others. — Haidinger in Brew- 

 ster's Journal. 



JALAPIA. 



Some time since, Mr. Hume,jun., of Long Acre, announced that he 

 had discovered a vegeto-alkaline principle in jalap, to which he gave 

 the name of Jalapia ; it was obtained by digesting the root coarsely 

 powdered in strong acetic acid for twelve or fourteen days : the acetic 

 acid dissolves the alkali in question, and when ammonia is added to 

 the solution, the jalapia is precipitated, which being dissolved in di- 

 lute sulphuric acid, yields crystals of sulphate of jalapia, a grain of 

 which, according to Mr. Hume, acts as a cathartic. 



M. Pelletier 



