Chemical Examination of American Minerals. 59 



curacy the proportion in which it exists. As this ingredient 

 was not detected in the Finland chondrodite, analyzed by 

 the Swedish chemists, Mr. Seybert considered the American 

 mineral to be a peculiar species. His analysis was published 

 in the American Philosophical Transactions, and in Silliman's 

 Journal.* 



Before the analysis appeared, though after it was read to 

 the Society above mentioned, Mr. Nuttall published in the 

 first number of the New-York Medical and Physical Journal 

 an account of the Geology and Mineralogy of Sparta in New- 

 Jersey, in which he introduced a description of the Brucite, 

 and stated that it contains an accidntal and variable propor- 

 tion of fluoric acid, so that he considered it as probably not 

 distinct from chondrodite. The experiments of Mr. Seybert, 

 however, proved that the fluoric acid is an essential ingredient 

 of the mineral, and in his subsequent researches, he found it in 

 the European variety, though Berzelius had failed in detecting 

 it. Mr. S. was, therefore, convinced, that his Maclurite and 

 the chondrodite were identical. f The remarks of Mr Nuttall 

 on the Sparta mineral, (in the paper just quoted) were the 

 occasion of some unpleasant controversy between this gentle- 

 man and Mr. Seybert, which I should willingly have passed 

 over, had not the latter gentleman insinuated that Dr. Lang- 

 staff" and myself had combined to defraud him of the honour 

 of having first discovered the fluoric add in chondrodite or 

 Brucite. It was so well known to all the New- York mine- 

 ralogists, and also to Colonel Gibbs and others, that this 

 acid exists in the mineral, that it was a matter of surprise 

 that Mr. Seybert was ignorant of the circumstance. If any 

 proof were necessary on this point, I might refer to the 

 minutes of the New-York Lyceum, or to the second edition 



* Vol. V. p. 336. et seq. 



T Silliman's Journal, Vol. V. p. 36fi. et seq. 



