Essay on the Transition Rocks of the Cataraquii. 75 
The color of this coating is that of beautiful and fine dark brown 
hair, a little oiled, when the specimen is first exposed to the air, but 
it does not retain this pleasing lustre very long, unless great care is 
taken to cover it with cotton or wool and place it in a close drawer, 
as it oxidizes rapidly and at length the acicular prisms themselves 
appear to vanish, leaving the limestone with the same columnar look, 
but coated only by a disagreeable rusty colored substance. 
In the siliceous or cherty limestone of the falls of Niagara, there 
is an indication of the same appearance, but it is very indistinct, and 
has been taken, by casual observers, for petrified wood. See plate, 
Kingston is, however, (as far as we have hitherto seen,) its chief 
locality, and as neither Jameson, CLEAVELAND, Puiiuips, nor any 
other mineralogical writer notices it,* I suppose it must be very un- 
common, and perhaps a new substance. I have, unfortunately, nei- 
ther the apparatus nor the leisure to have it properly analysed, and 
conjecture, with Mr. Baddeley, to whom I shewed it soon after his 
arrival at Kingston, that it may be only a sport of Nature, in modify- 
ing the shale which so abundantly accompanies the thin seams of the 
limestone of the Cataraqui. I fear the trivial examination appended 
- in the subjoined note, will scarcely prove of. much utility in affording 
a description of it, but it is ever better, I conceive, to afford all the 
acts concerning a mineral newly discovered, than to withhold any, » 
merely because they are not sufficient. 
far, says he has never before met with such a mineral, but supposes it to assume 
the appearance from organic remains, which | respectfully beg to differ with him 
ut, as it seems to me altogether improbable. 
slight notice of its mineralogical characteristics. 
. Small knob or cylindric column of lime, entirely embraced by it, being immers- 
ed in dilute nitric acid, was thus acted upon: ’a violent effervescence of the lime took 
Place and lasted about five or six hours, moderating as it proceeded, until all action 
At first, flocculi of a tea leaf brown appearance, separated and swam on the 
ace; then small needle-shaped brown masses floated, ‘and a great deposit of alu- 
mundus matter, of a dirty white brown color, subsided. 
shell or skeleton of the substance which had invested the lime was Boy left 
Rearly perfect; its round cup-shaped bottom being very thick in proportion to its 
Walls or sidés. The outer face was scarcely altered, and even retained its shining 
hair brown lustre ; the inner surface was of a dingy ashy hue. 
On Washing carefully with water, a more perfect separation of the fine thin wall 
It » but by addition of acid no further effervescence or alteration occurred. 
was then again washed and left all night in water, but no change was effected. 
