186 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 
in diameter, to large plates, eight or ten inches in length, 
and six or seven inches wide ; sometimes, though rarely, it is 
found in thin hexahedral tables. 
The laminz vary from one tenth part of a line to two lines 
in thickness ; they are usually parallel to each other, but are 
sometimes divergent, and at no very uniform epi: they are 
generally straight, but sometimes curved, and are occasion- 
ally separated from each other by thin plates of dateay sits 
spar. They are traversed by seams dividing the whole 
surface into very minute rhombic tables, which are also cross- 
ed by other lines, that pass through them obliquely or di- 
verge from a centre. 
The plates will usually break, in a direction perpendic- 
ular to their surface, without separating any of the lamine 
which adhere together with such tenacity as to require a 
considerable degree of force to si a them. Cross frac- 
ture of the plates uneven and splintery. 
The surface of the laminz, exhibits a constant and bril- 
liant metallic lustre, so strong as to reflect very distinctly the 
images presented to it. Color, deep brownish red, verymg 
occasionally in some specimens to a copper color; ‘the e pow 
der, after it has been acted upon by acids to free it from the 
carbonate of lime, is of a beautiful orange re 
It is — ae exposed to the action of the blowpipe, 
but loses its c 
The thin becnata: are usually translucent, sometimes trans- 
parent; the foliz are opaque or but slightly translucent on 
their edges. 
It marks glass with difficulty. 
Specific gravity, 2.86; but as the specimen which was ex- 
perimented upon contained some calcareous spar, it is prob- 
able that pure specimens would be 3.0 or even 3.10, which 
magn § perhaps be regarded as a near approximation. 
es wide in calcareous rocks in a field about two hundred 
yards from the church at Amit 
It is associated with brown and red brucite or condrodite, 
xanthite, tale and ee crystalized magnesian carbonate 
of lime and spin 
