224 OUTLINES OF FIELD-GEOLOGY PART n 



easily applied, and requiring only patience and practice 

 to give him great assistance in his determination of 

 minerals. If unacquainted with blow-pipe analysis he 

 must refer to one or other of the numerous text-books on 

 the subject, some of which are mentioned below. 1 



The apparatus required for ordinary blow-pipe work is 

 exceedingly simple. For his early practice the student 

 will find the following sufficient : 



1. Blow-pipe. 



2. Thick-wicked candle, or a tin box filled with the material of 



Child's night-lights, and furnished with a piece of Freyberg 

 wick in a metallic support. 



3. Platinum-tipped forceps. 



4. A few pieces of platinum wire in lengths of three or four 



inches. 



5. A few pieces of platinum foil. 



6. Some pieces of charcoal. 



7. A number of closed and open tubes of hard glass. 



8. Three small stoppered bottles containing carbonate of soda, 



borax, and microcosmic salt. 



9. Magnet. 



To this list he will afterwards add as he gains know- 

 ledge and confidence. The whole of the absolutely 

 necessary apparatus for preliminary, and even for general 



1 The great work on the blow-pipe is Planner's, of which an 

 English translation has been published. Elderhorst's Manual of 

 Qualitative Blow-pipe Analysis ami Determinative Mineralogy, by 

 H. B. Nason and C. F. Chandler (Philadelphia : N. S. Porter and 

 Coates), is a smaller but useful volume ; while still less pretending 

 is Scheerer's Introduction to the Use of the Mouth Blow-pipe, of 

 which a third edition by H. F. Blanford was published in 1875 by 

 F. Norgate. An admirable work of reference will be found in Pro- 

 fessor Brush's Manual of Determinative Mineralogy (New York : 

 J. Wiley and Son). See also Professor G. A. J. Cole's Aids in 

 Practical Geology, third edition, 1898, pp. 37-78. 



